As you wonder, sitting alone,
the time approaches for death.
Heedless of all, O my insane heart,
you have travelled eight million times
the painful ways of life to death,
to find the measured land,
the body of the man.

Why did you let such human
earth turn to wasteland?
Cultivated, it could have yielded
a harvest of gold.
Take up, my heart, the spade of devotion,
wrench out the weeds of sin;
the seed of faith will grow.

Human limbs are held together
by a pair of lotus blossoms
growing in the lower
and the upper regions of the body.
But the lotuses burst open
in search
as the sun in the body
rises and sets.

On which of these blooms
is the full moon born,
and on which
the darkest night of the month?

My worries continue
for my crumbling boat
that can no longer carry.
Water rushes through her hulk
and salt eats at her keel.
My boat can bear no more
the burden of water.
O Master of my life,
open your eyes.
Show me your kindness
and hold me as I die.

Passions like bandits raided my boat
and went off with the spoils.
They cut the mooring rope
and left me adrift.
The Master says:
Wash away the stains of your heart
and your boat will thrive
in tranquility.

Sown on a slab of stone,
the seed of faith dries day by day,
never sprouting.
You may cultivate the arid earth,
but the hardened seed
will yield no harvest.

Great is the woodland where the sandal grows,
and the breeze, bearing the scent of sandal
perfumes the neighboring trees
turning them into sandalwood.

Gathering planks and pieces of metal
you build a boat to float on the sea,
but the elements are alien to water.
The boat sails and the boat sinks
but the tie of love is never torn.

To find nectar,
stir the cauldron on the fire,
and unite the act of loving
with the feeling for love.

Distill the sweetness
of the heart
and reach the treasures,
devoting yourself
to those wholly devoted.

Will the day ever dawn
when the treasured man of my heart
will become my own?
Though not cast in any shape,
the man is evidenced
in the ways of love.
Those who are absorbed
by the flavours of feelings
and are wholly living
with the knowledge of death
have won their foes --
pride and envy,
lust and anger,
ignorance and greed.
If your life,
flowing with life,
longs for the man,
the man will come with kindly steps.
Look at the worlds of gods, demons and man --
all held in your body.
He is already there.

I shall not open my eyes again
if I don't see Him at first sight.
Can you then tell me
through the sense of smelling
and through my listening ears
that He has come --
that He has come to the sky in the East --
that your friend has come to the sky of the East?

Plough-man, are you out of your wits
not to take care
of your own land?
A squadron of six birds
is picking at the rice,
grown golden and ripe,
in the field of your limbs.
Farming the splendid
measured land
of this human body,
you raise the crop,
the devotion to God.
But passions eat at it
like sparrows.

The fence of consciousness
is down to dust,
leaving open gaps.
Cattle clamber up
and feast on your harvest....

Shame to you,
my shameless heart,
what now can I say?
You have gathered a piece of glass
at the price of gold.
In spite of a pair of eyes
you miss the valuable jewels,
caring only for artificial stones.
Wandering blindfolded,
you could not see
that the house overflowed
with the choicest rubies,
and diamonds,
and gems of fire.

Hugging a sickle
in your waistband,
what do you search
from field to field?
What is the use?
My heart,
will you not explode for once
the home of beauty...?

What color is your cottage?
On the shore of this bogus world
the frame of your home is made of bones,
and the roof is thatched with skin.
But the pair of peacocks
on the landing pier
hardly know that they will end one day.
As the childhood passed in play,
passion, the age of passionate sport passes.
The old age, too, is going away,
calling, calling
for the Master and the Lord.
Your teeth are dropping down,
and the hair is growing gray,
the age of manhood is at a low ebb,
the plaster of your painted house will be
crumbling now
softly, softly....

The ways of the tortuous river
slip from your grasp.
Beware, brothers,
do not step into the stream.
The water rushes down,
wrecking the blackened hills.
Brothers, beware
of the tortuous stream.
The river was dry
when the waters of the flood
surged down the tortuous stream.
How can we cross the river now?
Be on your guard,
O boatman,
and hold tight to the oars,
and if the boat tends to turn over,
remember the Master.

God has reversed
the acts of the play.
The land talks in paradox
and the flowers devour the heads of fruits,
and the gentle vine, roaring,
strangles the tree.
The moon rises in the day,
and the sun at night with shining rays.

The blood is white,
and on the lake of blood
float a pair of swans,
copulating continuously
in a jungle of lust and love.

My heart is saturated,
but I wish I knew with what --
joy or death.

A sense of wonder
has overtaken all.
Where is that ocean
and where are the rivers?
And yet still
the waves are there for you to observe,
only if you unite
your eyes with your heart.

There is no patience
in the core of my heart.
Shivering with tears
it cries with the eyes,
and in the silence
of lovely sound forever calls,
Come Beloved, come,
come, please come!

Free impulses live together
with the forces of abstinence,
and the feminine energy
entwined with the spirit of man,
resembles the tuned strings
of the lute, wholly invisible.
The heart is the home
of no separation.

I have no knowledge
of my own self.
If for once
I could know what I am,
the unknown would be known.
God is nearby
and yet far away --
like the mountain hiding
behind my streaming hair.
I travel distant towns
of Dakar and Delhi
constantly searching,
but circling round my own knees.

God is alive
in my living form.
Only purity of heart
will lead me to Him.
The more I study
the wisdom of the Vedas,
the more I am bewildered.
I am blind
in spite of my eyes.
Only purity of heart
will lead me to Him.

God is alive
in my own living form.
Never in my life
did I once face the man
who lives in my own little room.
My eyes blinded
by the weight of storms
can see nothing, even when He stirs.
My hands fail
to reach His hands
as He is forever engaged
with the world.
I keep silent when they call Him
the word of life,
and the water
and the fire
and the earth
and the air,
while no one is sure.

Could I ever wish to know
anyone else?
I do not yet know
my own little room....

He does not dwell
in the complex of stars,
nor in limitless space.
He is not found
in the ethical scriptures
or in the texts of the Vedas.
He lives beyond
the existence of all.
The man is here,
in his form without form
to adorn the hamlet of my limbs
and the sky above
in the glow of his feelings,
the platform of spontaneous matter.

If you fail to recognize
your own heart,
can you ever come to know
the great unknown?
The farthest away
will be nearest to you
and the unknown within your knowing.
Fill up your home
with the world abroad,
and you will attain
the unattainable man.

Reaching for reality
is lame talk
to describe the goal
of the lover-worshipper.
He will attain
the great unattainable.
Stare at the face
of the invisible one
bearing the nectar of love.

How can I capture the man
who is not to be caught?
He lives on the other bank
of the river,
and the skin of my eyes
screens my sight.

Where is the home
of the moon?
And what makes
the cycle of the days
wander, encircling
the moving nights?
The lunar eclipse
in the night of the full moon
is known to all.
But no one enquires
about the blackened moon
on the darkest night
of the month.

He who is able
to make the full moon rise
in the sky
of the darkest night,
has a right to claim
the glory of the three worlds --
the heaven, the earth and the other spheres.

He who knows
the essence of love,
fears none.
Devoted only
to love's own form,
alive before his eyes,
his home is in
happiness itself.
Lulling lust
by lust alone
he raids the heart of the God
that churns all hearts,
finding himself
in perennial love.

Let your heart be a caring home
for the man of your heart.
Focus your vision
through the eye-black of loving.
He will be floating
on the mercurial mirror.

Hours wither like broken games
on the playground of the earth.
Abandon search
and join the carnival of love.
Abandon search
and join the carnival of love...

While desire burns in the limbs
still there is time.
Boil the juice
on the fire of longing
to condense the fruit.
The sweetness of syrup
will ferment and sour
unless it is stirred
on controlled heat.
Feelings evolve from desire,
and love shoots forth from lust.

The act of loving
is not an ideal dream.
Loving grows
from the grilling of lust --
like feeling death,
being wholly alive.
The clay-beetle buried
in the earth lives on clay,
nestling in it.
Lovers who know
how love can overcome lust
though an uphill walk,
even for a man of strength...

Oh cruelly eager,
are you going to fry on fire
your heart's flower-bud?
Are you going to force it to blossom
and let the scent escape
without biding your time?

Look at my Master, God,
eternally opening the buds
to bloom
but never in a hurry.

You are dependent
on the hours of the day
because of your terrifying greed.
What else can you do?
Listen to
the Beloved's appeal
and do not hurt
the Master at heart.
The stream spontaneously flows,
lost in itself,
listening to His words,
O my eager one.

The so called lovers
rarely know
the flavors of loving.
A lover lives
for love alone
as the fish in the water.
Great is the lover
who can love day and night
and is wholly devoted
to love's intercourse.
Worship with prayers.

The man or the woman
is still alone,
but a lover is formed
when the souls conjoin.

Poison and nectar
are mingled in one
like music played and heard
in one single act.
The human heart
free from flaw,
forever enlightened,
sees good and evil --
same time, same space.
A child sucking his mother
draws milk;
a leech at the breast of a woman
draws blood.

My heart!
You are in a muddle.
As the days go,
your inherited riches,
plundered, fly.
You only doze around the clock
drinking dreams
and living in five homes
with no control.
The robber rests with you,
my heart,
in your own room.
But how can you know?
Your eyes are shut in sleep.

Love springs
as feelings merge.
Divided forms
assume a single way.
A pair of hearts
running in parallel streams
long to reach
the God of loving.

The essence of beauty
in the mirror of love
stares at his face;
the formless
within the visual form.
The fire cools
in his hands
and quicksilver roasts on flames.

Light has burst
on the walls of the sky.
The kind one
has blossomed at last.
Waking in the morning,
I saw him present,
appearing close to my face.
Flowers wither
and birds flutter
and the dew forms on the leaves.
The glow of the night
is melting away
with the rising heat
of the sun.

Explore the nature
of your own body,
my unfeeling heart.
Unless you know
your very substance,
worshipping God is of no avail.
The body is the home
of seven heavens
for you to voyage.
You will blunder
as you never learned to know
the friends and the foes
alive in your body.

He talks to me
but He would not let me see Him.
He moves close to my hands,
but away from my reach.
I explore the sky and the earth
searching Him,
circling round my error
of not knowing me:
who am I, and who is He?

Attested by your own heart,
oh my Master,
lead me the right way.
As you play the melody
on the lute,
the lute could never sing on its own
without you to play it.

How could he stand
in a normal upright way?
The man without a heart in him,
the roots of his tree
are planted in the sky
and the branches lie on the earth.
Flowers are in blossom
on the tree,
but it never bears fruit.
For him
the river is dying of thirst
and the fire perishes, freezing,
and birds nestle in the water.
He is meeting his Master
in the cremation ground.

Have you tallied,
my heart,
the number of ways of finding Him
in the city of love?
The treasure of life,
sans bogus reckonings,
the world is a carnival
where lovers meet
like children of games.
Figure out the nature of your feelings
for the jewel of your life.
He is reached in the way
each seek to reach Him.

Through tender passion or servitude,
through loyalty or parental care,
or through the love
of tranquility, peace,
find the feelings
which are born with you
and then worship Him
with your own strength.

He who has seen the beauty
of the Beloved friend
can never forget it.
The form is for seeing
but not for discourse,
as beauty has no comparison.
He who has seen that form
flashing on the mirror,
the darkness of his heart
is gone.
He lives with his eyes
focused on the form,
careless of the river
between life and death.
His heart
forever devoted to the beauty
dares the gods.

Do you wish to visit
my inner home
and drink nectar,
my heart?
Will you not fail to enter
where lovers march
in a joyous carnival
singing of love?
Then walk the way
with a lamp of beauty,
leaving behind this greed,
that lust,
the ways of the world,
and all qualities.
Blames and violence,
old age and death,
dawn and dusk
do not live there.
Only rays of color
brilliantly shine.