Women's Voices: Mirabai

Princess. Poet. Rebel. Mystic. Saint.

Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,
Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.

If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water,
I would have asked to be born a fish in this life.
If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts,
Then surely the saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb!
If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves,
Then the goats would surely go to the Holy One before us!

If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way,
I would have adored a granite mountain years ago.

Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God.

--Born to an aristocratic family, Mirabai (c.1498-1546) dedicated herself from early childhood to God as manifested in Lord Krishna. Her chosen path was a form of mystical Hinduism called Bhakti, which disregarded caste, gender, and race to approach God through pure love. Still an iconic figure in India today, she was honored by Ghandi as a representative of a woman's right to choose her own path in life.--

Something has reached out and taken in the beams of my eyes.
There is a longing, it is for his body, for every hair of that dark body.
All I was doing was being, and the Dancing Energy came by my house.
His face looks curiously like the moon, I saw it from the side, smiling.
My family says: "Don't ever see him again!" And they imply things in a low voice.
But my eyes have their own life; they laugh at rules, and know whose they are.
I believe I can bear on my shoulders whatever you want to say of me.
Mira says: Without the energy that lifts mountains, how am I to live?

--Married in 1516 to a prince, Mira soon ran afoul of her inlaws. Declining luxury and "proper" female behavior, she associated with the community of Bhakti and became known for her erotically-charged songs.
When her tolerant husband died three years later, she refused to throw herself (as a proper widow was expected to do) onto his funeral pyre. Instead, she intensified her devotions, sometimes singing and dancing ecstatically in public temples. Her angry inlaws locked her up and, she wrote, tried to kill her with a poisoned drink and with a venomous snake.
Returning to her own family, she met with similar (if less threatening) condemnation. Finally, she became a wandering pilgrim, traveling to places associated with Lord Krishna. Famous for her songs, charisma, and shocking acts of rebellion, she always gathered a crowd of admirers. The end of her life was passed on the shores of the Arabian Sea, where she believed Krishna had spent his youth.--



The colors of the Dark One have penetrated Mira's body; all the other colors washed out.
Making love with the Dark One and eating little, those are my pearls and my carnelians.
Meditation beads and the forehead streak, those are my scarves and my rings.
That's enough feminine wiles for me. My teacher taught me this.
Approve me or disapprove me: I praise the Mountain Energy night and day.
I take the path that ecstatic human beings have taken for centuries.
I don't steal money, I don't hit anyone. What will you charge me with?
I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders; and now you want me to climb on a jackass? Try to be serious.

Mirabai's poems translated by Robert Bly