‘Who Am I? Who Are You?’

Doubt, Bewilderment

Lord! I’ve never known who I really am, or You.
I threw my love away on this lousy carcass
and never figured it out: You’re me, I’m You.
All I ever did was doubt: Who am I? Who are You?

(Lal Ded: Ranjit Hoskote)

Grasp the root: something happens.
Don’t be lost
in confusion.
Mind-ocean, mind-born waves—
don’t let the tide
sweep you away.

(Kabir: Linda Hess and Shukdev Singh)

She’s found him, she has, but Radha disbelieves
That it’s true, what she sees when her eyes behold
her master’s moonlike face.
Her gaze is fixed, but her mind is glazed;
her eyes refuse to close;
And her intellect wages a raging debate:
Is it a dream? Or is this her true Lord?
Her eyes fill and fill with beauty’s high pleasure,
then hide it away in her breast:
Like bees driven wild by any distance from honey
they dart back and forth from the hoard to the source.
Sometimes she musters her thoughts; she wonders:
“Who does he love? Who can this Hari be?”
For love, says Sur, is an awkward thing.
It ripples the mind with waves

(Surdas: John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmeyer)

Tell her he’s standing right next to her,
and he’s amazed she doesn’t see him.

She’s thinking so much, and missing him,
that when he comes to her door and calls her,
she doesn’t hear.
Right from the beginning, this separation
has worn her down.
Now if anyone tells her the truth,
she doesn’t believe him.

He’s standing right next to her.

Drowning in sighs, her hair unkempt,
she doesn’t know him even when he touches her.
She’s been waiting too long. She’s so tired.
When he comes for real, she says it’s a lie.

He’s standing right next to her.

She lies on a bed of flowers,
her sari slipping from her breasts.
He lies down beside her, she doesn’t see him.
Then he looks up and makes love to her,
and she says she’s had the strangest dream.

He’s standing right next to her.

(Annamacharya: V. Narayana Rao and David Shulman)