Familiar Stranger

 

O stranger with the far away gaze, greetings! ….have we met before?
Your reflection is familiar and I think I  know the contours of your smile.
Perhaps we met in another dimension, in a parallel universe or a dream?
Distant bells ring, ethereal voices sing as I begin to recognise the loving light in your eyes.
Perhaps, in another lifetime, we shared some simple joys -were we ever friends or lovers or family, did I know you as a little child?

Sometimes memory haunts me, a sound, a touch, a smell: do you feel it too?
Like a chord once played or a long-drawn note hanging tremulous upon the air;
Like the faint murmur of a beloved voice that is no longer there.
I cannot measure you with my mind, I do not know your name, 
and yet I feel a tremor in my heartbeat, a mysterious gladness in my soul.
Something at the bleeding edge of thought keeps reminding me of you,
Like a tantalising flash of déjà vu that almost reveals, but will not give up its secret.
Who are you? Do you know me? Together, are we whole?

Have we been travelling forever down the stream of time playing this recognition game?
Someday maybe I will remember everything, all our connections and shared moments,
the intricate steps and rythms of the dance that we designed.
Sometime, will you finally let me see?
Will you deign, at last, to reveal your secret?
How cleverly you play at being both you and me
in a blissful pirouette through  eternity!

“The nature of the wave is to move. The nature of the ocean is to remain motionless. If the wandering wave loves the ocean, it will lose its wave-form, subside,become motionless, drown into the ocean and thereby become the ocean itself. Likewise, if the jiva, the wandering mind, loves Siva, the Self, he will lose his jiva-nature, that is, the nature of moving and standing as a separate entity, dissolve in Siva and become Siva Himself.”

Sri Ramana Maharishi, Guru Vachaka Kovai