Being AUM: A collection of poems

Minoti Roy is a guiding light to innumerable disciples in their journey of life. She has been walking the path of spiritual living since an early age. She received her initiation from Shri Ramkrishna Paramhansa who appeared in her dreams when she was seven years old. In later years, teachings of Swami Vireshwaranand, who was a direct disciple of Sharda Ma, moulded her persona. She has had the rare fortune of having learnt Yoga from Swami Shivanand and Kriya yoga from the ageless Himalayan Master, Mahavatar Babaji, both astrally.

Being AUM is an English translation of some of her poems originally written in Bengali. These are reflections of an enlightened soul covering a range of subjects including human endeavor and experience of the Divine.

Mukteshwar Kshirsagar, former Deputy Director with the Times of India Group, is a disciple of Smt. Minoti Roy. An alumnus of I.I.T. Mumbai, he is a technocrat by training and has worked as a corporate executive with a career spanning 33 years. He expresses his worldview of human affairs in short stories, essays and poems in English, Hindi and Marathi.

Adorning the cover is an oil-on-canvas painting by artist by Dr. Renuka Parmar. It depicts the turmoil and churning of the Bhavasagar, i.e., ocean of life. From the churning rises the orb of knowledge, the Eternal AUM. Cover and interior design by Devyani Seth.

This is an offering of Crystal Lighthouse Productions, USA.

Excerpts:

Preface

The artisan bowed down and touched her feet not knowing why he was summoned. With a smile on her face, the Queen opened her treasure trove brimming with jewels. "You are the chosen one, pick what you can. Use your art and make me a necklace " said she. Similar was my fortune when one sunny morning, Minoti Roy, alias "Monima", asked me to do the translations of her Bengali poems...

The last six poems in the section titled "The Experience" are like a crescendo in a symphony, a fitting climax to a body of heavenly music. Monima recounts how on multiple occasions she is swept off her normal consciousness and visited by imagery of Divinity. "Spectacle of rising Kundalini", "The Yogic Vista" and "Worshipping the cosmic union" is the trilogy of poems capturing her three such out-of-the-world experiences.

Energy crystallizes to take a form displaying itself as matter and matter evolves transcending the form to become one with energy. Incarnation of the Supreme as a human being and the spiritual evolution of a human, culminating in dissolution into the Supreme are designs of Destiny. The final three poems reverberate with the above thought leaving a discerning reader spellbound.


Foreword

These poems are born out of spontaneity. They were originally written in Bengali at least 25 years ago. Now she feels the time is ripe for this poetry to reach far and wide. With this in mind, a translation of these poems in English was thought of. May all those who read the book, get touched by the poetry and in turn by Divinity.


POEMS

With You in my being - I become AUM

Your abundance pours on me without being asked
Far beyond expectations, in Your glory I bask

Whether road ahead or in the lanes gone by,
Wherever I see, only You meet my eye

You shine and glow ever in the light of mine
What I scent within is perfume of thine

Deluded people think it's me they see
Blind they are towards You besides me

It's Your fragrance alone that pervades every inch
Sadly no one realizes and none understand the cinch

Pardon the fools, pardon the blind
Pardon the ignorant with egoistic mind

AUM was the beginning and beyond the end is AUM
With You in my being I become AUM

I am AUM, I am AUM, I am AUM