* gameKing * by bob knab

*
*
Arising
Passing away
ever at play
this
Brahman transformer
spinning maya
inviting all
to
a game
of
You are That

 

“The Sun Strives” by Madhava Gosh

The sun strives to free
dried bamboo leaves trapped in deer
snow hoof prints

 

“Vaishnava Janato” by Narsinh Mehta

We heard how Raghupati Raghva Rajaram was one of Mahatma Gandhi’s favorite bhajans. Here is one he used  in his daily prayers.

Vaishnava janato is a popular Bhajan, written in the 15th century by the poet Narsinh Mehta. It is in Gujarati and the bhajan was included in Mahatma Gandhi’s daily prayer. The bhajan speaks about the life, ideals and mentality of a Vaishnava Jana (a follower of Vishnu or Krishna).

Here’s the translation:

One who is a Vaishnava (one who is a devotee of Vishnu)
Knows the pain of others
Does good to others, especially to those ones who are in misery
(even if he does good to others), he doesn’t take pride about his act.

A Vaishnava, Tolerates and praises the entire world
Does not say bad things about anyone
Keeps his/her words, actions and thoughts pure
O Vaishnava, your mother is blessed

A Vaishnava sees everything equally, rejects greed and avarice
Considers some one else’s wife/daughter as his mother
Will never speak lies with his/her tongue,
Does not even touch someone else’s property

A Vaishnava does not succumb to worldly attachments
Who has devoted himself to staunch detachment to worldly pleasures
Who has been addicted to the elixir coming by the name of Ram
For whom all the religious sites are in his own body

Who has no greed and deceit
Who has renounced lust of all types and anger
The poet Narsi will like to see such a person
By who’s virtue, the entire family gets salvation

 

Pete Seegar 1919-2014 Sings Raghupati Raghva Rajaram

Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram is a popular bhajan (Hindu devotional song) that was a favorite of Mahatma Gandhi. It is also a favorite amongst devotees in New Vrindaban.

Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram

Sitaram, Sitaram,
Bhaj Pyare Mana Sitaram
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram

Ishwar Allah Tero Nam,
Sabako Sanmati De Bhagawan
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram

Mukhmen Tulsi Ghatamen Ram,
Jab Bolo Tab Sitaram
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram

Hathose Karo Gharka Kam,
Mukhase Bolo Sitaram
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram

Kaushalyaka Vhala Ram,
Dashrathjika Pyara Ram
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram

Bansivala Hay Ghanshyam,
Dhanushya Dhari Sitaram
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram

The song starts with the praise of Raja Ram (Lord Ram). Lord Ram is an incarnation of Vishnu (the preserving aspect of Brahman). Lord Ram is an embodiment of Dharma (Right duty, righteousness) and Virtue.

Raghupati Raghav mean one who has attained all spiritual knowledge, who is strong and firm in righteousness, who is radiant like the thousand suns and who has viveka (spiritual discrimination) and vairagya (dispassion for worldly thing). Such is Raja Ram.

Patit Pavan means the uplifter of those who have fallen from the path of righteousness and virtue. So, we call upon Mother Sita and Raja Ram who are the uplifters of the fallen. Mother Sita is the daughter of Earth. She signifies selfless Love and purity. Mother Earth gives us everything she has without asking anything in return. Mother earth is always pure and everything we get comes from that purity.

Bhaj Pyare Tu Sita Ram means — O beloved Lord Ram and Mother Sita we praise you for what you are and what you signify.

Ishvar Allah Tero naam means — People call you by many names, some call you God “Ishvar” while some call you Allah, but you are the one and only Holy Spirit that is within us all and we are all within you.

Sabko Sanmati De Bhagvan means — Bless everyone with this very wisdom that we are all the product of the same Holy Spirit and that all of us strive towards the path of righteousness and virtue.

Hope that you will find peace and joy in singing this bhajan. We will get utmost spiritual benefit of this devotional song if we can remember its meaning and significance while singing.
Shri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram

Courtesy: http://truehinduism.wordpress.com/201

 

“The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell” By Algernon Charles Swinburne

One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is:
Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.

What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under:
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt:
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover:
Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.

Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight:
Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.

Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels:
God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which:
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.

More is the whole than a part: but half is more than the whole:
Clearly, the soul is the body: but is not the body the soul?

One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two:
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.

Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks:
Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew:
You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock:
Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.

God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see:
Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.

 

“Death” by Donald Revell

Death calls my dog by the wrong name.
A little man when I was small, Death grew
Beside me, always taller, but always
Confused as I have almost never been.
Confusion, like the heart, gets left behind
Early by a boy, abandoned the very moment
Futurity with her bare arms comes a-waltzing
Down the fire escapes to take his hand.

“Death,” I said, “if your eyes were green
I would eat them.”

For what are days but the furnace of an eye?
If I could strip a sunflower bare to its bare soul,
I would rebuild it:
Green inside of green, ringed round by green.
There’d be nothing but new flowers anymore.
Absolute Christmas.

“Death,” I said, “I know someone, a woman,
Who sank her teeth into the moon.”

For what are space and time but the inventions
Of sorrowing men? The soul goes faster than light.
Eating the moon alive, it leaves space and time behind.
The soul is forgiveness because it knows forgiveness.
And the knowledge is whirligig.
Whirligig taught me to live outwardly.
Shoe shop. . . pizza parlor. . . surgical appliances. . .
All left behind me with the hooey.
My soul is my home.
An old star hounded by old starlight.

“Death, I ask you, whose only story
Is the end of the story, right from the start,
How is it I remember everything
That never happened and almost nothing that did?
Was I ever born?”

I think of the suicides, all of them thriving,
Many of them painting beautiful pictures.
I think of boys and girls murdered
In their first beauty, now with children of their own.
And I have a church in my mind, set cruelly ablaze,
And then the explosion of happy souls
Into the greeny, frozen Christmas Eve air:
Another good Christmas, a white choir.

Beside each other still,
My Death and I are a magical hermit.
Dear Mother, I miss you.
Dear reader, your eyes are now green,
Green as they used to be, before I was born.

 

“Year’s End” by Richard Wilbur

Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.

I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake
The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
And held in ice as dancers in a spell
Fluttered all winter long into a lake;
Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,
They seemed their own most perfect monument.

There was perfection in the death of ferns
Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
A million years. Great mammoths overthrown
Composedly have made their long sojourns,
Like palaces of patience, in the gray
And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii

The little dog lay curled and did not rise
But slept the deeper as the ashes rose
And found the people incomplete, and froze
The random hands, the loose unready eyes
Of men expecting yet another sun
To do the shapely thing they had not done.

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.

 

“Cremation — Ashes to Ashes” by Lou Reed

Well the coal black sea waits for me me me
The coal black sea waits forever
The waves hit the shore
Crying more more more
But the coal black sea waits forever

The tornados come up the coast they run
Hurricanes rip the sky forever
Though the weathers change
the sea remains the same
The coal black sea waits forever

There are ashes spilt through collective guilt
People rest at sea forever
Since they burnt you up
Collect you in a cup
For you the coal black sea has no terror

Will your ashes float like some foreign boat
ot will they sink absorbed forever
Will the Atlantic Coast
have its final boast
Nothing else contained you ever

Now the coal black sea waits for me me me
The coal black sea waits forever
When I leave this joint
at some further point
The same coal black sea will it be waiting