I know You are the Friend to all and embrace all equally, yet still, I would keep You for myself.
Kunj Bihari—Enjoyer of the Forest Groves
By choice, I would not share You with anyone. I would press myself into You like a pebble into soft clay and I would wrap You up safe behind my ribs. I would not talk about You. I would carry You with me everywhere and no one would know. I would call You only by Your secret name.
I would love You only in the softest hours of the night if those hours would spread their wings over the whole sphere of time—if their pinions would hide us from the eyes of Sun and man alike, if they would unfold into a blind grove by a river of reed and fern, lit only by the sound of water and flute.
This place belongs only to You and me. There is no room here for anything else.
Damodara—Roped around the Belly
I know You and I do not understand You. You are so simple, but I am baffled by You, and so is everyone else.
Many different people have said many different things about You, but how I know You is both like and unlike what they say. Indeed, You are the Truth of the Vedas, but You are not like anything but Yourself. You are not anything but Yourself.
Many people told me about You, but no one gave You to me. You gave Yourself, in a thousand ways, as no one else could.
You gave Yourself and I kept on walking. I’m sorry, Sweetie. I realize I’ve been absent in our relationship. You call to me by any means possible and I only come when I want something.
They say that You are bound by the love of Your devotees. I have just a little thread here, which I hope will be enough to capture Your tender limbs.
Shyamasundara—The Dark and Beautiful One
At the center of every galaxy, including ours, there is a supermassive black hole.
Black holes are not rare phenomena but impossible to detect unless they reach a scale where they gravitationally influence other celestial bodies. There could be a billion of them just in our galaxy. We might be inside one right now.
We call them “black holes,” but they are not empty. Quite the opposite: they are full to brimming, with incredible mass condensed within a single point. They are only a hole in our knowledge, since no information escapes to indicate what happens past the event horizon.
But we can surmise that over that invisible line, the flow of time and space becomes unidirectional.
Once you pass the event horizon, arrival at the singularity is inevitable. There is no turning back, no “if”—only “when.” Within its threshold, the singularity is a point in time, not space. Or perhaps time is space and space is time.
Gravity bends time just like space. The closer you are to the singularity, the slower time passes compared to its pace in the outside world. If you were to pass over the event horizon and peek out at the universe you left behind, you could watch cosmic history play out in fast-forward for the enjoyment of your doomed eyes. If you were close enough to the singularity, all of time would take place simultaneously.
What happens to matter that enters the singularity? Is it destroyed? Does it pop out somewhere else in the universe? Does it enter into another universe inside the black hole?
Whatever its fate, no one will come back to tell the tale.
Madana Mohana—The One Who Enchants the God of Love
Just between You and me, I think You’re a bit of a rascal. You don’t play fair and You can be awfully harsh to Your little chakora birds lost in the material world. Don’t you see how we suffer?
But I would defend Your honor in front of anyone. You wouldn’t do the same for me; that’s ok!
I love You like a mad thing. Lead me on and drag me over hot coals all You want; it won’t change anything.
You take everything; nothing escapes You. Please have it.
You created the game and didn’t bother to tell me the rules, so I crash and burn again and again. That’s fine, let’s go another round. Your move, Friend.
I love You hopelessly and beyond reason. I love You with my heart that ticks its way even now towards its last pulse. I love You with my face that’s growing older and my limbs that will be frail someday. I love You with my bones that are soft on the inside.
I love You like a dumb teenage crush, but one that’s bathed in milk and rosewater.
Dinadayal—Merciful to the Downtrodden
Beloved, You see through all eyes, including that great devouring eye of the singularity, watching the life of the cosmos pass by all at once.
You have said, “I am Time, destroyer of worlds.” Still, I would like to touch Your face. They say Your skin is soft as butter and Your breath intoxicatingly sweet.
Your softness and sweetness will destroy me too, will destroy any notion of a “me” separate from You, but until then, I walk blindly in daylight. I can do nothing but cling to Your lotus toes. I have no other recourse, no other protector, no other guide.
They say You are merciful to the downtrodden. They say You are all-attractive, magnetizing all the souls to You. They say that to see Your face once is to pass beyond any chance of return.
When, Beloved, will I fail to escape from Your mercy? When will You draw me so deep into Yourself there is no one left to tell the tale?
Naveen is a Hridaya teacher and a frequent contributor to our blog. You can read all of her posts here.
