chapters 1 and 2 of the
Third Mundaka of the UPANISHADS,
Hindu Wisdom ca. 900 BC)
On the branches of this tree of life
we pass our time together side by side,like sparrows resting from flight.
I watch as you hungrily devour the berries of this world there,
both the sweetest and the most bitter,those of joy and those of sorrow.
I'll accompany you throughout your stay,
here with you until your last breath,
and forever after.
Ah, but I am invisible, my friend --
not only that -- I am also beyond
any attempt at description in words or pictures.
Neither the logic of the mind
nor the endless tributes of men
can reveal me in complete truthfulness.
No ceremony summoning knowledge,
no contest won will define the soul of life to you,
but only the sweet generosity of the spirit of life itself.
I quietly radiate the deep serenity of untarnished perfection.
If the tangles of your emotions can only be untied,
you won't have to depend upon your eyes and ears,
upon taste or smell or touch, to find the truth.
Let your attention seek my peace
through calm contemplation,
as a dart is carefully thrown
towards the center of a circle.
All your distracting sensations
have made a prison out of life --
break free --
and they will no longer hide me from your thoughts!
It is that hunger of yours --
your wishes themselves -- that chain you so thoroughly,
and you cannot be released from them
by force of effort, acting, or striving, as you may believe.
Find the satisfaction sufficient for every desire in me,
and you will never die again,
nor be born once more into your struggles.
I am the essence of life itself, behind every word,
rooted at the center of consciousness,
and I grant life to all, forever.
No being that stirs, takes breath, or opens its eyes
has come without my consent.
I live in your heart of hearts --
there I find my home and sanctuary.
I am everywhere, completely occupying the whole of creation.
Any light that may shine there
has its source in my own benevolent radiance.
I am the completion of the promise of life,
everlasting, and beyond the tyranny of change.
I have no beginning, and no end --
I am inside all things, and outside them all just the same.
No shape defines me at all,
since I am the home of every form that can be.
Streams of water flowing into the ocean
relinquish their separate identities and forms,
to merge with all the other waters.
That is how beings of the highest understanding
all flow into me,
escaping the confinement of individuality,
to find themselves together, as one,
in the living sea of all I have created.
No comments:
Post a Comment