Saranagati of Bhaktivinoda Thakur : Rendered into poetry by Krishna Dharma das

[krsna]

SARANAGATI (SELF SURRENDER)

 

By Bhaktivinoda Thakur

 

Rendered into poetry by Krishna Dharma das

 

Invocation

 

Sri Chaitanya and companions,

descending to this dark abode,

moved by merciful compassion,

the path of self surrender showed.

 

Everlasting loving service

unto the mighty Lord of all.

Rarely reached, a boundless bliss,

bestowed on every fallen soul.

 

A path that is the life and heart

of those who truly seek that place,

where none shall ever stand apart

from God's great glory and his grace.

 

Humbleness and dedication,

dependence on the Lord alone,

confident of his protection,

by these he quickly will be known.

 

Acting always agreeably

toward the lord and his command.

Avoiding sin unswervingly,

shall swiftly take us to his land.

 

The ever youthful Nanda's son,

Sri Krishna, peerless potentate,

will always hear the prayers of one.

who does this way appreciate.

 

With straw in teeth the poet falls

before the Thakur and his Lord.

Pray place me on this path he calls,

So I might be to truth restored.

 

Dainya

 

I

 

O Lord, please hear this plea now placed,

from one poor soul so long disgraced,

who long ago forsook your feet,

to meet distress and dire defeat.

 

While still within the womb tight bound,

ever pressed by pain profound,

I had of you a fleeting sight,

And then you left me to my plight.

 

I swore at once to worship you,

throughout my life I would be true.

But birth soon brought bewilderment

and into darkness swift descent.

 

Surrounded by adoring kin,

my memories of grief grew dim.

Within my parents' fond embrace

this world appeared the perfect place.

 

In lark and laughter life sped by,

no thought that I would one day die.

With all my mind and intellect

I studied to secure respect.

 

Proud then of my paltry knowledge

I sought but worldly privilege.

Absorbed in family affairs

my heart was lost in carnal cares.

 

O Lord, I called you not to mind,

No time for worship could I find.

A wasted life, now old and weak,

too late your shelter do I seek.

 

II

 

Eagerly embracing learning,

I filled my mind with mundane lore;

lacking yet the deeper yearning,

to know what life is really for.

 

Ever growing education

appeared to be life's very aim.

With it grew my expectation

for worldly happiness and fame.

 

How futile was this foolish hope,

For this knowledge gave only grief.

Becoming but a binding rope

to atheistic blind belief.

 

Erudition without wisdom,

to know it should serve you alone,

takes us further from your kingdom

and turns the aching heart to stone.

 

Bound in bodily conception,

the shining soul becomes an ass.

Bearing on his back the burden

of his material morass.

 

As one such ass I stand here now,

to seek the shelter of your feet.

I shall illusion disavow

and cast aside my crass conceit.

 

Attacked by age, in agony,

my paltry pleasures fail to please.

As wordly wisdom comes to be

a deleterious disease.

 

You lord are the one true treasure

for which all sane men should aspire.

Now all my learning I abjure,

to have you as my one desire.

 

more follows soon

 

-

 

SAILING HOME

 

Dear Prabhupada each year we come

to hold a candle to your sun,

with paltry praise that tries to reach

glories that exceed all speech.

 

And yet by your unbounded grace

we find a love so long misplaced.

Fledgling feelings, which now we pray,

show gratitude on this great day.

 

Lost in realms of deepest darkness,

adrift on oceans of distress,

blind even to our hapless plight,

our course was set for Death's black night.

 

Led by a vain and vacant heart,

from love and truth we did depart.

Bound for nothing more than pain,

we struck out on the mighty main.

 

Towering waves of misery

beset our boat incessantly.

Clouds of grief on storm force gales

soon tore apart our flimsy sails.

 

And so in helpless agony,

all hopes of great discovery,

were smashed to pieces one by one,

and dreams of conquest all undone.

 

With nothing left but shattered pride,

we cast our eyes from side to side,

in hope that we might somewhere see

a shelter from that raging sea.

 

Then of a sudden did espy

there in the distance clear blue sky,

wherefrom a stately ship did sail,

whose crew to us did loudly hail.

 

Abandon now your battered boat,

they called, as we did barely float.

And freely giving us a room,

they sailed us swiftly from the gloom.

 

And the master of that vessel,

which sails from heaven into hell,

is you dear Prabhupada, our lord,

whom we shall evermore applaud.

 

Commander of a mighty fleet

that sweeps the seas of blind conceit,

to search for souls whose search is done,

to be themselves the worshipped one.

 

With patience and compassion pure,

you every misery endure,

till all lost souls are brought aboard

and carried back to your dear Lord.

 

And so we shall with thanks and praise,

on this and all our lasting days,

engage whatever strength we have

to show the world your boundless love.

 

Thus prostrate at your feet we pray,

guide us on this sacred day,

that we may never lose our place

upon your ship of gentle grace.

 

 

Burden of love

Somewhere on some soaring reach,

in ancient and unmoving trance,

while charged with all the world to teach,

the sage divines each ordinance.

 

 

Unseen by the unseeing eye,

he sits, his silent stillness hides

his heart, which moves to codify

the love and beauty he confides.

 

 

In sacred stanza, deep and pure,

In each, essential truth revealed.

By syllable and sentence sure,

our earthly sentence is repealed.

 

 

Yet sometimes seen in midst of men,

in pastimes on an earthly plane.

Though seemingly in mortal span,

eternity is his domain.

 

 

And seen again in every lord

and master of unending line.

Conveying every timeless word,

translated timely to the time.

 

 

Today we praise his glories here,

in you redounding and replete.

The words and wisdom of the seer

delivered unto us complete.

 

 

Dear Prabhupada, please hear our prayer

we rest forever in your care,

and beg from you the strength to share

the burden of the love you bear.

 

 

 

MAYADEVI

 

Is madness mine that yet she shall seem true?

Who once was all my joy to cast aside.

 

Rising again arrayed in raiment new,

returns for all my passions to divide.

 

As the lover shunned in angry moment,

biding the pained heart to soften, awaits.

 

Such her patience, still stronger her intent

to let but truest on to higher states;

where to regard the chill of her embrace,

and the brilliance that does past her spread.

 

Cursed these eyes that pleasing see her face,

and cursed the heart that will to her be wed.

 

Yet though she holds, so true her lover for me,

that soonest she would see me ever free.

 

 

 

CHARIOTS OF LOVE

 

Dear Lord your smile so freely given,

will gladden ev'ry honest heart;

wherefrom is all longing driven,

but that to see you on your cart.

 

Your glory and your great grandeur,

delights the crowds you float above.

Spectacular display of splendour,

expands the sea of causeless love.

 

Ride out in mighty majesty,

ride out into a dreaming world,

ride out if this your pleasure be,

that all should see your wondrous form.

 

What unimagined beauty passing?

Have all the heavens descended here?

The glories of the gods debasing,

that they with us can but revere.

 

How blessed the line with you long winding.

Their destination your abode.

With every step the knot unbinding,

that held them fast in mortal mode.

 

Bright and blissful your procession;

seen stark against a dismal age.

Delivering divine concession,

with your eternal entourage.

 

Long our lives in languid torpor,

within deep oceans of distress;

ending with this sight of succour,

the restless heart at last finds rest.

 

Lord Jagannath, almighty God!

How sweet is this your mystic form,

appearing from your own abode,

you lead us to our long lost home.

 

 

 

LAMENT TO LORD GAURANGA

 

For all of full five hundred years

Such a silence seems to be

Heard only by the yearning ears

When they but once have heard of thee

 

O beauty on that full moon evening

When unto us you did appear

Where now from eyes as ours concealing

Or blindness born of doubt and fear

 

Wherever was a dance as thine

The music and the majesty

Hidden by the hand of time

Behind a veil of vanity

 

O golden Lord with gracefulness

To decorate our dark abode

Delivered us from deep distress

Was mercy thus before bestowed?

 

Was it really on this day

When love was made most manifest

Or will it upon any day

Which is but with your thought possessed

 

What age will this inaugurate?

The coming of divinity

By you we shall be soon or late

Called to your proximity

 

Till now in spirit's penury

Denied redemption as our wont

Which touched by causeless charity

Changed this day of your descent

 

And the earth still softly weeps

For time that passed and yet must pass

When the vision she still keeps

Is once more in her gentle grasp.

 

ALL POEMS COPYRIGHT KRISHNA DHARMA (K.L.Anderson)

 

Except this one, which is by George Herbert, a favourite of mine.

 

LOVE (III)

by George Herbert

 

 

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lack'd anything.

 

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";

Love said, "You shall be he."

"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,

I cannot look on thee."

Love took my hand and smiling did reply,

"Who made the eyes but I?"

 

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame

Go where it doth deserve."

"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"

"My dear, then I will serve."

"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."

So I did sit and eat.