Siva Knows Those Who Love Him (280-289)

280: Lord Rewards as Merit Befits

What we scorned and what we gained, He knows;

The righteous Lord in Love rewards as merit befits;

Whose, with burning zeal, seek Him with heart of love

To such, well-pleased, He His Grace remits.

281: Lord Blends Life With Love

The Lord fashioned all things for a life of bliss;

Many though the trials that beset this vale of sorrow

Yet this life, the Lord God with His divine Love blends,

In His Divine Love’s sweet presence, the life-cycle ends.

282: Divine Light in God-Love

From mind fixt in God’s Love, the Divine Light is born;

The tangled skein of the tormenting senses five,

Drag us headlong to sweet ardours of woman’s passionate eyes,

That bond sunder; may your thoughts e’er at God’s Feet arrive!

283: Surrender in Love

Like the sweet love in sex-act experienced,

So, in the Great Love, let yourself to Him succumb;

Thus in Love sublimed, all your senses stilled,

Bounding in Bliss Supreme, That this becomes.

284: Faith Leads to Liberation

Even the Siddhas, standing close in banded group,

Knew not the Light Supreme in splendorous glow;

But He gave Salvation’s bliss and the Vision splendid,

To them whose hearts did in intense faith overflow.

285: His Feet Visioned in Love

I saw the Feet of the Lord, deckt in odorous Konrai blooms,

I saw the Feet of the Lord, dark-dressed in elephant-skin

I saw the Feet of the Lord, on lotus-blossom enthroned,

I saw the Feet of the Lord, my heart-core’s love within.

286: His Love is Inscrutable

My Lord God whom the heavenly beings praise

As one into myriad forms and things outspread,

The Great Lover who inside love savours love’s tributes;

Sad indeed that few seek Him, or to Him are led.

287: Seek Him in Love

They who claim that thro’ Love they’ll find the Lord,

From Birth and Death are they sure free;

Yet in Love they neither seek him nor find,

Nandi, who from Birth and Death is free.

288: Seek Him, He Seeks You

The Lord God knows them who, by night and day,

Seat Him in heart’s core, and in love exalted adore;

To them wise with inner light, actionless in trance,

He comes, and, in close proximity, stands before.

289: Be Steadfast in Devotion

It little profits if, intermittent, you pursue the Divine Light;

Unceasing, I will seek the Greatness that has no end,

My Lord, my heart’s precious Life and treasured Delight;

In Him to merge is life’s supreme baptismal bath.