ARUNACHALA SONNETS FOR AWAKENING

1 FIRMEST FAITH
Find firmest Faith in one’s Sat-Guru deep inside the heart,
His force of Self will quieten down the meandering mind;
Peaceful joy, and his paternal love, we’ll quickly find.
That’s all one needs and has to try, in order to impart
Self Knowledge, most miraculous, majestic art,
Which will set alight a magic life, set to unwind.
Gracious virtues shall unfold, most merciful and kind;
Mind’s struck down by Realisation’s sudden lightning dart!

Sadhak struggled hard to climb the upward mountain way,
To the peak of Arunachala’s state for which he yearned.
Through grace he came upon a wise and humble Sage one day,
Who said “by persistence and effort you have justly earned,
The right to Liberation and eternal peace,
From Self Enquiry and Surrender you never once did cease”!

2 BEAUTY POINTS TO FREEDOM

Golden sunflowers prank the river bank,
Deep blue waters flow briskly, like the dream
Of life, for which the grateful heart will thank
Heaven, for the stunning beauty of her scene.

As Beauty is the stepping stone to God;
The restless mind will pause in silent awe,
Held in thrall by lush deep green, growing from the clod
Of Earth, that opens up for soul a door,
To enter into union with all ‘That’ sees,
Straight away to Being’s innermost core.
Bowing, the body bends in motion with the trees,
Soul prays for breeze to waft her to Nirvana’s shore;
Metallic mind’s no longer imprisoned by its iron bars!

3 WALKING ON WATER

Walk calmly on stormy world’s restless waves,
Tossing and turbulent in a violent ocean,
Be free of the ‘I am the body’ notion;
In this way our Great Sage’s teaching will soon save
Us from that treacherous egotistic knave,
Who stole God’s role in soul’s endless motion,
With worthless desires and pleasures set to crave.
Dwelling in blissful Self is the supreme emotion!

Bold swimmer saw a tidal wave ahead,
Fearless he thought it prudent just to float,
Rather than brave tempest waves instead.
He survived like a strong well crafted boat,
And soon reached that heavenly other shore,
Where he dwelt blissfully, forever, ever more!

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4 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER

Surrender egotistic notion of ‘I’ and ‘mine’,
There’s no such person there, mind’s a bird’s nest of thoughts,
A delusion by which we’ve been snared and caught;
True Self Knowledge Teaching, flowing from the Divine,
Says ’surrender the ‘phantom me’ and all shall be fine!
Trapped mind will no longer feel fright or fraught’.
This is what all Great Sages emphatically taught!
So there’s no need to worry, be pained or to pine.

The Master said “whenever child, you utter ‘I’,
I walk, I talk, I squawk, I balk, ad infinitum,
You can be sure that you’re telling one big lie!
You’re not the author of actions or their sum,
When you truly know ‘That’ you’ll be finally free,
Blissfully dwelling in Brahman, for all eternity”!

5 ALL IS ONE

The See-er, the seeing and the seen are One,
And all that we see is Bhagavan Ramana,
Pure Consciousness-Sat Chit Ananda!
In our heart shines a light, bright as the sun.
Ramana is our Sat-Guru; He’s second to none!
Through His Grace, He’ll save us from samsara,
And lead us to the bliss of the Great Nirvana.
With Faith, all our duties, by Him will be done,
There’s no more worry, anxiety or care,
All responsibilities are well carried out,
No more dire depression or dark despair.
So with one voice, give a triumphant shout!
Om Namah Bhagavate Sri Ramanayah!
Adore Him! Om Shivayah Arunachala!

6 EQUANIMITY

Why worry about anything in life,
Thinking it be either pleasure or pain?
Where’s the need ever to cry or complain,
Where’s anything now like wrongful strife?
Guru does all for us, like a kind loving wife.
He knows what is best, there’s no need to explain.
Leave it to him, keep calm, all anxiety is vain.
He’ll cut that binding knot* with Enquiry’s knife!

Pilgrim went by train on a railroad track,
The fool was bearing his baggage on his head,
Instead of loading it onto the luggage rack.
Se when we climb the mountain path, we’re led
To give all our burden into good Guru’s care,
We trust Him more than this world would dare!

*The binding knot which connects mind to body making it believe that is who I am.

7 SUNLIGHT*

From darkness God spoke; “let there be light”! and there was light.
To Earth he gave his mighty white hot fire named Sun,
A mass of vast atomic power that’s outdone by none,
Warming his planets by day and cooling them by night,
All circling round its mammoth majestic sight.
A Giri-pradakshina around their Guru done,
They then finish their annual Sadhak’s run,
As that gigantic Shivaic force blazes on and on!

That Sun is macrocosm of our Real Self unborn,
Which shines as microcosm in every human heart,
Alas it is obscured by malign vasanas forlorn,
It’s blazing light fails to reach the blinkered soul,
But through Enquiry and Surrender, they will make one whole!
Dark ego causes our disastrous Solar Eclipse,
Insightful wisdom pours from our beloved Guru’s lips.

*Extended sonnet

8
OH TO HELL O
“This above all to thine own Self be true,
Then thou cans’t not be false to any man”.
“This is the stuff that dreams are made of”! Who
Knows ‘That’, will awaken from sleep and can
Arise as Self reborn, ‘That’ is his essence too,
Rather than living like some Caliban,
Ape-man wallowing in his mental stew.
For the immortal bard knew God’s master plan.

The tragedy of Lear is real inverted,
And Regan is anger; all anagrams
Like Goneril ‘s religion; so the poet converted
Subtle meanings into his plays for man.
‘Mercy flows from heaven like gentle rain’,
He shakes his spear of truth again and again.

9.
CRIME PREVENTION

Ego dresses up as policeman to trap a thief,
To catch the crook red handed will give us great relief;
That’s achieved by plunging deep into the heart,
The wicked scoundrel falls when his base we start
To touch, and Realisation comes to all who dive;
Then from spiritual death we rise again alive!
So Self Enquiry will destroy the criminal mind,
This our Sat-Guru taught and that is what we find!

A wicked burglar broke into a sadhak’s house,
To rob his essential substance like a hungry mouse
Steals the larder cheese. It needs some watchful cats,
To put a final end to thieving mice and rats.
The cat is ever alert and constantly aware;
Awareness guards the heart from all that steals in there!

10 HOLY ARUNACHALA*

H ail Arunachala, sacred hill of Grace!
O ur beloved Bhagavan’s blessed home,
L ucent ruby jewel beneath a saphire dome;
Y ou know that all is perfect and in place,

A uspicioness flows from your awesome space,
R adiating the mystical throb of Aum,
U ntil sadhaks find no more need to roam,
N o more deprived of your roseate face,
A bsolute wonder for a sad and weary world.
C ompassionate friend of every devotee,
H oly hill where Brahman’s power is here unfurled,
A nd by your grace, imprisoned souls fly free,
L ove and salvation is there waiting for all,
And you save those who earnestly heed your call!

*An acrostic sonnet

11 I AM THAT I AM

God spoke to Moses midst thorns of crackling fire,
He told him “I AM THAT I AM, that’s my sacred name.
King David chanted psalms and strummed upon his lyre,
He said “Be still and know that I am God, they’re just the same”.
I AM THAT is stated by the great Advaita Sages,
Who’ve recognized the Truth throughout the many ages.
Consciousness- Awareness, free from vain vasanas and pure,
Is that ‘I AM’, the key to Jnana which always must endure.
So Hebrew prophets and Hindu Sages all agree,
To rest in one’s I AMNESS is the right way to be free!

Mohammad, great prophet of Allah, wisely said,
“God is closer than one’s breathing, hands and feet”.
If one remembers ‘THAT I AM’, then one is quickly led,
To a life of wholeness, fulfilled and quite complete;
One with God and ever dwelling in most blessed peace,
A blissful state of paradise that will never cease!

12 HEART DIVING

Dive into the heart with strong tenacity,
Intense love, patience and alacrity;
Such practice must surely end in Jnana,
So said great Holy Sage, Lord Ramana.
He gave the Eki Sloka* to the Muni
The Kavankanti who was like Ganapati,
Brother to God Skanda, the son of Shiva,
Who was reborn on earth as Sage Ramana
To bring us the blessing of atma vichara.
Such is the power of this great sadhana,
That egotism is removed and the Sun of Jnana
Shines forth to enlighten the sad ignorant jiva,
That’s the good gift from Sri Bhagavan Ramana,
Who came on Eath to guide mankind to Jnana!

*THE EKI SLOKA
“IN THE INMOST CORE, THE HEART
SHINES AS BRAHMAN ALONE,
AS I-I, THE SELF AWARE.
ENTER DEEP INTO THE HEART
BY SEARCH FOR SELF, OR DIVING DEEP,
WITH BREATH UNDER CHECK.
THUS ABIDE EVER IN ATMAN.”
This verse hangs above Bhagavan’s couch in the New Hall engraved in gold on black basalt..

13 ARUNACHALA RAMANA

Bhagavan is my safe and sole refuge,
To save me from delusion’s stormy deluge.
I open the gates of my heart so the King
Of Glory may come in! With love, I sing
To the Self, inside my heart as Ramana.
I surrender at his sweet lotus feet,
Offering my mind as sacrifice complete!
I pray this gift shall soon be accepted,
Or I will waste away if neglected.
Om Namah Bhagavate Sri Ramanayah!
Om Namah Shivayah! beloved mantra.
By diving persistently into the heart,
I trust Self Knowledge, you shall soon impart!

14 SACRIFICE
Place ego-mind on the fiery flame of sacrifice,
In your spiritual heart abiding on the right.
The fool’s heart’s on the left as the sagely bright
Ecclesiastes wisely stated, to be precise.
Bhagavan affirmed that Truth too, clearly and concise.
‘There dwells the Sun of Self, its shining blazing light,
Is darkly veiled by vasanas, black as night.
Remove them by surrender and enquiry, that my Sage advice!

God told Abrahman to sacrifice his only son
Isaac, a deed of devotion and surrender,
But compassionately, the Lord said “ none
Of your kith and kin do you need to render,
Just circumcise your righteous heart instead,
Then demon ego will surely drop down dead”!

15 WAKE UP!

Mad monkey mind is made of mundane schemes:
Should I do this or that? It plans and plans
Pastimes, to occupy its restless hands.
But all these plans are but fantastic dreams,
For man cannot do! and so it seems,
All this talk of should and ought, just lands
In crass confusion, and tighten’s bondage bands.
The Way of Self Knowledge comes in gleams,
To enlighten man, and wake him up from sleep,
And abandon all this stupid waste of time!
The sacred task for jiva’s sake is to keep
Up sadhana, away from that crazy crime
Of wasting life away in dubious distractions,
Devoured by paltry pleasures and attractions

16 GREAT TRICKS OF GRACE

Does Almighty God play tricks and games of grace?
Misunderstood by man’s puny rational mind?
The answer’s surely yes! Great Sages find
That much happens beyond that tiny space
Of weak human knowledge, and at such a pace
That can’t be fathomed by the spiritually blind.
God's most merciful, compassionate and kind,
Have faith that all his acts simply put grace in place.

An earnest pilgrim had an accident one day,
He fell and broke his leg while climbing on a gate;
"This was a trick of grace", his Guru then did say,
"Because it averted a much harder graver fate".
Tricks of Grace are well beyond our human ken,
Rely on Grace’s great abundance, never worry then!

17 STORMY SEA

Let’s not be drowned in a stormy sea of words,
Struggling, paddling, to keep one’s soul afloat,
Praying for rescue from our Guru’s boat.
Mind is worse than a flock of parrot birds,
The voice of reason’s blocked and rarely heard.
Keeping quiet is much wiser than to quote
Mental chat, which clouds the Self and will promote
Staying in samsara, which is most absurd!

Sadhak’s mind kept muttering all day long,
Unable to control his monkey mind,
He knew that habit was very, very wrong;
But a way to check the pest he couldn’t find.
The Sat-Guru came and said “watch your breath
And its flow, mind will slow, and speed vile ego’s death!

18 LAMP OF NON DUAL KNOWLEDGE*

Life’s a hurdy gurdy , set to be reborn again;
A great game of hallucination and dark delusion,
A carousel carnival of crass illusion,
Tuned to chords of circumstance as its refrain
‘Bewitched, bothered and bewildered’, it’s not that plain!
So what’s the cause of such confounded confusion?
Past life tendencies concoct a cocktail diffusion;
The world’s drama’s a dream, we’re driven insane.
A mad mixture of magic maya and monkey mind;
A mistake is made, to think the world is real.
But on metaphysical enquiry we soon shall find,
It’s a dubious deception, all we see, hear and feel!
Read Lamp of Non Dual Knowledge* and you’ll learn how,
This world is mentally created, right here and now!

*Advaita Bhoda Deepika

19 MORE TRICKS OF GRACE

Self Realisation is a waiting game,
If it happened too quickly it might kill.
The nervous system must be tuned until
It can bear full force of Consciousness, same
As Pure Awareness, moksha is its name.
So there must be patience, and time, we fill
With sadhana, to keep the soul from ill,
Then egotism shall fall down, limp and lame!

Sadhak asked his Guru about tricks of grace,
He answered “They’re sent to save us from disaster,
And not understood by mind, they efface
Danger when we rush much faster and faster;
While safety lies in being peacefully calm,
Then sadhak will never come to any harm!”

20 ENDLESS DISTRACTION

Mischievous monkey mind plays an endless game
To relieve the worldly boredom of its state,
And end the painful headache, that’s ordained by fate:
So pursuing pleasure, sensation or fame,
Without fear or favour, shame, remorse or blame,
Is mind’s way, this toilsome trouble to abate,
Brazen and impatient, it has no time to wait.
Carnal enjoyment is its constant clammy claim.
All this woeful waste of energy and time,
Would better be spent in practical sadhana.
That’s the needed Holy Task to try that’s prime,
So said Great Sage Sri Bhagavan Ramana,
For mature souls this must be their main attraction.

21 MY SAT GURU APPEARS

“I’m but an appearance in your life dream my dear,
Don’t be afraid, I’m not some fiesty phantom ghost,
In fact I shall become your precious teaching host;
So there’s no need for any anxious qualms or fear,
I’m your Sat-Guru sent to bring you much cheer;
In time you’ll come to love me the very most
Of the many men idly mistaken for a post;
I’ll teach you Self Enquiry and free you from here.
Your Guru appears like a lion in your dream,
To awaken you from the nightmare of samsara.
I’m not exactly what I look like or seem,
In fact my name is Sri Bhagavan Ramana!
I’ll free you from your iron prison of mind,
A loving more helpful friend you never will find”!

22 THE WHORE HOUSE SCORNED

A respectable pilgrim eyed a prostitute
Eating dog-flesh en route to her house of whores,
He thought, as she flounced through the brothel door,
Being a very fine man of high repute,
He’d avoid that bitch like poisoned fruit.
But such is the case with any soul, what’s more,
Who harbours the ‘I am the body notion’, for
Who scorns that lie, like dog flesh, is freed and astute.

A sadhak walked by a plague-ridden town,
He soon turned round and raced quickly away,
He knew if he stayed he’d soon be struck down,
And his life would end, on that fateful day!
That town is like the ‘I am the body notion’,
It’s rejection surely leads to Self’s shoreless ocean!

23 THY WILL BE DONE

Even when our God seems to be unwilling,
His will is still my affirmative will!
The duty of man is just BE STILL,
Instead of letting monkey mind go killing
Realisation of the Self, and filling
Soul with idle chatter that works for ill;
It makes one’s worldly dream a bitter pill
To swallow and send the senses reeling.
Keeping quiet is a much wiser feeling,
And will lead to real freedom if maintained,
So peace and bliss are in the Heart retained,
And man lives in happiness and endless joy,
A state of Being which can never cloy.
Existence- Awareness- Love, is that state of Being!

24 MOTHER MAYA’S MAGIC PICTURE SHOW

This so-called world you view, dear aspiring friend,
Is a crazed creation of one’s ignorant mind;
It’s produced by latent tendencies, that we find
From many previous lives, and in the end,
It’s like a dream at night in which we pretend
We believe as real; but it’s nothing of the kind!
It’s like a film, and the spool will soon unwind,
So pictures on the screen ‘twill swiftly send.
Sages term it ‘instantaneous creation’,
It depends on the seer; but who is seeing?
So we’re trapped in fanciful fascination,
Tricked by coloured pictures that mind’s revealing.
This world’s a product of one’s imagination
And we’re deceived by such a strange sensation.

25 DREAM HALL OF MIRRORS

What we need to do is inwardly turn
And Self Enquire; that’s the best of all!
Then turn to Bhagavan, and in surrender fall,
Then watch the flame of Agni slowly burn
All vile vasanas away; ego it will spurn!
Don’t be perplexed in the Dream Figure Hall
Of Mirrors, which fill the seeming world, but call
For Grace! Through effort, Moksha one can earn!

Sadhak was perplexed by Figures in life’s dream,
His Sad Guru said to him “ my dearest son,
Forget all those people, they only seem
As real; pray turn within and wake up upon
Your bed, forever end that dread samsara”!
Soon he was free, thanks to great Lord Ramana!

26 SACRIFICE

Offer ‘mind’ on the funeral pyre of sacrifice,
In one’s spiritual heart abiding on the right.
“The fool’s heart’s on the left” as wisely bright
Ecclesiastes firmly stated, to be quite precise.
Bhagavan echoed him, most clearly and concise;
“There dwells the Sun of Self, but its shining light
Is darkly veiled by malign vasanas black as night,
Remove them by Surrender, that’s my sage advice”!

God told Abrahman to sacrifice his only son
Isaac, a deed of devotion and surrender,
But then compassionately the Lord said “Non
Of your kith and kin do you need to render;
Just circumcise your righteous heart instead,
Then demonic ego will surely drop down dead”!

*A Sequence of 26 Sonnets, mainly in the Italian manner, composed at Arunachala in the Winter of 2010
Alan Jacobs

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RAMANA'S BLISS OF GRACE

Bhagavan! you care for all your Beings,
For their welfare and spiritual advance,
Intent on good giving; that's your stance!
You teach the way of divine seeing,
All pervading, determined on freeing
Devotees from samsara’s crazy prance.
Loving and caring, that is your dance,
Pervading inside and out; ever revealing
That you're our inmost pure conscious Self,
That will always dwells in our spiritual heart.
You shall soon kill that vile demonic elf
Before we die, and from life must depart.
Lord Ramana! once majestic Sage of Kings,
About your great glory my soul ever singa!

ADVAITA VEDANTA

In the golden lamp of wisdom’s shining light,
The oil of worldly indifference fills the wick
Of Faith. So kindle Self Knowledge in clear sight,
And fill one’s soul with wonder to the very quick.

Then the darkness of delusion will be dispelled,
Almighty Self becomes manifest and unveiled
As One without a second, to be always held
Aloft, as the sole Truth revealed and ever hailed.

Determined pilgrim must ignite some red hot fire,
To light his pyre, to burn those latent clouds of gloom,
Which hide his bright Awareness which will inspire
The path to eternal life, and avert this worldly tomb.