Letter 14:
On the poem ‘Reality’ by Rabia al-Basri
17/06/07
Everyone, How are you? Here is a translation of a poem by Rabia, who lived in Basra, now in Iraq, in the eighth century.
Reality
1 In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
2 Speech is born out of longing,
3 True description from the real taste.
4 The one who tastes, knows;
5 The one who explains, lies.
6 How can you describe the true form of Something
7 In whose presence you are blotted out?
8 And in whose being you still exist?
9 And who lives as a sign for your journey?
1 Relative love is the movement of two hearts towards each other. When two drops of water reach each other, they become one. Absolute Love is found when the distinction between the first heart and the second disappears. In nirvikalpa samadhi, in which one is aware of being One without a second, there exist no two elements, between which would exist a space; you have become One with your beloved. The brahmajñani, who knows Brahman through having experienced it in nirvikalpa samadhi, experiences love of another level when he returns to Maya as well. He sees the mirage, however, knowing that it is not real.
2 Philosophy and poetry are manifestations of the longing to taste something higher, the highest of which is Pure Love.
3 He who has only intellectual knowledge, without having tasted the sweet, does not describe everything in line with the real taste. Only the realised soul always describes realisation in line with actual realisation. Even if the person who has not tried the sweet does indeed describe everything in line with the real taste, his words are dead. They do not have that quality, the authority, that comes from personal experience. A baby who has not read any description, but has tasted the sweet himself speaks with more authority than someone who has read hundreds of descriptions without having tried it himself. Only the words on realisation by the realised soul are alive, spoken with the authority of personal experience, and more important still, with soul force, which has been revealed in samadhi. Only a sage can make a sage, as only the sage has the power of the Omnipotent revealed in him through having become the Omnipotent by peeling all the layers of the mind off from the soul. True description is not transmitted by words, but by that power which leads you to the same experience. He who transmits that power is called the guru.
4 Who knows the taste of a sweet? He who has tasted it, and no-one else. Who knows what the fruits of realisation are like? He who has tasted them, and no-one else.
5 How is it possible to describe the indescribable without lying? Words describe an object. The subject cannot be described with words without corruption. In nirvikalpa samadhi, there is only the subject. When there is only One, there is nothing with which to compare it. 'Great' only has meaning if there is a 'small,' so if we say that the One is 'great,' we are wrong, as there is no small. It is beyond greatness, and transcends all concepts of the mind. "Words go out to reach it, but return without having reached it," is written in the Upanishad. The secret is revealed in the Silence of nirvikalpa samadhi, when we have removed all the layers of the mind, and it is indescribable.
6 Words only serve to describe the forms of objects. How could they describe the Brahman, which has neither form nor is an object?
7,8 In nirvikalpa samadhi, your self is blotted out completely by your Self. The ego with its fears and limitations disappears, and the Supreme Ego manifests, invincible and eternal. What? Why do you deny your divinity, saying you are the little self? "O, my mind, why do you weep? You are that Brahman," said Dattatreya, a partial manifestation of Vishnu who lived millenia ago. We are so great, but we act so small. Having come down from nirvikalpa samadhi, the jñani sees the Supreme in everyone. "Jiva is Shiva (the individual soul is the Supreme soul)," said Ramakrishna. "Man is God," says Bhagavan. Without any ego, it is not possible to remain in the body. Those who have not realised Brahman have unripe ego, which is egoistic. This ego says, "I am doing this, these are my things, they are my family". The ripe ego, however, is fine. It keeps the brahmajñani in the body, saying, "I am the servant, and you are the master, I am the machine, and you are the operator". By the grace of the ripe ego, the brahmajñani can continue experiencing the purest love within the duality. Rabia was also God. And even an orphan and slave managed to get that realisation, and expressed it in her own special way. The non-dual Brahman is the poet, and each mind is a pen from which flows out a unique poem.
9 The mind is a superimposition on Brahman, projected from the heart. At the bottom of the heart is Brahman. The wisdom, the love and the attraction to beauty bubble up from the Brahman through the heart and upwards, and those that have faith in themselves follow the nudgings of their hearts to their destiny.
We have destroyed a most beautiful poem, pulling it down to the level of the intellect. To understand and realise spiritual poetry, we may pull it down to understand different aspects better, but if we only do that, it is only an intellectual exercise. That is not what Rabia would have wanted. While writing this text, I heard a song in which was sung,
"Every night and every day now
Though I know you've gone away
Somewhere in my heart I'm always
Dancing with you in the summer rain."
Now we must put the parts of the poem back together again, contemplate it, and through meditation realise it in the heart. Our eyes will not always be reading this poem, but we may find a place in the heart to keep it always. That means that we realise its profundity, as only after realising something, will it remain in the heart eternally. Perhaps we will forget its words, but its essence will remain within us, and we will be reading poems in spirit always. If we realise the essence of just this one poem, we will understand the essence of all poems.
Life is, in spirit, to be singing a poem in the summer rain, always.
Hare Krishna,
Koji