Mirabai was a 16th century mystic poet whose poems speak of an overwhelming need to become one with the beloved in ecstatic sexual union. In the Tantric tradition, you would say that she was in search of that experience you encounter when you reach the highest chakra where there is a merging of you and everything not you. These poems in the form of songs are kept alive in India by those longing to touch the divine who are inspired by her passion, bravery and devotion. She would be in the North on the Wheel where we have come to the realization that we are not the doer we thought we were and are left with only one desire which is to know who it is that knows it is not the doer. All that remains is the observer with no power to change anything and an intense longing for a merging with everything not you, the death of this separateness and knowledge of who I really am.
The experience is one of a constant awareness of the futility of worldly things and a growing need to be done with the pain of being separate and not knowing. Searching everywhere for a glimpse of where it is you long to be. Letting go of everything else until finally a moment arrives where you are actually ready to surrender whatever it takes, including this life, to become enlightened.
Letting go has always been the only thing we can do to move things forward and even this is not of our doing but simply the result of seeing the truth of things and watching the illusion fall away. Mirabai’s poems give us a glimpse into what it was like to be this devoted and female in a culture that could not understand or accept this kind of behavior, especially from a woman.
