Cover photograph: Double exposure of dahlia and European hollyhock byTrue Bennett.

Copyright 1992 Coleman BarksAll rights reserved.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 91-066805ISBN 0-9618916-4-5

Maypop Books196 Westview DriveAthens, GA 30606404-543-2148

This book is for the dance, and the song.

*               *              *

Dance, Lalla, with nothing onbut air. Sing, Lalla,wearing the sky.

Look at this glowing day! What clothescould be so beautiful, ormore sacred?

*               *              *

I began as a bloom of cotton,

outdoors. Then they brought me to a room

where they washed me. Then the hard strokes

of the carder's wife. Then another woman

spun thin threads, twisting me

around her wheel. Then the kicks

of the weaver's loom made cloth,

and on the washing stone, washermen

wet and slung me about

to their satisfaction, whitened me

with earth and bone,

and cleaned me to my own

amazement. Then the scissors

of the tailor, piece by piece,

and his careful finishing work.

Now, at last, as clothes,I find You and freedom.This living is so difficultbefore one takes your hand.

Whatever work I've done,whatever I have thought,

was praise with my bodyand praise hiddeninside my head.

*         *        *

In this state there is no Shiva,nor any holy union.

Only a somewhat something movingdreamlike on a fading road.

Loosen the load of sweetness I'm carrying.The sling-knot is biting into my shoulder.

This day has been so meaningless.I feel I can't go on.

When I was with my teacher, I heard a truththat hurt my heart like a blister,

the tender pain of seeingsomething I loved as an illusion.

The flocks I tended are gone.

I am a shepherd without even a memory

of what that means, climbing this mountain.I feel so lost.

This was my inward way, until I came

into the presence of a Moon, this new knowledge

of how likenesses unite. Good Friend,everything is You. I see only God.

Now the delightful forms and motionsare transparent. I look through them

and see myself as the Absolute. And here'sthe answer to the riddle of this dream:

You leave, so that we twocan do One Dance.

That one is blessed and at peacewho doesn't hope, to whomdesire makes no more loans.

Nothing coming, nothing owed.

*         *         *

Just for a moment, flowers appearon the empty, nearly-spring tree.

Just for a second, windthrough the wild thicket thorns.

Self inside self, You are nothing but me.Self inside self, I am only You.

What we are togetherwill never die.

The why and how of this?What does it matter?

*         *                 *

You are the sky and the ground.You alone the day, the night air.You are all things born into being.

Also, these flower offeringsthat someone brought.

Whatever your name, Shiva, Vishnu,the genius who inspired Scherazade,savior of the Jains, the pure Buddha,lotus-born God, I am sick. The worldis my disease, and You are the cure,You, you, you, you, you, you, you.

*         *        *

I saw a wise man dying of starvation.

Leaves fall in the slightestwind in December.

And I saw a wealthy man beating his cookfor some mistake with the spices.

Since then, I, Lalla, have been waitingfor my love of this place to leave me.

You were once a swan singingmelodies, Lalla. Now you're quiet.

Someone, I don't know who, has run offwith what belonged to you.

The millstone stops, and the holewhere the grain is fed in fills

with grain. The channel leadingto the grinding work is covered over

and hidden, and the millerhimself has disappeared.

*          *        *

What has happened to me?

All these songs tell one story:

that of Lalla on a lake, not knowing

what sandbar I'll run aground on.

What kind of luck have I had?

I made harmony out of a man's clumsyplastering job on the ceiling.

Still I wonder whichsandbank will strand me.

And how is it now with me?

Magnificent, this becomingmore and more awake.

Sir, have you forgotten the promiseyou made in your mother's womb,to die before you die?

When will you rememberwhat you intended?

Don't let your donkey wander loose!It will stray into your neighbor'ssaffron garden. Think of the damageit might do, and the punishment!

Who then will carry you nakedto your own death?

*         *          *

Forgetful one, get up!

It's dawn, time to start searching.

Open your wings and lift.Give like the blacksmitheven breath to the bellows.

Tend the fire that changesthe shape of metal.

Alchemical work begins at dawn,as you walk out to meet the Friend.

There is a lake so tiny

that a mustard seed would cover it

easily, yet everyone drinks from this lake.

Deer, jackals, rhinocerouses, and sea elephantskeep falling into it, falling and dissolvingalmost before they have time to be born.

*        *          *

I wearied myself searching for the Friendwith efforts beyond my strength.

I came to the door and saw howpowerfully the locks were bolted.

And the longing in me became that strong,and then I saw that I was gazingfrom within the presence.

With that waiting, and in giving up all trying,only then did Lalla flow outfrom where I knelt.

Your way of knowing is a private herb garden.

Enclose it with a hedge of meditation,

and self-discipline, and helpfulness to others.

Then everything you've done beforewill be brought as a sacrificeto the mother goddess.

And each day, as you eat the herbs,the garden grows more bare and empty.

Beautifully full of juice they come from the mother,causing many birth-pains.

Again and again, they wait at her door to enter.Shiva is not often among them!Meditate on that.

The pedestal rock can also serve as pavement,or as a handsome millstone turning perfectly.

Each is just a hardened piece of the ground.Shiva is so rarely found.

Sunlight shines everywhere equally.Water flows into every house.

It's also true that Shivacan scarcely be located.

The woman who nurses her child with milkacts with a different love as your wife,

and talking secretly to other men,

she may be dangerous to you, the same woman.

Meditate on how seldomShiva appears.

If I could control the channels of my breath,if I could perform precise surgery on myself,I could create the substance that awareness is.

There's nothing more valuable than that!God does not often come as a person.

Four questions:

Who is awake and who asleep?

What is this lake that is continuallyoozing back into the earth?

What can a human being offer to God?What do we most deeply want?

The answers:

The mind is what sleeps.What recognizes itselfas God is awake.

This always-disappearing lakeis made of our appetites,these movings-about,this talking and listening.

The only offering you can make to Godis your increasing awareness.

And the last desire is

to be God in human form.

The soul, like the moon,

is new, and always new again.

And I have seen the oceancontinuously creating.

Since I scoured my mindand my body, I too, Lalla,am new, each moment new.

My teacher told me one thing,Live in the soul.

When that was so,I began to go naked,and dance.

*      *      *

Meditate within eternity.Don't stay in the mind.

Your thoughts are like a child frettingnear its mother's breast, restlessand afraid, who with a little guidance,can find the path of courage.

Wear just enough clothes to keep warm.Eat only enough to stop the hunger-pang.

And as for your mind, let it workto recognize who you are,and the Absolute, and thatthis body will become foodfor the forest crows.

*        *        *

Meditation and self-disciplineare not all that's needed, nor evena deep longing to go throughthe door of freedom.

You may dissolve in contemplation,as salt does in water,but there's something morethat must happen.

Enlighten your desires.Meditate on who you are.Quit imagining.

What you want is profoundly expensive,and difficult to find,yet closeby.

Don't search for it. It is nothing,and a nothing within nothing.

*         *            *

Awareness is the ocean of existence.Let it loose and your words will rageand cause wounds like fishing spears.

But if you tend it like a fireto discover the truth,you'll find how much of thatthere is in what you say. None.

Fame is watercarried in a basket.

Hold the wind in your fist,or tie up an elephantwith one hair.

These are accomplishmentsthat will make you famous.

*          *            *

So ham in Sanskritmeans I am He.

Reversed, hamsameans swan.

This way is the way of thosewho remember I am He, He is me,so ham, swan, and hamsa, all onesoaring beauty and freedom.

No matter that we're busy in businessnight and day. We don't carewhat profit comes.

We live aloneinside the Lord.

Flowers, sesame seed, bowls of fresh water,a tuft of kusa-grass, all this altarparaphernalia is not neededby someone who takes the teacher's words inand honestly lives them.

Full of longing in meditation,one sinks into a joy that is freeof any impulse to act and will notenter a human birth again.

*       *       *

It is God who yawns and sneezesand coughs, and now laughs.

Look, it's God doing ablutions!

God deciding to fast, God going naked

from one New Year's Eve to the next.

Will you ever understandhow near God isto you?

I exhausted myself, looking.No one ever finds this by trying.

I melted in it and came home,where every jar is full,but no one drinks.

*              *              *

Your pride in yourself and your wanting,these steal your energy along the road.

If you can kill these robbersand become the servant of everyone,you'll meet the Lord in meditationand see what you used to protectas just a pile of ashes.

* * *

Double Poems

There are at least two equally possible translations for these poems because of the puns in Sanskrit. In this poem the words for "me" and "you" may be read together, in which case they become one word meaning "mud."

separate:

Absorbed in yourself, you hid from me.I spent every day looking for you.

Then I saw you inside and gave myselfin a rapture of union.

together:

Covered with mud, I spend the entire daylooking for mud! Now I seewhat's all over me

and give in to loving it.

According to Grierson and Barnett, there are a number of double meanings in this poem, an "onion" and "breath" pun, for example!

I tried to sell this breathing bodyto the world. Then I came to knowthat body and soul are one thing,

and that if you don't control them,you won't have true joy,

so I added the flavorof "I am That."

I called out in the market,"Lotus-stalks for sale!Onions and garlic!"

Then I saw how onions and garliccome from the same family.

When you cook them together,be aware that God-in-youcan give tastinessto anything!

One of the puns here involves "cowry shell" and "the nameof God."

On a way that wasn't a wayI came to a makeshift bridgeof rotten planks.

I looked in my sack. There was noteven a cowry shell.

What shall I give to get across?

I went a way that was not a way.

On the dangerous embankment of my mindI looked in the sack but could not findthe Name of God.

What do I give to get across?

Again, the chief pun in this pair is "onion" and "breath."

I locked the doors and windows.I grabbed the onion-thiefand yelled for help.

I tied him up in an inside closetand threatened him with Om. Om.

I shut the body openingsand found out what steals

the even-breath, the truthof Who we are.

If you want a kingdom and get it,you'll have no peace.

If you give it away,

still you won't be content.

Only a soul free of desirecan taste eternity.

Be living, yet dead!Then knowing comesto live in you.

*       *       *

Let them throw their curses.If inside, I am connectedto what's true, my soulstays quiet and clear.

Do you think Shiva worrieswhat people say!

If a few ashes fall on a mirror,use them to polish it.

There are those sleeping who are awake,and others awake who are sound asleep.

Some of those bathing in sacred poolswill never get clean.

And there are othersdoing household choreswho are free of any action.

*       *      *

One in whom the syllable OM

rises steadily upward

from the sex through the navel,

and only OM, forms a bridge to God.

That one has no interestin different kinds of magic.That one is a spell.

So you've cut up your hide and stretched it,pegged it down to dry with definite,sharp-pointed desires,

but have you planted any fruit treesfor the next generation?

Wisdom offered you is like a ballthrown at a boundary post,

useless as molasses fed to a tawny bullto help it give more milk!

*        *        *

I keep weeping for you, my soul,good sir, gently trying to let yousee the nature of what you love.

Not even the shadowof an iron anchorwill last from here.

Remember the truththat you are.

I, Lalla, entered the jasmine garden,where Shiva and Shakti were making love.

I dissolved into them,and what is thisto me, now?

I seem to be here,but really I'm walkingin the jasmine garden.

*         *         *

Fearful, always-moving mind,the One who has no beginningis thinking of how hungermay fall away from you.

No ritual,no religion,is needed.

Just cry out oneunobstructed cry.

The royal fan, sunshade, and chariot,the throne itself, the happy feasting,the theatre nights, your soft, down bed,which of these can help your fear of death?

You've demolished the highbanked marsh road.How is it now out in the swamp?Death will come at one specific moment.How does that make you feel?

There are two results and three causes.Practice the breath. Risethrough the disc of the sun.Your death panic will fade.

Let your body wear your knowing.Let your heart sing songs.

Lalla has become a syllable

of soul-light. There is no death.

Enlightenment absorbs this universe of qualities.When that merging occurs, there is nothingbut God. This is the only doctrine.

There is no word for it, no mindto understand it with, no categoriesof transcendence or non-transcendence,no vow of silence, no mystical attitude.

There is no Shiva and no Shakti

in enlightenment, and if there is something

that remains, that whatever-it-is

is the only teaching.

*        *        *

They arrive and others arrive,

and then they go, and the others go.

Day and night, a constant traffic.

Where do they come from?Where do they go?

Does it mean anything?Nothing, nothing, nothing.

What is worship? Who are this manand this woman bringing flowers?

What kinds of flowers should be brought,and what streamwater poured over the images?

Real worship is done by the mind(Let that be a man) and by the desire(Let that be a woman). And let those twochoose what to sacrifice.

There is a liquid that can be releasedfrom under the mask of the face,a nectar which when it rushes downgives discipline and strength.

Let that be your sacred pouring.Let your worship song be silence.

Shiva is the horse.Vishnu puts the saddle on.Brahma adjusts the stirrup.

And there is that in you

that will recognize the rider

those are waiting on: the unobstructed

sound, the nothing without name,

or lineage, or form,

which is continually changinginto the Sound and the Dotwithin a human being who isThat meditating inside That,

the Sound and the Dot,

which are one thing, alone,

and the rider who mounts to ride.

Three times I have seen the lakeof the universe overflowing.

Once, I remember seeing

the only existent place

as a whirling without form,

and once, as a bridge over thisthat is now Kashmir,

and seven times, I saw the wholeas emptiness.

*         *         *

Men and women now, even the best,can barely remember their past lives,

and as for the children, whose livesare getting harder and harder,what will they do?

A time is coming so deformedand unnatural that pears and appleswill ripen with the apricots,

and a daughter and a motherwill leave the house every dayhand in hand to find new strangersto lie down with.

For a moment I saw a beautiful moving river.Then a vast water with no means of crossing it.

For a moment, I saw a bush full of opening buds.Then no roses, no thorns, nothing.

For a moment I saw a busy cooking fire.Then no hearth, no smoke, no flame.

I saw the great mother of kings, Kunti.Then, the next moment, sitting here, isthe helpless old aunt of the potter's wife.

*         *        *

Whatever I do, the responsibility is mine,but like one who plants an orchard,what comes of what I do, the fruit,will be for others.

I offer the actions of this life

to the God within,

and wherever I go, the way is blessed.

Some people abandon their homes.Others abandon hermitages.

All this renunciation does nothing,if you're not deeply conscious.

Day and night, be awarewith each breath,and live there.

My teacher, you are God to me!Tell me the inner meaning

of my two breathings,the one warm, the other cool.

"In your pelvis near the navel is the sourceof many motions called the sun,the city of the bulb.

As your vitality rises from that sun,it warms, and in your mouth it meetsthe downward flow through the fontanelleof your higher self, which is cooland called the moon, or Shiva.

This rivering mixture feels,by turns, warm and cool."

My body caught fire like an ember,as I brought the syllable OM,the one that says You are That,into me. I moved throughthe six chakra centersthat urge human beings to actionand out into the lightednesswhere Lalla lives now.

*         *        *

Lalla, there's no birth or death.You are one, but not with happinessor difficulty, not withdesire or anger.

You do not walk with peoplewho only talk about truth.

The experience of Godis continuous amazement.

Dying and giving birth go oninside the one consciousness,but most people misunderstand

the pure play of creative energy,how inside that, thoseare one event.

*     *      *

Lalla, you've wandered so many placestrying to find your husband!

Now at last, inside the walls

of this body-house, in the heart-shrine,

you discover where he lives.

I made pilgrimages, looking for God.Then I gave up, turned around,there God was inside me!

Oh Lalla, why do you keep onwandering, and begging?

Make just a little effort. Act!And God will appear in the formof a love that fills your heart.

*        *        *

I spent my days idly as a vinegrowing slowly in some holy place.

Then compassion came,and I saw the Absolute.

All the names are true,but I kept repeating thatof my teacher, and OM.

And sometimes I sang OmNamah Shivaya, the greetingthat gives peace to the worldas well as to the spirit.

As my love and my faith,and my interest in the innergrew, the darkness diminished,within and without, and Lallalost herself in that light.

*         *        *

When you eat too much,you forget your truth,

and fasting makes you conceited,so eat with some discipline,and consciously. Bean ordinary human being.

Then the door will open,and you'll recognize the way.Lalla, be moderate!

Everything is new now for me.My mind is new, the moon, the sun.The whole world looks rinsed with water,washed in the rain of I am That

Lalla leaps and dances inside the energythat creates and sustains the universe.

*        *        *

My teacher put a lotion on my eyesthat dissolved the cataracts,and now wherever I look I seethe self, God, inner lifeeverywhere. Lalla,this is true!

If you live on the breath,you won't be torturedby hunger and thirst,or the longing to touch.

The purpose of being born is fulfilledin the state between "I am"and "That."

*         *         *

On the way to God the difficultiesfeel like being ground by a millstone,like night coming at noon, likelightning through the clouds.

But don't worry!What must come, comes.Face everything with love,as your mind dissolves in God.

When the mirror of my consciousness became clear,I saw that my family and others Ilove are the same as me.

The "you" and "I" thought

does not occur.

The entire world is God.

*        *       *

Lord, you exist

as me. Your power moves,

and I start walking.

A prior impulse is the only differencebetween us. Other than that,everything I am is You.

Life is given.

Nothing is earned,

so learn to serve others,

not your own desire and greed

and ego. They steal your energies,

whereas devotion builds your strength

and protects the intelligent flame

that leads to the truth within.

*        *            *

Meditate, and grow humble.Watch anger and wantingturn to ashes.

Study the ground, Lalla,as a sign of attainment.

Your face is beautiful,but your loving is cold.

Your tongue is tired of sayingsacred words over and over,

and your fingers, you've worked themto the nub copying texts,

but the rage stored inside youhas found no way to leave.

*           *          *

What understanding comes through reading?I decided not to let books determinemy life, but only whatever helps dissolveinfatuation and sentimental longing.

The shrewdness of innate,subtle intellect is a foxwho knows what I need.

The way is difficult and very intricate.Lalla discarded her books that toldabout it, and through meditationsaw the truth that never comesto anyone from reading words.

*        *         *

Intense cold makes water ice.Then the hard ice turns to slushand back to water, so there are threeforms of consciousness: the individual,the world, and God, which in the sunof True Awareness melt to one flowing:

Lalla is that.

In meditation, I entered the love-furnace,burned impurities away, and as the sunof a new knowing rose, I realizedthat the words "Lalla" and "God"point to this peacefulness.

I came to this birth and rebirth universeand found the self-lighting light.

If someone dies, it's nothing to me,and if I die, it's nothing to anyone.

It's good to die,

and good to live long.

*         *         *

You are the sky and the ground.You alone the day, the night air.

You are the meal that's being brought,the sandal knot, flowers and their watering.

You are all this.

What could I possibly bring You!

There is no "You" or "I," no objectto contemplate, no contemplation!Everything is That lost in That.

The blind theologians didn't understand.Then they saw, and their seven levelsof attainment dissolved to nothing.

*         *          *

Where did I come from, and how?Where am I going?Will I know the road?

This life is empty breath.If I can hear one clear truth,I'll be fortunate.

Those with a knack for walking in air,

those who can cool a fire,

still a stream,

or get milk from a wooden cow,

they're street jugglers, nothing more.

*            *           *

Ascetics wander shrine to shrine,looking for what can only comefrom visiting the soul.

Study the mystery you embody.When you look up from that,the dub grass looks freshera little ways off, and even moregreen farther on. Stay here.

If you've melted your desiresin the river of time, chooseto be a recluse, or choosea family, the village job.

If you know the pure Lord within you,you'll be That, wherever.

*          *          *

Don't be so quick to condemn my nakedness.

A man is one who trembles in the presence.There are very few of those.Why not go naked?

The ram of experience must be fedand ripened for the sacrifice.

Then all these customs will disappearlike clothing. There's only the soul.

I went everywhere with longingin my eyes, until herein my own house

I felt truthfilling my sight.

*          *            *

I have not really known myself,or anyone else.

I've tried to do good, and notjust what my appetites wanted,

but that was all infatuationwith this precious, isolated, body.

That you and I were constantly joining,I didn't know. I didn't know

that even to ask "Who are You?"or "Who am I?" breaks the harmony.

The sun, the lowest chakra of action,disappeared. Then the highest, the moon.

Absorbed in the infinite, my mind dissolved.Where now have the earth and the sky gone?

Are they hiding in the nothinglike friends on a walk?

*         *         *

I have drunk many times

the wine of existence, and the water

of this Sindhu River.

I've played many roles, been lotsof different human beings.

Still, I'm Lalla, the same.Why have I gone through this?

If you're wise, be foolish.If you can see, squint.

Though you can hear, sitdumb as an old rock.

Whatever anyone says,listen and agree.

This is a friendly practice,and it leads to some truth.

*           *            *

Day will be erased in night.

The ground's surface will extend outward.

The new moon will be swallowed

in eclipse, and the mind in meditation

will be completely absorbedby the Void inside it.

Let him saywhatever he wantsagainst me.

Let whoever comeand say whatever.

Or let them worship me,bringing their soulshere like flowers.

I'm not part of any of that.So where's the exchange?

*          *           *

God of the dark blue throat,who drank the poison to save us,You have six powers, and so must I!

But I've grown separate from You,and taken on another six.They mislead me.

When you see yourselfand someone elseas one being,

when you know the most joyful dayand the most terrible nightas one moment, then

awareness is alonewith its Lord.

*             *             *

With repeated meditation practicethe expanse of the visible universe

with all its qualities dissolvesto nothing, to where there isonly health and a great joy.

All teaching comes to this.

If you ride the breathand keep it under control,

hunger and thirst and other wantingswill not be dangerous to you.

Being skilled with that bridleis a great blessing.

*          *         *

With passionate practices

I held the reins secure on my mind

and made the breath one column.

Then the new moon's clearnectar descended into me,nothing pouring into Nothing.

There are some demons dangerousto your soul: lust, anger.But there's a way to kill them.

Feed them meditation only,

and clear awareness, and you'll see

the illusion of what they control.

*              *              *

At the end of a crazy-moon nightthe love of God rose.I said, "It's me, Lalla."

The Beloved woke. We became That,and the lake is crystal-clear.

I didn't trust it for a moment,

but I drank it anyway,

the wine of my own poetry.

It gave me the daring to take holdof the darkness and tear it downand cut it into little pieces.

*           *              *

One who handles a sword wellgets power. Someone generous

and disciplined wins whatthe public religions offer.

But knowledge of the deep self comesonly from a teacher who is That.

Everything we do mixesin the ground of the self.

Slowly, slowly, I tendedthe bellows of my throat,and the light inside grew

and filtered out throughthe dark, so that withineven it, I saw the truth.

*               *             *

I am towing my boat on the oceanwith a rope of untwisted yarn.

Whatever I do is a waste,

like water poured

on unbaked clay plates.

How will I ever make it home?

Gently I weep for my mind,caught in its illusion of ownership.

Mind, you're not who you think you are.You're dancing over a pit.

Soon you'll fall through,

and these things you've valued

and collected will be left behind.

My sweet dear, do you understand this,and if you do, how does your food taste?

*                        *                 *

I am a wooden bow trying to shootarrows made of flimsy grasses.

I am an unskilled architectwho's been asked to builda palace for the king.

In the middle of the marketplaceI am a shop with no lock on its door.

I have no guide

to show me the way.

Life sinks down. We leave.We keep walking day and night,and come back where we began.

There is some mysterious meaningin this, but what is it?

*             *             *

When will my shame fall away?When will I accept being mockedand let my robe of dignity burn up?

When the wandering pony insidecomes calm to my hand.

My mouth got tired of saying words.My thumb and my forefinger woresmooth with telling beads,

and still, my dear, this lovefeels the pull of another.

I haven't lost my senseof being separated.

*             *             *

Unconscious people read the scriptureslike parrots saying Ram, Ram,in their cages.

It's all pretend-knowledge.Read rather, with me, everyliving moment as prophecy.

Three things about grinding grain:

Once you start the mill turning,it easily keeps its momentum.

Only the hub knowsthe secret of milling.

When fine flour appears by the millstone,grist will find its own wayinto the millyard.

*             *             *

Don't talk of different religions.The one reality is everywhere,not just in a Hindu, or a Muslim,or anywhere else! Realize:

your awareness isthe truth about God.

Awareness cleaned my mindto a polished mirroring.

The presence came near, and I knewthat That was everything,and I nothing.

*             *             *

Lost in the wilderness betweentrue awareness and the senses,

I suddenly woke inside myselflike a lotus openingin waterweeds.

How did I get here?Where am I going?

Only true initiation helps.Is breath-awarenessall there is?

*          *         *

I do not know myself,nor you, my Lord.

I mistook the bodyfor my identity.

I didn't knowthat you areme, and I you,

yet still I keep wonderingwho you and I are.

*             *           *

Playfully, you hid from me.All day I looked.

Then I discoveredI was you,

and the celebrationof That began.

Introduction

Lalla lived in Kashmir in the 14th century, when many doctrinalstreams were merging: Shaivism, sufism, Vedantic non-dualism,and other -isms, but Lalla is beyond religious categories, a livingcombination that cannot be described in those terms.

Sometimes she refers to the one reality as "Shiva." Sometimesit's "Shiva and Shakti making love in the jasmine garden," Shaktibeing the feminine creative aspect of Shiva. Sometimes it's thepresence of an indeterminate "You" or "That." Sometimes "myLord." Other times, "the Supreme Principle." And in one instanceit's "mud," a pun rising from the juxtaposition in Sanskrit of the"you" and "I" pronouns. Always it's a dissolving of self into theAbsolute that she celebrates. She lives between the "I am" and the"That" of the famous Upanishad sentence, Tat Tvam Asi, in a statethere are no words for, "a somewhat something moving dreamlikeon a fading road."

There are yogic references, and Shaivite and sufi terms in thepoetry, but the deepest, most constant truth is what she shareswith all the great mystics, "There is no reality but God," withinand without, "only God." This awareness is the essence of worship.For Lalla, there is no difference between the individual self and theuniversal self, and the purpose of human life is to realize this. Thenames for the various elements — soul, God, enlightenment—donot matter. The changeless (Shiva) and the constantly creating(Shakti) are joined in the breath. Breathing out, sah, and breathingin, ham, compose one realization, I am That (sah-ham), whichdissolves duality.

Lalla has little use for scriptures. Words about the way arenot the way. Action, compassion and moderation, and listeningto the innate intellect bring what's needed. Ecstasy is only one of

her moods, and not the primary one. Political disgust is another,and a Hopi-like prophetic mode: "A time is coming so deformed. . . ." There's knife-like attention to specific behavior. "Eat onlyenough to stop the hunger-pang." And glistening affirmations,"Wherever I look, I see the self." The balance of no and yes in herpoems has a remarkable grace. Along with the variety of her modes,Lalla has other qualities that seem, to me, essentially feminine: herfirm location in the breath; her sense of being dissolved into thelovemaking in the jasmine garden; and her attention to a truthwhich is very much in motion, and which can include her doubtand her lostness. There are some obviously feminine images. Theact of moving onto the path of courage is a baby struggling on themother's chest and then finding the nipple! And one other pictureof the surrendered life shows "someone doing household chores,free of any action." Her most penetrating vision, though, is beyondimagery. In it, she doesn't see the Beloved presence everywhere, oranywhere. She becomes emptiness, "nothing pouring into Nothing."

She is most well known for wandering and dancing naked asshe sang her songs. In the ecstatic line of the hassids and the sufisshe joined the pure joy of existence, and so completely merged

with it that the bare form of "Lalla," whom she often addresses,seemed clothing enough. Her awareness observes the body, but isnot identified with it.

We know very little about her, other than what comes throughthe poetry. There are no official references until four hundred yearsafter her death, and no contemporary manuscripts. The legendsof her life and the poems were preserved in the oral tradition.Lalla means "darling," and she is certainly beloved in Kashmir. Itis said that only two words mean anything in Kashmiri, Allah andLalla, the rest being just language. Hundreds of lines from theLalla- Vakyana are still actively a part of Kashmiri conversation.Her diction is colloquial, tuned not to philosophy and organizedreligion, but to the common people. The "text" has come downwith many variations, some of it in an old Kashmiri dialect, sideby side with Sanskrit transcriptions. Between one hundred andtwo hundred songs, poems, and sayings seem to have survived.

Lalla-Vakyana means Lalla's Word.

She is also known as Lal Ded, Lai Didi, and Mai Lai Diddi,all of which mean Granny Lal, Grandmother Lalla. And in San-skrit she is called Lalleshwari, Lalla the great yogini, prophetessand practicioner of yoga. The poems reveal this double nature:one eye a warm, grandmotherly glance. The other a more severe,truth-telling vision into the Void. Her metaphors of oneness arenot majestic light-upon-light images. The shapes of melting iceinterest her. And she also notices how ashes merge with clay tobecome soil. "Study the ground, Lalla," she reminds herself.

Born in Kashmir, probably in a village near Srinagar, maybein 1320, she died near there in 1391. All these facts are speculative.There are stories of her being mistreated as a young wife livingwith in-laws. Her mother-in-law would put a stone on her plateand cover it thinly with rice, so that it would look like Lalla wasgetting more food than she actually was. Lalla never complained.And she loved to spend time meditating at the holy shrines. Sent tofetch water, she would stop there. One day her husband, thinkingto punish her for dawdling on the way home, struck the jar she wascarrying. It broke, but the water remained in place as a jar-shapedcolumn on Lalla's head. That water became the sacred "Lalla'sLake" in Kashmir.

Tradition has it that Lalla left home, and the marriage, attwenty-four to become a student of the Hindu teacher, Sed Bayu.It was then also that she began to ignore conventional standardsof dress and to wander in a state of ecstatic clarity. One morningas children were making fun of her nakedness, a cloth merchantscolded their disrespect. Lalla asked him for two strands of cloth

equal in weight. That day as she walked about, she wore a pieceof cloth over each shoulder, and as she met with respect or scorn,she tied knots in one or the other. In the evening she came back tothe merchant and asked him to weigh the cloth again. The scalesswung in balance, of course, no matter how the cloth was knotted.Praise and blame have no substance of their own.

Other parables and legends, many of them miraculous, areassociated with her meeting the sun master, Ali Hamadani. Wan-

dering naked, she saw him approaching. She ran into a baker's shopand leaped into the blazing oven. Hamadani stopped and askedif a woman had come into the shop. Lalla suddenly appeared outof the oven wearing the shimmering green and gold of Paradise.She said, "I had never seen a man until you." Lalla is also con-nected with a Sheikh Nuruddin, and with Sed Bayu, mentionedearlier. An interesting exchange between Lalla and this man hascome down to us.

Sed Bayu was sitting with his disciples, when thesequestions were asked: Which is the greatest of alllights? What is the greatest pilgrimage? Whichrelationship is best? What is most comforting?

Lalla was the first to answer. "There is no lightlike that of the sun, no pilgrimage like that to theGanges. There is no relationship closer than with abrother, and no ease like a wife."

Sed Bayu did not agree. "There is no light like thatin the eyes, no pilgrimage like going down on yourknees, no relationship like that with one's ownpocket, and no comfort like a blanket."

Lalla raised the level yet again. "There is

no light like that of knowing God, no pilgrimage like

a deep longing, no relationship except the one with

God, and there is no peace that isn't gratitude for

that."

She was undoubtedly a challenge for her several teachers.The scholar Richard Temple, with great pains, has untangled thethreads of the various religions woven into Lalla's Word. I recom-mend his study to anyone interested in identifying the strands, butI prefer the whole cloth, the skin, of the counter-culture mystic

who moves through this poetry. The clarity, and her dancer's sim-plicity: amazement felt, stated, and then the moving on. Quick,sure, un-fancy steps that aren't trying to convince or impress, but

to let you in her life. Her heart's cry is, Om Namah Shivaya, "I bowto the Highest Consciousness."

I have come to Lalla after fifteen years of collaborative work onJelaluddin Rumi. The difference in the two is considerable. WhereRumi is extravagant, Lalla is spare. Where Rumi is exuberant,Lalla is cold-sober. Rumi is intricate; Lalla, simple. Rumi workswithin a group; Lalla walks alone. Rumi is caressingly affectionate;Lalla, severely clear. Other polarities could be set up. Rumi is theimagination in full flower, always moving. Lalla is the condensedcode of the body, the rooted, breathing word.

Yunus Emre, the Turkish mystic, looked at the six volumes ofRumi's Mathnawi and said, "All these words!" Rumi asked, "Howwould you have done it?"

"I would just wrap some skin around some bones and call itYunus"

I am reminded of an Emily Dickinson poem,

The infinite a sudden guestHas been assumed to be,

But how can that stupendous come,Which never went away.

With Emily, Lalla stays home, like a lotus in the mud, whereasRumi plays in the ocean of longing, a restlessness. Which seemsoddly paradoxical to their actual lives: Rumi being located at thecenter of a community, and Lalla the wanderer.

What I love about the poems is that they feel close to expe-rience. Not the daily specifics, but an inner attention. Here is herstatement about the use of poetry for the poet.

I didn't trust it for a moment,

but I drank it anyway,

the wine of my own poetry.

It gave me the daring to take holdof the darkness and tear it downand cut it into little pieces.

Reducing shadowcloth to shreds and patches is fine work forpoetry. Sometimes abstract, and other times wonderfully imaged,her short-song scissor-bites cut free the conventional veils andsolaces, the light-blockers, that hide our own soul-nakedness. Sheleaves us out in the open with nothing on, like the new moon.

---Coleman Barks

Bibliography

Grierson, Sir George and Barnett, Lionel D. Lalla-Vakyani, theWise Sayings of Lai Ded, A Mystic Poetess of Ancient Kashmir.Royal Asiatic Society (London, 1920).

Lalleshwari, poems rendered by Muktananda and Gurumayi.SYDA Foundation (South Fallsburg, N.Y., 1981). This is anespecially valuable work, as Gurumayi is the living inheritorof this enlightened lineage.

Nisargadatta. I Am That, Acorn Press (Durham, N.C., 1973).

Kashmiri Lyrics, selected and translated by J. L. Kaul. Rinemisray(Srinigar, 1945).

Kaul, Jayalal. Lai Ded. Sahitya Akademi (New Delhi, 1973).

Kotru, Nil Kanth. Lai Ded, Her Life and Sayings. Utpal Publica-tions (Srinigar, 1989).

Temple, Richard Carnac. The Word ofLalla the Prophetess. Cam-bridge University Press (Cambridge, 1924).

Women Saints of the East and West, edited by Swami Ghananandaand Sir John Stewart-Wallace. Vedanta Press (Hollywood,

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Miranda Shaw for introducing me to Lalla, andthe dancer Zuleikha and my sister Betsy (the novelist ElizabethCox), for helping with various re-writings of these poems.