Mirabai

By Mirabai Starr

This exclusive excerpt for The Shift Network is a chapter from Mirabai Starr's forthcoming book, Wild Mercy, which will be published by Sounds True in April 2019.

 
The Dagger
by Mirabai

The Dark One threw me a glance like a dagger today.
Since that moment, I am insane; I can’t find my body.
The pain has gone through my arms and legs, and I can’t find my mind.
At least three of my friends are completely mad.
I know the thrower of daggers well; he enjoys roving the woods.
The partridge loves the moon; and the lamplight pulls in the moth.
You know, for the fish, water is precious; without it, the fish dies.
If he is gone, how shall I live? I can’t live without him.
Go and speak to the dagger-thrower: Say, Mira belongs to you.
(English version by Robert Bly)

I guess I have a thing for ecstatic 16th-century mystics. My namesake, Mirabai, like John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, lived during the same spiritually fertile time but in a very different place. Mirabai was a devotional poet from North India who relinquished wealth and status to track the invisible footprints of Krishna, the elusive Lord of Love. She wasn’t trying to be subversive. She didn’t stage a political action. She simply followed the music resounding in her heart.

This inner music led Mira from the comfort of the palace to the village streets and riverbanks where she sang and danced with anyone who would sing and dance with her, without a whit of regard to socio-economic status or religious affiliation. Hindus, Jains, and Muslims were equally drawn to the beauty of Mira’s devotion and resonated with the purity of her passion. Her admirers may have included the legendary poet-mystic, Kabir, beloved by Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, and likely did include the Mughal emperor, Akbar.

It was Akbar who stirred up a nest of trouble at the royal house where the young Mira lived with her husband and his family. Knowing of the hatred Mira’s in-laws harbored for Muslims, the emperor disguised himself as a beggar and made a pilgrimage to pay homage to the poet-saint all of India was speaking of. Deeply moved by her singing, Akbar left a priceless jeweled necklace at her feet. When the family discovered this treasure and realized who had been sitting in their midst they banished Mira from the household.

This was not her first conflict with her husband’s people (nor her last banishment). Their association started off with a fundamental difference in opinion about the meaning of marriage. Mira had been betrothed to Prince Bhoj Raj for most of her life, as was — and in some places still is — the custom in India, and was obliged to marry him when she was eighteen. The problem was, in her heart Mira was already married to Krishna. When she was a small girl, a family friend had gifted her with a small statue of the blue-skinned love god and she was smitten. She carried her little lover with her everywhere, fed him milk from her own cup and nestled him beside her on the pillow all night. Her heart was his, and so she found it impossible to give herself to her earthly husband.

Her earthly husband was not at all pleased about this, and his family was furious. He cajoled her; they threatened her. Mira went through the motions of a high-caste Hindu wife, but she burst into poetry and song at the slightest whiff of her Beloved, whose fragrance permeated her being. Mira writes about the various ways they tried to get rid of her. Her mother-in-law offered Mira nectar laced with poison. She drank it and found the concoction sweet and refreshing. Her father-in-law sent her a garland of flowers with a venomous snake hidden inside the blossoms. The serpent turned into a spray of lilacs.

After three years of domestic charade, Prince Bhoj Raj went off to fight the Mughals and was killed in battle. It was Mira’s duty to burn herself alive on her husband’s funeral pyre. But since she considered Krishna to be her spouse and not Bhoj Raj, she saw no reason to participate in such an act of violence. She refused, and was again exiled, this time for good. Which suited her perfectly. Mira spent the rest of her life as a wandering minstrel, singing and dancing for her Beloved, and wherever she went people joined the stream of her ecstatic devotion and let themselves be carried into the arms of the One.

Which is all very nice. But the underlying story of Mirabai is a story of spiritual warriorship. This is a woman who defied social norms so powerful that her defiance could have cost her life. Not only did she voluntarily renounce inherited privilege to worship among the poor, but she lived as an exemplar of an empowered woman who chose the Path of Love over convention, of poetry over luxury, of homelessness over imprisonment in the expectations of society.

Of course, only a privileged person has the privilege to deny privilege.

That’s why those of us not suffering on the margins must take advantage of our cushy karma and actively resist the institutionalization of overconsumption that is poisoning the planet and shutting down our collective heart. That’s why those of us who have shoes must take them off now and recognize that we are standing on holy ground. That’s why we who can afford to speak out need to risk unmasking the fake little gods worshipped by a culture of war and praise the God of Love with all our hearts, and with our minds and with our bodies.
 

The Long Drought is Over
by Mirabai

My Beloved has come home with the rains,
And the fire of longing is doused.
Now is the time for singing, the time of union.
At the first thunderclap,
Even the peacocks open their tails with pleasure and dance.
Giridhara is in my courtyard, and my wandering heart has returned.
Like lilies that blossom under the full moon’s light,
I open to him in this rain: every pore of my body is cooled.
Mira’s separation and torment are over.
He who comes to those who love has remembered his promise.
(Translated by Robert Bly)
 

Mirabai Starr writes creative nonfiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature.She taught Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years and now teaches and speaks internationally on contemplative practice and interspiritual dialogue. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss.

She has received critical acclaim for her revolutionary new translations of John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul and Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle. She is author of the poetry collection, Mother of God Similar to Fire, a collaboration with iconographer William Hart McNichols, and the award-winning book, God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Her recent book, Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation, received the Spirituality & Practice “Best Books of 2015” award. Click here to read our interview about grief and Caravan of No Despair. Mirabai’s forthcoming book, Wild Mercy, will be published by Sounds True in April 2019. Mirabai lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico. Click here to visit Mirabai’s website.