Bhagavad Gita Rubaiyat, part IV

3:22
O Son of Pritha, nothing holds me here!
From karma free, I’m strictly volunteer.
I labor only to uplift mankind—
Where all such work is done, you’ll find Me near.

3:33
’Tis Nature’s nature all to tyrannize—
The foolish and enlightened sympathize,
All subject to their nature’s least demands,
And so, Arjuna, make your nature wise!

3:35
However hard a duty must be done,
Forsake it not for some more pleasing one.
Better death in dharma of one’s own,
Than glory in another’s, lightly won.

Of Eels and Their Mysteries

If ever I came like an eel from the sea,
translucent and shimmering, tossed on the foam,
and learning again what it means to be me,
then let me remember the place I called home.

If ever I struggle to carve out my way,
to grow gills for freshwater, and muscles for mud,
to thrust myself farther upstream and astray,
then let me not lose the deep call in my blood.

And if, after years lurking deep in a pond,
constrained to the dark and the wet and the weeds,
I chance to recall the far place I was spawned,
O let me then follow my heart where it leads.

And then if I find my way back through the bourne
to choke on the salt in the wide open sea,
and if my old self I am tempted to mourn,
then grant me a glimpse of where I’m meant to be.

For I’ll follow the call that I hear in my soul,
though the miles before me are many and wide,
till at last I approach the great Sea of my goal,
and there, in my final and true Self, abide.

Bhagavad Gita Rubaiyat, part III

2:40-41
The path of inner wisdom, wise men say,
leads forward only, and will not stop or stray.
And dire fears, colossal sufferings,
dissolve with every step along the way.

2:69
The day is dark to those who see the Light,
and find the glowing Star in darkest night.
The worldly man casts pity on the seer,
and revels in his unenlightened plight.

2:70
O! See the rivers of your mind’s desires,
that drain in endless branching multipliers!
Be like the Ocean, calling all back home—
content the heart whose longing thus retires.

Bhagavad Gita Rubaiyat, part II

2:14
Sensations that the mind takes by default
as absolute decrees it must exalt—
the heat or cold, the pleasure, pain—are but
suggestions. Take them with a grain of salt.

2:22
This overcoat of clay that you must don,
to clothe the spirit while from heav’n you’re gone,
must one day be hung back upon its hook,
but though you change attire, You still live on.

2:23-25
The soul in water is unsinkable,
by earthly chains it is unlinkable,
unburnable by fire, immune from harm,
and even, to the mind, unthinkable.

Bhagavad Gita Rubaiyat, part I

2:10
When worries gather, pile upon pile,
and rocky roads stretch mile after mile,
if then my heart but turns unto the Lord,
I feel His secret smile, smile, smile.

2:16
There’s no such thing as Unreality,
and what is Real can never cease to be.
Therefore, Arjuna, in your wisdom know
the true and infinite Finality.

2:19
Ignorant they, who the world’s deceived,
whose lamentations cry to be believed.
None there are who fight, are slain, or slay,
but all are one, and in the Light conceived.

Music to End a Drought

There is a symphony outside,
and through my window I can hear
the music as if amplified
by years of silent skies too clear.
Lashing branches clap their hands,
while leaves, appreciative, applaud.
Long seated, Earth’s ovation stands,
but none attending find it odd
that, silent and unmoving there,
the ground weeps softly in her chair.

Bad Advice

by Grigoriy Oster

translated from the Russian by Tandava

You ask a stupid question,
you get a stupid answer.
So if one is in your head,
pirouetting like a dancer,
just evict it from your brain
and ask it of your father.
Let his mind spin and swirl
with all that boil and bother.


[Original:]

Вредные советы

Никогда вопросов глупых
Сам себе не задавай,
А не то еще глупее
Ты найдешь на них ответ
Если глупые вопросы
Появились в голове,
Задавай их сразу взрослым.
Пусть у них трещат мозги.