#ekarasa

[shinymoonbird]

Only when Self, the truth of love, is known, will the knot of all the severe problems in life be severed. Only when the pinnacle of love [the supreme love or para-bhakti] is attained can even liberation be said to be attained. Love is verily the heart of all religions.

Guru Vachaka Kovai (The Garland of Guru’s Sayings) by Sri Muruganar - V. 652, Ch. 32 -  The Truth of Love

Sadhu Om: 

When the true nature of love is realized, it will completely cease to take the form of desire, which is its ‘vritti rupa’ [that is, which love is in the form of a vritti or movement]. When desire is thus removed, all its five offshoots, namely anger, miserliness, delusion (i.e. the inability to discern the truth), arrogance and jealousy, will also cease to exist [refer to verse 375 (*)]. Since all the problems of life are based upon only these six vices, it is said that the knot of all problems in life will be severed by realizing the true nature of love. The truth of love is nothing but Self. How? Since the real nature of Self is asti-bhati-priya or sat-chit-ananda, love [priya] or ananda cannot be different form Self. This is why the Sages declare that love is God. 

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(*) Verse 375:  Those who have desire are afflicted by the wretched anger when their desire is obstructed, and so it is certain that desire is inherent in anger. Therefore, when all the [six] vices are dying, desire dies last.

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[shinymoonbird]

The experience of Self, which is nothing but the form of [supreme] love, is that in which the eyes see only love, the tongue tastes only love and the touch feels only love, which is bliss.

Guru Vachaka Kovai (The Garland of Guru’s Sayings) by Sri Muruganar - V. 655, Ch. 32 -  The Truth of Love

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This verse describes that the nature of the experience of Self is the one unbroken essence [ekarasa] of love, that is, it explains that this world, which is nothing but the experience gained through the five senses, is transformed into and experienced as Self when the dawn of Self-knowledge takes place. Verse 62 of this work is to be read once again here:

He who knows this world-appearance to be his own form, Supreme-Consciousness, experiences the same Consciousness even through his five senses.

Sri Muruganar: 

The Self-love which shines naturally in everything when all is known as Self, is completely different from the false and delusive feeling of pleasure which appears through the mental sense-experiences. This divine ecstasy, known as ‘prema’ or ‘bhakti’, is what is expressed by Saint Manikkavachagar in his Thiruvandappahuti as his great experience.

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[shinymoonbird]

Not only by love being obstructed, but also by love being wrongly forced, are all living beings caught in and eaten up by many miseries in life.

Guru Vachaka Kovai (The Garland of Guru’s Sayings) by Sri Muruganar - V. 654, Ch. 32 -  The Truth of Love

Sadhu Om: 

Evil befalling the things we like is what is mentioned here as ‘love being obstructed’, while having things that we dislike forced upon us is what is mentioned here as ‘love being wrongly forced’. Thus, when love is allowed to function in the form of a movement [pravritti rupa], that is, as petty desires – likes and dislikes – jivas have to undergo untold miseries in life. Therefore, keeping love in its pure form, not allowing it to take a vritti form as likes and dislikes, is both (a) not allowing love to be obstructed, and (b) not allowing love to be wrongly forced. This is why Sri Bhagavan said in the work Who am I?, "Likes and dislikes are both to be disliked".

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[shinymoonbird]

Those who do not know the taste of love, which is in no way inferior to any of the other six tastes, regard love as the seventh taste. [But know that] love is the basic taste which gives life to all the other six different tastes classified [in the past].

Guru Vachaka Kovai (The Garland of Guru’s Sayings) by Sri Muruganar - V. 650, Ch. 32 -  The Truth of Love

The six tastes are sweet, bitter, salty, sour, pungent and astringent, and love is sometimes classified along with these as the seventh taste.

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[shinymoonbird]

Only those who do not know the inexpressible taste of love will count the taste as seven [as if love were a taste like the other six tastes]. But since we know well the taste of love, the real taste, we declare that love is the only happy taste [and that none of these others are tastes at all].

Guru Vachaka Kovai (The Garland of Guru’s Sayings) by Sri Muruganar - V. 651, Ch. 32 -  The Truth of Love

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[shinymoonbird]

The truth behind the saying of wise men, "When one goes to see Sages, who are the treasures of true and clear knowledge [jnana], one should take some offering and should not go empty-handed," is that one should go with true love for them in the heart [that is, one should not go simply for sight-seeing or to test them].

Guru Vachaka Kovai (The Garland of Guru’s Sayings) by Sri Muruganar - V. 653, Ch. 32 -  The Truth of Love

Sri Muruganar: 

Since other kinds of offering may not be available for everyone and at all times, since even those offerings will be worthless if there is no love in the heart, and since if love alone is present it will fill up the deficiency created by the absence of all other offerings, love is here recommended as the supreme offering.

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[shinymoonbird]

The experience of Self, which is nothing but the form of [supreme] love, is that in which the eyes see only love, the tongue tastes only love and the touch feels only love, which is bliss.

Guru Vachaka Kovai (The Garland of Guru’s Sayings) by Sri Muruganar - V. 655

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This verse describes that the nature of the experience of Self is the one unbroken essence [ekarasa] of love, that is, it explains that this world, which is nothing but the experience gained through the five senses, is transformed into and experienced as Self when the dawn of Self-knowledge takes place. Verse 62 of this work is to be read once again here. 

Sri Muruganar: The Self-love which shines naturally in everything when all is known as Self, is completely different from the false and delusive feeling of pleasure which appears through the mental sense-experiences. This divine ecstasy, known as ‘prema’ or ‘bhakti’, is what is expressed by Manikkavachagar in his Thiruvandappahuti as his great experience.

[english-tibetan-dictionary]

ekarasa

ro gcig - one taste, one of the {phyag rgya chen po'i rnal 'byor bzhi} the four yogas of Mahamudra. one taste / flavor, inseparable. [in Mahamudra. single taste, single flavor, the state of being a single taste, [ekarasa]; see also {ro gcig rnal 'byor} [RY]

ro gcig - one (flavor, value, taste), (associated with atishunya), essentially identical, inseparable, SA rnal 'byor rnam bzhi, single flavor, single taste, state of being a single taste, ekarasa [JV]