1. Now on the pedestal of my heart I
will place the feet of my Guru,
2. and pouring my senses as flowers into the cupped hands
of the experience of union with the Supreme, I make the offering of a handful
of these at his feet.
3. My desire, washed clean by the pure water of devotion,
will be as sandal-wood ointment.
4. Making anklets of the pure gold of my love for him,
I will adorn with them his beautiful feet.
5. My strong, pure and single-hearted devotion to him
will be as a pair of rings for his two big toes.
6. I will place on them the bud of pure emotions, with
the fragrance of bliss, the full-blown eight-petalled lotus.
7. Then I will burn before him the incense of egotism,
wave round him the lamp of union with the Self and embrace him with the
experience of oneness with Brahma.
8. I will put on his holy feet the two sandals of my body
and my vital breath, and will wave around them the neem leaves of experience
and liberation.
9. May I be worthy of the feet of the Guru by which I
may attain all the goals of man’s existence,
10. by which that clear knowledge will be gained which
leads to the resting-place in Brahma and which transform speech into an
ocean of nectar.
from Jnaneshvari [Bhavarthadipika] by Sri Jnanadeva.
Translated by V.G. Pradhan and edited by H.M. Lambert
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