Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening...by Mirabai

Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,
Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.

If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water,
I would have asked to be born a fish in this life.

If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts,
Then surely the saints would have been monkeys
when they came from the womb!

If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves,
Then the goats would surely go to the Holy One before us!

If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way,
I would have adored a granite mountain years ago.

Mirabai says:
The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God.

~ Mirabai
From The Winged Energy of Delight,
Translated by Robert Bly
Art by Sanjana Deshpande

Only You can heal the pain...by Mirabai

O friends, I am mad
with love, and no one sees.

my mattress is a sword-point
how can I sleep
when the bed of my Beloved
is spread open elsewhere?

Only those who have felt the knife
can understand the wound,
only the jeweler
knows the nature of the Jewel.

I have lost it,
and though anguish takes me door to door,
no doctor answers.

Mira call her lord: O Dark One
Only You can heal the pain.


~ Mirabai ( 1498-1565 )
Art by Maria Szollosi

O my friends, What can you tell me of Love...by Mirabai

O my friends,
What can you tell me of Love,
Whose pathways are filled with strangeness ?

When you offer the Great One your love,
At the first step your body is crushed.
Next be ready to offer your head as his seat.

Be ready to orbit his lamp 
like a moth giving in to the light,
To live in the deer 
as she runs toward the hunter's call,

In the partridge 
that swallows hot coals for love of the moon,
In the fish that, kept from the sea, happily dies.

Like a bee trapped for life 
in the closing of the sweet flower,

Mira has offered herself to her Beloved.
She says, the single Lotus will swallow you whole.

~ Mirabai 
from The Enlightened Heart: 
An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, by Stephen Mitchell

Where have you gone....by Mirabai

Where have you gone, dear Beloved,
After planting your love in my heart ?

You have forsaken me, O deceitful one,
After setting the wick of love aflame.

After launching love's boat, you have
Left it adrift in the sea of separation.

Beloved Lord, when will you meet me?
Mira can live no more without you...!

~ Mirabai

My only refuge....By Mirabai

That dark Dweller in Braj Is
my only refuge.

O my companion,
Worldly comfort is an illusion,
As soon you get it, it goes.

I have chosen the Indestructible for my refuge,
Him whom the snake of death
Will not devour.

My Beloved dwells in my heart,
I have actually seen that Abode of Joy.
Mira's Lord is Hari, the Indestructible.

My Lord, I have taken refuge with Thee;
Thy slave.

~ Mirabai