A lovely poem, from Ramana Maharishi Ashram book – Day by Day with Bhagavan. It was written & then recited by a Harindranath Chattopadhyaya to Ramana…
I am not generally a poem person, but this one was lovely. Typing it out here for you,
The Earthen Goblet
“O silent goblet! from head to heel,
How did you feel
When you were being twirled
Upon the Potter’s wheel
Before the Potter gave you to the world?”
I felt a conscious impulse in my clay
To break away
From the great Potter’s hand
That burned so warm.
I felt a vast
Feeling of sorrow to be cast
Into my present form.
Before that fatal hour
That saw me captive on the Potter’s wheel
And cast into this crimson goblet-sleep,
I used to feel
The fragrant friendship of a little flower
Whose root was in my bosom buried deep.
The Potter has drawn out the living breath of me,
And given me a form which is the death of me;
My past unshapely natural state was best,
With just one flower flaming through my breast.
Pitchers of Clay
Outside the Potter’s shop upon the way
In patient rows we stand, pitchers of clay –
Under a copper-clouded sky of gold
Expecting every moment to be sold.
Although we have no language, yet we feel
A bitterness towards the Potter’s wheel
Which moulded us, what though without a flaw,
To shape, which is against our being’s law.
Pitcher’s are beautiful and yet, indeed,
Even from beauty we would all be freed
And, slipping into Earth, secure escape
From the enchanted tyranny of shape.
Some of us pitchers, tired of being, drop
And break to pieces in the Potter’s shop.
Pathetic things! What does the Potter care
For the pale weariness of Earthenware?
~Harindranath Chattopadhyaya
Beauty is a construct thrust upon us by outsiders. What is true beauty? It is all about that which pleases another or ourselves. But whatever pleases us is based on our incompleteness. It too is a chain, albeit a golden chain isn’t it?