| BODDHISATTVA |
| The birds are now chirping in the bowers of Jetavana, And guess, their lilting melody has lost all meaning - Such meaning it used to have when I was a child, A handsome young prince, happy, used to sing to their tune, And when I returned with my queen to watch them make love secretly. But that was another day, another life Within this one life there've been so many lives - a thousand lives. But how can I forget that day in these very woods He had said Jetavana Is full of wisdom, and so is the whole world Full of knowledge, only you need to renounce All. I said no to my desires, said no till woman's caresses troubled no more, neither pain nor passion, only this desire of being alive, I went with a bowl in to the hamlet, I fasted forty-nine days to subdue this desire too till I had no more desires, only to be like Him - but how many lives ?? In a previous life I had been a hangman too - You can hang the body, not the soul, the Atman Is deathless, isn't it ? - Like Him ! - And how many lives ? I was becoming so unlike everything That was not Him ! The other day I went to see the flames Take up the body of the young woman - the father wept. It is I told the mother Only illusion - I was becoming so unlike .... Everything was so full of meaning When I hadn't learnt to seek any meaning at all ! And how far I have come since the day I was a bird A mindlessly chirping bird before a thousand births, long, long ago ?? |