I found a mandir once in Kathmandu,Enclosed in vines, surrounded by a street,With no door visible, its carvings worn…And asked which god it was devoted to.A cow passed chewing something it would eatAgain, the prayer flags flapped, most of them torn,As briefly through that heat a north wind blew.My friend confessed the temple a completeMystery. I felt the walls – a bull? its horn?No, not Bholenath. My only clue –This temple could not be for any sweetSouthern god like Krishna, here unborn.
The panels of its bas-reliefs enactScenes from the puranas which depict yourSpirit (in the form of gods and men)Countering all forces which subtract.From each deteriorated pictureDetails have been lost, but even whenCarved, religion was an inexactScience, more like questioning than sure.Information that should not have beenKnown appears, an enigmatic factFound in Smrti and in Sruti scripture,Birch bark where a reed was used for pen.
Perhaps, in their debates on the Divine,Gargi was the first sage to explainThat by nature Spirit cannot die.Yajnavalkya won, so to refineDying – to describe what might remain –She explained the Atman, which we tryTo own – although no Atman could be mine.In those contests sages could obtainGold – she probed their answers, how and why?Therefore I inscribe this simple lineTo Gargi, whose lines the Vedas contain.Gargi Vachaknavi, hers hereby.
When the Spirit in us can expandWe hear another language for the firstTime, with nouns that we remember well,But many verbs we do not understandBecause its situation is reversed.For us, existence means we dwellExposed to beings; Spirit has to standNaked before time, and bears a thirstTo drink infinity. We may expelSpirit as discrepant, but commandSummons it at need, so that a cursedSufferer had Spirit as he fell.
What if world were all we ever had?So have many thought, but rarely said it.That is how they loved, who could express itBest with private acts or being bad.Therefore some grasp Spirit and embed itIn their flesh, where in excess itBurns, a fuel whose power makes them mad.Others wound their Spirit and have bled it,As if being crumpled could compress it.The numinous itself can make us sadUnless Spirit guides the Heart to editGuilt, so that the Head at last can bless it.
Now, my friend Prakash (his name means light, heSays), and I investigate this stoneMandir, from what seems the front to back.I feel an indentation, so does he –Perhaps this was the door, now overgrown.Imagine the insides, by now all black.Heart and Head seem satisfied, can beAnswered, but our emptiness-for-boneSpirit acts more like that one macaqueLobbing pebbles at us from the screeOf the bas-relief he rules alone.In his carving, Spirit is the crack.
Imagine Silence, deep enough for thoughtTo reach the end of all things difficult.Construct a region where there is noSound, nor gravity, no light is caught –The Head encounters nothing to consult.There the Spirit thrives and feelings grow.In this domain the Heart was slowly taughtTo fill, so that at last it could exult,Rejecting laws of men it does not know.Head is not admitted, as it soughtSilence for a mate, with the resultThere is no Silence where the Head can go.
Think of every book you ever readRemembered perfectly, cover to cover.Plus all books unread, now synchronized.Then the spoken words, whenever said,And unspoken, not meant to discover –Everything we meant was memorizedBy Silence, spun into that threadSpirit sewed her lips with, as her lover,When he kissed her mouth and paralyzedHer body, so that some think her dead.In this lifetime Silence kissed no other –Taking Spirit to be god disguised.
Gather Spirit though you cannot hold it –Spirit is much closer than your mind.Awe may be the best way to reveal it.Sometimes in raw nature we behold itAs if wilderness had been designedTo find Spirit’s lesions and then heal it.World never behaves the way we told it –Dwelling in our cities we must bindSpirit to deceptions which conceal it.Spirit bends so far that we can fold itTo a size where we no longer mindSuffering – although we always feel it.
Spirit walks the void as we walk earth,Sees no one, no land as alien,Bonds with everything it finds forever,Lives less well on plenitude than dearth.Spirit is the source of meaning inSentience, the one to speak wheneverAnswers are required of some worth.We understand that Heart and Head will spinStories, but Spirit is less clever.Never from the moment of its birthHas it thought to lie. To its chagrinHead and Heart say anything whatever.
Here and there in Kathmandu, the eyesOf Buddha stare from buildings at the street.The stupas are more colorful, less oldThan temples, and make Spirit realizeThat Buddha is in everyone you meet,Hidden, as one lacquers over gold.Meanwhile, the Upanishads advisePatience with all paths before your feet.Follow any way your Head thinks wise.If your Heart accepts what it is told,Spirit may be able to completeIts journey in this present flesh disguise.
Further, make each day a word you saidIn the sentence finished with your dying –Inked with blood and yet you will forget it.Worship as if all the gods have fled.Track their traces past the last outlyingFringe – many you know will falsify it.Die as if the point of being deadWere that part of you was always tryingTo meet nothing. Well, now you have met it.Be each time the life you should have ledBefore, more free to love. Long cryingHurts, but Spirit never could regret it.