Awakening
Awakened by the Muses
Beauty beyond the realm of the forest
O Muse! the words’ eternal spring!
The power of light that sings!
While the feelings soar to the sky in lighted wings,
The vision glows beyond flesh and desire!
In the journey of the soul through light and fire,
The beauteous soul,
Floats as a vessel like Heracles' golden bowl.
As I hear the unknown world's magic song,
The search for beauty seems treacherous, painful and long,
That man’s blindness and suffering prolongs.
O Muse! blest are those few,
Who after seeing your beauty have bade this life adieu,
I wish to depart from the world of Nymphs and maids,
And make the journey along the mountain way,
Where I shall meet a greater beauty, as the poet has said.
I see that world through the inner vision again and again,
From this worthless wandering that I have made in vain,
I wish go where the beauty will not corrupt love with desire's treachery and bloodful stains.
As the shadows deepen fast,
The shores sink behind the sky’s starry sparks,
In the Cytherean sand, where Venus rose from waves,
The Aegean rocks, where the pirates anchored before pillage and raids,
Under the azure arc, in which Dionysus embarked,
In Delos' tides where the swans departed lifting the soul in weightless jerks,
On the Phrygrian meadow, where Phoebes shone over the shepherds head,
Along the mountain slope where Aeanea fled,
Behind the hill,
Where life still battles with will,
Odysseus' and Aeanea's wanderings my vision fill.
Spreading varied hues in the sky as the hours pass by,
O Muse! In the blindness of the eyes,
The journey-man, who has seen your form,
Sees the shore beyond senses’ tumults and storms.
As Odysseus' and Aeanea's wandering bring the mortal on the shore,
Where mankind has erected the heroes’ tombs,
Endless strifes crown the heroes with wreaths of thorns,
Before the shadows spread again their darker power,
That haul the nights towards sorrow-bound hours,
On land and shore prolonging suffering and distress,
Where vultures and eagles come to gore on the flesh,
Storm and fire scorch and crush with the splash of the leaping waves,
Before, like Carthage's queen, the lone heart seeking revenge and ruin,
Again pierces the breast with a sword that twists and twines,
Before in the chaos of the events,
In wilderness man sees no limit of sin,
The Trojans die because of Paris’ burning lust,
From the unconquerable beauty's flaming hearth,
O Muse! lift man from flame and dust.
The events that my vision pass,
Tell the stroies from the ancient past,
Though they appear to have passed in time,
They are events of life that are also mine.
As myth , reality and dream,
They are joined with a mystic realm,
About which the poet had warned me before I had followed Eros’ golden beam.
O beauty!
When the glittering dewdrops pierced the eyes with rays,
Created in me the desire to make a journey towards the lake,
I did not understand destiny's treacherous play,
In the queen of love’s enchanting reign,
In the desire-bound eyes when I had sought the warmth of the shinning flame,
I did not understand the beauty's treacherous game.
Now after the eyes are filled with tears and the heart is frightened with fear,
When thorns have everywhere pierced,
And only the pain and the anguish of living the memories bear,
As destiny’s unsurpassable ill,
I could not escape the evil nature of the human will.
Relieve me from the suffering world that has taken away my sight,
Poet had told me that when I shall arrive at the mountain height
I shall see the beauty glowing shinning and bright.
O Muses of music, poetry and art!
I wish to get out of this forest where every directions drag man to alluring paths.
Before anymore tumults of agony shatter the mortal heart,
O beauty! lift me from the treacherous garden of desire and lust,
Free me from the bondage of the life on Earth.
TATHAGATA'S MEDITATION
As Tathagata falls in a deep meditation, Mara , who is still lingering in the world hoping to seize the mortal souls, comes with his weapons of desires, lusts, passions and the fear of death. Like the powerful demon, who had sent his daughters to beguile the meditating mortal, who, in seek of an answer beyond pain, suffering and death, had renounced the worldly life and left one night in his bejewelled chariot ,driven by the beautiful white steed, the palace full of pleasure, the fear of death tries to deviate Tathagata from his spiritual search.
Like Goutama, Tathagata has been searching a path, with a hope to overcome desires, that have brought suffering of life. He wishes to escape the Wheel.
Where Goutama had strode like a lion carrying the beauty and sensibility of a deer, Tathagata feels awakened by the beauty of the world and the love that pervades everything. Through the rays of the sun, like a lion tearing apart the bull , and through its blood that carry the love of the mortal world to a transcendental domain, the divine Eros has burst forth in his mind.
At this moment of awakening - similar to Sujata, who seeing Buddha in a dream, had brought milk and rice for the meditating monk in a bowl to bring a new life to Gautama - the beauty brings forth a golden bowl of Eros. Tathagata's mind drinks from this bowl floating in the stream of light. After drinking the milk from the bowl and letting it float in the stream, Gautama had gone to take bath in the river, when he was overwhelmed by the joy of the love and compassion that pervades every corner of life. Like him Tathagata feels a great awakening. Every stone, ripples, waves, every movement of the breeze are impregnated by a divine love.