Where are you? Why aren’t you coming? Are you doubting the fact I will bathe your feet with tears? Well, don’t doubt. I’ll surely do it. I’ll cry like anything, just come!

I am summoning you, invoking your presence, but it looks like you won’t come. You’d only go to the one who longs for you. And I don’t really long for you, so why would you come to me. Right?

It may be possible to charm others with the melodrama of love, but you’re not one to be duped like that. To lure you, one needs untainted, pure and steady love, and I don’t have it. Alas! I could not love you. I know if one loves you, everything else just pales, and one abandons everything else as though it were venom… sab vish saman lagayi. But such is not my state. I am still indulging in the objects of taste, sight etc. I still look upon a woman as ramani, an object of pleasure. Even now, I haven’t reached a stage where I can envision you wherever my gaze falls. I am still under the spell of the allurement that the touch of the beloved causes. Perhaps, that’s the reason you don’t come, that’s why you just touch and go.

True, when I look at myself, I am able to discern all my faults. He who has so many faults, how can such a person deserve your grace? But then my heart still goes after you. Why? I know I am lowly and sinful, and thus cannot attain you; but why am I not able to convince my mind of this? The mind just likes to flee to you alone. You are the immaculate full moon of autumn. I am nothing but impervious darkness caused by the engulfing clouds of the new moon. Why am I so hopeless?

I cannot comprehend what this longing kindles in me, but it’s you who I always seek. I’ve heard that the touch of a philosopher’s stone turns iron into gold; the blaze of fire rids the coal of its blackness. O my philosopher’s stone! Granted, I am harder than stone, but please touch me once. That will remove every bit of hardness from my being and turn me into gold.

I am more tarnished than black coal; this is indeed true, but touch me O Agneya, the fire – touch me! Within the blink of an eye my impurity will leave me, there won’t be an iota of it left. I’ll become pure. If you just wish it, what is it that cannot be done? Please, just will it once, desire to make me your own! I wish so strongly to become yours, but I am not able to become yours. It’s your lack of desire that keeps me from becoming yours.

Sometimes I feel that it’s my karmas (vicious deeds of the past) that pull me away. Is this true? No, the might of karma isn’t so great as to oppose your will. It’s you who do not desire that I should be yours, that’s all. The moment you express your desire, that very instant all my difficulties will ease and I shall be yours.

I bind you in oath, I am clinging to your feet; will it just once, make me yours. Alright, I’ve been blabbering continuously but you haven’t spoken a word. Well, why would you speak with me? Alright, don’t talk to me. Oh my God! Have I lost my mind? Who am I sulking against? If I act a little haughty, will that amount to your disgrace? I know if your beloveds take umbrage, you can’t sit still, you hasten to appease them. But I am no beloved of yours; my sulking wouldn’t make any difference to you.

I have heard it from the lips of holy men that when the mind touches you, the body thrills, tears stream down from the eyes. This happens quite often with me. Tell me, when the mind touches you and returns, why does it make such a hue and cry? Strange are the ways of the mind!

Sometimes it’s heavenly and sometimes hellish. When the mind is with you, it’s very pure, devoid of dearth, impeachment and desire. But when it comes away from you, there’s just mayhem; it jumps like a monkey from one object to another. You must do something about this. Why don’t you just capture my mind? This time, when my mind comes to you, hold fast to it – don’t let it go anywhere. You’ll do this for me, right?

If my mind can somehow get bound to you, I wouldn’t have anything to worry about. It’s the mind that causes all the havoc. They say even this world is a projection of the mind. Such a vast world appears to be real by the mere imagination of the mind. Well, this doesn’t seem easy at all. It’s way beyond my capability.

You take my mind. I’ve heard that it’s the mind which is the cause of both bondage and liberation of a human being. Unless the mind softens and dissolves, it cannot escape the stranglehold of cycle of freedom and bondage. That’s why I want to melt my mind, and you are the one who can melt it. Let me hand over my mind to you, please thaw it for me. Ensure that it does not run away from you.

There’s a very good technique to melt the mind, but you will have to make some effort. Here’s what: mind is bound to rush after the visible objects, you please prop yourself under the cover of the objects and reveal yourself. Wherever the mind hastens, you please get there and screen the mind with your presence. Follow the mind everywhere. Gradually, the mind, gratified by your lovely touch, in every sight, taste, smell and sound, will become intoxicated and drown in you. Won’t you do this for me? Tell me? Please talk to me.

Listen! Don’t slight me. I will never forget this coldness and indifference of yours! I’ll nurture this grudge until the day you come and talk to me, full of love. I’ll then be proud and uptight. I will disregard your advances, unmoved, untouched, impassively. You will call me but I won’t respond. You will try to caress me, but I will sit solemnly as though I don’t know who you are. You neither talk to human beings, nor love them. There’s desolation and silence, everything is pitch dark, sometimes there is light, and you are occasionally touching me like spangles, making my hair stand on end. O stone-hearted one! O one with a complexion as dark as freshly grown durva grass! O one void of form! Where are you taking me?

Where will I go in an unknown region? Won’t you speak? Will you not be seen? And yet you want to keep dragging me? No, I will not go – I will not go with you, you go away! Go! Go! I don’t like you, I will not go anywhere, and I’ll stay here, okay?

Ah, I told you I won’t speak, you’re still pulling me? No, I will not go with you under any circumstances. Don’t touch me – you are touching again. This is a big problem, you drag me to the open square and stay hidden, you don’t speak, and you don’t leave me alone either…what’s going on?

Aha! Aha! Your touch is so delightful! It makes me forget everything. I feel that I should not be deprived of this touch even for a moment. But you won’t let that happen; you just touch me and flee, leaving me in complete chaos.

See, you are a vast ocean comprising of an infinite number of universes, and I am sitting in the deep womb of this ocean. You above me, you below me, you are in front, you behind, you inside, it’s you everywhere. And it seems like I am meditating on this whirl of your all-pervading presence. While meditating, I cannot speak anything.

You’re everything and that’s precisely why I lose you. I don’t understand where I lose you. You’re lost, so am I! I am not able to find you. That it’s only you who was there in the beginning, it’s you now, and it would always be you henceforward, I understand this clearly, yet I lose you. You are the culprit who causes this loss. You’re the one who is guilty.

To show your divine sport, you stand in front of me guised in different forms, and I mistake you for them and reckon you as the earth, water, fire, air and sky; a human being, cow, goat, monkey, horse, plants and trees, creepers and green awnings, etc. And you start laughing; your laughter doesn’t seem to stop.

I spin around like a blind person groping with my hands and you just burst out laughing. But this time I will harass you. Let me see how you stay hidden, how you get away by pulling wool over my eyes. You nicely deck up and put on clothes and regalia and delude me.

O Hari in the form of Earth! Salutations to you! O Ram in the form of Fire! Salutations to you! O Ram in the form of Wind! Salutations to you! O Hari in the form of Sky! Salutations to you!

Would you hide now? Where will you hide? You have become sound, touch, form, taste, and smell, as also tongue, hands, feet, anus and genitals; you are Dik, Vayu, Surya, Pracheta, Ashwani Kumar, Agni, Upendra, Yama and Prajapati. Salutations to you! You are Prakriti, you are Purusha, crores upon crores of salutations to you! You’re indeed the mind, intellect, memory and egoism!

Salutations to you! O Infinite, Undivided, Omni-formed One, salutations to you!