Friday 17 April 2015

WHAT MAKES SPRING SPRING AND A POEM BY GURU NANAK TRANSLATED BY MY FAVORITE TRANSLATOR.



TS Eliot said, “April is the cruelest month.” It can be, if you are not in alignment with the planet that blooms. I myself have had many miserable springs in the past because what makes it worse is that everything around you is so happy and alive! You alone stand in the midst of such heartbreaking beauty, the sole miserable thing.

Even if you are an atheist, if you become aware of the power and beauty, the sheer aliveness of our blooming, coloring planet, the very epitome of affirmation, gladness floods your heart.

The following is translated by Nikky- Guninder Kaur Singh, a great scholar and now, a dear, dear friend. If you can get a hold of THE NAME OF MY BELOVED, VERSES OF THE SIKH GURUS, do so. I found mine on Amazon. It is lovely and contains by far the best translations I have had the good fortune to read.

Chet is glorious, the bumble bees delight in spring,
Barren woods bloom and I long for my Beloved
To come home.
If the Beloved does not come, how can a woman be happy?
Her body trembles with yearning.
The koel sings happily in the mango grove;
How can I hear the ache inside?
The bumble bee hovers around the blossom boughs.
Mother, how can I live in this deathly state?
Nanak says, in the Month of Chet, joy comes naturally,
If the woman finds the divine Groom in her house.  

1 comment:

  1. Everything bubbles in the warming of the Sun, the lengthening of the day in Chet/April/Spring. We have seen the long cycle of the Giant Sequoias of 3-3,500 yrs old and the Baby Sequoia striving upwards in Del Mar. Life......what a gift...even when we fall asleep at the wheel...there's always the chance/hope that we'll nod awake and guide the vehicle....Jai Ho Nanakji! Thanks Nikky, Thanks Kamla!

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