Water in Hidden Springs

white-swan-dreams-take-flight-tinted-kelli-swanThe lovers of Brahman ask:

What is the source of this universe? What is Brahman? From where do we come? By what power do we live? Where do we find rest? Who rules over our joys and sorrows, O seers of Brahman?

Shall we think of time, or of the own nature of things, or of a law of necessity, or of chance, or of the elements, or of the power of creation of woman or man? Not a union of these, for above them is a soul who thinks. But our soul is under the power of pleasure and pain!

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They also saw the river of life impetuously rushing with the five streams of sense-feelings which come from five sources, the five elements. Its waves are moved by five breathing winds, and its origin is a fivefold fountain of consciousness. This river has five whirlpools, and the violent waves of five sorrows. It has five stages of pain and five dangerous windings and turnings.

In this vast Wheel of creation wherein all things live and die, wanders round the human soul like a swan in a restless flying, and she thinks that God is afar. But when the love of God comes down upon her, then she finds her own immortal life.

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God is found in the soul when sought with truth and self-sacrifice, as fire is found in wood, water in hidden springs, cream in milk, and the oil in the oil-fruit.

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Where the fire of the Spirit burns, where the wind of the Spirit blows, where the Soma-wine of the Spirit overflows, there a new soul is born.

Svetasvatara Upanishad

Taralika, where is she?’

The firmament was now flooded with moonlight, as if the moon’s orb, which had not yet risen far, was, like the waterpipe of the temple of the universe, discharging a thousand streams of the heavenly Ganges, pouring forth the waves of an ambrosial ocean, shedding many a cascade of sandal-juice, and bearing floods of nectar; the world seemed to learn what life was in the White Continent, and the pleasures of seeing the land of Soma;

the round earth was being poured out from the deptbs of a Milky Ocean by the moon, which was like the rounded tusk of the Great jioar; the moonrise offerings were being presented in every house by the women with sandal-water fragrant with open lotuses; the highways were crowded with thousands of women-messengers sent by fair ladies; girls going to meet their lovers ran hither and thither, veiled in blue silk and fluttered by the dread of the bright moonlight as if they were the nymphs of the white day lotus groves concealed in the splendours of the blue lotuses;

the sky became an alluvial island in the river of night, with its centre whitened by tlie thick pollen of the groves of open night lotuses ; while the night lotus-beds in the house-tanks were waking, encircled by bees which clung to every blossom; the world of mortals was, like the ocean, unable to contain the joy of moonrise, and seemed made of love, of festivity, of mirth, and of tenderness : evening was pleasant with the murmur of peacocks garrulous in gladness at the cascade that fell from the waterpipes of moonstone.

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Destiny is strong. We cannot even draw a breath at our own will. The freaks of that accursed and most harsh destiny are exceeding cruel. A love fair in its sincerity is not allowed long to endure; for joys are wont to be in their essence frail and unlasting, while sorrows by their nature are long-lived. For how hardly are mortals united in one life, while in a thousand lives they are separated. Thou canst not surely then blame thyself, all undeserving of blame. For these things often happen to those who enter the tangled path of Harivaipia, and it is the brave who conquer misfortune

“This evil Love,’ thought he, “has a power hard alike to cure and to endure. For even great men, when overcome by him, regard not the course of time, but suddenly lose all courage and surrender life. Yet all hail to Love, whose rule is honoured throughout the three worlds!’ And again he asked her: “She that was thy handmaiden, thy friend in the resolve to dwell in the woods, and the sharer of the ascetic vow taken in thy sorrow — Taralika, where is she?’

Kadambari, Bana