The Ashes of the Book

The one supreme purpose of human life
Is man’s return to his divinity,
Again, reunite with the Absolute,
Breaking the chain of rebirth forever.

By the grace of OM, always there will be
Souls who will know and understand the truth,
Reject the world and gain the Absolute;
Thus, a mortal becomes an immortal.

He who has already achieved must light
The way to mortals who seek the same path.
Thus, gurus become the guides of others;
Jivanmuktis have no other duties.

No guru can give you realization;
This you can only attain for yourself.
The guru can guide and show the way
But the disciple must do the practice.

Guru guidance can only take two forms
First to clear the mind of its delusions,
Thus, to overcome past conditioning
And second, to teach the practical steps.

It is not so much what you must believe
As those wrong ideas, you have to reject,
Empty the mind of all misconceptions,
Free the mind from its past conditioning.

The path is not presented for discussion
And nobody is going to persuade you,
But before this wisdom can have any meaning,
Empty the mind of all preconceptions.

Empirical thinking will never solve
Problems or pathways to the Absolute.
Realization and Liberation come
When the relative is burnt at the root.

The philosopher lives in a pattern
Of thoughts, concepts, deductions and ideas,
And soon he begins to doubt everything,
The doubts which grow till they engulf himself.

With or without philosophy, the Real,
Truth, the Absolute, is never approached.
Thus, in spite of all ideas and theories,
The world of relativity remains.

Gurus and masters of realization
Did not find the path by speculation.
The truth revealed, and everything attained
Only in the calm of contemplation.

The man who sits outside the tavern door
Sees all the brawls and quarrels rage within;
He can never be intoxicated
But views the scene, not disturbed by the din.

The true disciple seeks to join with OM
And does not crave for any sort of power;
He who seeks something to show and display,
Uproots the plant because he wants the flowers.

From the vast Universe to the amoeba,
OM, the Absolute, is all-pervading;
If OM is everywhere and, in all things,
Where can we find a place where OM is not!

Immortality is not of the world:
Neither intensity nor works increase,
Neither new actions nor the social whirl;
Only real equipoise will give you peace.

Gaze into the blue sky beyond the clouds,
Or gaze into the depths of starlit space
And see the plenum of eternity,
The all-pervading essence, infinite.

In some strange way, this Universe was born,
A thought of OM or just a cosmic tear,
But what is the use of speculation
When all that we can know is we are here?

Try to give life a purpose or an aim
And you will miss the true art of living;
Change your attitude and relationship
And you can live again as supreme Self.

It is spontaneous and comes of itself
To natural man with an awakened mind;
By sitting calm and not even thinking
The “Grace of the Absolute” will descend.

Equipoise in honor and dishonor
Unsmiling same to either friend or foe.
True consciousness can never wear a mask;
Between the pure and impure never rest.

Wisdom may come from a thousand sources,
So, it is wrong to stress one school of thought:
Particles of truth are found everywhere
And no one school has yet possessed the whole.

The practice of the way must always be
Consistent with the theory you are taught,
For talk alone can never bring success
And practice when ignored, must lead to naught.

But when you turn your back upon the world,
And all the sordid confusion of mankind,
Remember, only few can get away;
So no reproach for those who stay behind.

You are the highest Self,
The Supreme Reality;
Wake up, O sleeping soul—
Regain immortality.