तेरे बिन ये पहला-दिन,
सूना-सूना निकला दिन।
सूरज किरनें धूप वही,
फिर भी बदला बदला दिन।
तेरे साये, ढूंढ़ रहा है,
कैसा है ये पगला दिन।
तनहाई के सन्नाटों में,
घूमा झुंझला-झुंझला दिन।
शाम तलक तड़पा यादों में,
फिर मुश्किल से सम्भला दिन।

The inner silence
Is a fickle Overlord
Creator of all things
Yet so shy and retiring
So soft and still
Yet gentle and caring
That all motion,
Circumperambulation
Seems crude, uncouth
Almost an effront
Indeed, truly, a mockery
Of the infinite grace
That bestows me limbs and vigor
And I, oh so gross so ingrate
Cannot abide in this vast stillness
That suffuses and invades all
Carries and pervades all
For any longer than a mere breath
Which too, it breathes in me
Even this brick wall
That I sit facing
Has more respect in its erect repose
Than I in myriad genuflections
So I sit with bowed head
A grotesque monstrosity
A shameful caricature
Of that perfect perfection
That manifests through me
Arjuna,
Lift thy mighty gandeev
And shower your arrows upon me
Destroy all that is vain and dross and ugly
Pierce these eyes
That seek form outside
Destroy sight forever, return it inside
Yudhisthira,
Blow thy conch anantavijaya
Implode my eardrums
That reverberate to the cantankerous world
Let the inner silence be all,
Let it deafen the world outside
Eklavya,
Sew my lips shut
That no word escapes
Corrupting my innermost truth
In the silent cave of the heart
Expressed, no longer the Absolute Truth
Bheem,
Lift your mighty vrigodharan
Flatten this intellect with thy incessant blows
Rip apart the ego like you did Jarasandha
That only the ineffable self remains
Krishna,
I am now ready
Reveal thy divine beauty

Let me forget myself momentarily
as the divine did itself when it made this
beautiful world of sound, light, and colour,
and peopled it with all kinds of creatures,
great and small, peaceful or violent.
So let me find myself completely in the object
of my desire, let my self be totally lost
in the other, let me thus become a woman,
and fall hopelessly in love with the man
in her. Let this love have no destination,
no hope of fulfilment or consummation;
let it be entirely futile, pointless, even
inconsequential. And let my heart be riven,
broken, crushed, scattered beyond all
retrieval or recognition, let all my poise
and self-control, my pride of manhood
be totally undone in this all-consuming
passion. O victory, I shall seek you
in my utter ruination, like a desperate
soul seeking solace in everlasting annihilation.
My obsession brooks no restraint or moderation;
I must be totally destroyed before I'm done,
no particle of me left safe or untouched.
I risk all to gain all; I am reckless in love
because I know that the one I love, after all,
is not I or you, but the lost whole of which
both are parts. I am willing to wager all
because I know that my love will be as safe
with you as it is with the Mother of God.

हैं विचरते स्वप्न सुंदर,
किंतु इनका संग तजकर,
व्योम–व्यापी शून्यता का कौन साथी हो रहा है?
विश्व सारा सो रहा है!
भूमि पर सर सरित् निर्झर,
किंतु इनसे दूर जाकर,
कौन अपने घाव अंबर की नदी में धो रहा है?
विश्व सारा सो रहा है!
न्याय–न्यायधीश भू पर,
पास, पर, इनके न जाकर,
कौन तारों की सभा में दुःख अपना रो रहा है?
बिश्व सारा सो रहा है!

Into the Silence, into the Silence,
Arise, O Spirit immortal,
Away from the turning Wheel, breaking the magical Circle.
Ascend, single and deathless:
Care no more for the whispers and the shoutings in the darkness,
Pass from the sphere of the grey and the little,
Leaving the cry and the struggle,
Into the Silence forever.
Vast and immobile, formless and marvellous,
Higher than Heaven, wider than the universe,
In a pure glory of being,
In a bright stillness of self-seeing,
Communing with a boundlessness voiceless and intimate,
Make thy knowledge too high for thought, thy joy too deep for emotion;
At rest in the unchanging Light, mute with the wordless self-vision,
Spirit, pass out of thyself; Soul, escape from the clutch of Nature.
All thou hast seen cast from thee, O Witness.
Turn to the Alone and the Absolute, turn to the Eternal:
Be only eternity, peace and silence,
world-transcending nameless Oneness,
Spirit immortal.