Vast Form
All birds
are the sky’s ornaments.
All rocks
in the hour of pleasure
are great, swollen breasts.
All herons
spreading the heavens upon the earth
and laying them open
are white compassion.
All light
is love’s semen.
All darkness
is Shakti’s sleep.
All revelation
is pure glad tidings.
What lies hidden
is learning beyond time.
Grey hair and wrinkles
know no awakening:
fallen leaves.
All sorrow
washing the leaves
is rain’s hand.
All joy
is the true face of the sublime state.
The expressions that arise
are the workings of the heart.
All music
is this moment’s surging wave.
All silence
is fulfilment’s waxing moon.
The cosmos
is a living multitude of crescent moments.
All that is I
all that is I
is one form of the fourfold earth,
the great life of humankind.
*
Flowering
As a little mushroom flowers
as a star flowers
in still water, of its own accord,
as a bubble flowers
as light’s compassion
as dusk flowers
for the bee
its yoni opening wide
as a blossom flowers
for the child
milk welling up
as a breast flowers
it flowered, it flowered
something within me
it beheld, it beheld
the drop called I.
*
Deathlessness
In remaining as one was born
there is no sorrow
no longing
no disappointment
no death
no old age
no age
no that
no this, you say, Master!
Through age upon age,
will life’s dependence perish?
Will attachment fall away?
Will desire be severed?
Will sensation burn to ash?
Will the making of connections cease?
Will qualities dwindle and perish?
Will the delusion of name and form clear?
Will inner awareness subside?
Will the wave-making called mind die down?
All of these
it feeds and feeds and nurtures—
will ignorance perish?
Without the perishable perishing,
to remain as one was born—
is it possible? Tell me.
*
Motherhood
Still speaking in baby words,
the child’s motherhood—
grant it to me, Mother Amuthavalli!
Beside its sleeping mother
it sits,
and in baby words
sings a lullaby—
in it, may peace be found
by strife-ridden
humankind.
*
The Inner Self
With a self that knows no fellow feeling
I wander in torment.
Beyond selfhood
my thirst knows not a drop.
Forsaking compassion’s mother’s milk,
besotted with illusion’s urine,
my inner self is a wretched child.
To quiet the phallus of memories,
the yoni that language opens
is my writing.
Pride and lust
tussle and play
in this paltry birth.
Even after knowing and understanding,
a cripple that cannot cross beyond—
this intellect.
Beyond the door of the inner self,
beyond the itch of selfishness,
a voice says without cease:
What knowledge cannot conquer
is ignorance.
*
True Hunger
As delusion’s playground
there was religion
there was race
there were god and godhood
as delusion’s divine state
there was envy
there was pride
there was devotion
there were wisdom and liberation.
When the delusion cleared
hunger arose.
What met the hungry eye:
a multitude of lives
the movement of living beings
the longings and embraces of feeling
the tossing waves of ignorance
for lives that come in hunger,
waiting with milk welling up,
compassion’s mother-breasts.
*
Aiyai
Aiyai has taken possession!
She who knew doubt to be true
she who passed beyond the centre, knowing it false
she who embraced the world as existence
in feeling is her body
contradiction is her logic
the self melting into triumph—
behold Aiyai, who sees it!
Brahman and Maya—
she is the fire that denies them
of Dhamma’s living spring
she is the compassion.
Burning away the divide between subtle and gross,
she is the blaze.
She is desire’s quickening
she is secret love, she is wedded fidelity
she says, I am this shore
she says, I am movement itself
she calls permanence a trick
in the clarity impermanence brings
she is the one whose breasts flow
all the light of semen is Aiyai
all the life in an ember is Aiyai
all the resonance of primal sound is Aiyai
all the dissolving of names is Aiyai
all the multitude of forms is Aiyai
all the coupling of desire is Aiyai
in a single instant of deep awareness
in the empty moment when attachment broke
Aiyai took possession of me.
*
Cool Stillness
A body of water is
a state of oneness.
Even its inner stirring stilled, it is
a state of balance.
Yielding to what enters it,
a transcendent state.
With subtle changes ever occurring,
an imperishable, vast state.
Of the rare state without a self,
the sacred, undivided state.
A body of water is always
a state of yoga.
Struggling within itself,
brimming within itself,
discovering itself,
coming, of itself, to its own face:
a state of cool transcendence.
*
The State of Ash
Light rained down as ash.
Everywhere, ash’s luminous enchantment.
The falling of leaves, a shedding of ash.
Of the moon that had remained
hidden, in its dissolving,
the fragrance of ash.
Space
and its many thousand tongues,
the dewdrops, were ash.
As it came running, running,
shedding and shedding itself as ash,
the kitten spread into emptiness.
The house’s clay lamp flickered like glowing ash.
The drying clothes
and the water dripping from them were ash.
Arriving quietly into being,
the room too was ash.
The mirror I looked up at
showed an ash-face too.
Like ash falling upon ash,
in the smouldering mind,
thoughts bloomed and seethed.
With not even an ember left,
upon the ash called I,
took hold and settled
the flame called love.
*
The Jain Sparrow
Churning the inner self,
I shall scoop up nectar and drink.
Burning all former knowledge,
I shall worship the soaring flame within.
Scorching memory, casting it on the rubbish heap,
I shall know in the moment the god worthy of beholding.
Breaking the word, removing the stain,
I shall scour the mind to purity.
Silence is my Amudha Surabhi.
In the forest of Jain ascetics
I am a simple sparrow.
*
The Ascetic
That ascetic passing by
passes without watching the little child at play.
At the pooled water,
a bird quenching its thirst—
he passes, unaware.
Clasping a single grain,
an ant marching in line—
he passes without a glance.
In a cloth cradle on a branch,
murmuring,
a baby’s stirrings—
he sees and passes as though he has not seen.
Piercing the nostrils,
wringing the senses,
the scent of jasmine—
he passes, unentranced.
An old beggar woman
is being fed by a little girl—
her tender, innocent eyes
he avoids as he passes.
He passes
he passes
that ascetic passing by—
is he not to be pitied, maidens?
*
Who Am I?
Between poison and nectar
I am the taste
between heart and intellect
I am the sense
between nonbeing and being
I am the space
between yesterday and tomorrow
I am the river
between masculinity and femininity
I am the inner self
between water and air
I am the ripple
between selfhood and greatness
I am the price
between life and death
I am the veil
between subtlety and clarity
I am the divine.
*
The Taste of Truth
A thousand lamps
stood shining in a stone hall
where I sat,
towards vast darkness
moment by moment drawn,
a frenzy mounting within me
I blew out the first lamp
I put out the next lamp
one lamp at a time
I went on putting them out
sitting before the last lamp,
the darkness that had pitched its canopy around me
I beheld.
In great inward joy
the last lamp too
I blew out.
Bare darkness
and darkness in which a flame shone
have different tastes.
*
Flower-Flame
Every time
I am defeated.
In her fiercely burning desire
I become camphor.
In the flood of light from her flower
my pride goes blind.
Her gaze, calling me to conquer,
leaves me weak.
Breath spent,
back weary,
moans dissolved,
just when I think I might sleep,
holding me tight, her gaze intent,
she looks up, and her call
always defeats me.
After lovemaking,
without longing—
is there such a man,
Mara, my Manmatha?
