The Ashes of the Book

From International Nath Order

by Shri Gurudev Mahendranath

The one supreme purpose of human life

Is man's return to his divinity,

Again reunite with the Absolute,

Breaking the chain of rebirth forever.

By the grace of OM, always there will be

Souls who will know and understand the truth,

Reject the world and gain the Absolute;

Thus a mortal becomes immortal.

He who has already achieved, must light

The way to mortals who seek the same path.

Thus Gurus become the guides of others;

Jivanmuktis have no other duties.

No Guru can give you realization;

This you can only attain for yourself:

The Guru can guide and show the way

But the disciple must do the practice.

Guru guidance can only take two forms -

First to clear the mind of its delusions,

Thus to overcome past conditionings

And second, to teach the practical steps.

It is not so much what you must believe

As those wrong ideas you have to reject,

Empty the mind of all misconceptions,

Free the mind from its past conditioning.

The path is not presented for discussion

And nobody is going to persuade you,

But before this wisdom can have any meaning,

Empty the mind of all preconceptions.

Empirical thinking will never solve

Problems or pathways to the Absolute:

Realization and liberation come

When the relative is burnt at the root.

The philosopher lives in a pattern

Of thoughts, concepts, deductions and ideas,

And soon he begins to doubt everything,

The doubts which grow till they engulf himself.

With or without philosophy, the Real,

Truth, the Absolute, is never approached

Thus, in spite of all ideas and theories,

The world of relativity remains.

Gurus and masters of realization

Did not find the path by speculation:

The truth revealed and everything attained

Only in the calm of contemplation.

The man who sits outside the tavern door

Sees all the brawls and quarrels rage within:

He can never be intoxicated

But views the scene, not disturbed by the din.

The true disciple seeks to join with OM

And does not crave for any sort of power:

He who seeks something to show and display,

Uproots the plant because he wants the flowers.

From the vast universe to the amoeba,

Om, the Absolute, is all prevading:

If OM is everywhere and in all things,

Where can we find a place where OM is not !

Immortality is not of the world:

Neither intensity nor works increase,

Neither new actions nor the social whirl;

Only real equipoise will give you peace.

Gaze into the the blue sky beyond the clouds,

Or gaze into the the depths of starlit space

And see the plenum of eternity,

The all pervading essence, infinite.

In some strange way this universe was born,

A thought of OM or just a cosmic tear,

But what is the use of speculation

When all that we can know is we are here?

Try to give life a purpose or an aim

And you will miss the true art of living:

Change your attitude and relationship

And you can live again as supreme Self.

It is spontaneous and comes of itself

To the natural man with an awakened mind;

By sitting calm and not even thinking

The grace of the Absolute will descend.

Equipoise in honour and dishonour

Unsmiling same to either friend or foe:

True consciousness can never wear a mask;

Betweeen the pure and impure never rest.

Wisdom may come from a thousand sources,

So it is wrong to stress one school of thought:

particles of truth are found everwhere

And no one school has yet possessed the whole.

The practice of the way must always be

Consistent with theory you are taught,

For talk alone can never bring success

And practice, when ignored, must lead to naught.

But when you turn your back upon the world,

And all the sordid confusion of mankind,

Remember, only few can get away;

So no reproach for those who stay behind.

You are the highest Self,

The supreme Reality:

Wake up, O sleeping soul -

Regain immortality.