In my 3 months at Tiruvannamalai,

I came across Ramana Maharshi’s Updesa Saram, literally it means the essence (saram) of his teachings (updesha).

It became very dear to me very quickly. And I spent quite some time delving into it. Spending time in the amazing Ramana Maharshi ashram, I went through the entire song word by word, understanding and pondering on its meaning.

Here I delve into the stanza 1.

Note: My spiritual framework comes from Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. Here also, my understanding of these words of Ramana Maharshi is from this base.

Updesha Saram: Stanza 1

कर्तुराज्ञा प्राप्यते फ़लम् As per the doer’s order one gets the fruit

कर्म किं परम् How can karma be greater?

कर्म तद्जदं Karma is insentient.

This stanza looks at the very common debacle of today’s age. Why do some people get good stuff in life while others don’t.

Typically we say, we got the fruits as per our “karma”. But in this stanza, Ramana says, it’s as per the “doer’s” order. The doer here is God (why?).

Basically, it suggests that God decides the fruits of our efforts and not our Karma.

On the face of it, this is completely at odds to the understanding that we get the fruits as per our “Karma”.

What do we actually mean by Karma?

In a crude sense it is understood as action. However, as we delve further, we understand that it is our volition or our intention behind the action.

“karma is not in your action, karma is in your volition” ~@sadhgurujv

I have delved deeper into the meaning of karma, in this blog post.

When we look at karma as a cause and effect chain. The physical action is a small impact while our volition behind that action creates a stronger impact on the cause and effect chain.

So karma or God, who decides the fruits of our action? And what do we actually mean by “God”?

The crux is,

one’s volition or intention or inner purity will depend on how close we are to “God”. Or how free our mind is of distortions.

And hence, karma is decided by “God” or how free our mind is of distortions. And thus the fruits too.

At the end of the day, the deal breaker is and will always be – a mind free of distortions.

i.e. God. i.e Yoga.

(Chitta vrutti nirodh as per Patanjali yoga sutra)

This for me also clarifies what is “God”.

This has been my understanding of the first stanza of Updesha Saram.

This understanding is fairly different from the other explanations that I briefly glanced through. This is because my spiritual understanding comes from Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. Thus, it is a fairly contemporary base.

I have found this base sufficient, along with my inner experience to delve deeper into a lot of different spiritual paths and their teachings.