11 June 2007

Hail to Thee! [part 2]


[Cont'd from June 6th, 2007]

Hail to Thee! O'Arunachala!

10. Never again my gaze shall I turn
From Your Beacon that does ego burn
Nor leave for long Thy Name, that chant
That thrilled my being as honey to an ant

11. Gripped since in the jaws of Your Gaze
Guided hence through life's maze
Thou let me win and lose with freedom
And revel in Thee with sporadic abandon

12. Thy Leash's on my neck, Your Hill is the peg
Now letting me range and graze as far as I beg
Tasting bitter herbs and lush sweet grasses
And drinking the waters of faraway places

13. Enough this spurious freedom! This fake liberty!
This granting of pleasures sweetened by adversity
Tighten Thy Leash and destroy my range
Bring me home no foreigner strange.

14. O' "I Am" revealed, shining forth as all
How could Thou let this delusion fall?
Can the One be confused as the Many?
If Thy will did not veil this epiphany

15. Verily by Thy Hand does this Delusion prevail
Show Thy Mercy and remove mankind's travail
That brother may not slaughter brother
And Thy Holy Lands be not torn asunder




16. Standing silent, Thou put to shame
Scholarly intellect's vain-glorious claim
To grasp Thee with duality's meager span
"Be Still", Thou said "And know That I Am"

18. Didn't Thy Elder Prince, Divinity's Fruit winner
Beg Immortality's Nectar from the Cave Dweller
That we may taste the flavor of liberation
In crumbs from their table of deliberation

19. Such Thy Greatness, what merit does now shower
The favor of Thy disdain on this hapless beggar
O' Lord! Grant my eyes Thy eternal Light
The glorious blaze that puts fear to flight

20. Ego hast made a janitor of me, the king
Granting me a refuse cart for the hauling
Bestow now the Grace of Thy sweet fragrance
And destroy the stench of this foul existence

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This is a beautiful poem.If this is a translation it is of of a very high order.If this is genuine outpouring it is a sign of spiritual advancement.The style is maharshi's ,that seems inevitable now.Anyone talking to Arunachala as god will have his akhsharamanamalai in the consciousness.Talking of Aksharamanamalai,is there a greater bhakti poem ever written?The moment I hear it being sung I get goosepimples even though I don't understand much of Tamil.

Meenakshi Ammal said...

Yes, I agree Hail to Thee! O'Arunachala!, is a very beautiful poem. In this respect I have just posted part 3 on June 17. Once I am able to get the history of the poem and its poet, I will post it on the Blog.

Aksharamanamalai is a great bhakti poem, but interestingly regarding his own poems, Ramana was to say:

"The only poems that came to me spontaneously and compelled me, as it were, to write them without any one urging me are the 'Eleven Stanzas to Sri Arunachala' and the 'Eight Stanzas to Sri Arunachala".