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I wearied myself searching for the Friend
with efforts beyond my strength.

I came to the door and saw how
powerfully the locks were bolted.

And the longing in me became that strong,
and then I saw that I was gazing
from within the presence.

With that waiting, and in giving up all trying,
only then did Lalla flow out
from where I knelt.

Your way of knowing is a private herb garden.

Enclose it with a hedge of meditation,

and self-discipline, and helpfulness to others.

Then everything you've done before
will be brought as a sacrifice
to the mother goddess.

And each day, as you eat the herbs,
the garden grows more bare and empty.

Beautifully full of juice they come from the mother,
causing many birth-pains.

Again and again, they wait at her door to enter.
Shiva is not often among them!
Meditate on that.

The pedestal rock can also serve as pavement,
or as a handsome millstone turning perfectly.
Each is just a hardened piece of the ground.
Shiva is so rarely found.

Sunlight shines everywhere equally.
Water flows into every house.

It's also true that Shiva
can scarcely be located.

The woman who nurses her child with milk acts with a different love as your wife,

and talking secretly to other men,

she may be dangerous to you, the same woman.

Meditate on how seldom
Shiva appears.

f I could control the channels of my breath,
if I could perform precise surgery on myself,
I could create the substance that awareness is.

There's nothing more valuable than that!
God does not often come as a person.

Four questions:

Who is awake and who asleep?

What is this lake that is continually
oozing back into the earth?

What can a human being offer to God?

What do we most deeply want?

The answers:

The mind is what sleeps.
What recognizes itself
as God is awake.

This always-disappearing lake
is made of our appetites,
these movings-about,
this talking and listening.

The only offering you can make to God
is your increasing awareness.

And the last desire is

to be God in human form.

The soul, like the moon,

is new, and always new again.

And I have seen the ocean
continuously creating.

Since I scoured my mindand my body, I too, Lalla,
am new, each moment new.

My teacher told me one thing,
Live in the soul.

When that was so,
I began to go naked,
and dance.

* * * *

lalla - naked song