Baqa Poem by Kishore Asthana

I sat in the Gurudwara, rapt in respect for the Guru, with humility of service echoing in me.

I answered the muezzins call and, among the faithful in the Mosque, heard of the greatness of God.

At the Sufi Master’s shrine, hypnotized by the music, whirling dervish-like, I lost myself in a trance.

I stood in the Church, singing psalms, and the compassion of Christ moved me to my core.

Cross-legged in the Matth, I meditated upon the Buddha’s wisdom.

In the Temple of a thousand lamps, entranced, I danced to bhajans and, benignly, the idols smiled at me.

Then, like Hanuman, I opened my heart and found Ram inside. He was Buddha and, if I wished, Jesus, too. Amused, the formless became Devi, or whichever form I chose to love, at that place and time.

Then, suddenly, no more games.

In the quiet of my mind, all forms dissolve and in the center of my heart, radiating infinitely, first-hand, I know who I am.

I come home and realize, I need not have left for these man-made places at all when I carried the divine inside myself.

Finally, past Reality's looking glass, my desire that was, came to pass.

I had wished: In deep sleep, I shall peep, at your Self and mine, both equally divine. And newly born, in the morn, I shall be the knower and the known, the painter and the sign.

And now,

Complete in myself, fully free, I am all that I can be. I am that all the time. I am its prose, I am its rhyme. Not for me pilgrimages galore, or visits to seers, door to door. Wherever I look there I am. My holy land is where I am.