gya:nà ma:rg chay ha:kà vö:r,
dizès Samà-damà krayi pöny |
lam-tsakrà pôS prö:ny krayi dö:r
khènà-khènà mvatsiy vö:rày chany ||
The path of knowledge
is a kitchen garden,
water it with actions
based on meditation
and self-restraint.
The LAM chakra is the
(sacrificial) beast,
prior actions the gate,
and as it eats,
the garden is left bare.
Note: This is one of the hardest of Lalla's poems to interpret. Most of the interpretations involve the burning of the the karma of past actions (which may indeed come into it), but they lose sight of the subject in the first line: gya:nà marg, which is the knowledge-path. In Yoga philosophy, three main paths are recognized: that of knowledge (gyana, often written as jñana), that of action or work (karma), and that of devotion (bhakti). But here we are talking about the path of knowledge, and it is not to be confused with wisdom (pragyana), to which it may lead. So what is cultivated in this "garden" (which in Lalla's symbolic language often means the cerebrum or the sahasrara "thousand-petalled" chakra which is above it)? Facts, quotations, definitions, technical terms, maybe even poetry--all derived from a lifetime of study. This knowledge is there to sustain us. But this peaceful picture is interrupted by KuNDalini:, the "serpent-power" that lives in the muladhara (basal) chakra, also known as the LAM chakra because of its seed-sound. She wanders up to the garden through the "gate," which represents the sushumna pathway that is analogous to the spinal cord. When she gets to the "garden," KuNDalini: "eats" (supersedes, blows away) all the book-learning that has been cultivated there. "The garden is left bare." The sustenance of all the book-learning that was cultivated is gone, but it has been replaced by something much better.
Another example of Lalla's use of this kind of symbolic language can be seen in JK/NKK 130, translated in this blog in an entry of October 5 2016.
ॐ नमः शिवाय ॐ
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