ranslated bu,

naked song
naked song
by lalla

Translated by
Coleman Barks

PILGRIMS
PILGRIMS PUBLISHING
@ Varanasi
 NAKED SONG: LALLA
Translated by Coleman Barks

Published by:
PILGRIMS PUBLISHING

An imprint of:
PILGRIMS BOOK HOUSE
(Distributors in India)
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Copyright © 1992, Coleman Barks

First Pilgrims Publishing Edition 2004
‘Published by arrangement with the Author
All Rights Reserved

Copy Editing Christopher N Burchett

Cover design by Sasya
Layout by Asha

ISBN: 81-7769-145-7

The contents of this book may not be reproduced,

stored or copied in any form—printed, electronic,
photocopied, or otherwise—except for excerpts used in
: review, without the written permission of the
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Printed in India at Pilgrim Press Pvt. Ltd. Lalpur

Varanasi
This Book is for the dance,
and the song.
 Contents

ImtrOGuctiOn .......:ccccscceeceseeeeesseeseeeesteceseeeteeeeeeerneeess era |

Sources for these translations ......cscseseereseeseesesees
Bibliography ........s:ccsccceseesesesesrenecsenesesseseesesseseneneenenns
Acknowledgements ........-cssesesesesesseessenenese
LALLA NAKED SONG. ........:.::cseesecesseeees
“Dance, Lalla, with nothing on” ..
“| began as a bloom of cotton,” ...
“Whatever work I’ve done,” ........
“In this state there is NO SHIVA,” ........eeeeeeeeeseseeeeeees
“Loosen the load of sweetness I’m carrying.” .......... 23
“That one is blessed and at peace” ..........4.+ Ao2S
“Just for a moment, flowers appear”... 26
“Self inside self, You are nothing but me.” .............+. 27
“You are the sky and the ground.” .......::ssssseseeeereeees 28
“Whatever your name, Shiva, Vishnu,” .........+: 29
“| saw a wise man dying of starvation.” . 30
“You were once a swan singing” ....... PX 3 |
“What has happened to me?’”’......... ide
“Sir, have you forgotten the promise” ....... PPisentrceaes 33
“Forgetful one, get Up!” ....ceesecsessesesesseeseeneeneeneenentenees 34
“There is a lake SO tiMy”....cccccsceseserseceseeseeseeseneneeetenee 35
“| wearied myself searching for the Friend”
“Your way of knowing is a private herb garden.” .
“Beautifully full of juice they come from the mother,”’...... 38
 “Four Questions:” oo... eeccccccsecceeoesss peccenssisiscvecrees
“The soul, like the MOON,” .....,..e-ccsces0.0-....
“Meditate within eternity” 0.0.0.0... cecccccccscccsssss
ssee 42

“Flowers, sesame seed, bowls of fresh water,

” .........49
“It is God who yawns and sneezes”

7
f

iat aun, 55
“I tried to sell this breathing body” ..........cecccccescceses
57
“T called out in the market”...........
EET
“On a way that wasn’t a Way? ii...
59
“I went a way that was not a way.” ......
SOD
“I locked the doors and windows” .........ccccccsssssssses...
61
“I shut the body openings” ...........ceccccssccsssecseescoosss....
61
“If you want a kingdom and get it,”
--- 62
“Let them throw their curses.” ......cccsccccccssssssseeoeeeeec
63
“There are those sleeping who are awake” ...............
64
“One in whom the syllable OM” .......0..........
--. 65
“So you’ve cut up your hide and stretched
PSS CeEE
“I keep weeping for you, my soul,” .............
- 67
“I, Lalla, entered.the jasmine Barden
sissies 68
“Fearful, always-moving mind,” ......cc-cccccccscseeeeecc-...
69
“The royal fan, sunshade, and Chariot;
iio. 70
, Enlightenment absorbs this universe of qualities.” . 71
“They arrive and others arrive” .........ccsscsssecssesseeseeeees 72
“What is worship? Who are this man” ............c0..0... 73
“Shiva is the horse.” .........ccccccesseesees wee 74
“Three times I have seen the lake” .... iy
“Men and women now, even the best,” ...........ss.s000 76
“For a moment I saw a beautiful moving river.” ....... 77
“Whatever I do, the responsibility is mine,” ............. 78
“Some people abandon their homes.” ......... =i
“My body caught fire like an ember,” ...............0.0000.
“Lalla, there’s no birth or death.” ..........c.cscsssseeseeees 81
“Dying and giving birth go on’”’................ .. 82
“Lalla, you’ve wandered so many places” .. ... 83
“I made pilgrimages, looking for God.” ..... w. 84
“I spent my days idly as a Vine” ............cccsesesesesessesees 85
‘As my love and tiy faith of snscticts cise ccuds 86
“When you eat too much,” ......... . 87
“Everything is new now for me.” ...........ccscesssseseeenes 88
“My teacher put a lotion on my eyes” .........c.ececsesee: 89
“If you live on the breath,” ...................
“On the way to God the difficulties”
“When the mirror of my consiousness became clear,” .. 92
Heord, you 6xtit? 32..5......cinsi and ES 93
*Lifeis givenil sian!
“Meditate, and grow humble.” 0 9S
“Your face is b@gMR 08 SES 2 Ges sins epost 96
“What understanding comes through reading?”........ 97
“The way is difficult and very intricate.”’........ ae
“Intense cold makes water ice.” .......sccscseseseseseeseesveee 99
“I came to this birth and rebirth universe” .............. 100
“You are the sky and the ground.”
“There is no “You” or “I, object”
“Where did I come from, and how?” .......:.:::csesee 103
“Those with a knack for walking in air,” ............00 104
“Ascetics wander shrine to shrine,”
“If you’ ve melted your desires” ........:..00+.0+ ais
“Don’t be so quick to condemn my nakedness.”..... 107
“T went everywhere with longing” ..........:.ccceeeee
“| have not really known myself,” .....
“The sun, the lowest chakra of action,” es
“T have drunk many times” wo..cc. cece eee teeeeeeeeseee
“Tf you’re wise, be FOOLISH.” ......cccecseesseeeseeseseeees 112
“Day will be erased in night.”
“het firm ‘Ssay’i oe oageennd veh
“God of the dark blue throat,” .........:ccccesceseeeeseees
“When you see yourself” ........ssscessssssesssesseeesesesesees
“With repeated meditation practice”
“If you ride the breath” «0.0.0.0... een
“With passionate practices” ........ccccccseeesseereeeeees
“There are some demons dangerous” .............0000066 120
“At the end of a crazy-moon night” ... woif2t
“| didn’t trust it for a moment,” ...... segh22
“One who handles a sword well” .........:::2:seccseeeees 123
“Slowly, slowly, 1 tended” .........ccccceeseeesseseeeeeeeeees
“I am towing my boat on the ocean”
“Gently | weep for my mind,”’............ vee
“Tam a wooden bow trying to shoot” ..........ccce 127
“Life sinks down. We leave.” .........cccesseecseeeeeees 128
“When will my shame fall away?” a. 129
“My mouth got tired of saying words.’ nt 130
“Unconscious people read the scriptures” .............. 131
“Three things about grinding grain:” .........:0.ce 132
“Don’t talk of diferent religions.” ... wad
“Awareness cleaned my mind” ... 134
“Lost in the wilderness between” ............:ceceeeeeee 135
“How did:] get Bere?! i.e ees 136
“I do not know myself,”..... LEST
“Playfully, you hid from me.” .......c
cece eseeeeeeeeeeeee 138
 INTRODUCTION

] lived in Kashmir in the 14" century,

when many doctrinal streams were merg-
ing: Shaivism, Sufism, Vedantic non-dualism,
and other isms, but Lalla is beyond religious cat-
egories, a living combination that cannot be de-
scribed in those terms.
Sometimes she refers to the one reality as
“Shiva,” Sometimes it’s “Shiva and Shakti mak-
ing love in the jasmine garden,” Shakti being
the feminine creative aspect of Shiva. Sometimes
it’s the presence of an indeterminate “You” or
“That.” Sometimes “my Lord.” Other times, “the
supreme Principle.” And in one instance it’s
“mud,” a pun rising from the juxtaposition in
Sanskrit of the “you” and “I” pronouns. Always
it’s a dissolving of self into the absolute that she
celebrates. She lives between the “I am” and
the “That” of the famous Upanishad sentence,
Tat Tvam Asi, in a state there are no words for,
“a somewhat something moving dreamlike ona
fading road.”
 NAKED SONG
There are yogic references, and Shaivite and Sufi
terms in the poetry, but the deepest, most con-
stant truth is what she shares with all the great
mystics, “There is no reality but God,” within
and without, “only God.” This awareness is the
essence of worship. For Lalla, there is no differ-
ence between the individual self and the uni-
versal self, and the purpose of human life is to
realize this. The names for the various elements—
soul, God, enlightenment—do not matter. The
changeless (Shiva) and the constantly creating
(Shakti) are joined in the breath. Breathing out,
sah, and breathing in, ham, compose one real-
ization, I am That (sah-ham), which dissolves
duality.
Lalla has little use for scriptures. Words about
- the way are not the way. Action, compassion and
moderation, and listening to the innate intellect
bring what’s needed. Ecstasy is only one of her
moods, and not the primary one. Political dis-
gust is another, and a Hopi-like prophetic mode:
“A time is coming so deformed...” There’s knife-
like attention to specific behavior. “Eat only
enough to stop the hunger-pang”” And glisten-
ing affirmations, “Wherever I look, I see the self”
The balance of no and yes in her poems has a
remarkable grace. Along with the variety of her
2
 NAKED SONG
modes, Lalla has other qualities that seem, to
me, essentially feminine: her firm location in the
breath; her sense of being dissolved into the
lovemaking in the jasmine garden; and her at-
tention to a truth which is very much in motion,
and which can include her doubt and her
lostness. There are some obviously feminine
images. The act of moving onto the path of cour-
age is a baby struggling on the mother’s chest
and then finding the nipple! And one other pic-
ture of the surrendered life shows “someone
doing household chores, free of any action.” Her
* most penetrating vision, though, is beyond im-
agery. In it, she doesn’t see the Beloved pres-
ence everywhere, or anywhere. She becomes:
-emptiness, “nothing pouring into Nothing.”
She is most well known for wandering and danc-
ing naked as she sang her songs. In the ecstatic
line of the Hassids and the Sufis she joined the
pure joy of existence, and so completely merged
with it that the bare form of “Lalla,” whom she
often addresses, seemed clothing enough. Her
awareness observes the body, but is not identi-
fied with it.
We know very little about her, other than what
comes through the poetry. There are no official
references until four hundred years after her
3
NAKED SONG
death, and no contemporary manuscripts. The
legends of her life and the poems were preserved
in the oral tradition. Lalla means “darling,” and
she is certainly beloved in Kashmir. It is said
that only two words mean anything in Kashmiri,
Allah and Lalla, the rest being just language.
Hundreds of lines from the Lalla-Vakyana are
still actively a part of Kashmiri conversation. Her
diction is colloquial, tuned not to philosophy and
organized religion, but to the common people.
The “text” has come down with many variations,
some of it in an.old Kashmiri dialect, side by
side with Sanskrit transcriptions. Between one
hundred and two hundred songs, poems, and’
sayings seem to have survived.
She is also known as Lal Ded, Lal Didi, and Mai’
Lal Diddi, all of which mean Granny Lal, Grand-
mother Lalla. And in Sanskrit she is called
Lalleshwari, Lalla the great yogini, prophetess
and practitioner of yoga. The poems reveal this
double nature: one eye a warm, grandmotherly
glance. The other a more severe, truth-telling
vision into the Void. Her metaphors of oneness
are not majestic light-upon-light images. The
shapes of melting ice interest her. And she also
notices how ashes merge with clay to become
soil. “Study the ground, Lalla.” she reminds
herself.
 NAKED SONG
Born in Kashmir, probably in a village near
Srinagar, maybe in 1320, she died near there in
1391. All these facts are speculative. There are
stories of her being mistreated as a young wife
living with in-laws. Her mother-in-law would put
a stone on her plate and cover it thinly with rice,
so that it would look like Lalla was getting more
food than she actually was. Lalla never com-
plained. And she loved to spend time meditat-
ing at the holy shrines, Sent to fetch water, she
would stop there. One day her husband, think-
ing to punish her for dawdling on the way home,
struck the jar she was carrying. It broke. but the
water remained in place as a jar-shaped column
on Lalla’s head. That water became the sacred
“Lalla’s Lake” in Kashmir.
Tradition has it that Lalla left home, and the
marriage, at twenty-four to become a student of
the Hindu teacher, Sed Bayu. It was then also
that she began to ignore conventional standards
of dress and to wander in a state of ecstatic clar-
ity. One morning as children were making fun
of her nakedness, a cloth merchant scolded their
disrespect. Lalla asked him for two strands of
cloth equal in weight’ That day as she walked
about, she wore a piece of cloth over each shoul-
der, and as she met with respect or scorn, she
5
NAKED SONG
tied knots in one or the other. In the evening
she came back to the merchant and asked him
to weigh the cloth again. The scales swung in
balance, of course, no matter how the cloth was
knotted. Praise and blame have no substance of
their own.
Other parables and legends, many of them mi-
raculous, are associated with her meeting the
Sufi master, Ali Hamadani. Wandering naked,
she saw him approaching. She ran into a baker’s
shop and leaped into the blazing oven.
Hamadani stopped and asked if a woman had
come into the shop. Lalla suddenly appeared out
of the oven wearing the shimmering green and?
gold of Paradise. She said, “I had never seen a
man until you.” Lalla is also connected with a
Sheikh Nuruddin, and with Sed Bayu, men“
tioned earlier. An interesting exchange between
Lalla and this man has come down to us.

Sed Bayu was sitting with his disciples, when these

Questions were asked: which is the greatest of all
lights? What is the greatest pilgrimage? Which
relationship is best? What is most comforting?

Lalla was the first to answer. “There is no light

like that of the sun, no pilgrimage like that to the
Ganges. There is no relationship closer than with a
brother, and no ease like a wife?”
6
 \ NAKED SONG

Sed Bayu did not agree. “There is no light like that

In the eyes, no pilgrimage like going down on your
knees. no relationship like that with one’s own
pocket, and no comfort like a blanket”

Lalla raised the level yet again. “There is

no light like that of knowing God, no pilgrimage like
a deep longing, no relationship except the one with
God, and there is no peace that isn’t gratitude for
that.”

She was undoubtedly a challenge for her sev-

eral teachers. The scholar Richard Temple, with
great pains, has untangled the threads of the
various religions woven into Lalla’s Word. I rec-
ommend his study to anyone interested in iden--
tifying the strands, but I prefer the whole cloth,
the skin, of the counter-culture mystic who
moves through this poetry. The clarity, and her
dancer’s simplicity: amazement felt, stated, and
then the moving on. Quick, sure, un-fancy steps
that aren’t trying to convince or impress, but to
let you in her life. Her heart’s cry is, Om Namah
Shivaya, “I bow to the Highest Consciousness.”
I have come to Lalla after fifteen years of col-
laborative work on Jelaluddin Rumi. The dif-
ference in the two is considerable. Where Rumi
is extravagant, Lalla is spare. Where Rumi is
7
NAKED SONG
exuberant, Lalla is cold-sober. Rumi is intricate;
Lalla, simple. Rumi works within a group; Lalla
walks alone. Rumi is caressingly affectionate;
Lalla, severely clear. Other polarities could be
set up. Rumi is the imagination in full flower,
always moving. Lalla is the condensed code of
the body, the rooted, breathing word.
Yunus Emre, the Turkish mystic, looked at the
six volumes of Rumi’s Mathanawi and said, “All
these words!” Rumi asked, “How would you have
done it?”
“I would just wrap some skin around some bones
and call it Yunus.”
I am reminded of an Emily Dickinson poem,

The infinite a sudden guest

Has been assumed to be,

But how can that stupendous come,

Which never went away.

With Emily, Lalla stays home, like a lotus in the

mud, whereas Rumi plays in the ocean of long-
ing, a restlessness. Which seems oddly paradoxi-
cal to their actual lives: Rumi being located at
the center of a community, and Lalla the wan-
derer.
 NAKED SONG
What I love about the poems is that they feel
close to experience. Not the daily specifics, but
an inner attention. Here is her statement about
the use of poetry for the poet.

I didn’t trust it for a moment,

but I drank it anyway,
the wine of my own poetry.
It gave me the daring to take hold
of the darkness and tear it down
and cut it into little pieces.

Reducing shadow cloth to shreds and patches is

fine work for poetry. Sometimes abstract, and
. other times wonderfully imaged, her short-song
scissor-bites cut free the conventional veils and’
solaces, the light-blockers that hide our own
soul-nakedness. She leaves us out in the open
with nothing on, like the new moon.
—Coleman Barks
 THE SOURCES FOR THESE
TRANSLATIONS

Most of these poems have been re-worked from

the Grierson and Barnett text; that is, in the cur-
rent terminology, their 1920 edition has served
as a “first translator,” with myself as the “sec-
ond translator.” Other poems have been re-
worked in similar fashion from the
Muktananda—Gurumayi collection, collection,
from Women Saints, and from Kotru’s Lal Ded.
The appropriate pages in this volume (shown in
italics, with “a” denoting the first poem on a
page and “b” the second) are keyed to poem
numbers in Grierson-Barnett and Kotru and
page numbers in the other collections.
This has to be re-done in the final layout as the
page numbers and references will all change.
Copy editor.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Grierson, Sir George and Barnett, Lionel D.

Lalla-Vakyani, the Wise sayings of Lal Ded, A
Mystic Poetess of Ancient Kashmir. Royal Asi-
atic Society (London, 1920)

Lalleshwari, poems rendered by Muktananda

and Gurumayi.
Syda Foundation (South Fallsburg, N.Y., 1981)
This is an especially valuable work, as Gurumayi
is the living inheritor of this enlightened lin-
eage.

Nisargadatta. I Am That. Acorn Press (Durham,

N.C., 1973)

Kashmiri Lyrics, selected and translated by J. L.

Kaul. Rinemisray (Srinagar, 1989)

Temple, Richard Carnac. The Word of Lalla the

Prophetess. Cambridge University Press (Cam-

13
NAKED SONG
bridge, 1924)
Women Saints of the East and West, edited by
Swami Ghanananda and Sir John Stewart-
Wallace.
Vedanta Press (Hollywood, 1979)
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to thank Miranda Shaw for introducing

me to Lalla, and the dancer Zuleikha and my
sister Betsy (the novelist Elizabeth Cox), for
helping with various re-writing of these poems.
 LALLA

NAKED SONG

B,
vie
a
Dance, Lalla, with nothing on
but air. Sing, Lalla,
wearing the sky.

Look at this glowing day! What clothes

could ‘be so beautiful, or
more sacred?
 NAKED SONG

we
I began as a bloom of cotton,
outdoors. Then they brought me to a room
where they washed me. Then the hard strokes
of the carder’s wife. Then another woman
spun thin threads, twisting me
around her wheel. Then the kicks
of the weaver’s loom made cloth,
and on the washing stone, washermen
wet and slung me about
to their satisfaction, whitened me
with earth and bone,
and cleaned me to my own
amazement. Then the scissors
of the tailor, piece by piece,
and his careful finishing work.

Now, at last, as clothes,

I find You and freedom.
This living is so difficult
before one takes your hand.

20
 NAKED SONG

Whatever work I’ve done,

whatever I have thought,

was praise with my body

and praise hidden
inside my head.

21
NAKED SONG

we
In this state there is no Shiva,
nor any holy union.

Only a somewhat something moving

dreamlike on a fading road.

22
 NAKED SONG

Re
Loosen the load of sweetness I’m carrying.
The sling-knot is biting into my shoulder.

This day has been so meaningless.

I feel I can’t goon.

When I was with my teacher, I heard a truth

that hurt my heart like a blister,

The tender pain of seeing

something I loved as an illusion.

The flocks I tended are gone.

Tama shepherd without even a memory

of what that means, climbing this mountain.

I feel so lost.

This was my inward way, until I came

into the presence of a Moon, this new knowl-
edge

23
NAKED SONG

of how likenesses unite. Good Friend,

everything is You. I see only God.

Now the delightful forms and motions

are transparent. I look through them

and see myself as the Absolute. And here’s

the answer to the riddle of this dream:

You leave, so that we two

can do One Dance.

24
 NAKED SONG

That one is blessed and at peace

who doesn’t hope, to whom
desire makes no more loans.

Nothing coming, nothing owed.

25
NAKED SONG

Just for a moment, flowers appear

on the empty, nearly spring tree.

Just for a second, wind

through the wild thicket thorns.

26
 NAKED SONG

ye
Self inside self, You are nothing but me.
Self inside self, 1 am only You.

What we are together

will never die.

The why and how of this?

What does it matter?

27
NAKED SONG

a
You are the sky and the ground.
You alone the day, the night air.
You are all things born into being.

Also, these flower offerings

that someone brought.

28
 NAKED SONG

@
Whatever your name, Shiva, Vishnu,
the genius who inspired Scherazade,
savior of the Jains, the pure Buddha,
lotus-born God, I am sick. The world
is my disease, and you are the cure,
You, you, you, you, you, you, you.

29
 NAKED SONG

I saw a wise man dying of starvation.

Leaves fall in the slightest

wind in December.

And I saw a wealthy man beating his cook

’ for some mistake with the spices.

Since then, I, Lalla, have been waiting

for my love of this place to leave me.

30
 NAKED SONG

You were once a swan singing

melodies, Lalla. Now you're quiet.

Someone, I don’t know who, has run off

with what belonged to you.

The millstone stops, and the hole

where the grain is fed in fills

with grain. The channel leading

to the grinding work is covered over

and hidden, and the miller

himself has disappeared.

31
 NAKED SONG

What has happened to me?

All these songs tell one story:

_that of Lalla on a lake, not knowing
what sandbar Ill run around on.

What kind of luck have I had?

I made harmony out of man’s clumsy

plastering job on the ceiling.

Still I wonder which

sandbank will strand me.

And how is it now with me?

Magnificent, this becoming

more and more awake.

32
 NAKED SONG

ye
Sir, have you forgotten the promise
you made in your mother’s womb,
to die before you die?

When will you remember

what you intended?

Don’t let your donkey wander loose!

It will stray into your neighbor’s
saffron garden. Think of the damage
it might do, and the punishment!

Who then will carry you naked

to your own death?

33
 NAKED SONG

we
Forgetful one, get up!
It’s dawn, time to start searching.

Open your wings and lift.

Give like he blacksmith
even breath to the bellows.

Tend the fire that changes

the shape of metal.

Alchemical work beings at dawn,

as you walk out to meet the Friend.

34
 NAKED SONG

ce
There is a lake so tiny
that a mustard seed would cover it
easily, yet everyone drinks from this lake.

Deer, jackals, rhinoceroses, and sea elephants

keep falling into it, falling and dissolving
almost before they have time to be born.

35
NAKED SONG

a
I wearied myself searching for the Friend
with efforts beyond my strength.

I came to the door and saw how

powerfully the locks were bolted.

And the longing in me became that strong,

and then I saw that I was gazing
from within the presence.

With that waiting, and in giving up all trying,

only then did Lalla flow out
from where I knelt.

36
 NAKED SONG

Your way of knowing is a private herb garden.

Enclose it with a hedge of meditation,
and self-discipline, and helpfulness to others.

Then everything you’ve done before

will be brought as a sacrifice
to the mother goddess.

And each day, as you eat the herbs,

the garden grows more bare and empty.

37
NAKED SONG

Beautifully full of juice they come from the

mother,
causing many birth-pains.

Again and again, wait at her door to enter.

Shiva ig not often among them!
Meditate on that.

The pedestal rock can also serve as pavement, |

or as a handsome millstone turning perfectly.

Each is just a hardened piece of the ground.

Shiva is so rarely found.

Sunlight shines everywhere equally.

Water flows into every house.

It’s also true that Shiva

can scarcely be located.
The woman who nurses her child with milk
acts with a different love as your wife,

38
 NAKED SONG

and talking secretly to other men,

she may be dangerous to you, the same woman.

Meditate on how seldom

Shiva appears.

If I could control the channels of my breath,

if I could perform precise surgery on myself,
I could create the substance that awareness is.

There’s nothing more valuable than that!

God does not often come as a person.

39
NAKED SONG

FOUR QUESTIONS:

Who is awake and who asleep?

What is this lake that is continually
oozing back into the earth?
What can a human being offer to God?
What do we most deeply want?

THE ANSWERS:

The mind is what sleeps.

What recognizes itself
as God is awake.

This always-disappearing lake

is made of our appetites,
these movings-about,
this talking and listening.

The only offering you can make to God

is your increasing awareness.

And the last desire is

to be God in human form.
40
 NAKED SONG

The soul, like the moon,

is now, and always new again.

And I have seen the ocean

continuously creating.

Since I scoured my mind

and my body, I too, Lalla,
am new, each moment new.

My teacher told me one thing,

live in the soul.

When that was so,

I began to go naked,
and dance.

4]
NAKED SONG

ed
Meditate within eternity.
Don’t stay in the mind.

Your thoughts are like a child fretting

near its mother’s breast, restless
‘and afraid, who with a little guidance,
can find the path of courage.

42
 NAKED SONG

ye
Wear just enough clothes to keep warm.
Eat only enough to stop the hunger-pang.

And as for your mind, let it work

to recognize who you are,
and the Absolute, and that
this body will become food
for the forest crows.

43
NAKED SONG

2
Meditation and self-discipline
are not all that’s needed, nor even
a deep longing to go through
the door of freedom.

You may dissolve in contemplation,

as salt does in water,
but there’s something more
that must happen.

44
 NAKED SONG

ee)
_ Enlighten your desires.
Meditate on who you are.
Quitimagining.

Wha you want is profoundly expensive,

and lifficult to find,
yet cose by.

Dont search for it. It is nothing,

and | nothing within nothing.

45
NAKED SONG

a
Awareness is the ocean of existence.
Let it loose and your words will rage
and cause wounds lie fishing spears.

But if you tend it like a fire

to discover the truth,
you'll find how much of that
there is in what you say. None.

46
 NAKED SONG

Fame is water
carried in a basket.
Hold the wind in your fist,
or tie up an elephant
with one hair.

These are accomplishments

that will make you famous.

47
NAKED SONG

we.
So ham in Sanskrit
means I am He.

Reversed, hamsa
means swan.

This way is the way of those

who remember I am He, He is me,
so ham, swan, and hamsa, all one
soaring beauty and freedom.

No matter that we’re busy in business

night and day. We don’t’ care
What profit comes.

We live alone
inside the Lord.

48
 NAKED SONG

ee)
Flowers, sesame seed, bowls of fresh water,
a tuft of kusa-grass, all this altar
paraphernalia is not needed
by someone who takes the teacher’s words in
and honestly lives them.

Full of longing in meditation,

one sinks into a joy that is free
of any impulse to act and will not
enter a human birth again.

49
NAKED SONG

It is God who yawns and sneezes

and coughs, and now laughs.

Look, it’s God doing ablutions!

God deciding to fast, God going naked
from one New Year’s Eve to the next.

Will you ever understand

how near God is
to you?

50
 NAKED SONG:

I exhausted myself, looking.

No one ever finds this by trying.

I melted in it and came home,

where every jar is full,
but no one drinks.

51
NAKED SONG

id
Your pride in yourself and your wanting,
these steal your energy along the road.

If you can kill these robbers

and become the servant of everyone,
you'll meet the Lord in meditation
and see what you used to protect
as just a pile of ashes.

52
 NAKED SONG

Dous_e Poems

ce

53
NAKED SONG

There are at least two equally possible transla-

tions for these poems because of the puns in
Sanskrit. In this poem the words for “me” and
“you” may be read together, in which case they
become one word meaning, “mud.”

54
 NAKED SONG

we
SEPARATE:

Absorbed in yourself, you hid from me.

I spent every day looking for you.

Then I saw you inside and gave myself

in a rapture of union.

TOGETHER:
Covered with mud, I spend the entire day
looking for mud! Now I see
what’s all over me
and give in to loving it!

55
NAKED SONG

According to Grierson and Barnett, there are a

number of double meanings in this poem, an
“onion” and “breath” pun, for example!

56
 NAKED SONG

we
I tried to sell this breathing body
to the world. Then I came to know
that body and soul are one thing,

and that if you don’t control them,

you won’t have true joy,

So I added the flavor

of “I am That”

I called out in the market,

“Lotus-stalks for sale!
Onions and garlic!”
Then I saw how onions and garlic
come from the same family.

When you cook them together,

be aware that God-in-you
can give tastiness to anything!

57
NAKED SONG

One of the puns here involves “cowry shell” and

“the name of God.”

58
 NAKED SONG

On a way that wasn’t way

I came to a makeshift bridge
of rotten planks.

I looked in my sack. There was not

even a cowry shell.

What shall I give to get across?

I went a way that was not a way.

On the dangerous embankment of my mind

I looked in the sack but could not find
the Name of God.

What do I give to get across?

59
NAKED SONG

Again, the chief pun in this pair is “onion” and

“breath.”

60
 NAKED SONG

we
I locked the doors and windows.
I grabbed the onion-thief
and yelled for help.

I tied him up in an inside closet

and threatened him with Om. Om.

I shut the body openings

and found out what steals

the even-breath, the truth

of Who we are.

61
NAKED SONG

ed
If you want a kingdom and get it,
you'll have no peace.

If you give it away,

still you won’t be content.

Only a soul free of desire

can taste eternity.

Be living, yet dead!

Then knowing comes
to live in you.

62
 NAKED SONG

Let them throw their curses.

If inside, I am connected
to what’s true, my soul
stays quiet and clear.

Do you think Shiva worries

what people say!

If a few ashes fall on a mirror,

use them to polish it.

63
NAKED SONG

There are those sleeping who are awake,

and others awake who are sound asleep.

Some of those bathing in sacred pools

will never get clean.

And there are others

doing household chores
who are free of any action.

64
 NAKED SONG’

we
One in whom the syllable OM
rises steadily upward
from the sex through the navel,
and only OM, forms a bridge to God.

That one has no interest

in different kinds of magic.
That one is a spell.

65
 NAKED SONG

So you’ve cut up your hide and stretched it,

pegged it down to dry with definite,
sharp-pointed desires,

But have you planted any fruit trees

for the next generation?

Wisdom offered you is like a ball

thrown at a boundary post,

Useless as molasses fed to a tawny bull

to help it give more milk!

66
 NAKED SONG

I keep weeping for you, my soul,

good sir, gently trying to let you
see the nature of what you love.

Not even the shadow

of an iron anchor
will last from here.

Remember the truth

that you are.

67
 NAKED SONG

I, Lalla, entered the jasmine garden,

where Shiva and Shakti were making love.

I dissolved into them,

and what is this
to me, now?

I seem to be here,
but really I’m walking
in the jasmine garden.

68
 NAKED SONG

Fearful, always-moving mind,

the one who has no beginning
is thinking of how hunger
may fall away from you.

No ritual,
no religion,
is needed.

Just cry out one

unobstructed cry.

69
NAKED SONG

a
The royal fan, sunshade, and chariot,
the throne itself, the happy feasting,
the theatre nights, your soft, down bed,
which of these can help your fear of death?

You’ve demolished the high banked marsh road. |

How is it now out in the swamp?
Death will come at one specific moment.
How does that make you feel?

There are two results and three causes.

Practice the breath. Rise
through the disc of the sun.
Your death panic will fade.

Let your body wear your knowing.

Let your heart sing songs.

Lalla has become a syllable

of soul-light. There is no death.

70
 NAKED SONG

Re]
Enlightenment absorbs this universe of quali-
ties.
When that merging occurs, there is nothing
but God. This is the only doctrine.

There is no word for it, no mind

to understand it with, no categories
of transcendence or non-transcendence,
no vow of silence, no mystical attitude.

There is no Shiva and no Shakti

in enlightenment, and if there is something
that remains, that whatever-it-is
is the only teaching.

71
 NAKED SONG

. They arrive and others arrive,

and then they go, and the others go.
Day and night, a constant traffic.

Where do they come from?

Where do they go?

Does it mean anything?

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

72
 NAKED SONG

ww
What is worship? Whe
and this woman bringi:

What kinds of flowers she

and what stream water pou.

Real worship is done by the 1.

(Let that be a man) and by the
(Let that be a woman). And let thc
choose what to sacr’

The
fr

73
NAKED SONG

we
Shiva is the horse.
Vishnu puts the saddle on.
Brahma adjusts the stirrup.

And there is that in you

that will recognize the rider
those are waiting on: the unobstructed
sound, the nothing without name,
or lineage, or form,

which is continually changing

into the Sound and the Dot
within a human being who is
that meditating inside That,

the Sound and the Dot,

which are one thing, alone,
and the rider who mounts to ride.

74
 NAKED SONG,

we
Three times I have seen the lake
of the universe overflowing.

Once, I remember seeing

the only existent place
as a whirling without form,

And once, as a bridge over this

that is now Kashmir.

and seven times, I saw the whole

as emptiness.

75
NAKED SONG

we
Men and women now, even the best,
can barely remember their past lives,

and as for the children, whose lives

are getting harder and harder,
what will they do?

A time is coming so deformed

and unnatural that pears and apples
will ripen with the apricots,

and a daughter and a mother

will leave the house every day
hand in hand to find new strangers
to lie down with.

76
 NAKED SONG

For a moment I saw a beautiful moving river.

Then a vast water with no means of crossing it.

For a moment, I saw a bush full of opening buds.

Then no roses, no thorns, nothing.

For a monent I saw a busy cooking fire.

Then no hearth, no smoke, no flame.

I saw the great mother of kings, Kunti.

Then, the next moment, sitting here, is
the helpless old aunt of the potter’s wife.

77
NAKED SONG

Whatever I do, the responsibility is mine,

but like one who plants an orchard,
what comes of what I do, the fruit,
will be for others.

I offer the actions of this life

to the God within,
and wherever I go, the way is blessed.

78
 NAKED SONG

ce)
Some people abandon their homes.
Others abandon hermitages.

All this renunciation does nothing,

if you’re not deeply conscious.

Day and night, be aware

with each breath,
. and live there.

My teacher, you are God to me!

Tell me the inner meaning
of my two breathings,
the one warm, the other cool.

“In your pelvis near the navel is the source

of many motions called the sun,
the city of the bulb.

As your vitality rises from that sun,

it warms, and in your mouth it meets
the downward flow through the fontanelle
of your higher self, which is cool
and called the moon, or Shiva.

This rivering mixture feels,

by turns, warm and cool.”
719
NAKED SONG

ce)
My body caught fire like an ember,
as I brought the syllable OM,
the one that says You are That,
into me. I moved through
the six chakra centers
that urge human beings to action
and out into the lightedness
where Lalla lives now.

80
 NAKED SONG

Lalla, there’s no birth or death.

You are one, but not with happiness
or difficulty, not with
desire or anger.

You do not walk with people

who only talk about truth.

The experience of God

is continuous amazement.

81
NAKED SONG

Dying and giving birth go on

inside the one consciousness,
but most people misunderstand

the pure play of creative energy,

how inside that, those
are one event.

82
 NAKED SONG

Lalla, you’ve wandered so many places

trying to find your husband!

Now at last, inside the walls

of this body-house, in the heart-shrine,
you discover where he lives.

83
NAKED SONG

I made pilgrimages, looking for God.

Then I gave up, turned around,
there God was inside me!

Oh Lalla, why do you keep on

wandering, and begging?

Make just a little effort. Act!

And God will appear in the form
of a love that fills your heart.

84
 NAKED SONG

I spent my days idly as a vine

growing slowly in some holy place.

Then compassion came,

and I saw the Absolute.

All the names are true,

but I kept repeating that
of my teacher, and OM.

And sometimes I sang Om

Namah Shivaya, the greeting
that gives peace to the world
as well as to the spirit.

85
NAKED SONG

we
As my love and my faith,
and my interest in the inner
grew, the darkness diminished,
within and without, and Lalla
lost herself in that light.

86
 NAKED SONG

When you eat too much,

you forget your truth,

and fasting makes you conceited,

so eat with some discipline,
and consciously. Be
an ordinary human being.

Then the door will open,

and you'll recognize the way.
Lalla, be moderate!

87
NAKED SONG

oe
Everything is new now for me.
My mind is new, the moon, the sun.
The whole would looks rinsed with water,
washed in the rain of I am That.

Lalla leaps and dances inside the energy

that creates and sustains the universe.

88
 NAKED SONG

ye
My teacher put a lotion on my eyes
that dissolved the cataracts,
and now wherever I look I see
the self, God, inner life
everywhere. Lalla,
this is true!

89
NAKED SONG

ye
If you live on the breath,
you won’t be tortured
by hunger and thirst,
or the longing to touch.

The purpose of being born is fulfilled

in the state between “I am”
and “That.”

90
 NAKED SONG

On the way to God the difficulties

feel like being ground by a millstone,
like night coming at noon, like
lightning through the clouds.

But don’t worry!

What must come, comes.
Face everything with love,
as your mind dissolves in God.

91
NAKED SONG

ce
When the mirror of my consciousness became
clear,
I saw that my family and other I
love are the same as me.

The “you” and “I” thought

does not occur.
The entire would is God.

92
 NAKED SONG

w
. Lord, you exist
as me. Your power moves,
and I start walking.

A prior impulse is the only difference

between us. Other than that,
everything I am is you.

93
NAKED SONG

ed
Life is given.
Nothing is earned,
so learn to serve others,
not your own desire and greed
and ego. They steal your energies,
whereas dévotion builds your strength
and protects the intelligent flame
that leads to the truth within.

94
 NAKED SONG

ye
Meditate, and grow humble.
Watch anger and wanting
turn to ashes.

Study the ground, Lalla,

as a sign of attainment.

95
 NAKED SONG

Your face is beautiful.

but your loving is cold.

Your tongue is tired of saying

sacred words over and over,

and your fingers, you’ve worked them

to the nub copying texts,

but the rage stored inside you

has found no way to leave.

96
 NAKED SONG

ye
What understanding comes through reading? |
I decided not to let books determine
my life, but only whatever helps dissolve
infatuation and sentimental longing.

The shrewdness of innate,

subtle intellect is a fox
who knows what I need.

97
NAKED SONG

ye
The way is difficult and very intricate.
Lalla discarded her books that told
about it, and through meditation
saw the truth that never comes
to anyone from reading words.

98
 NAKED SONG

we
Intense cold makes water ice.
Then the hard ice turns to slush
and back to water, so there are three
forms of consciousness: the individual,
the world, and God, which in the sun
of True Awareness melt to one flowing:

Lalla is that.

In meditation, I entered the love-furnace,

burned impurities away, and as the sun
of a new knowing rose, I realized
that the words “Lalla” and “God”
point to this peacefulness.

99
NAKED SONG

yw
I came to this birth and rebirth universe
and found the self-lighting light.

If someone dies, it’s nothing to me,

and if I die, it’s nothing to anyone.

It’s good to die,

and good to live long.
 NAKED SONG

we
You are the sky and the ground.
You alone the day, the night air.

You are the meal that’s being brought,

the sandal knot, flowers and their watering.

You are all this.

What could I possibly bring You!

101
NAKED SONG

ye
There is no “You” or “I,” no object
to contemplate, no contemplation!
Everything is That lost in That.

The blind theologians didn’t understand.

Then they saw, and their seven levels
of attainment dissolved to nothing.

102
 NAKED SONG

Sd
Where did I come from, and how?
Where am I going?
Will I know the road?

This life is empty breath.

If I can hear one clear truth,
T'll be fortunate.

103
NAKED SONG

us
Those with a knack for walking in air,
those who can cool a fire,
still a stream,
or get milk from a wooden cow,
they’re street jugglers, nothing more.

104
 NAKED SONG

we
Ascetics wander shrine to shrine,
looking for what can only come
from visiting the soul.

Study the mystery you embody.

When you look up from that,
the dub grass looks fresher
a little ways off, and even more
green farther on. Stay here.

105
 NAKED SONG

ed
If you’ve melted your desires
in the river of time, choose
to be a recluse, or choose
a family, the village job.

If you know the pure Lord within you,

- you'll be That, wherever.

106
 NAKED SONG

we
Don’t be so quick to condemn my nakedness.

A man is one who trembles in the presence.

There are very few of those.
Why not go naked?

The ram of experience must be fed

and ripened for the sacrifice.

Then all these customs will disappear

like clothing. There’s only the soul.

107
NAKED SONG

we
I went everywhere with longing
in my eyes, until here
in my own house

I felt truth
filling my sight.

108
 NAKED SONG

ye
I have not really known myself,
or anyone else.

I've tried to do good, and not

just what my appetites wanted,

but that was all infatuation

with this precious, isolated, body.

That you and I were constantly joining,

I didn’t know. I didn’t know

That even to ask “Who are You?”

or “Who am I?” breaks the harmony.

109
NAKED SONG

The sun, the lowest chakra of action,

disappeared. Then the highest, the moon.

Absorbed in the infinite, my mind dissolved.

Where now have the earth and the sky gone?

Are they hiding in the nothing

like friends on a walk?

110
 NAKED SONG

a
I have drunk many times
the wine of existence, and the water
of this Sindhu River.

I’ve played many roles, been lots

of different human beings.

Still, I’m Lalla, the same.

Why have I gone through this?

1
NAKED SONG

If you’re wise, be foolish.

if you can see, squint.

Though you can hear, sit

dumb as an old rock.

Whatever anyone says,

listen and agree.

This is a friendly practice,

and it leads to some truth.

112
 NAKED SONG

”
Day will be erased in night.
The ground’s surface will extend outward.

The new moon will be swallowed

in eclipse, and the mind in meditation

will be completely absorbed

by the Void inside it.

113
 NAKED SONG

Sd
Let him say
whatever he wants
. against me.

Let whoever come

and say whatever.

Or let them worship me,

bringing their souls
here like flowers.

I’m not part of any of that.

So where’s the exchange?

114
 NAKED SONG

we
God of the dark blue throat,
who drank the poison to save us,
you have six powers, and so must I!

But I’ve grown separate from you,

and taken on another six.
They mislead me.

115
 NAKED SONG

ae)
When you see yourself
and someone else
as one being,

When you know the most joyful day

and the most terrible night
as one moment, then

awareness is alone
with its Lord.

116
 NAKED SONG

ye
With repeated meditation practice
the expanse of the visible universe
with all its qualities dissolves
to nothing, to where there is
only health and a great joy.

All teaching comes to this.

117
NAKED SONG

ed
If you ride the breath
and keep it under control,

hunger and thirst and other wantings

will not be dangerous to you.

Being skilled with that bridle

is a great blessing.

118
 NAKED SONG

ee)
With passionate practices
I held the reins secure on my mind
and made the breath one column.

Then the new moon’s clear

1ectar descended into me,
1othing pouring into Nothing.

119
NAKED SONG

ye
There are some demons dangerous
to your soul: lust, anger.
but there’s a way to kill them.

Feed them meditation only,

and clear awareness, and you'll see
the illusion of what they control.

120
 NAKED SONG

At the end of a crazy-moon night

the love of God rose.
I said, “It’s me, Lalla”

The Beloved woke. We became That,

and the lake is crystal-clear.

121
NAKED SONG

I didn’t trust it for a moment,

but I drank it anyway,
the wine of my own poetry.

It gave me the daring to take hold

of the darkness and tear it down
and cut it into little pieces.

122
 NAKED SONG

Re
One who handles a sword well
gets power. Someone generous

and disciplined wins what

the public religions offer.

But knowledge of the deep self comes

only from a teacher who is That.

Everything we do mixes
in the ground of the self.

123
~ NAKED SONG

Slowly, slowly, I tended

the bellows of my throat,
and the light inside grew

and filtered out through

the dark, so that within
even it, I saw the truth.

124
 NAKED SONG

Iam towing my boat on the ocean

with a rope of untwisted yarn.

Whatever I do is a waste,
like water poured
on unbaked clay plates.

How will I ever make it home?

125
NAKED SONG

od
Gently I weep for my mind,
caught in its illusion of ownership.

Mind, you’re not who you think you are. °

You’re dancing over a pit.

Soon you'll fall through,

and these things, you’ve valued
and collected will be left behind.

My sweet dear, do you understand this,

and if you do, how does your food taste?

126
 NAKED SONG

I am a wooden bow trying to shoot

arrows made of flimsy grasses.

I am an unskilled architect
who’s been asked to build
a palace for the king.

In the middle of the marketplace

I am a shop with no lock on its door.

I have no guide
to show me the way.

127
NAKED SONG

ed
Life sinks down. We leave.
We keep walking day and night,
and come back where we began.

There is some mysterious meaning

in this, but what is it?

128
 NAKED SONG

Cd
When will my shame fall away?
When will I accept being mocked
and let my robe of dignity burn up?

When the wandering pony inside

comes calm to my hand.

129
 NAKED SONG

My mouth got tired of saying words.

My thumb and my forefinger wore
smooth with telling beads,

and still, my dear, this love

feels the pull of another.

I haven’t lost my sense

of heing separated.

130
 NAKED SONG

Unconscious people read the scriptures

like parrots saying Ram, Ram,
in their cages.

It’s all pretend-knowledge.

Read rather, with me, every
living moment as prophecy.

131
 NAKED SONG

Three things about grinding grain:

Once you start the mill turning,

_ it easily keeps its momentum.

Only the hub knows,

_ the secret of millitig,

When fine flour appears by the millstone,

grist will find its own way
into the mill yard.

132
 NAKED SONG

Don’t talk of different religions.

The one reality is everywhere,
not just in a Hindu, or a Muslim,
or anywhere else! Realize:

Your awareness is
the truth about God.

133
NAKED SONG

Awareness cleaned my mind

to a polished mirroring.

The presence came near, and I knew

that That was everything,
and I nothing.

134
 NAKED SONG

we
Lost in the wilderness between
true awareness and the senses,

I suddenly woke inside myself

like a lotus opening
in waterweeds.

135
NAKED SONG

How did I get here?

Where am I going?

Only true initiation helps.

Is breath-awareness
all there is?

136
 NAKED SONG

ed
I do not know myself,
nor you, my Lord.

I mistook the body

for my identity.
I didn’t know
that you are
me, and I you,

yet still I keep wondering

who you and J are.

137
NAKED SONG

Playfully, you hid from me.

All day I looked.

Then I discovered
I was you,

and the celebration

of That bezan.

138
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The Book of Rice: Nepalese Georgics Jim Good

A Collection of Love Lyrics in Indian .. .... Laurence Hope

A Hymn by Rana Bahadur Shab ....... ... Kesar Lall

Poems by Nepali Women .... Edited by Shailendra Kumar Singh

Two Sisters: A collection of Poems

Benju Sherma and Manju Kanchuli

Sound of Silence Priti Himatsingka

The Secrets of the Self: Asrar-Khudi .......... Reynold A Nicholson

The Prophet Kahlil Gibran

Birdsong Rumi: .............e Translated by Coleman Barks

Stallion on a Frozen Lake Sixth Dalai Lama:
Translated by Col Barks
 ies peasitas
ic): fchscshetd-frpshsestarscar tsb kans tit

“Solk we self, ou nothing Ateme,

Self mside sep, ( am only You,
What we are ticle
wilt never de,
| he whip and how of thie?
What does it matter?”

Lalla (1320-1392), the 14” century North Indian mystic, also known
as Lal Ded, Lal Didi and Mai Lal Diddi, all variations of Grandmother
Lalla, was born in a Kashmiri village near Srinagar. Her whole life is
steeped in legend. Tales of an unhappy marriage and cruel
treatment by her in-laws, and those of her devotion to God are rife.
Her poems are still very much alive in the Kashmiri tongue.

The poems attributed to Lalla express something greater than

religion, in fact an awareness of things as they really are, the simple
truths that remain unseen by men at large. Lalla's naked perception
is the truth she knows, and that is always in motion, as she herself
was, wandering and singing these songs in medieval Kashmir.

Coleman Barks has also translated and published other esoteric

poets like The Sixth Dalai Lama, Rigdzin Tsangyang Gyatso and
Jalaluddin Rumi, whose works are to be found included in this
present series.