In God Makes the Rivers to Flow; An Anthology of the World’s Sacred Poetry & Prose, Eknath Easwaran includes a selection from the Shvetashvatara Upanishad entitled “The Lord of Life.”  I’ve written the following poem-like reflections inspired by this selection.

Born for Bliss

Hear, O children of immortal bliss!

You are born to be united with the Lord.

Follow the path of the illumined ones

And be united with the Lord of Life.

—The Shvetashvatara Upanishad

In the beginning, immortal bliss,

the Lord of Life united with itself,

holy beyond holy, living in pure pleasure,

pure being, the ultimate existence,

giving birth to us, giving birth to stars

and little stars, giving birth to galaxies,

giving birth to singularities, giving birth

to planets, giving birth to grass and trees,

giving birth to creatures of the land and sea,

giving birth to everything, to the universe

and multiple universes, to every dimension

of being, and desiring nothing but union

with itself, union with us, as we only

truly desire union with it. It is possible.

We are born to be united with the presence,

the one being, the Lord, the Lady,

God, Goddess, All-That-Is. That ache

we have inside us, that deep ache we

all share, is the ache for union with the Divine.

We seek the Divine in many things,

in human love, in career, in food and drink,

in entertainment, in church, in nature.

What we need is meditation. We need

to train our minds to be one-pointed,

to focus completely on the now.

We need to train our senses not to seek

pleasure and evade beneficial pain, but to

experience pain as if it were pleasure and

to accept all pleasure as a fleeting thing.

We need to slow our thinking so that

there is room in our minds for the Divine

to enter. We need to put the legitimate needs

of others before our own. We need to

find refuge in the community of those

who share our path. We need to engage

in divine study, examining the work

of saints and mystics who went before

us. We need to choose a mantram and

repeat it at every opportunity until

it becomes automatic, until the mantram

becomes us. That is the path, the way.

That will take us toward union

with the Divine. If we can find a teacher,

an enlightened guide to show us

the way, all the better. If not, we must

do the best we can on our own.

We were born for this, every one

of us. We were born for the light.

We were born for pure love.

Birthed by immortal bliss,

we were born for bliss.