Lover

“When Mirabai comes to meet you,
you’ll have to be prepared for excess.
She formed her opinions in the very teeth of the storm,
fighting in her family,
and succeeded in establishing her personal life against great odds.
Mirabai pushed her way out of her family,
out of many social demands,
and ignored many commands given to her as a woman of her time.
Her religious passion carried her into intensities
that make most people turn pale.”
~ Robert Bly, The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations

“Something has reached out
and taken in the beams of my eyes.
There is a longing, it is for his body,
for every hair of that dark body.
All I was doing was being,
and the Dancing Energy came by my house.
His face looks curiously like the moon,
I saw it from the side, smiling.
My family says: “Don’t ever see him again!”
And they imply things in a low voice.
But my eyes have their own life;
they laugh at rules, and know whose they are.
I believe I can bear on my shoulders
whatever you want to say of me.
Mira says: Without the energy that lifts mountains,
how am I to live?

The Dark One threw me a glance like a dagger today.
Since that moment, I am insane;
I can’t find my body.
The pain has gone through my arms and legs,
and I can’t find my mind.
At least three of my friends are completely mad.
I know the thrower of daggers well;
he enjoys roving the woods.
The partridge loves the moon;
and the lamplight pulls in the moth.

You know, for the fish, water is precious;
without it, the fish dies.
If he is gone, how shall I live?
I can’t live without him.
Go and speak to the dagger-thrower:
Say, Mira belongs to you.
O friends on this path,
My eyes are no longer my eyes.
A sweetness has entered through them.”

~ Mirabai, Ecstatic Poems

~ Mirabai is a literary and spiritual figure of legendary proportions. Born a princess in the region of Rajasthan in 1498, Mira (as she is more commonly known) fought tradition and celebrated a woman's right to an independent life in her ecstatic poems.

“Mira or Mirabai, one of the best-known female holy poets of northwest India, dedicated her life to the love of Krishna. Her bhajans (songs of devotion) tell of her expulsion from the royal court and her search for union with her beloved god.

Mirabai is both an object of projection and identification. Her songs, passed down in several  languages, testify to the conflicting social milieus in which she lived as a widow. For some, she is a subversive mystic who deliberately flouts the norms of society, for others she is a perfect Yogini (ascetic).

Mirabai is consumed by her desire for Krishna. But the one who has aroused the passion in his admirer is as ephemeral as he is multiple. Sometimes he appears as Yogi, another time he manifests himself as real lover, but one who always keeps her waiting.

In her songs, which are accessible and direct, Mirabai reflects the whole spectrum of human emotions. In her role as Krishna's lover she shows similarities with the Christian bride of God Mechthild of Magdeburg and other female Christian mystics of the Middle Ages." ~ Museum Rietberg

Painting ~ from exhibition 'Loves of Krishna'