God is One–
His names are many.
Not a blade of grass exists
without remembering Him.
Consider life a fortnight.
Not even a fly exists
without His sustenance.
* * *
He who is here
is also there.
He is omnipresent.
He is the soldier and
He is the chariot.
Himself hidden–
He is omnipotent.
* * *
In whom the knowledge dawns, he knows–
He devotedly remembers God.
He who kills pride and renounces the ego says–
“I am nobody and I have no name.”
He who experiences Him,
his duality fades away.
Who will then criticise and complain?
Nuruddin Rishi
1377-1440
tr. Jaishree K. Odin
Dear Nawab,
Thank you for all these inspiring verses, and now the ones of Nuruddin, in only a few lines. They remind me of the Isha Upanishad and Vivekananda’s lecture on the deification of the world (27-10-1896):
“Whatever exists in this universe is to be covered with the Lord. We have to cover everything with the Lord Himself, not by a false sort of optimism, not by blinding our eyes to the evil, but by really seeing God in everything. Thus we have to give up the world, and when the world is given up, what remains? God. What is meant? You can have your wife, it does not mean that you have to abandon her, but that you are to see God in the wife. Give up your children; what does that mean? To turn them out of doors, as some human brutes do in every country? Certainly not. That is diabolism, it is not religion. But see God in your children.
“So, in everything; in life and in death, in happiness and misery, the Lord is equally present.
“So do your work, says the Vedanta. It first advises us how to work – by giving up the apparent illusive world. What is meant by that? Seeing God everywhere. Thus do your work…………..have all earthly desires if you wish, only deify them, convert them into heaven.
“The ideal of God is to see God in everything… take your time and you will achieve your end.
(from the Isha Upanishad) “He, the One, who vibrates more quickly than mind, who attains to more speed than mind can ever do, whom even the gods reach not, nor thought grasps, He moving, everything moves. In Him all exists. He is moving. He is also immovable. He is near and He is far.”
Hamida