The plums tasted sweet to the unlettered desert tribe girl… but what manners! To chew into each, she was ungainly, low caste, ill-mannered and dirty, but the god took the fruit she’d been sucking. Why? She knew how to love. She might not distinguish splendor from filth, but she’d tasted the nectar of passion.
Might not know any Veda, but a chariot swept her away. Now she frolicks in heaven, ecstatically bound to her god. The Lord of Fallen Fools, says Mira, will save anyone who can practice rapture like that. I myself, in a previous birth, was a cowherding girl at Goku.
In my travels I spent time with a great yogi… Once he said to me, become so still you hear the blood flowing through your veins. One night, as I sat in quiet, I seemed on the verge of entering a world inside so vast, I know it is The Source of all of us.
You taught your songs to the birds first, why was that? And you practiced your love in the hearts of animals, before you created humans. I know the planets talk at night and tell secrets about you. A limb just moved before me... The beauty of this world is causing me to weep.
Something has reached out, and taken in the beams of my eyes. There is a longing, it is for his body, for every hair of that dark body. All I was doing was Being, and The Dancing Energy came by my house. His face looks curiously like The Moon — I saw it from the side, smiling. My family says, “don’t ever see him again” — and they imply things in a low voice. But my eyes have their own life; they laugh at rules, and know whose they are. I believe I can bear on my shoulders whatever you want to save me.
Mira says, “Without the energy that lifts mountains, how am I to live?”
Clouds… I watched as they ruptured. Ash black and pallid, I saw mountainous clouds split and spew rain for two hours. Everywhere water — plants and rain water; a riot of green on the earth. My love has gone off to some foreign country. Sopping wet at our doorway, I watch the clouds rupture. Mira says, “Nothing can harm him. This passion has yet to be slaked.”
Dark friend, what can I say? This love I bring from distant lifetimes is ancient. Do not revile it. Seeing your elegant body, I am ravished. Visit our courtyard, hear the women singing old hymns. On the square I have laid out a welcome of teardrops. Body and mind I surrendered ages ago. Taking refuge wherever your feet pass. Mira flees from lifetime to lifetime, your virgin.
Go to that impenetrable realm, that death himself trembles to look upon. There plays The Fountain of Love, with swans sporting on its waters. There the company of holy ones is available, and one may talk of spiritual knowledge. There one can meditate on Shyam, and purify one’s mind. There one may bind on the anklets of good conduct, and dance and dance of inner contentment. There one may adopt a headpiece of gold, and the sixteen kinds of adornment. Let there be love for Shyam, and indifference to all else.
I am mad with love, and no one understands my plight. Only the wounded understand the agonies of the wounded, when the fire rages in the heart. Only the jeweler knows the value of the jewel, not the one who lets it go. In pain, I wander from door to door, but could not find a doctor. Says Mira, “Hearken, my master! Mira’s pain will subside when Shyam comes as the doctor.”
I am pale with longing for my beloved. People believe I am ill. Seizing on every possible pretext, I try to meet him by accident. They have sent for a country doctor. He grabs my arm and prods it. How can he diagnose my pain? It is in my heart that I am afflicted. Go home, country doctor. Don’t address me by my name. It’s the Name of God that has wounded me. Don’t force your medicines on me. The sweetness of his lips is a pot of nectar. That’s the only curd for which I crave. Mira’s Lord is Giridha- Nagar. He will feed me nectar again and again.
I am true to my Lord. Oh my companions, there is nothing to be ashamed of now, since I have been seen dancing openly. In the day I have no hunger. In the night I am restless and cannot sleep. Leaving these troubles behind, I go to the other side. A hidden knowledge has taken hold of me. My relations surround me like bees, but Mira is the servant of her beloved Giridhar — and she cares nothing that people mock her.
We do not get a human life just for the asking. Birth in a human body is a reward for good deeds in former births. Life waxes and wanes imperceptibly. It does not stay long. The leaf that has once fallen does not return to the branch. Behold the ocean of transmigration, with its swift, irresistable tide! Oh Lord Giridhara, oh pilot of my soul, swiftly conduct my passage to the further shore. Mira is the slave of Lord Giridhara. She says, “Life lasts but a few days only…”
I remember how my mother would hold me. I would look up at her sometimes and see her weep. I understand now what was happening. Love, so strong a force, it broke the cage. And she disappeared from everything for a blessed moment…
All actions have evolved from the taste of flight. The hope of freedom moves our cells and limbs. Unable to live on the earth, Mira ventured out alone on the sky. I write of that journey, of becoming as free as God. Don’t forget Love. It will bring all the madness you need to unfurl yourself across the universe.
Oh 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 towards the hunter’s call. In the partridge, as she 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 Lord. She says, “The single lotus will swallow you whole.”