Priceless are God’s Virtues, Priceless are God’s Dealings.
amul vaapaaree-ay amul bhanḏaar.
Priceless are God’s Dealers, Priceless are God’s Treasures.
amul aavah(i) amul lai jaah(i).
Priceless are those who come to God, Priceless are those who buy from God.
amul bhaa-i amulaa samaah(i).
Priceless is Love for God, Priceless is absorption into God.
amul dharam amul deebaaṉ.
Priceless is the Divine Law of Dharma, Priceless is the Divine Court of Justice.
amul tul amul paravaaṉ.
Priceless are the scales, priceless are the weights.
amul bakhasees amul neesaaṉ.
Priceless are God’s Blessings, Priceless is God’s Banner and Insignia.
amul kara amul phuramaaṉ.
Priceless is God’s Mercy, Priceless is God’s Royal Command.
amulo amul aakhi-aa na jaa-i.
Priceless, O Priceless beyond expression!
aakh aakh rahay liv laa-i.
Speak of God continually, and remain absorbed in God’s Love.
aakhah(i) vayd paaṯh puraaṉ.
The Vedas and the Puraanas speak.
aakhah(i) paṟay karah(i) vakhi-aaṉ.
The scholars speak and lecture.
aakhah(i) baramay aakhah(i) find.
Brahma speaks, Indra speaks.
aakhah(i) gopee tai govind.
The Gopis and Krishna speak.
aakhah(i) eesar aakhah(i) sidh.
Shiva speaks, the Siddhas speak.
aakheh kaytay keetay budh.
The many created Buddhas speak.
aakhah(i) daanav aakhah(i) dayv.
The demons speak, the demi-gods speak.
aakhah(i) sur nar mun jan sayv.
The spiritual warriors, the heavenly beings, the silent sages, the humble and serviceful speak.
kaytay(i) aakhah aakhaṉ paah(i).
Many speak and try to describe God.
kaytay kah(i) kah(i) uṯh uṯh jaah.
Many have spoken of God over and over again, and have then arisen and departed.
Kaytay keetay hor karayh(i).
If God were to create as many again as there already are,
taa aakh na sakah(i) kay-ee kay-i.
even then, they could not describe God.
jayvaḏ bhaavai tayvaḏ ho-i.
God is as Great as God wishes to be.
naanak jaaṉai saachaa so-i.
O Naanak, the True Lord knows.
jay ko aakhai boluvigaaṟ.
If anyone presumes to describe God,
taa likee-ai sir gaavaaraa gaavaar.
he shall be known as the greatest fool of fools!
* * *
barn's burnt down - now I can see the moon
-Masahide (d. 1723, Japanese poet, student of Basho)
Masahide wrote the haiku after his barn burnt down. Bassho is said to have affirmed the quality of the poem. We can see why. The poem is brief yet full of possible interpretations. I share one means of interpreting it and invite you to do the same.
* * *
"Barn's ... -" represent things we cherish and lose, which could not have lasted anyway, for they were always impermanent.
And "now... I can see" - Often, through loss, we receive insight we missed before. We can 'see' more clearly, more of what is present as it is, more free of imposing our past upon it. This seeing, bringing with it gratitude, enrichment of life experience, and enhanced compassion for others and self are much more important than things we cling to for, as people say, dear life. Dear life can arise in the absence of what kept us from enjoying or more fully enjoying dear life.
Yes, regardless of how we grow through a loss, we may grieve the loss. We may grieve it for a short time, some years, or the rest of a lifetime. That is natural. Yet, there is a difference between grieving and clinging. We can grieve "now." Clinging keeps us in past tense. "Now" is here-and-now, not back there-and-then. Life is present tense. If living in losses, I am living in past tense.
If we cling to a loss, that offers us insight into our need to move to a point where the attachment drops. We cannot force it to drop. We can prepare ourselves through our spiritual practice - worship, prayer, meditation, service to others ... - for it to drop. If we refuse to do that, we can explore, "What am I trying to gain by this refusal to let go?"
* * *
I dated a woman in Virginia, when I lived in Florida. I would fly or drive up I-95 to see her. On my last trip, the one before I was to move to live with her, the relationship ended. Smoking. I did not know she smoked cigarettes before meeting her. I do not want to judge those who smoke; I do not want to live around it either. I will not, unless I have no choice, but I had a choice, and she did, too.
This person kept assuring me she would quit. On the final trip, she hid away smoking, and I found out. She said I was trying to control her. I said I was simply stating what I would not live with. She told me cigarettes were like having a friend with her. And, if it killed her, even with two children, it did not matter - yes, she said that. She simply would not let it go, even for us, even for her children. I packed up in the middle of the night and returned to Florida. The "barn" meant too much to her, and I was not going to live with the "barn." Attachments can be so strong, we choose a "barn" over the "moon."
* * *
The "barn" burning down reminds me we own nothing. We say, "I lost my husband" or "My friend died." Relatively, that is okay to say. Yet, we need awareness that we never had a "barn." The "barn" was never our barn. Then, we can appreciate the "barn" as a gift to enjoy and use wisely for a time; we can cherish the memory, after it is gone.
In a sense, everything we say we own is really a loan. Kabil Gibran writes, in The Prophet (Knof, 1923), of parents and children -
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
* *
And "the moon" in Buddhism often refers to Buddha Nature. The Christian might say "True Self," or seeing self as spirit with a body rather than a person with a body or simply a body. The prevalent materialistic, secular worldview says we are only a body, but the spiritual worldview says otherwise.
However, "moon" can refer to so much more. "Moon" can connote what is not a thing, so it is not subject to time. For example, love. Love is not a thing. Gratitude is not a thing. Joy is not a thing. God is not a thing. Faith is not a thing. Fellowship is not a thing. Truth is not a thing. Hope is not a thing. Prayer is not a thing. The other you meet is not a thing, nor are you. The "barn" is a thing.
In sex, as a case in point, we see the difference between the act of sex and the love through sex. Sex is a thing. If one is sharing sex with someone as a means to give and receive love - the body being a sacrament, so to speak - then, we see what is shared - love - through the bodies is a nonthing. Sex is in time and place. One cannot locate love in time or place, it being nonlocal, transpersonal, subtle, and totally unexplainable. Sex is something, love a not-something. Bodies die, sex ends, love remains. How sad when persons fall in love with a body rather than the spirit manifesting in the body.
The Christian Bible speaks to this "moon." First, Colossians 3.2: "Place your affections (or mind, mind-heart) on what is above, not on earth." "What is above" can be read in a nonspatial sense, a metaphor for nothings ... subtle, of spirit, Spirit. Then, "barn" would equate with "on earth." "Barn" is in the thing-realm. The scripture does not advise not to appreciate what is "on earth," only not to be attached to it, not to fall in love with what cannot last, which will burn down. Time eats up everything in time. Time is in the timeless.
Last, another verse speaks to what to place the mind-heart upon, and the qualities are nonthings. Philippians 4.8 reads, "In conclusion, [spiritual] brothers and sisters (or friends), keep filling your minds with what is good, praise-worthy, true, noble, right [or just], pure, lovely, and honorable."
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
*Amul mantra translation at "Sikh Dharma International," https://www.sikhdharma.org/protected-feel-the-priceless-love-of-the-divine-with-amul/ .
