Sunday 14 July 2013

6. LOVE's Wait, The Two Selves and the Game of Life



Many a time during Darshan, we have heard Swami's sweet voice, saying "WAIT, WAIT, WAIT ! " To devotees anxious for answers to urgent questions, those awaiting permission to begin or to go ahead with different endeavours, those waiting to travel, lucky ones expecting the coveted 'interview',  and in response to various 'human' emergencies and other such 'life-death' situations, Bhagawan would emphatically, authoritatively and compassionately murmur, "WAIT".  The devotee would subside, disappointed, to realise much later the import of that loving and exasperating word, "WAIT" !!

But then, He too waits for us, across centuries, across life-times, waits for us to yearn and grow towards Him . . .


LOVE's Wait


Love waited at my heart’s door
My door that was bolted and barred

Love stood in the sun without a murmur
Without a knock or a protest  . . . .
Waiting for me to open up and
Let Him into my inner self.


Yet, what was I busy with,
That I seemed so heartless?
I was ENGROSSED in seeking, this very LOVE;
Mired in sorrow and distress, I was hopelessly searching for Love.

One day, when it seemed
The death of all hope
And effort painful, came to its end
I sat down, resigned to emptiness,
I sat with a broken mind.

Suddenly, a whiff of fragrance, wafted into my heart
And I saw the hem of His robe
And the halo that was His hair.
“How?” I wondered
“Through that crevice”, He whispered
And indeed where the mind had stopped
A tiny crack had birthed itself,
And through that opening in my heart’s door
My Lord entered, unbidden !


The Two Selves



My fragmented outer self,
The one that I think is me
Sways and totters with every storm
Crumbles and weeps when hit by passing avalanches
Mourning this loss of its 'identity'
In the deluge of existence . . . . . . .
For, isn't life
The overwhelming impact of multiple imprints
That we encounter in daily living?


Then, after the winds and the hails have stopped
And the lightning and the thunder have abated,
This soggy, sodden self,
Peeps out of the wreckage, engulfed in self-pity
Resentful of even the slightest breeze
That might brush its cheek !



My true SELF  . . .
 The One that resides deep within
And is really me;
Smiles at all this devastation 
And watches the antics of the outer self
With a gentle irony ! 


The SELF assumes a form 
To reside in this world
And then spends a life-time 
Learning how not to identify 
With every passing spectacle that is life.

Why all this fuss then, one might ask,
Why learn to unlearn, all this mess ?
Why be made and unmade and then remade again ?!

 
The SELF smiles again, for,
Life is but a 'cosmic game' . . .
Enjoy the process
Play the game
Till the time comes, to quit altogether. 


NOTE: Explanation for the 'two birds' :
"Like two birds
of golden plumage,

inseparable companions,the individual self and the immortal Self
are perched on the branches of the selfsame tree. 

The former tastes 
of the sweet and bitter fruits of the tree;
the latter, tasting of neither,
................calmly observes."

[The Mundaka Upanishad]

Source:    http://path-to-home.blogspot.in/2008/04/two-birds.html


1 comment:

  1. Lovely poems. Keep writing! :) - Abhinav

    ReplyDelete

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