SONNETS INSPIRED BY RAMANA MAHARSHI'S FORTY VERSES

THE INVOCATION

1. EXISTENCE

Without some objective ‘thing’ that really exists,
Can there be worthwhile reflections on existence?
Thought free, the inward Being, the Heart persists;
How can we know its fundamental subsistence?
To conceive it, one must truly BE THAT, at Heart.
Conceive a wise Self Realised Soul in one’s mind,
All notions, about his Sage-like, essential part,
Are futile, unless we’re like he IS, we will find.

Regard a beautiful root-hanging Banyan tree,
Can we know the life of its hidden roots below?
It can’t possibly be conceived by you or me;
Only the tree knows its own state as it grows.
Without oneself, actually, consciously Being,
Can there be knowledge about ‘who is seeing’?


2.SURRENDER

Our greatest ever fear, is the dread, fear of death,
End of the much cherished, experience of life;
At the point of dying, the rattling of the breath,
Prompts us to seek refuge in the Lord! Fear’s rife
And only divine protection can calm the mind.
Heartfelt prayer helps us loose our selves at once,
It’s not the Pure Conscious Self, that dies we find,
But ego-self, struck with fear, that we renounce!

In egocide, our Absolute Self is now regained.
From our True Nature, we’re Immortal and thus free!
Like some larvae, struggling in earth, to be maintained,
May become butterflies, and fly to liberty;
So are we transformed, if at time of death,
We surrender, before we take our final breath.

From The Forty

1

WORLD PAINTING

Knowing, from within, through subtle senses five;
There’s an apparent coloured, sonic, solid world;
No doubt the cause of that, is One Great God, alive!
The canvas, the light, fine work of art unfurled,
The seer and the seen; all are He, the wondrous One.
The supreme artist wields a magic brush of light,
A fiery comet is its hair; ‘neath Moon and Sun

He draws, on the primed canvas, of day and night,
Many fantastic, fabulous, magical forms;
From electrons to galaxies, so lustrously bright,
Excelling in excess, all accepted human norms.
But this myriad macrocosm, second to none,
By His microcosm in our Hearts, we know is One!


2

GOD-WORLD-SOUL

God, world and soul, perennial triple truths,
From which traditional religions, all proceed;
While ego’s false sense of me rules: forsooth,
The three are separate from each other, indeed.
But in the poise of pure Self’s, transcendent state,
This threefold division is maturely outgrown.
So this tiresome, dogmatic, religious debate,
Is no longer helpful for the truth to be known.

“My faith’s infallible absolute truth” says one,
Why all this fuss and interminable bother?”
“No, my creed’s the way to God!” claims another.
So proceed endless arguments beneath the Sun;
It’s ego which carves from the One some trinity,
Real Self, ends this quarrel, extending to infinity.