Within or Without?

 Within or Without? 

Nī Māye Yōlogu — Kanaka Dāsa’s Mystical Dialogue with the Infinite 

In this luminous and bewildering poem, Kanaka Dāsa confronts the eternal Advaitic paradox — the puzzle of Māyā and Reality. He stumbles upon something so profound and elusive that even his keen intellect, drenched in devotion, struggles to contain it. He tries to reason, to analyse, to frame truth within the boundaries of logic — yet again and again, the experience slips away like light through fingers. 

How can one explain the fragrance of a flower, the sweetness of sugar, the sight of a temple, or the warmth of a touch? Each is self-evident — yet each defies analysis. 

Kanaka Dāsa stands at the summit of philosophy, reasoning from the highest vantage point of both bhakti and yoga. His questions echo the timeless debates of Vedānta and metaphysics: 

• Is life primary, or is matter the source? 

• Did Brahman give rise to Māyā, or Māyā to Brahman? 

• Is Śiva prior to Śakti, or the other way around? 

• Did Spirit create matter, or matter give birth to Spirit? 

• Is the mind made of matter, or does matter exist only in mind? 

• Is the knower more real than the known, or is knowledge itself the one phenomenon that gives rise to both? 

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This oscillation — between subjective idealism and objective realism, between inner and outer — becomes his mystical playground. The more he contemplates, the more bewildering it becomes, until reason collapses into reverent silence. 

Finally, Kanaka Dāsa surrenders. The intellect bows before wonder. In a moment of sublime exhaustion, he exclaims — “All is within You, O Kṛṣṇa!” — and falls silent. 

 

Are You within Māyā, O Kṛṣṇa, 
or is Māyā within You? 

Is the body within You, 
or are You within the body? 

Is the temple within space, 
or space within the temple —  
or are both within the seeing eye? 

Is the eye within awareness, 
or awareness within the eye —  
or are both contained in You? 

Do You dwell within the body, 
or is this body enveloped in You? 

Is sweetness within sugar, 
or sugar within sweetness —  
or are both within the tongue? 

Is the tongue within the mind, 
or the mind within the tongue —  
or are both within You, O Kṛṣṇa? 

Is fragrance within the flower, 
or the flower within fragrance —  
or are both within the sense of smell? 

O Ādi Keśava, emperor of all paradoxes, 
substance of this wondrous illusion —  

Krishnaaa! 
I cannot breathe another word. 
I am struck dumb with awe. 

All — all is within You alone.

  

Here Kanaka Dāsa does not seek an answer — he becomes the question. 
In his relentless inquiry, the seeker and the sought collapse into one reality. 
The poem ends not with resolution but with revelation  — the realization that the very act of questioning is also divine play. 

Like the Upanishadic sages, Kanaka Dāsa stands at the threshold where logic dissolves into love, and knowledge bows to wonder.