The Power of Love

11th May2001

In 1995, when swamiji was working with us in Singapore on taj mahal,there were very many moments of beauty and inspiration. Just like all the other major dance drama productions he had created as opportunities to fulfill our individual potential. Once, in a moment of excitement, he showed me a poem by kahlil gibran – it was the prophet – and read it to me there and then in the corridor just outside kala mandhir. It was the way that swamiji read it that moved me beyond words… we all know that swamiji has the deepest sensitivity with regards to many things,perhaps all things. The way he had read the poem to me has always stuck in my mind… since then I have always thought that moment to be the truth pertinent to him and us… I would like to offer this poem… the subject is love and he had used it in the introduction to taj mahal.

When love beckons you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to
the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred
bread for god's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love….

[this poem is not quoted completely here]

Those years of staging a new production every year and taking it round to perth, Singapore and penang were marvelous ones.. marvelous because I marveled at the way swamiji could get all of us together to create beautiful messages of love for those who come to our shows. It is the same with all the projects – they look different on the outside but are essentially the same on the inside – manifestations of his love for mankind, and we are put into projects and activities with the simple ideal of giving of ourselves.

When we do that, wholeheartedly, we become his quick flow channel of love… and his love helps and heals those who come to our doorstep, to us, to him. When we do not follow what he has taught us all these years, we become plugs and twisted and rusty pipes that restrict the flow of his love. It has become very clear to me. Though I have often known it, do not all the saints talk about it in their books?, but it is only now that it is clearer… and I am humbled by the thought that I am not able to be all that he wants me to be. As I look around and see the very human limitations of mind, heart and love that we cling onto so tightly, I see that it is a reflection of my inner being… though I have tried to deny it. I am humbled by the sight of a man who would continue to serve us all, inspite of his ill health, at the very peril of his life's breath, uplifting us in so many ways, encouraging us on the right path.

Swamiji has never stopped working for us! So many of us imagine that we are serving swamiji. I daresay the things that we do for him, thinking we are serving him, is only recompense for the divine blessings he has given us, sometimes apparent, and sometimes not. Many times swamiji has remarked that he has been condemned to love us, inspite of our faults and shortcomings. Nowadays, he says that he has no choice, that he had asked for it. Oftentimes he has talked about the idea of a blank check.

It seems even clearer now that swamiji had made that choice long ago, and is still honouring that check. Dare we make that choice?

I have been given many opportunities to transcribe some of swamiji's satsanghs and publish them. I used to be amazed that the things he spoke about in 1972, he has to repeat today. I used to be disturbed that shiva family had heard the same message over and over again, though couched in different ways, and yet it seems it was never heard.

His cautioning words were already spoken then, and yet… could it be that he has a new audience now? When he first spoke of love, there were some of us who were mere kids, and perhaps never understood the true import of his words. Now we are in our thirties, it seems like we want to hear him say those words again. What about those who came to him in their twenties, in full possession of their intelligence and mental faculties, now we are in our fifties, and we still want to hear those words again… or perhaps we are tired of hearing them again and again. Or perhaps, we only love him but we don't believe him. I am sure that is possible. I love my mother or my child or my wife, but I need not necessarily feel that their opinions can stand up to analytical scrutiny.

Maybe that's what it is; we can only love him, but we cannot believe him… there appears to be too much risk that we would have to take… it appears that we would lose… I used to be deeply disturbed but now I accept that it is our human limitations: we cannot believe him inspite of our love for him, and he, he loves us deeply inspite of our blindness and lack of faith.

this last wesak day, I watched the evening's procession that would go into the city; Buddhists holding candles and chanting the mantra of the Buddha, in a concerted effort to being peace to the community. There were many groups, but they all chanted the same prayer, and as I watched the procession, I was very moved by it – that there once lived a man 2545 years ago, who made a divine effort and whose vibration of peace and love for all can still be felt today… and his followers are doing precisely that today. And even as that thought came to me, I realized that I have my very own living Buddha who is swamiji, who is guiding me, whose presence makes a difference to all our lives and even those whom we may not know. I was humbled, I was grateful, and I know I am blessed. Aren't we all?

I remember a scene in jesus of Nazareth, the movie; Christ is bearing the cross on the way to Golgotha, and his disciples and his mother, look on helplessly, in despair… none of those who had professed their love for him dared to take the cross from him, they were afraid to…?

even before his heart attack, swamiji had indicated by his words, stories, necdotes, moods and behaviour, that a long road of pain and suffering lay ahead for him.

Whether we think we are responsible or not, dare we make a choice about our lives, so that whatever he has set out to do for us will not be done in vain? Make a choice now, a conscious choice…