Classic Poem

This is not the way to find the essence of truth, O Pundits!
Even with all these heaps of bookish learning,
You won't fathom it at all without being truly pure!
This is not the way to find the essence of truth, O Pundits!
You won't fathom it at all without being truly pure!
You go for dry empty husk and cast away the grains!
One cannot appease hunger by mere dry chaff!
This is not the way to find the essence of truth, O Pundits!

Indulging in sensual pleasures,
you weave the cloth of your own debasement!
Everyone merely wallows in wagging tongue!
In all this verbiage, your heart is still untouched!
Casting off the grand clothes of the true knowledge, you go for the rags!
This is not the way to find the essence of truth, O Pundits!

Piles of pedantic phrases you may have hoarded;
Grandiloquence of many kinds you may have mastered
And many kinds of stuffy philosophies you may parrot;
But still you are immersed in the mundane world
And the egoism still rules your mind-
O innumerable aeons have flowed away in this way!
This is not the way to find the essence of truth, O Pundits!

Indeed, you have mastered the scriptures and the like
Yet you stumble in the darkness of the night
Wandering like blind among the thorns!
I have known this subtle Truth, says Narsaiyo, I have sung it here! This way you won't find the essence of truth, O Pundits!