IN the CAVERN OF the HEART - Prayers of Mucukunda

Comment by Visvanath Cakravarti Thakura to SB 10.51.29 : "Mucukunda said, "With Your effulgence You dispel the darkness of this mountain cave, and with Your jewel-like knowledge You destroy the darkness of ignorance in my heart."  In Sanskrit, the heart is sometimes metaphorically referred to as guha "cavern" a deep and secret place."

SB 3.29.5 [Devahuti said] "My dear Lord, You are just like the sun, for You illuminate the darkness of the conditional life of the living entities.  Because their eyes of knowledge are not open, they are sleeping eternally in that darkness without Your shelter, and therefore they are falsely engaged by the actions and reactions of their material activities, and they appear to be very fatigued."

I was inspired to write this poem by an article written by my friend and writer HG Vishoka das Prabhu and with whom I found to have an affinity for the pastime of King Mucukunda.
https://vishoka.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/bad-to-the-bone-bugsy-and-bubbles-in-the-sea/.  

Dormant,

in the cave of my heart,

I slept upon my dreams

for long eons and in peace,

pious and righteous

after long fatigue,

exhausted, I renounced

just by going to sleep;

Now You came in

so brilliant to behold,

darkness was dispelled

in this dark hole,

the wheel of lifetimes

amassed obscurity

inside this cavity,

but like bubbles in the sea

each life burst and vanished

along with its illusions

of 'mine' and "me";

Everyone believes to be

the king of his bubble,

ignoring its frailty

on the vast deluding sea,

under the roof of a palace

or just a tree, ⁽¹⁾

pride blinds

in the domains of greed

of the bubble Kings,

in the elated bustle

of me - me - me, 

no matter

 if animal or human being, ⁽²⁾

until You come as Time

and prick the bubble

 no matter 

how big.

O Supreme Source and Doer,

may the shower of Your mercy

continue to pour on me,

on this rock encrusted heart;

let this cavern transform

into a nacre shell

capturing a drop of this rain

to form a pearl

of love for You.

(1)  Comment by Visvanath Cakravarti Thakura to SD 51.52 : "The man who does not worship the Lord is condemned for his enjoyment of worldly pleasures.  But the same man is also condemned even when he does not have sense gratification, as stated in this verse.  Such a man is fixed in austerities such as sleeping on the ground and observing celibacy with the urge to become an even more powerful king."

(2)  Comment by Visvanath Cakravarti Thakura to SD 51.46 : "Mucukunda said: Furthermore material sense gratification is obtainable even among the hogs and beasts. Worship of the Supreme Lord, however, can only be attained in a human birth."