{"id":6793,"date":"2020-05-28T07:50:20","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T14:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=6793"},"modified":"2020-05-28T07:55:43","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T14:55:43","slug":"vidyapati-my-friend-i-cannot-answer-when-you-ask-me-to-explain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/28\/vidyapati-my-friend-i-cannot-answer-when-you-ask-me-to-explain\/","title":{"rendered":"Vidyapati – My friend, I cannot answer when you ask me to explain"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friend, I cannot answer when you ask me to explain
\nby Vidyapati<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

English version by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. and Denise Levertov<\/font><\/p>\n

My friend, I cannot answer when you ask me to explain
\nwhat has befallen me.
\nLove is transformed, renewed,
\neach moment.
\nHe has dwelt in my eyes all the days of my life,
\nyet I am not sated with seeing.
\nMy ears have heard his sweet voice in eternity,
\nand yet it is always new to them.
\nHow many honeyed nights have I passed with him
\nin love\u2019s bliss, yet my body
\nwonders at his.
\nThrough all the ages
\nhe has been clasped to my breast,
\nyet my desire
\nnever abates.
\nI have seen subtle people sunk in passion
\nbut none came so close to the heart of the fire.<\/p>\n

Who shall be found to cool your heart,
\nsays Vidyapati.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali<\/a>, Translated by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. \/ Translated by Denise Levertov<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by Boris SV<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

The speaker in this poem is Radha and the \u201chim\u201d she refers to is Krishna. Bhakti poetry often celebrates the love affair between Radha and Krishna, but it plays with multiple levels of reality at once: it can be read as erotic love poetry and, at the same time, as an exploration of the love between the soul (Radha) and God (Krishna).<\/p>\n

Try reading this poem a few times. Start with the poem\u2019s surface meaning, its beauty, sensuality, and yearning. And, with each reading, look progressively deeper and with an open heart. See what emerges.<\/p>\n

Love is transformed, renewed,
\neach moment.<\/i><\/p>\n

When we are in a truly open state, deeply at rest with what is, we are flooded with the most profound sense of love and bliss. As a concept, considered from outside the conscious experience, this might sound rather uninteresting. <\/p>\n

Love is nice, and when it is strong it can feel wonderful, but even at its best, do we really want to feel it as an unending experience? Of course, in these thoughts the mind is imagining objectified love \u2014 love for a person, love for a thing or an experience \u2014 which floods us with endorphins but is also too often followed by an emotional crash. It can be the sugar rush version of love. Extreme swings are normal with that sort of love. As we mature in our relationships and our desires, the extremes level out and our connections become more steady and, hopefully, more fulfilling. But we have still externalized our ideas of love, limited it, and often used it to reinforce the ego sense of identity.<\/p>\n

Then, just maybe we come to a point of stillness and openness, and that limited experience of love blossoms in a way we never imagined possible. It is just there, utterly and undeniably. Love. Not hooked outwardly upon a person or an experience, not tethered internally to feelings of reward or reinforcement of the ego-self. There is just the deep well of love bubbling up and flowing out in all directions.<\/p>\n

Not only is the joy of this love indescribable (\u201cI cannot answer when you ask me to explain\u201d), it is somehow alive and continuously shifting its color and tone, always new, always a fresh experience from moment to moment. Love is transformed, renewed, each moment.<\/p>\n

This is the awareness Vidyapati seems to be exploring in these lines, the delight and surprise of the continual newness of the experience, how it fulfills without sating, how experiencing it we recognize it as our natural state and seek to continuously center ourselves within it.<\/p>\n

Through all the ages
\nhe has been clasped to my breast,
\nyet my desire
\nnever abates.<\/i><\/p>\n

==<\/p>\n

\u2026Now I have to put my shoes on and go outside to plant some acorn squash. I hope to see their vines happily meandering around the edges of my garden later this summer.<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Vidyapati<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n\n
\n\"Vidyapati,<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nVidyapati<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

India (1340? \u2013 1430) Timeline<\/a>
\nYoga \/ Hindu<\/a> : Vaishnava (Krishna\/Rama)<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Vidyapati was born in the village of Bisapi in Madhubani, on the eastern side of north Bihar. Courtier, scholar, and prose-writer, Vidyapati. In the well-known tradition of the influential early Indian poem called Gita Govinda by Jayadeva, Vidyapati\u2019s love-songs re-create and reveal the world of Radha and Krishna, the major erotic figures of Indian mythology and literature. Such poems convey the devotion of Krishna\u2019s worshippers through the metaphor of human erotic love. While Jayadeva\u2019s poem celebrates Krishna\u2019s love and pays comparatively little attention to Radha the woman, Vidyapati is primarily concerned with the intense passion of Radha\u2019s love. At once sensuous and sensual, descriptive and dramatic, Vidyapati\u2019s songs range beyond the mythological only to find their place in the heart of a human lover whose dreams and desires never die, whose sighs and cries never end. <\/p>\n

\u2014 From Reading About the World, Volume 1, edited by Paul Brians, Mary Gallwey, Douglas Hughes, Azfar Hussain, Richard Law, Michael Myers, Michael Neville, Roger Schlesinger, Alice Spitzer, and Susan Swan and published by Harcourt Brace Custom Books.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Vidyapati<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend, I cannot answer when you ask me to explain by Vidyapati English version by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. and Denise Levertov My friend, I cannot answer when you ask me to explain what has befallen me. Love is transformed, renewed, each moment. He has dwelt in my eyes all the days of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2363,16,1649,893,14,1944,498,865,15],"class_list":["post-6793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-agape","tag-bhakti-poetry","tag-divine-love","tag-heart","tag-hindu-poetry","tag-krishna-and-radha","tag-love-poetry","tag-vidyapati","tag-yoga-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6793"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6795,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793\/revisions\/6795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}