Lord of Beauty

They say the world is a mirage compared to the samadhi void. I say even the void is a mirage compared to Shyam, whose flesh is sky-brilliant sapphire.

He ambles through lusher gardens than enlightenment, where pundits and yogis cannot enter, for you must pass the flaming sword of the gate keeper, which lops off reason and makes you a fool.

His wine is love stored up in a hidden wine skin, the passion of emptiness, the breast from whose hollow scholars never drink the milk of darkness, having forgotten how to weep transcendental tears of longing...

Which after all are the ordinary tears of a hyacinth in February wrapped in its seed, the tears of a chrysalis congealed in dreamless bewilderment, who cannot conceive of wings, the tears of the full moon resting in the new moon.

The reed has nothing at its core, but that's why it can sing. Just so, the love which has no object receives the inbreath as well as the outbreath, both lover and beloved. 

Why do you look for love's purpose? Love means nothing; that is why it has no equal. Just have the affair and be done with doubting. Take the journey of one heart-beat across the ocean of blood to the island in the pit of your sternum. That is the black center of light that pulses in every galaxy.

Collapse and return to the brilliant vacuum between your exhalation and the next breath, transmuting your flesh into dark matter, sweet as a rain-laden cloud exhausted by kirtan-weeping.

I only give you a glimpse of Krishna's vastness, the trembling emptiness of an eye that sees itself. I only leave clues about the scented bower toward whose entrance you wander, sinless and naked. You have been chosen because you are as insignificant as a dust mote, invited to the silence between I and Am.

The Dark Lord meets us all here, even crashers who aren't invited. Are you really acquainted with the lapis-throated paramour, whom you imagined to be yours alone, whispering the secret name only you, his betrothed, could hear? You assumed the two of you were alone in the garden. But we were all there. We were the unborn, infused in the jasmine-scented air. We were ancestors, pulverized in the loam.

Even now, He is the tincture of delight in the seventh dimension of formlessness, pure space pervaded by the unstruck ringing of infinitesimal chimes. When you hear this sound, there are stars in your bones. The quarks and neutrinos in your marrow are the gods. You are a probability-wave in the golden ocean of his stillness.

Stop counting the ways. There are countless asanas for love-making when you are entangled with Govinda's body. Your flesh is made of blue letters written by wings passing through the sky. How could the intimate glance of his omniscient eye not torment your soul into dissolving?

The one who asked you to this wedding invites every beggar. Don't RSVP: just fall down with gratitude. Bhakti is the pulse of a whirling soul. Learn the etiquette of chaos.

Enter the Lord's fragrant bower at midnight. Why did eternity imagine time? Just so you could taste this momentary darshan, stunned by the pavonine beauty of Madhav, who spreads his rainbow wings of past and future. Just so for one instant you could utter, "I Am," then fall back into the sea. But how much richer is that sea, now that it has become a drop? 

To each soul, He is the bridegroom. Yet you must be faithful to One alone! This is the sweet injustice of the affair, purity and impurity, annihilated by bliss.

Don't say, "I wander in deep night, searching for the azure flame of his grace." Don't take a single step. 

The one you called "I" has disappeared. Like a cloud, melting into the sky we all spin through. Now you are filled with stars. It is your own sparkling darkness you've been praying to.