Day by Day with Bhagavan 5-6-45 Afternoon

[Guest guest]

Myself, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, G.V. Subbaramayya and T.P.

Ramachandra Aiyar were sitting in the front row just opposite Bhagavan

in the hall and G.V.S said to H.C. "I recently came across a typed

copy of some of your verses made at Aurobindo Ashram, with Sri

Aurobindo's notes on the margin highly commending some verses".

Thereupon H.C. told Bhagavan, "I stayed at Aurobindo's Ashram

for two years and I then made about 4000 sonnets and a poem of 50,000

lines plus other poetry". Apparently the fact that H.C. had been at

Aurobindo's Ashram before for two years was news to Bhagavan, though

it was not to some of us. This is the third visit to H.C. to Bhagavan.

H.C. then gave us a recitation of two of his earliest poems and one out

of those made at Pondicherry. They are given below. Bhagavan enjoyed the

recitation.

 

 

 

THE EARTHEN GOBLET

 

(A conversation between the poet and the goblet)

 

 

 

 

 

"O silent goblet! red from head to heel,

How did you feel

When you were being twirled

Upon the Potter's wheel

Before the Potter gave you the world?"

 

 

I felt a conscious impulse in my clay

To break away

>From the great Potter's hand

That burned so warm.

I felt a vast

Feeling of sorrow to be cast

Into my present form.

 

 

Before that fatal hour

That saw me captive on the Potter's wheel

And cast into this crimson goblet-sleep,

I used to feel

The fragrant friendship of a little flower

Whose root was in my bosom buried deep.

The potter has drawn out the living breath of me,

And given me a form which is the death of me;

My past unshapely natural state was best,

With just one flower flaming through my breast.

[Guest guest]

PITCHERS

OF CLAY

 

Outside the Potter's shop upon the way

In patient rows we stand, pitchers of clay-

Under a copper-clouded sky of gold

Expecting every moment to be sold.

 

Although we have no language, yet we feel

A bitterness towards the Potter's wheel

Which moulded us, what though without a flaw,

To shap, which is against our being's law.

 

Pitchers are beautiful and yet, indeed,

Even from beauty we would all be freed

And, slipping into Earth, secure escape

>From the enchanted tyranny of shape.

 

Some of us pitchers, tired of being, drop

And break to pieces in the Potter's shop.

Pathetic things! What does the Potter care

For the pale weariness of Earthenware?

[Guest guest]

SHAPER

SHAPED

 

 

In days gone by I used to be

A potter who would feel

His fingers mould the yielding clay

To patterns on his wheel :

But now, through wisdom lately won,

That pride has died away.

I have ceased to be the potter

..And have learned to be the clay.

 

In other days I used to be

A poet through whose pen

Innumerable songs would come

To win the hearts of men ;

But now, through new-got knowledge

Which I hadn't had so long,

I have ceased to be the poet

And have learned to be the song.

 

I was a fashioner of swords,

In days that now are gone,

Which on a hundred battle-fields

Glittered and gleamed and shone ;

But now that I am brimming with

The silence of the Lord

I have ceased to be a sword-maker

And learned to be the sword.

 

In by-gone days I used to be

A dreamer who would hurl

On every side an insolence

Of emerald and pearl.

But now that I am kneeling

At the feet of the Supreme

I have ceased to be the dreamer

And have learned to be the dream.

[Guest guest]

My dearest Friend,

Humility sans an iota of ego is the sign of maturity in spirituality. Mails that you sent fortify and buttress our efforts to become polite and humble.

Ramanarpanam.

ganesh ramachandran

 

champbarn <champbarn (AT) (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

SHAPER SHAPED

 

 

In days gone by I used to be

A potter who would feel

His fingers mould the yielding clay

To patterns on his wheel :

But now, through wisdom lately won,

That pride has died away.

I have ceased to be the potter

..And have learned to be the clay.

 

In other days I used to be

A poet through whose pen

Innumerable songs would come

To win the hearts of men ;

But now, through new-got knowledge

Which I hadn't had so long,

I have ceased to be the poet

And have learned to be the song.

 

I was a fashioner of swords,

In days that now are gone,

Which on a hundred battle-fields

Glittered and gleamed and shone ;

But now that I am brimming with

The silence of the Lord

I have ceased to be a sword-maker

And learned to be the sword.

 

In by-gone days I used to be

A dreamer who would hurl

On every side an insolence

Of emerald and pearl.

But now that I am kneeling

At the feet of the Supreme

I have ceased to be the dreamer

And have learned to be the dream.

 

 

 

 

 

How low will we go? Check out Messenger’s low PC-to-Phone call rates.

[Guest guest]

After this I asked H.C. to recite before Bhagavan (or rather act as

on the stage) a piece from a play of his in which a dock-labourer

groaning under his work bursts out into a complaint. H.C. did so and all

saw how moving a good recitation can be. After a while H.C. asked

Bhagavan, "How is it, Bhagavan, we sometimes feel choked with tears

in Bhagavan's presence?" Bhagavan smiled and kept quit. I said,

"It is a good thing if one's tears gush forth like that and even

Bhagavan it is recorded that when he used to go and stand before the

image in the temple at Madura, before he came here, teas used to flow

involuntarily out of his eyes, not as the result of any joy or pain, but

purely out of bhakti." Bhagavan was thereupon kind enough to add,

"Even after coming here such thing has happened. Even on reading or

hearing touching passages from books such thing has happened. Apparently

a stock of emotional tears in latent in so many of us, so that at any

opportune moment or on the slightest provocation they well out without

any control on our part," Then Bhagavan narrated, very dramatically

as is usual with him, an incident which occurred when he was about 22

and living in the Virupakshi cave. It seems he was sitting on a rock

near the cave and a boy of about 8 or 10 years came there, looked at

Bhagavan and, not being able to bear the sight of such a young and

bright person taking to such a hard life of penance, was so moved to

compassion that he started to sob and sobbed violently for some time.

Bhagavan said, "Who could you say what was the reason for his

sobbing and why tears flowed out of him merely at his seeing me?"

Bhagavan continued a reminiscent mood later in the day and added that

another boy, also 8 or 10 years old, met Bhagavan another day in his

Virupakshi cave days and took such pity on Bhagavan that the following

conversation took place between them. Bhagavan was sitting on a rock

near cave, all alone, and the boy came and met him there.

 

 

 

 

Continued…..

[Guest guest]

Boy: "Why are you here, all alone, like this?"

 

Bhagavan: "I had some trouble at home and so have come away like

this."

 

Boy: "Then how about your food?"

 

Bhagavan: "I eat if anybody gives me anything to eat."

 

Boy: "I have a good master. I shall take you to him. First, you may

have to volunteer your services free. If he approves of your work, he

will give you three pies a day and gradually he will increase it to six

pies, and so on."

 

Bhagavan: "Yes, please do so."

 

Bhagavan added, "There was no doubt that boy was very much

concerned over what he considered my sad plight and that he was moved by

great and genuine pity."

 

Bhagavan also recalled the incident in which an old Harijian

woman, one day about noon time, accosted Bhagavan on one of his rambles

on the rough jungle path down the hill and remarked. "vunnai

Paadaiyilae vaikka! Vora idattilae sivanaeyanru irukkakkudaataa?"

("A curse on you! Why can't you stay quit in a place?")

 

Bhagavan said, "Yes, this is very good advice," and

also slapped his own cheeks, as if in punishment for not having known

what the woman taught then.

 

Relating the above incident, Bhagavan said that, when first the

old woman began abusing him he could not understand how he deserved it

and was dumbfounded as to what offence he could have given to the woman.

 

This made Mr.T.S. Rajagopal recall an article by one Miss

Souris in a Telugu journal called Bharati. For the benefit of

Harindaranath Chattopadhyaya and some others who where new to it,

Bhagavan again related the incident to the merriment of all of us.

 

Bhagavan said: One day the Mauni brought the tapals (post) as

usual. I left the papers and magazines on the couch and was looking at

the letters. After showing the tapals to me. Maui left the hall and took

the Bharati number with him, saying he would read it and bring it back.

After a little time he came back, left the magazine on my couch and was

going out. While near the door, he suddenly said, "What a thief is

Bhagavan!" and before I could ask why he said so, he had gone. I was

wondering what I could have done to have made the Mauni reproach me like

that. It sort of rankled in my mind. And only after I read the article

in the Bharati and came to the very last sentence in it, which was

"On, what a thief is Bhagavan!" I could understand the joke.