A book of paintings by Niranjan accompanied with poems
Painting
THEME/S
I ride the wild winds and enjoy
Flying over the green hills and dales,
I rise like a rocket in the sky,
Then dive into perilous seas for fun.
All earth is my home, all people my own.
In a flash I am where my hands are needed.
I obey the command of my Sovereign, Mother Divine.
I am Her faithful, fearless soldier on duty.
Her Light gives a shine to my thoughts and emotions.
Her Force makes me do what my soul most desires.
Her Love gives me all I need in life and more.
By Her Grace, a tiny spark becomes a giant Star.
86 - 87
A musician, self-taught, who never went to a school of music,
Once upon a time, found himself in a community of gentle folks.
But nobody liked his violin music, too erratic for their cultured ears.
One day from nowhere appeared a dancer who found his music exalting.
To the amazement of the musician, she decided to stay and dance to his music.
By some twist of an unpredictable Fate, they had to leave their cherished land,
And go to a foreign country among complete strangers who spoke another tongue.
To forget their whirlwind change, he played music and she danced.
Music brought peace in their soul, erased the past, revealed a world of harmony.
People of the region were kind to them; they loved their music and dance.
Some parents wanted them to teach their children how to sing and dance.
Attracted by their unusual music, many villagers came to their home.
Depressed people who had nothing to hold on to life, beyond cure,
Slowly forgot their cruel agony, discovered within a hidden joy.
The Musician was grateful now with understanding to the Blissful Mother,
Who was the Sovereign Queen of his life, always present in his inmost soul.
One night while playing his violin, She spoke to him in a whisper.
I love to dance to your music, play for Me, in fact, I am your music.
I am in the heart of all living beings, I am everywhere in the universe.
I am the indivisible Whole, the One eternal,
Yet infinitely multiple, living in
Incalculable forms hidden
Or exposed according
To My fancy.
88 - 89
Waking from sleep,
Rushing of feet for birth, return to Earth,
Ever recurring joy of being.
One should not hurry but wait his turn.
All must go and no one remain for too long;
Like the waves of the Ocean that rise
And surprise one another for a moment
Then disappear to rise again under a new name.
The grains of sand pulsate like the Nova
Or the heart of Compassion animated by the same Force,
Too common, too little known.
Why tears and weeping?
Where is death or parting?
Admire the tireless effort of a Power
Reaching out to Immortality from the tiny rings of plasma
Through bodies with secret doors
More and more open to a subtler light.
The changing colors, mobile bosom of the sea,
Ever the same, never the same, always young,
Mirror of the eternal becoming,
Seven bands and million shades,
Momentary oblivion and blissful change,
Life forges forward through death.
90 - 91
My soul, a white candle bums steadily day and night
In adoration on the altar where the Mother Divine
Is seated on a divan absorbed in timeless meditation.
The granite vault, the shrine built in the heart of Silence
Is safe from the assault of the wind and the waves.
Even the benign gods and angels who are ever awake
To respond to the call of distress from the agonized humanity,
Have no access to this crypt where cease the wheels of creation.
Titans and giants with their mad upheavals of violent passion,
Gracious little fairies bearing the tidings of the dear ones,
Shining gilded ideals running after chimeric eldorados,
Cannot penetrate that basalt peace of the blissful intimacy.
The walls of the Shrine no longer stand, dissolved in the wideness,
The Titans and the Gods and the fairies and the thousand woeful faces
Have disappeared into a mighty Single nameless Vibration.
The most powerful Presence of the indefinable One
Pervading all space, filling out all Time - indivisibly,
The most beloved Being, the body of the ever-veiled Mystery,
The compassionate Mother restores sight to my born-blind soul.
My soul, a white candle bums on the altar without walls,
Unafraid, needing no protection from the wind and the waves,
For all is changed. There is only the Great Mother, the Divine Soul,
Immeasurable pulsation of Love filling the earth and the sky.
92 - 93
O fortunate Pilgrim, voyager on the sacred highway,
You are welcome to the Temple dedicated to the Mother Divine.
Offer your fatigue and anxiety, your suffering, your sadness,
Your solitude, your struggles and torments and long lonely nights
On the altar of the Mother Divine, of the Eternal.
These are the most precious gifts that you can bring
To this Temple of Truth.
Other gifts are truly of no avail because the Earth
Remains as it is and the Heaven remains a promise, not a fulfillment.
O Pilgrim, 0 Soul on the great highway,
You are truly welcome in this Temple of Truth.
Rest awhile, commune with the Divine,
Lay before the Lord your precious gifts
Or remain for life in peace with the Blessings of the Mother Divine.
All will be well with you.
May the Light of Heaven, may the Peace of the Eternal,
May the Beauty and Harmony and Love and Joy of the Infinite Being,
May the closeness and security
In the embrace of the Mother Divine be with you.
94 - 95
A Divine Ecstasy bums the stars in their ceaseless hurrying.
She flows in the sap of the flowering grapevines radiant in expectancy
And spurts out moaning from the gashes of an old giant mango tree.
She marks the beat in a hymn sung by the white-robed children aspiring,
Weeps in the helpless hind and devours exultingly before the victim is cold.
She joins the power-drunk lords in their sessions of garish revelry
And is trodden underfoot in a faded lotus offered with devotion to gods.
Silent, immanent, She creates Her gamut of gay and sombre hues ever new.
She is the ferment in a revolution, the vision of the architects and sculptors
Who carve out rock temples over generations, shape the future in stone structures.
The majesty of Her gait can be seen behind the bier of a proud queen.
Undercurrent of all laughter and tears, nourishment of dreams and nightmares,
Holding Her head high in a coquette pose, keeping everyone suspended in hope,
She ruins the harmony of wedded souls by slipping away through a loophole.
Haunting the deserts with the eerie disembodied glories of the past,
She mows down with nonchalance the strong cheerful stalks in their prime.
Scattering to the four winds the gains of millenniums treasured by ages,
She makes the forest flow with a sudden outburst of flamboyant rapture.
Immobile on the face of a sage unconscious in Her embrace,
She gambols among the golden curls of a little girl out in the fields.
Dancing with the foaming angry waves threatening the ship of Fate,
With a mad abandon She rushes into the welcome wide-open jaws of Death.
Without Thy sustaining Presence incognito, life could not prevail over Pain
Nor man be admitted to the secret councils where Thou presidest unveiled.
96 - 97
Was it an accident or a predestined meeting?
Someone magnificent, inconceivably pure and good,
An inner Splendor, a huge outburst of radiant Power,
Granite walls shattered by the onslaught of Light.
Mountains of filth and gloom heaped through ages
Washed away swiftly by the torrential rains of Grace.
Someone wonderful, unforgettable replaced all other idols.
A haunting Face, those uncommon diamond eyes,
Illumined the heavenward ascending track sharp as a razor.
An intolerable unfathomable sweet mystic Presence
Filled up all existence, past, present and distant future
With a blissful reposing fragrance of an undying flame.
Someone who came for a brief spell to walk on our soil
Has never left -- for Her, there is no coming or going.
There is none here or anywhere ever but the Supreme Shakti.
Mother Divine, accept our surrender unequivocal, total,
Uncompromising, full of love, devotion and trust unwavering,
May our whole being become an open unobstructive channel
For the action of Thy luminous all-realizing Divine Will.
Om Sri Aurobindo saranam mama
Om janani Meera, janani madhura saranam mama.
98 - 99
O Friend, intimate as Thou art, my constant companion,
I can neither give Thee a name nor paint Thy outline
Nor confine Thee in any manifestation.
Ages I have spent looking for Thee, a drop of water in the midst of Ocean,
While Thou wert all around, encircling me with Thy Love,
Pressing me from above, upholding me from below,
And forcing Thy way from within outwards,
Like the joy of a blossoming rosebud, which cannot be contained anymore.
O Spirit eternal, a million universes rise and dance and disappear
Without affecting the solitary Majesty of Thy timeless splendor.
100
Ideal beauty, love and loyalty, perfumes and jewelry
Displayed in the shop windows on the beach of time
Vanish like low-lying mud islands swept away by Thy tidal grandeur.
Thy existence is more real and concrete to my perception than my own being,
Than the woman I kiss or the child I hold in my arms.
The basalt and the granite appear thinner than the morning mist
In the massive all-pervading presence of Thy Reality.
These names and images shine for a moment on the firmament of Thy transcendence,
A cavalcade of ritual symbol-figures of Thy bodiless limitless wonder.
Who can tell me where the dream stops and the waking begins?
Who can separate the true from the false?
Heartbeat of my heartbeat, life of my life, body of my body,
Yet a greater stranger than Thee, I shall never meet.
Each time I try to pull Thee in, 0 Denizen of the deep, Thou remainest as ever unseen,
Tantalizing, beckoning the soul to an irresistible danger, pursuit and delight.
101
Each new probe, each new dive into the hidden reaches of the Infinite brings
Surprise conquest, a death and rebirth into a greater Adventure.
We proceed from one aim to a greater apocalypse,
From faint to a deeper hue, from a poor joy to a fuller bliss in an endless ascending series.
Constantly we wake up in a new dawn, a new revelation,
Only to find that the glorious Godhead of the day before
Was but the travesty of the imperishable, Invisible Sun.
There is always an unexplored panorama beyond the last transformation.
The highest Summit conquered reveals a yet undiscovered peak.
Thou hast revealed to my soul Thy seamless conscious immensities,
Dizzy heights packed with condensed Light, depths which refuse to give up their wealth,
Dangerous rushing seas where the being unaware slips into an abyss of ecstasy.
The visible and the subtle have become One in a Super-Mystery
Which none shall penetrate. Where is the Hell painted by the poets
And the dungeon shut out from Light and Compassion?
There are no walls, no closed cells, no fortress of hatred and violence,
Nothing that can offer resistance to the constant shower of Thy Grace.
The ugly and the sordid have miraculously left the stage.
I have surprised the Hunchback of Notre Dame behind the curtain.
The marvelous Guest in each being cleaves forward through time and fate.
He will arrive at the banquet when the hour shines.
102 - 103
O Great Spirit, you have lifted the curse of the Evil Fate
Over my soul. My heart kneels down before You in gratitude.
Inside, outside, above and below,
In the East, in the West wherever I look, O Great Spirit,
I meet Your reassuring Eyes as real as my sister's,
Far more substantial than any rock-temple, the moon in the sky.
Peace has flowed into my body, life, mind and soul.
In all contacts, O Great Spirit, I feel Your gentle hands,
Everywhere I find my family, my clan, my own people,
The same familiar Person made up differently for the play.
There is no more need of a distant heaven or extinction,
A handful of common sand withholds in it unborn divinities.
O Great Spirit, my life is now an unbroken song of Glory.
Pulsating somewhere in the immeasurable Spirit-Space
Mystery beyond all existence, You are the resplendent Reality.
My heart kneels down before You in loving adoration.
All faces are Your reflections, countless rays of the Original Sun.
All sounds weave the universal symphony of delight
Under the ever shifting wizard fingers of the lone Organist.
You live in all forms, in all dimensions from Matter to the Absolute,
In all movements, changes, dissolution and transformation,
You are the Truth, the Stable, the Permanent, the Immortal One,
The constant Friend and Companion in life and death through Eternity.
104 - 105
I am the mystic golden cord of Divine Love and Ananda,
Uniting all creation in My embrace, holding all in My Ocean.
Become aware of Me alone, filling endless time, occupying empty space.
This apparent world with its fog, wind, rain and warm sunshine,
Its earthquakes, revolutions, volcanoes, typhoons and huge tidal waves,
Its ceaseless sombre dramas, moments of brittle glory, fugitive beauty,
Are only shifting colors of My fancy, constantly changing decor for My dance.
Those who truly love Me, serve Me will see through the veil My smiling Face.
I am always in you as you are in Me, there is none but Myself anywhere.
Play your music, let it flow through the golden cord of Love and Felicity
To million hearts in agony, men, women, children, victims of hunger and violence.
I will dance to your music with a garland of rose-petals on My breast,
Whirl around the world on invisible waves of Light across all borders,
Wake up gloomy souls from their obscure sleep, bring to all My snow white Peace,
Pour cascades of My radiant Joy on souls yearning for a lasting harmony.
I am the violin, the violinist, the music, I am the dancer and the dance.
I am the infallible Light, the most reliable Guide, I know the Highway.
Be My musician, play to the weary pilgrims healing harmonies of My Blessings.
106 - 107
Many are touched by Thy prophetic Vision,
Many are inspired by Thy passion for the Reality.
Blessed are they who worship Thee
As the Master, Friend and Guide,
Twice blessed the few who perceive
The Lord Incarnate in Thee.
But to me Thou art the timeless
Sadhak of the Eternal Shakti.
Her delight, the spontaneous law of Thy being,
Thy ceaseless self-creation is a flower offering at Her feet.
The summit of Thy patient slow tireless ascent is She.
Thou art one with Her like the crimson
Aspiration with the early morning.
Her child, companion and king, ever seated rapt at Her altar,
Thou livest to fulfill the opalescent winging of Her reveries.
May we become even as Thou art,
Timeless sadhaks of the Eternal Shakti.
108
O Spirit eternal, a million universes rise and dance and disappear without affecting
The solitary Majesty of Thy timeless splendor. Ideal beauty, love and loyalty,
Perfumes and jewelry displayed in the shop windows on the beach of time
109
O Pilgrim soul, carrying the blazing Fire as your sustenance on the Highway,
Accept all as companions, hate none, despise not the blind and the violent.
Do not condemn anyone nor turn away from the vilest demon and the beast.
Discover the wide universal Self forever containing all creation.
Deepen your look, what you find outside resides equally in you.
No one was there yesterday and no one can stay for too long in this game.
Every moment the familiar universe plunges into nothingness,
Revealing in its trail a new facade constantly renovated.
What is this comedy? Who is the author of this enigmatic drama?
Old worlds fade away, old songs and laughter, old battle cries,
Tales of love and horror, scenes of beauty and terror, man and demon,
Half-burnt corpses, flower-garlands and jubilant boats float down the Ganges
Bitter, sweet, terrifying, devilish, fragrant nostalgic dreams.
Who are these evanescent players, animated clay models
Breathing a mighty passionate indestructible Fire?
Pale, fragile, living on the brink of utter disaster each moment,
Yet a fountainhead, messenger of some tantalizing Felicity,
A supremely blissful divine eternity where death is absent,
The invincible spirit of man reaches out frantically for an Immortal Sun.
The ever-changing flow of birth and sunrise and the inevitable decline and oblivion,
Could this be the ecstatic spiral dance, shifting images and rhythms
Of a supreme, immeasurable, mysterious, all-surpassing Goddess of Beauty?
Each pebble and grain, flower and insect, bird or animal, all mouths and eyes,
Are only so many million keyholes, windows and doors opening into the Real.
Each face and form is a cryptic symbol-image of a sublime eternal Being.
The masked Actor comes and leaves the stage when his part is done, ad infinitum.
The eternal blissful Self lives on through unending cycles of Exit and Dawn.
110 - 111
White dreams, blue dreams, my golden dreams ...
I see a magic city rise amidst barren cliffs, cathedrals replace the hills,
Children blossom in fields, perennial rivers flow through the hungry desert lips,
Little springs push aside giant boulders of granite.
I see priceless diamonds mingled
With broken glass and odd bits,
In possession of amateur thieves and treasure hunters.
As in a pantomime I see a pauper walk by in tatters and a heavenly escort
Carrying the royal robe and his scepter.
Behind your agonized face tortured with fury
I see the joy and thrill of an accidental encounter.
The swift point of your bayonet going deep into my heart
Is but love's tremendous search for a kindred sentiment.
Faded buds discarded on muddy roadsides
Gather on Beauty's brow as a laurel of evergreen life.
Funny masks, those faces that barely hide the actors,
Still funnier the roles played by those comedians.
To go ahead, they march backwards, to acquire love,
They turn away from the Beloved, to see and feel the joy of Oneness,
They walk blindfold and cut up their souls into unrecognizable twisted segments.
Adieu, black dreams, adieu sad and sombre dreams, come blue dreams,
White dreams, come happy golden dreams.
Inheritors of Bliss, we can toy with pain and death, born out of Love,
We must savor its poignant shades assured of our single Origin,
We sever the roots from the Tree.
112
The real becomes an illusion with each new awakening,
Each grain of sand in a galaxy contains another star city.
The night conceals in her robes an ever-new unborn sun.
Each waking is a deeper dream,
A blue dream, a white dream and a golden dream.
113
OM Anandamayi, Chaitanyamayi, Satyamayi, Parame'
OM Mother of Delight, Mother of Consciousness,
Mother of Truth, O Supreme
Jayastute' namastute'
Victory to Thee, Salutations to Thee
Sarvam Khalhidam, Brahman:
All is verily divine; the Divine is truly all;
Rises a rich-textured chorus of adoration from a dedicated crowd of pilgrim souls.
114
In the solemn night streaked with beams of Light
A hundred lovely bodies full of grace and strong
Dance across the field of an incredulous vision,
Like a stream of ecstasy undulating through pillars of sapphire,
And carved statues of godheads frozen in bronze and granite.
Buddham saranam gatcchami, Dammam saranam gatcchami
Take refuge in Buddha; take refuge in the Word of the Lord,
Echo and reecho the distant hills in meditation,
Disciples of the desireless, ego less, equal souled compassion.
Vedic mantras float and reverberate in the sacred air.
Satyam, Ritam, Yyotih, Brihat
The Truth, the Law, the Light, the Infinity
Are now sovereign Lords. The Long night is at last over,
The Sun of Truth illumines and guides our steps.
Praying hands and bodies burning with aspiration offer sacrifice in the mounting Fire.
Words old and new in many tongues and voices mingle in a glorious riot of tone colors.
Bodies radiate in rhythmic movements the vast organ swell of an unalloyed delight,
A scattered rainbow broken into a hundred scintillating shifting fragments.
Woodwinds, drums and trumpets, harp, cymbals and bells,
Passionate violins, grave cellos and mixed choir of chanting voices,
Urge the impetuous dancers to dare the impossible,
To renounce the animal and discover our identity with God and Soul.
Bodies caught in a whirlpool of celestial rapture,
Sway and swing, run and rush, turn and swirl, solo or in groups
Amidst a sweeping gale of maddening high-paced music, tearing us away with an
Irresistible might from the ancient moorings of our unbearable night and agony.
115
Bismilla, Bismilla, Allah O Akbar, RaRamatullah
In the name of God, in the name of God, O God the Great, 0 God the Merciful.
The hero worshippers dance and slash and hew a straight path
Through the demon hordes which deny the Will of the One.
Ave Maria sends the soul soaring to the embrace of the Mother Divine.
Bodies possessed by the divinities of beauty and harmony and the Soma wine
Dance intoxicated as in a trance and oblige the psychic buds to blossom by their charm.
The soul repeats the mantra; May I be Thy slave, May I be Thy slave:
Yogis and saints, sculptors, poets, musicians and painters
Followers of the Truth, lovers of the Supreme and His Avatars,
Bring their bountiful generous gift of melodies interwoven and
Harmonies piled higher and higher to the skies,
And drive the dancers in the effort to seize and
To embody a transmutative ray of the never setting Sun of Truth.
The audience surrenders in joy to the magic of the ceremony,
The soul-filling panorama of sound, form, color and light.
A grandiose pyramidal aspiration rises and rises to the Heavens,
To the immaculate crystal throne, where the Mother receives the prayers
Offered by the reverent assembly of souls.
Benediction, love and light, Benediction, Benediction.
The fortunate multitude, aspiring pilgrim souls in deep concord
Converging on Her from all dim corners of the Earth,
Seated in silence and wonder under the starlit open sky
On terraced tiers upon tiers carved in the mountain side,
Watch the glorious dionysiac dance ritual of gratitude,
Hypnotized by Her tangible delight and the sweetness of Her Presence,
Celebrate the Festival of the birth of the Eternal Light.
116
Showers of blessings, showers of love, showers of peace, sprinkle the air, purify
The Earth and Soul. Fountains of aspiration, fountains of heavenly dreams
Shoot upwards a myriad sparks in the boundless space of the hushed soul.
Thy Will be done, Thy Will be done, Thy Will be done,
Whispers the ravished Earth faint and vibrating under the exquisite touch of footsteps
Compelled by a felicitous rhythm. A powerful interchange of currents between
Matter and Spirit forces open the sealed passages for a dynamic transformation.
Ekaibaham jagattatra, Kadrvitia mama para.
I alone am in this universe; who else is there apart from me?
The triumphant proclamation of the Mother Divine assures the suppliant soul.
Sri Aurobindo Saranam mama
Sri Aurobindo is my refuge.
Om Anandamayi, Chaitanyamayi, Satyamayi, Parame'
Jayastute,' namastute.'
117
Bring me the opal cups of the bloom of Morning Glory,
Fill them with the wine brewed from the Divine Ecstasy,
I have been named a delegate to the Festival of Light.
Bring me the crown of fire,
Sprinkle silvery dust of the stars in my hair,
The spring tide has verily flooded my soul.
Bring me a psyche-rose, love-fed source of perennial delight,
Make up my lips with the yearning of the pomegranate seeds,
Glad hymns of a realized dream haunt my ears.
Bring me the sandals that tread the path of the tenderest love,
And the mystic flag, blue and gold of undying hope;
Summon the crescent-moon to take me to the Carnival.
118 - 119
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