Guest Author - Linda Sue Grimes

Not only do these poems consistently speak to God in the more general terms of nature, but they also take as subject matter such natural phenomena as Pikes Peak, Paupack’s Peak, The Grand Canyon, and the Aurora Borealis. From Pikes Peak, we hear the speaker declaring,

Ne’er did I expect to roam
On wheels four
Where thousand clouds do soar—
The dangerous, darksome path
With trick winding “W” curves that climbed
And glided secretly
Full fourteen thousand feet above the sea—
The home of dark-hued clouds, so gamesome free,
That watched with heavy binding vapor-shroud
To cast ’round stranger’s steps
That dared to tread in stealth
Their realm of scenic wealth.

The yogi/poet here captures the experience of traveling up Pikes Peak in an automobile, and the poem continues with this sublime description for two more pages, triumphantly finishing with, “And in joy I cried aloud, ‘See Him hide / Beneath the beauty tide!’” Again after much joy from the splendor of the sights beheld on the mountain, the speaker declares that the beauty is God’s.

Another poem that focuses on the physical, phenomenal world is “Luther Burbank”:

Beatific Burbank!
The great reformer Luther, thou art,
Of living plant and flowers of every mood—
The tender ones, the stubborn-growing ones,
Of cactus rude.

Thy peaceful way
The cruel cactus took:
Its armor of thorns forsook,
And learned to sacrifice it meat
For all to eat.

Luther Burbank was, of course, the successful horticulturist who propagated a number of improved strains of vegetables, including the potato and an edible cactus. In his Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda quotes the accomplished scientist: “The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love. While I was conducting experiments to make ‘spineless’ cacti, I often talked to the plants to create a vibration of love.”

Luther Burbank was a scientist who was in touch with the reality of God’s presence in all things, including plants, and Yogananda celebrates the scientist's accomplishments, even dedicating his now classic Autobiography of a Yogi to Burbank: “Dedicated to the Memory of LUTHER BURBANK ‘An American Saint’.”

The final poem/song, “When I Take My Vow of Silence,” is a meditation devoted to the followers of the renowned Guru:

When I take the vow of silence
To remain enlocked with my Beloved
In the arms of His everywhereness,
I shall be busy listening to His symphony
Of creations’ bliss songs, and beholding hidden wondrous visions.

The spiritual master is, of course, predicting that he will enjoy God’s “symphony” and His “wondrous vision” after the yogi has passed beyond the physical realm into the spiritual realm or entered mahasamadi, the passing of a God-realized soul, but reading his poems, these songs of his soul, we can glimpse those “wondrous visions” and hear, even if vaguely because of our untrained ears, that “symphony.”

Songs of the Soul includes over one hundred poems. The publisher’s note offers samples of Yogananda’s handwriting. Also included in the preface material are the “Aims and Ideals of Self-Realization Fellowship” as set forth by the yogi himself. The book contains nine photographs associated with the yogi’s life, including a photo of Luther Burbank and Yogananda taken at Santa Rosa, California, in 1924. The last photo taken March 7, 1952 and titled “The Last Smile” was snapped only an hour before the yogi entered mahasamadi.

______________________________________________________________________________

Books by Linda Sue Grimes:
Jiggery-Jee's Eden Valley Stories
Singing in the Silence: Poems of Faith
______________________________________________________________________________