Today's Beautiful Gem: `The Mystic Path' by Dara Shikoh

"Here is the secret of unity (tawhid), O friend, understand it;
Nowhere exists anything but God.
All that you see or know other than Him,
Verily is separate in name, but in essence one with God.

"Like an ocean is the essence of the Supreme Self,
Like forms in water are all souls and objects;
The ocean heaving and stirring within,
Transforms itself into drops, waves and bubbles.

"So long as it does not realise its separation from the ocean,
The drop remains a drop;
So long he does not know himself to be the Creator,
The created reamins a created.

"O you, in quest of God, you seek Him everywhere,
You verily are the God, not apart from Him!
Already in the midst of the boundless ocean,
Your quest resembles the search of drop for the ocean!"

Note: One great Indian emperor, Ashoka migrated from Hinduism
to Buddhism after the Kalinga War. Another great emperor, Akbar,
born Muslim, gravitated towards Hinduism in his later years.
It was left to Akbar's great-grandson Dara to propagate Akbar's
egalitarian ideas of religious tolerance. However, Dara's religious
poems do not find as prominent a place in the history books as the
sordid details of his brother Aurangazeb's reign.

Om Santih! Peace! - J. K. Mohana Rao

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