premakalidasi

[premakalidasi]

My Golden one, I will keep your secrets My Golden one, I am yours to take My Golden one, I will sate your beast My Golden one, I will swallow your violence My Golden one, I am yours to slay.

For I am that Love That holds her head up high Before the Devil himself, Unafraid:

Just do it all Just stab it all Just fuck it all Just drown it all

In the sea of my flesh, My love.

My Golden one, I am ready and waiting My Golden one, I am cut open wide My Golden one, I will drink, imbibe

That which is, in you, the darkest In my body's darkness hide: There, in peace, Come now, my lover, lie.

Come lay it all down for me Come tear your rage into me, Come burn in me, lover, I'm your slave:

Make my womb The tomb of your sorrow My heart Your evil's grave.

--Prema Kalidasi

[premakalidasi]

Part 1: Why am I so punished with this love? To hammer home all the harder The fact that no one, no one Can ever compare? That it is in Your arms That I my safe haven find; That the rest are but boys. The boys put on good shows, But there's only one man, Only one who has true power, True command.

Part 2: Why am I so punished with this love? Why am I given my arms full of the gold of love, Of joy that makes the old feel anew; Only to find that in embracing it, It is all blown to ashes, dust? Why am I punished with thwartings, stoppings, interruptions, imprisonments, cripplings, dispossessions, abandonings?

Empty houses where joy once danced: Now only broken mirrors, Ghosts are left. I look out of the window And the sunlight is kept far away from me; I only have the iron bars of desolation And for my companions broken dreams, The dead.

--Prema Kalidasi

[premakalidasi]

I flow to your feet as tears From one end of this world to another, Through sharp, hard rock and sand Filtered, purified, bright:

And offer unto you this cupful To sate your thirst with,

And this one, To wash your wounds with,

And this one, So that you might Anight Lover, rest in my arms, Abide.

You aren't alone, You aren't forgotten, For you touched this heart And made her glad;

She rose a fledgling bird Towards your sunlight And sang

Until the heavens, With Love, Shone red And Joy rang.

--Prema Kalidasi

[premakalidasi]

Undo your hair just to enjoy the rain; Spread out your arms like it was Heaven bathing you with loving care.

Let it wash the blood off your weapons The sweat of toil and sorrow Let it sluice down your brow.

Let the kohl run, Let the makeup makedown, Paint you into a mad witch, A shamaness with tidings from the otherworlds A strange and exciting story to tell;

The price? One kiss, One open-mouthed kiss Standing, lingering In the warm summer rain.

--Prema Kalidasi

[premakalidasi]

Perhaps the gold That I dreamt was arriving Is this love, Like pollen glittering and wheat shining A warm summer's morning Grass sparkling with dew. You treat me so well, Ma; So tenderly, oh, Venus, oh Lakshmi Ma; My bed is perfumed deep With that honey That flows from between my sex's silks Onto silks that rub A lover's face raw. Sweat and groans And the trails from his fingernails Lashing into my flesh his names; Another, he writes tonight Taking again a form entirely new. It is a new key, he says, To open me wide: To spread out my treasures, "Yes, wide, my darling, wide." Treasures coveted, clutched, adored Throughout the Silk Roads So that the world may at them wonder, may them know. Stop at every caravanserai, Each new country, With its own make of mirror Reflecting you anew anight; A you you never knew Until a lover's hand Took her by the chin And kissed her to life, alight. --Prema Kalidasi

[premakalidasi]

"I remember lecturing in a hall once, back in the early ’70s. Most of my audience at that time was young, and they tended to wear white and smile a lot and wear flowers. I wore my māla and had a long beard. In the front row there was a woman of about seventy, who had on a hat with little fake cherries and strawberries and things like that on it. She was wearing black oxfords and a print dress, and she had a black patent leather bag. I looked at her, and I couldn't figure out what she was doing in the audience. She looked so dissimilar to all the rest. These talks were like a gathering of an explorers' club, where we would come together and just share our experiences. I started to describe some of my experiences, some of which were pretty far out. I looked at her, and she was nodding with understanding. I couldn't believe that she could understand what I was talking about. I was describing experiences that I had using psychedelic chemicals, experiences that involved other planes of consciousness. I’d look over at her, and there she was, nodding away. I began to think maybe she had a problem with her neck and maybe it had nothing whatsoever to do with what I was saying. I kept watching and getting more and more fascinated and getting more and more outrageous, and she kept nodding and nodding. At the end of the lecture, I just kind of smiled at her so intensely that she just had to come up and speak to me. She came up and said, “Thank you so much. That makes perfect sense. That's just the way I understand the universe to be.” And I said, “How do you know? I mean, what have you done in your life that brought you into those kinds of experiences?” She leaned forward very conspiratorially, and she said, “I crochet.” "

--Ram Dass

[premakalidasi]

Today,

You are someone's darshan.

Today,

You are someone's transmission.

Today,

Through you,

Someone touches the Divine.

[premakalidasi]

Durge Smṛtā Harasi bhītim aśeṣajantoḥ svasthaiḥ smṛtā matim atīva śubhāṁ Dadāsi Dāridryaduḥkhabhayahāriṇi kā Tvad Anyā Sarvopakārakaraṇāya Sadārdracittā

4.17 Remembered in distress, You Remove fear from every creature. Remembered by the untroubled, You Confer even greater serenity of mind. Dispeller of poverty, suffering, and fear, Who other than You Is Ever Intent on Benevolence toward all?

--The Devi Mahatmya

[premakalidasi]

Jai Ma.

[premakalidasi]

Krishna Das: All One (Hare Krishna)

[premakalidasi]

And, indeed, he soon discovered what a strange Goddess he had chosen to serve. He became gradually enmeshed in the web of Her all-pervading presence. To the ignorant She is, to be sure, the image of destruction; but he found in Her the benign, all-loving Mother. Her neck is encircled with a garland of heads, and Her waist with a girdle of human arms, and two of Her hands hold weapons of death, and Her eyes dart a glance of fire; but, strangely enough, Ramakrishna felt in Her breath the soothing touch of tender love and saw in Her the Seed of Immortality. She stands on the bosom of Her Consort, Siva; it is because She is the Sakti, the Power, inseparable from the Absolute. She is surrounded by jackals and other unholy creatures, the denizens of the cremation ground. But is not the Ultimate Reality above holiness and unholiness? She appears to be reeling under the spell of wine. But who would create this mad world unless under the influence of a divine drunkenness? She is the highest symbol of all the forces of nature, the synthesis of their antinomies, the Ultimate Divine in the form of woman. She now became to Sri Ramakrishna the only Reality, and the world became an unsubstantial shadow. Into Her worship he poured his soul. Before him She stood as the transparent portal to the shrine of Ineffable Reality.

The worship in the temple intensified Sri Ramakrishna's yearning for a living vision of the Mother of the Universe. He began to spend in meditation the time not actually employed in the temple service; and for this purpose he selected an extremely solitary place. A deep jungle, thick with underbrush and prickly plants, lay to the north of the temples. Used at one time as a burial ground, it was shunned by people even during the day-time for fear of ghosts. There Sri Ramakrishna began to spend the whole night in meditation, returning to his room only in the morning with eyes swollen as though from much weeping. While meditating, he would lay aside his cloth and his brahminical thread. Explaining this strange conduct, he once said to Hriday: "Don't you know that when one thinks of God one should be freed from all ties? From our very birth we have the eight fetters of hatred, shame, lineage, pride of good conduct, fear, secretiveness, caste, and grief. The sacred thread reminds me that I am a brahmin and therefore superior to all. When calling on the Mother one has to set aside all such ideas." Hriday thought his uncle was becoming insane.

As his love for God deepened, he began either to forget or to drop the formalities of worship. Sitting before the image, he would spend hours singing the devotional songs of great devotees of the Mother, such as Kamalakanta and Ramprasad. Those rhapsodical songs, describing the direct vision of God, only intensified Sri Ramakrishna's longing. He felt the pangs of a child separated from its mother. Sometimes, in agony, he would rub his face against the ground and weep so bitterly that people, thinking he had lost his earthly mother, would sympathize with him in his grief. Sometimes, in moments of scepticism, he would cry: "Art Thou true, Mother, or is it all fiction — mere poetry without any reality? If Thou dost exist, why do I not see Thee? Is religion a mere fantasy and art Thou only a figment of man's imagination?" Sometimes he would sit on the prayer carpet for two hours like an inert object. He began to behave in an abnormal manner, most of the time unconscious of the world. He almost gave up food; and sleep left him altogether.

But he did not have to wait very long. He has thus described his first vision of the Mother: "I felt as if my heart were being squeezed like a wet towel. I was overpowered with a great restlessness and a fear that it might not be my lot to realize Her in this life. I could not bear the separation from Her any longer. Life seemed to be not worth living. Suddenly my glance fell on the sword that was kept in the Mother's temple. I determined to put an end to my life. When I jumped up like a madman and seized it, suddenly the blessed Mother revealed Herself. The buildings with their different parts, the temple, and everything else vanished from my sight, leaving no trace whatsoever, and in their stead I saw a limitless, infinite, effulgent Ocean of Consciousness. As far as the eye could see, the shining billows were madly rushing at me from all sides with a terrific noise, to swallow me up! I was panting for breath. I was caught in the rush and collapsed, unconscious. What was happening in the outside world I did not know; but within me there was a steady flow of undiluted bliss, altogether new, and I felt the presence of the Divine Mother." On his lips when he regained consciousness of the world was the word "Mother".

--The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

[premakalidasi]

Goddess Kali (via KALAGNI MAHA RUDRA HANUMAN)

[premakalidasi]

Ramakrishna in Varanasi.

[premakalidasi]

Vishnu Vishvarupa, India, Rajasthan, Jaipur, ca. 1800-20 Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 38.5 x 28cm

[premakalidasi]

My darling spirit paramour,

My Dionysia of sensory excess;

My cascades of rainbow droplets

Sliding between, tipped off my breasts;

In the rich swirls of your joy I weep

As I swim deep, breathless, steep

Surfacing, a fistful of pearls a-clutch lift

Iridescent opals, ablaze

From your blue dark born(e),

To dazzle mortals' eyes

(aghast agasp)

A splendour hitherto unknown.

--Prema Kalidasi

[premakalidasi]

Ramakrishna said: "Those who seek nirvana are selfish and small-minded. They are full of fear. They are like those parcheesi players who are always eager to reach home. An amateur player, once he sends his piece home, doesn't like to bring it out again. Such players are unskilled. But an adept player is never afraid of coming out again, if by doing so he gets the opportunity to capture an opponent. Then he rolls the right number and returns home once more. It seems that whenever he rolls the dice, the right number comes up for him. So do not fear. Play without any fear."

I asked, "Does it actually happen?" The Master replied: "Of course it happens. By Mother's grace everything takes place. Mother likes people to play. Take the game of hide-and-seek. [There is a granny, there is a thief who is blindfolded, and there are children trying to escape being caught by the thief.] The granny likes to have the children run about and make the game go on. She may extend her hand to help a child so he will not be caught by the thief, if she thinks it necessary. Similarly, the Divine Mother is not really pleased with those who seek nirvana, for they want to retire from the game. She wants the game to continue. That is why devotees do not seek nirvana. They say, 'O mind, it is not good to become sugar. I want to eat sugar.'

[…] "The practice of excessive physical mortification and of harming the body in any way stems from tamas [delusion]."

[…] One of the gentlemen said: "Sir, this body is the root of all evils. If it can be destroyed, all troubles will cease." "The raw earthen pots when broken are made into pots again," the Master said, "but the burnt ones, once broken, can never be remade. So if you destroy the body before the attainment of Self-realization, you will have to be reborn and suffer similar consequences." "But, sir," the gentleman objected, "why does one take so much care of his body?" The Master answered: "Those who do the work of moulding, preserve the mould with care till the image is made. When the image is ready, it does not matter whether the mould is kept or rejected. So with this body. One has to realize the Supreme Self. One has to attain Self-knowledge. After that the body may remain or go. Till then the body has to be taken care of." The gentleman was silenced.

--Ramakrishna As We Saw Him