Yet How Elusive

Yet How Elusive

I looked for You

Ever since You breathed individuality

Into my soul dew

And separated me from You

Because I am the wave

Jerked out of Your sea

I've ever tried myself to reunite

With Your boundless bosom of freedom and light -

Though lashed

And by all other waves and by karma dashed -

Yet again and again

The storm of my own desires o'er the cosmic main

Would send me sailing alone, sad,

With colliding brother waves, cruel restive mad,

I am the wavelet life in great unrest

Swimming on Your cosmic sea-breast.

And yet how elusive You are

So near and so far.

My little life swam in loneliness and worries

Beneath the vistas of centuries,

Beneath countless lights of mily way , moons and suns,

Beneath the darkness of many desires undone,

Beneath the fogs of intricate incarnations

And 'neath clouds of doleful delusions.

Now at last I discovered

Just beneath my ignorance You lay covered,

'Twas I who ignored You -

Not You, not You -

When You were so near

Kept by my absent mind so far:

The ocean of life

Through all my strife

Supporting , ever-sustaining

Ever-pursuing, ever watchfully remaining

To protect me from harm

Just beneath the truant wavelet of my little life

Blessed with Your sheltering charm.

- Paramahansa Yogananda