Mokshalakshmi

Last night I dreamt of you and me
Sitting together while I chatted endlessly
Sharing your meals along with others
When you looked at me and said
You should write Dakshina Moorthy Stotra.
I woke up with the memories
Trailing along the lanes of by gone days
When I first saw you while
Trying to grapple with meaning
And purpose of life and relationships.
You had just not given me mantra
You gave yourself along with it
I did not know literally what was initiation
But now I know that you
Initiated me into the
Secrets of life, love, happiness, existence and its purpose.
I am human and could never know
What is god like and what does he do
Why I need him and what do I do with Him
With the passage of time
I found you are my god
Who came in the form of guru
And what I did with you
I do not know for I see only
What you did with me
When I cried for you, you are around me
Your constant presence around me
Unveiled your immortal omnipresent nature
Listening to your stories of
Lord Krishna's birth I felt
You have become my papa (Appa)
To carry me through
The flooded rivers of Life and Maya
I sleep happily under your protection
And the kala sarpa spreads its wings
Over me lest I am washed off
By the rainings waters of existence
Then I complain that I have
Not heard enough of you and
Not spent enough time with you
With your busy schedules and
Hoping over cities and continents
To console many of your children like me
I wonder why I was not born
In a time when I can spend
All the time listening to you and
Spending in your holy presence
Is it not said that Guru Darshan is Pragnan
And Guru Seva is Nirvan
You Chide me that
All my service at all places
Is your worship and all
Names and forms merge in you
And you are at all places and in all times
I know this to be true
Yet my human longing to
Cling to your presence subsists
And becomes emotional waters
Of Ganga Maayi who came to
Reside in my eyes to appeal to you
She washes off my past sins
That kept me away from you
And she shows the way to be
With you at all times
My Guru who became my papa
Is immortal and ever present self of all
He kept me away in hide and seek
For he wanted to give me
More than his physical presence
True papa ! I feel your presence
But I wonder why I should have these eyes
Which can not see you to my
Heart's content
Why I should have these ears
Which can not listen to your
Lectures, satsangs and stories
Why I should keep this body
Which can not be in your presence
I wonder why I was not born and brought up
When you are and have been all these days
I wish I can go back in time
And grew up with you
From the age of two
I missed your love, discipline and divine presence
May be I get compensation
In a spirit of compassion in some times for you taught me that
We existed for aeons and continue to exist for aeons
I recognize that your social and spiritual rules and discipline
Were more imposed in compassion and love
Than any vindictiveness
Still I wonder why you feel bad
When we understand you and feel
Happy when we fight with you
Probably every thing is fair in love and war
More so in papa's love for us
I taste the sweet fruits of
Your bitter words when you scold me
And bitter pride that I develop
Whether you pamper me. still
I realize your love and
Absence of it is to fasten our growth
Spiritual, social and moral.
I fight with you then why at all
I should always adhere to sadhana
Sadhana or not, I want you
And beg at your feet for
I find your presence and love more
Inviting than moksha itself
Then in helplessness I realize
That I should strive for the
Goal of life to make you happy
For in your helpnessness of your love
You want me to experience
The heights of bliss and oneness with creation
Papa! when you walk before me
With the light of love and knowledge
I can never be far from the goal
For you are the light, the way and the way farer too.
You are my dream father
And my father in the dream like
Existence of this world
May be when I wake up from
This earthly existence and
Realise the undivided nature
Of existence, you as well as me
With the aberrations of me, mineness
Would vanish along with
The concepts of self and nonself
That you took pain to ingrain in me
However I can not but prostrate
Before my father but for whom
My struggle to wake up would
Never have begun.
You never taught me by word of mouth
Often I complain that
I should be content with
Your books, photos & cassettes
I never read all that you
have written or writing
Knowing my foolish laziness
You bestowed me this clinging
and longing for you in me
My thoughts words and actions have
Become the perambulations
To you and your glory
The pleasure and pain of my actions and
The sweet fruits of
The tree of pain rooted in bitterness I enjoy solely
And realize that pain or pleasure
Is the medications for
Removing the sickness of the soul
With false identities and
Pain should be invited
For it leads and evolves us quicker
Then I understand why you say
That every thing is a gain in
Matters of spirit while gain or
Loss are appearances and view points
As per the angle of vision we have
Papa ! easy to understand
But difficult to experience
I wait for the day the dualities end
But realize that I would have to
Miss you if I have to wake up
So I pretend to be sleeping
And refuse to acknowledge when
You try to wake me up
But all know who is cleverer
Though sometimes you pretend
To be playing poor lest your
Child can not bear sense of losing
I wonder how many times I complained
And compared and wanted
To exchange places thinking that
The other side of river is greener
Every time some thing deep below
Told me that your plan for me
Is the best one possible in the
Available circumstances and
I often feel that you tie me up
With duties, relatives, rules
And dharmas for me to evolve quickly
Probably for the river of life
Acquires momentum against and amidst
All these opposing forces
But I wonder whether I did
Enough efforts to reach the ideals
And goals set by you before me
For not only adherence but
Non-adherence too is part of effort in
Matters of matter as well as spirit
For it is non adherence imbibing
Imagination, initiative, courage
Humility and devotion, can take one
Nearer to you and the goals of life set by you
I pray that I should be and do
What you want me to be and do
While I realize that you want
Me to better myself every second of my life
However I realize what ever route I chose
Whichever way you sent me in life
That was the best way for my evolution
I look back at all the roads not taken
In life in world and wonder
That those alternative routes
Would have lead to the place
Where I am standing & pondering now
It is the cosmic computer at work
That flows as the inexplicable
Grace from you, that shaped my life and sadhana
With the goal way and methods
Set and organized by you that
Appealed to my psyche with all its grey areas
Perhaps even unknown to me
I rest and relax with no cares knowing that
Your grace works through in
My life in my multifarious
Troubles and tribulations.
With you around guiding my footsteps
It is as though you compressed
Many lives and much time
And wound up my karmic debt
As a child fast forwarding
An irritant scene in the movie
However what can I bring to
Equal your love for me that
Showered immortality on millions
Just for asking a `Mantra'
The debt is too deep and I
Dare not say that it is debt
For that word would hut you and me
Since we are not two beings
But part of one cosmic being
Which you say is organically connected
Before I conclude I should
Confess since these are our
Daily routine conversations
I enjoyed all that I confided
In you knowing that you
Know me better than I do
In moments of confusion and crisis
I felt you will show the way out some how
And my faith was met
By your abundant love & protection
Often I ask you to pardon me
And commit the same mistakes
Very many times I was proud
Arrogant and uncaring towards
You and your advice for that
Was my need at that hour
Papa ! You are the only one
Who never gave me up
Inspite of my self .
The only dakshina I gave you
Is my sins and prarabda
Which you have taken upon yourself
So that I live eternally
The sins I committed towards you
Are endless for I could not be
A strict disciplinarian nor a stickler to
Rules neither of ashrams nor of the world
I wonder what good deeds I did
To earn your love and I pray
That I do such deeds in all lives
And do many more in addition
So that I will be worthy to
Be in your presence for very many years
I did spend some time with you
And I cherish those memories
Which often are early morning
Meditations that fill my soul.
The bhajans you sang, the stories you told
The anecdotes you mentioned
Come before me as though
They happened to me yesterday
And I reminisee about that garlands
We decorated you
The pada pooja we did
The Aarti we showed and
The cultural programs we had
In your presence, those were
Dreams in the dreary desert of daily life
That we hold close to our hearts
Your talks and your voice come trailing
And fills my consciousness and
I suddenly feel that
You surround us and not separate
From us and can never be away
From as long as we live..
You are that Guru Tatwa
Personified to show us the path
Of love, devotion and knowledge
What I can give you in return
There is nothing I possess including myself
That I can offer to you.
These feelings must be
Outpouring of millions who
Received your grace and
You have given us these feelings
To pass on to posterity intact
As the guru's love that is
bequeathed from the days of Sri Dakshina moorthy

Dakshina Moorthy Stotra