THE LORD OF LOVE

The Shvetashvatara Upanishad - Part 1

What is the cause of the cosmos? Is it Brahman?

From where do we come? By what live?

Where shall we find peace at last?

What power governs the duality of pleasure and pain by which we are driven?

Time, nature, necessity, accident,

Elements, energy, intelligence -

None of these can be the first cause.

They are effects, whose only purpose is

To help the Self rise above pleasure and pain.

In the depths of meditation, sages

Saw within themselves the Lord of Love,

Who dwells in the heart of every creature.

Deep in the hearts of all He dwells, hidden

Behind the gunas of law, energy,

And inertia. He is One. He it is

Who rules over time, space, and causality.

The world is the wheel of God, turning round

And round with all living creatures upon its rim.

The world is the river of God,

Flowing from Him and flowing back to Him.

On this ever-revolving wheel of life

The individual self goes round and round

Through life after life, believing itself

To be a separate creature, until

It sees its identity with the Lord of Love

And attains immortality in the indivisible whole.

He is the eternal reality, sing

The scriptures, of the ground of existence.

Those who perceive Him in every creature

Merge in Him and are released from the wheel

Of birth and death.

The Lord of Love holds in His hand the world,

Composed of the changing and the changeless,

The manifest and the unmanifest.

The separate self, not yet aware of the Lord,

There comes an end to its bondage.

Conscious spirit and unconscious matter

Both have existed since the dawn of time,

With maya appearing to connect them,

Misrepresenting joy as outside us.

When all these three are seen in one, the Self

Reveals His universal form and serves

As an instrument of the divine will.

All is change in the world of senses,

But changeless is the supreme Lord of Love.

Meditate on Him, be absorbed in Him,

Wake up from this dream of seperateness.

Know God and all fetter will fall away.

No longer identify yourself

With the body, go beyond birth and death.

All your desires will be fulfilled in Him

Who is One without a second.

Know Him to be enshrined in your heart always.

Truly there is nothing more in life to know.

Meditate and realize that this world

Is filled with the presence of God.

Fire is not seen until one firestick rubs

Against another, though the fire remains

Hidden in the firestick so does the Lord

Remain hidden in the body until

He is revealed through the mystic mantram.

Let your body be the lower firestick;

Let the mantram be the upper.

Rub them against each other in meditation

And realize the Lord.

Like oil in sesame seeds, like butter

In cream, like water in springs, like fire

In firesticks, so dwells the Lord of Love,

The Self in the very depths of consciousnness.

Realize Him through truth and meditation.

The Self is hidden in the hearts of all,

As butter lies hidden in cream.

Realize the self in the depths of meditation,

The Lord of Love, supreme reality,

Who is the goal of all knowledge.

This is the highest mystical teaching;

This is the highest mystical teaching.

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The Lord is deep within our hearts, awaiting realisation. Through truth and meditation we become enlightened, awakening from the separateness. Sing a new song before The Lord of compassion, charity and self-control - this is the path to freedom. With beauty for ashes, joy for mourning and praise for heaviness we stand firm in rightness, growing ever closer to one.