You're inside me

I drink no ordinary wine,
but Wine of Everlasting Bliss,
As I repeat my Mother Kali's name;
It so intoxicates my mind that people take me to be drunk!
First my guru gives molasses for the making of the Wine;
My longing is the ferment to transform it.
Knowledge, the maker of the Wine,
prepares it for me then;
And when it is done,
my mind imbibes it from the bottle of the mantra,
Taking the Mother's name to make it pure.
Drink of this Wine, says Ramprasad,
and the four fruits of life are yours.

 ***

Ma, You're inside me;
who says You keep Your distance, Shyama?
You're a stony girl, terrible illusion,
dressing in many guises.
For different methods of prayer You put on
the five chief forms.
But once someone realizes
the five are one,
there'll be no escape for You!
Understanding the truth,
he won't encumber You with false worship
and You'll have to stop
as if You'd sneezed
to tank his burdens.

Once he knows the value of gold
will he welcome glass
by mistake?

Prasad says, My heart is shaped like a flawless lotus.
I place You there, my mental Goddess:

Now dance!

--- Ramprasad Sen, the eighteenth-century Bengali poet-saint, and a great Kali worshipper.