The Golden God, the Self, the immortal Swan
Leaves the small nest of the body, goes where He wants.

He moves through the realm of dreams;
makes numberless forms;
Delights in sex; eats, drinks, laughs with His friends;
Frightens Himself with scenes of heart-chilling terror.

But He is not attached to anything that He sees;
And after He has wandered in the realms of dream and awakeness,
Has tasted pleasures and experienced good and evil,
He returns to the blissful state from which he began.

As a fish swims forward to one riverbank then the other,
Self alternates between awakeness and dreaming.
As an eagle, weary from long flight, folds its wings,
Gliding down to its nest, Self hurries to the realm
Of dreamless sleep, free of desires, fear, pain.

As a man in sexual union with this beloved
Is unaware of anything outside or inside,
So a man in union with Self knows nothing, wants nothing,
Has found his heart’s fulfillment and is free of sorrow.

Father disappears, mother disappears, gods
And scripture disappear, thief disappears, murderer,
Rich man, beggar disappear, world disappears,
Good and evil disappear he has passed beyond sorrow.

***

The Upanishads, one of the most important texts of Hinduism, are said to have been written between 500 and 800 BC but I suspect their origin is much older. The philosophy presented is certainly ancient and profound. In this excerpt the one,  immortal Self is likened to a golden swan who swims through all existence, experiencing life in many forms but attached to none. At the end the Self passes beyond all dualism and returns to the blissful state from which he began.

In our own small lives we seem to be surrounded by good and evil, rich and poor, the have and the have not’s. We ask why bad things happen to good people, why joy is so fleeting, why evil seems to triumph. In this passage we are reminded that this realm of duality is not the whole of life but only part of the great cosmic play in which we each play a role. Some may not like the role they have been given, others object to being in the play at all; but in the end it is all only the dream of the Great Mystery and all disappears. When the curtain descends we return again to the Source and are beyond sorrow.

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