Siva’s relationship with souls

O Meikanda Deva! Like the sun that arises
Causing the removal of the film of murk
And brightening the eight quarters and also
Causing the lotus to burgeon, You made Your
Cosmic advent – verily the sun-rise of hoary Wisdom.
O blemishless Ambrosia! O Hill of Virtue
What may the reason be for Your abidance in me
On occasions and also Your absence from me?
If You say Your nature is such that You abide
In me when I think on You but not otherwise,
It will mean You are at my beck and call.
Moreover as the eight-armed and trinocular God
You are omnipresent. In Your total and absolute
Pervasion, I need neither to join You
Nor keep away from You.
The foot-sore and fatigued traveler seeks
The shady tree and quits it after a time.
The tree neither rejoices at his coming
Nor sorrows for his departure.
If You too are said to be like that tree,
Then You too are jada like it.
If You say Your abidance manifests when I
Think on You but not otherwise, it is
Contrary to Your semipternal Grace which is
Twinned with the soul beginninglessly.
Moreover, O Lord, this engenders a false theory
Which posits rebirth even to those that have
Gained You. It is never so in this hoary world.
O Lord beyond the pale of words! Unriddle
The simultaneous and beginningless (and unknowable)
Co-presence in me of Yourself and Paasam.
Give me an answer at once unassailable and final.