Sunday, June 7, 2009

Speaking of Siva


I have Maya for mother-in-law,
the world for father-in-law;
three brothers-in-law, like tigers;
and the husband’s thoughts
are full of laughing women;
no god, this man,
And I cannot cross the sister-in-law.
But I will
give this wench the slip
and go cuckold my husband with
Hara, my Lord.
My mind is my maid:
by her kindness, I join
my Lord,
my utterly beautiful Lord
from the mountain peaks,
my lord white as jasmine,
and I will make Him
my good husband

Mahadeviyakkha lived in the 12th Century in the south of India.
:::

If it rains fire
you have to be as the water;


if it is a deluge of water
you have to be as the wind;

if it is the Great Flood,
you have to be as the sky;

and if it is the Very Last Flood of all the worlds,
you have to give up self


and become the Lord.

Allama Prabhu was a contemporary of Basavanna and Mahadevi in the Shiva bhakti movement of the Kannada-speaking regions in southern India.
:::

Suppose you cut a tall bamboo
in two;
make the bottom piece a woman,
the headpiece a man;
rub them together
till they kindle:
tell me now,
the fire that's born,
is it male or female,

O Ramanatha?


Devara Dasimayya was one of the earliest of the Virasaiva poet-saints, a forerunner of later beloved figures like Basavanna and Akka Mahadevi.
:::

The rich
will make temples for Siva.
What shall I,
a poor man,
do?

My legs are pillars,
the body the shrine,
the head a cupola
of gold.

Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers,
things standing shall fall,
but the moving ever shall stay.

Basava (1134 - 1196), sometimes referred to reverently as Basavanna or Basaveshwara, was a twelfth century devotee of Shiva and early organizer of the Virasaiva Lingayata sect in the Kannada-speaking regions of southern India.

:::


Special acknowledgements to GORKA LASA

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