Everyone is babbling about what happens after death

Everyone is babbling about what happens after death.

Superstitious villagers insist we become

peculiar wandering spirits,

while simple religious hearts assume our goal

to be sweet heavenly existence.

Lovers long to play

in eternal companionship with Divinity,

while mystics strive

to merge completely with Divine Reality.

Scriptures of radical wisdom maintain

that the apparent soul is like space within a jar.

When death shatters our earthen vessel,

only the open space of awareness remains.

Who is there to unify with whom?

This intoxicated poet who belongs to Goddess Kali

knows all opinion to be void of substance.

Mother's mystery eludes

every earnest practitioner or philosopher

who assumes negative or positive energy

to be substantial or real.

This mirror mind and rainbow body

are her marvelous play

through the transparent medium of her elements.

After death, her dancing elements flow on,

and simply Mother remains.

The singer of this liberating song

laughs loud and long:

"We will be in the end

what we were in the beginning,

clear bubbles forming and dissolving

in the stream of timeless Mother Wisdom."

--Ramprasad Sen