From Afar

The ‘I’ that floats along the wave of time,

From a distance I watch him.

With the dust and the water,

With the fruit and the flower,

With the All he is rushing forward.

He is always on the surface,

Tossed by the waves and dancing to the rhythm

Of joy and suffering.

The least loss makes him suffer,

The least wound hurts him—

Him I see from afar.

That ‘I’ is not my real self;

I am still within myself,

I do not float in the stream of death.

I am free, I am desireless,

I am peace, I am illumined—

Him I see from afar.

~ Rabindranath Tagore