April 10: Cupid New and Old





2016

 The minutiae of creation, science, and that which lies beyond it.

The big bang, the single point of light, the nada-bindu.
The expansion of space, creating space first into which to expand.
All for the manifestation of what? Rasa.
Our field of knowledge is different. We are from the world
and the wheres and ways of creation to us irrelevant,
except as a curiosity. We are gopi girls, simpletons,
milkmaids who know nothing but the beauty of our beau.
Our field of study is different. We study the human life
of which love is the apex. We say the world is real,
not reduced to pinpoints of light, but to archetypes.
Life as it existed and exists in the pinpoint, beyond the pinpoint
in the highest of archetypal realities. A reality
that only needs the acquiescence of the mind to be true.
Our world of transcendence is that of our romantic imaginings.

2015

What is love other than forgiveness for imperfection?
And where is imperfection's root but in absence?
Will absence not then be love's greatest test ?
And demand the greatest sacrifice, that of being joyful?


 2014

Cupid New and Old

Like a wil-o'-the-wisp, Love came to me

and I tried to hold it. But it turned to mist;

the sylph turned into uncertainty,

like any creature of the mind, a myst.


But such it was that a shadow

hidden somewhere behind my mind,

took on form within the lingering

swirl of fragrant grayness:

 

It was the God called Love, the mystical Cupid,

who mocks his infinite mirror images

each reflecting but fragments of his splendor,

yet dazzling and dazing the wisest sages.

 

Now my mind has become an ascetic,

he has turned around to look behind him.

He has given up religion and irreligion.

He has taken the senses with him, his disciples.

He has pierced his ear and placed there a wooden peg,

and now, in selfish and forlorn neglect of the world

he wanders, lost in the desert of separation,

looking for that mirage, his grail, the Divine Cupid,


He has forgotten

the paltry suffering of the Kali Yuga,

for no one suffers like he does now.

How can he give succor?


This cannot be! Don't call him God!

It is against the law of God

to shake the foundations of the world,

to shatter man's dedication to duty,

so he forgets the world and its suffering creatures

so in need of stable steady loving guides!


Don't you hear the cries of communities,

of women and children calling for constancy and continuity?

What howling disorder do you leave behind?

Is that what your renunciation does? Is that what love has done?

Is there no compassion for those whose futile search

for love in this world is the source of all misery?


Was Majnun not fair warning to us all?

What suffering jivas could he save, that madman?

If one love makes us mad, 

what will the Whole of Love do?


Is the metaphor of wine not a warning to us fools,

an anticipation of the inevitable

delirium tremens to come?

 

Did you really think that the gopis' suffering

was something other than real suffering,

and their story just a fairy tale? This was I believe the context for the two verses quoted in the previous post,

2011


śraddhā cetasaḥ samprasādaḥ. sā hi jananīva kalyāṇī yoginaṁ pāti | "Faith (śraddhā) means full clarity and pleasantness of the mind-field. Benevolent like a mother, she protects the yogi." (Vyasa on YS 1.20, trans. Swami Veda Bharati)

śraddhā is a feminine word, expressive of a gentle quality, associated with humility and reverence, and not over assertiveness or fanaticism. (Swami Veda Bharati)


Whatever you do, whatever you do, whatever you do, don't drop the bindu.




Comments

Prem Prakash said…
The short poem on love and absence from 2015 is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. I am sharing it with others.
Wednesday, 13 April, 2022
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