WHEN I FELL FROM LOVE

WHEN I FELL FROM LOVE

"Eons of joy in eternal time seem one instant, one instant  of eternal time in wickedness are millions years of miseries."

This poem was inspired by the controversial subject matter of whether or not the jiva, the soul, fell originally from Vaikuntha.  While reading many arguments and essays on this subject, the conclusions of which are a matter for pandits and scholars, this poet became caught up in a vision of the emotions associated with such a fall, because ultimately it was a fall from love ...

Conversation after  Bhagavad-gita 3.27 lecture '74 in Melbourne -

[Srila Prabhupada] :    "Yes. You forced Krishna to allow you to come". 

Before there was Krishna.

Then, I know neither

how nor why,

I denied His love

 because of free will

and pride.

Maybe He warned me,

maybe He tried persuading me,

but somehow, bedazzled

and maddened, I spurned Him.

And so envy won,

sweetness was suddenly gone,

in an instant of time,

an endless loss ~ 

my soul endlessly lost.

Until at last, reluctantly I believe,

He turned His back on me ...to leave.

O reader, understand my despair!

that last glimpse

of the golden yellow dress, 

of the bluish luster,

of His long black curly hair!

Then overcome by a shadow

I fell into oblivion,

to awaken in illusion with no vision,

only reflections in darkness

without Krishna,

and drowned in forgetfulness,

floundering unknowingly

          in oceans of lifetimes       (1)

 for the shore of His eyes,

for a breath of His love, 

 every wave swept me further away.

For eons I never saw Him again ~

no lament nor word can convey fully this pain!

The cries of birds make the night more dark,

the roar makes the ocean more treacherous,

fear haunts me ever since.

1) Vani Vaibhava pg 174 "They [the conditioned souls] continue swimming, tring to reach the shore but they can't, because the material ocean is unlimited and insurmountable."