X. THE VANITY OF LIFE AFTER LIFE

It is just the hope of hope, this coming into the world, and it all ends in coming,[64] the black bee's mistake when he falls on the pictured lotus. You have fed me with nim -leaves,[65] calling them sugar, deceiving me with words. Mother, in my greed for sweets, I have spent my whole day with wry, embittered lips.

[37]

Mother, you brought me down into the world, saying, 'Let us play.'[66] You cheated me, and in the game that you have played my hope has not found fulfilment.

Rāmprasād says: In the world-play, what was to be has been. Now at eventide, taking your child in your bosom, go home.

Another famous song. The 'hope of hope' recalls the Greek σκιᾶς ὄναρ. Birth after birth, and all is vanity and disappointment.

FOOTNOTES:

[64] A line of puns, on āsā, coming, and āśā, hope (different spelling, but similar sound)

[65] Which are very bitter. The nim is Azidirachta indica.

[66] The reader will remember that to the Hindu all life is līlā, sport or drama.

XI. HE TRUSTS KĀLĪ THOUGH SHE NEGLECTS HIM

Mother, you are in my heart.

Dark Goddess who says you are in my heart? You are a stony-hearted girl, a harmful delusion. Through how much trouble you make me pass! In the difference[67] of worship, all the Five Forms become yours. He that knows the Five are but One, from him, Mother, how will you escape? He that knows, and rests all on you, him you will not help! But will the man who knows the worth of gold accept glass?[68] Prasād says: My heart is of the right tint of the lotus.[69] You, building those five into one, dance and dwell in my mind!

FOOTNOTES:

[67] There are Five main cults, according to the deities worshipped (Śiva, Kālī, Vishṇu, Sūrya—the Sun-God—and Gaṇeśa). All five cults, Rāmprasād says, are cults of the Mother, and she meets her worshippers in these five ways.

[68] Will he worship any other deity?

[69] 'Is five pure lotuses'— i.e. all the Five cults find a place in his heart. The Tantric system of physiology teaches that there are six circles (chakras) of occult force in the body; each of these is called a lotus.