Odilia Carmen Chirica

"TEACHER," THEY SAID, "WE KNOW THAT YOU SPEAK AND TEACH RIGHTLY, AND SHOW NO PARTIALITY." -LUKE 20:21 " Look at your life and see how you have filled its emptiness with people. As a result they have a stranglehold on you. See how they control your behaviour by their approval and disapproval. They hold the power to ease your loneliness with their company, to send your spirits soaring with their praise, to bring you down to the depths with their criticism and rejection. Take a look at yourself spending almost every waking minute of your day placating and pleasing peo­ple, whether they are living or dead. You live by their norms, conform to their standards, seek their company, desire their love, dread their rid­icule, long for their applause, meekly submit to the guilt they lay upon you; you are terrified to go against the fashion in the way you dress or speak or act or even think. And observe how even when you control them you depend on them and are enslaved by t

  101 Ever in my life have I sought thee with my songs. It was they who led me from door to door, and with them have I felt about me, searching and touching my world. It was my songs that taught me all the lessons I ever learnt; they showed me secret paths, they brought before my sight many a star on the horizon of my heart. They guided me all the day long to the mysteries of the country of pleasure and pain, and, at last, to what palace gate have they brought me in the evening at the end of my journey?" from " The Gintajali " by  Rabinadranath Tagore ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

100 I dive down into the depth of the ocean of forms, hoping to gain the perfect pearl of the formless. No more sailing from harbour to harbour with this my weather-beaten boat. The days are long passed when my sport was to be tossed on waves. And now I am eager to die into the deathless. Into the audience hall by the fathomless abyss where swells up the music of toneless strings I shall take this harp of my life. I shall tune it to the notes of forever, and when it has sobbed out its last utterance, lay down my silent harp at the feet of the silent. from " The Gintajali " by  Rabinadranath Tagore ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

96 When I go from hence let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable. I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus that expands on the ocean of light, and thus am I blessed - let this be my parting word. In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play and here have I caught sight of him that is formless. My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch; and if the end comes here, let it come - let this be my parting word. from " The Gintajali " by  Rabinadranath Tagore ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

87 In desperate hope I go and search for her in all the corners of my room; I find her not. My house is small and what once has gone from it can never be regained. But infinite is thy mansion, my lord, and seeking her I have to come to thy door. I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky and I lift my eager eyes to thy face. I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish - no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears. Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it into the deepest fullness. Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch in the allness of the universe. from " The Gintajali " by  Rabinadranath Tagore ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

  82 Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. There is none to count thy minutes. Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. Thou knowest how to wait. Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower. We have no time to lose, and having no time we must scramble for a chances. We are too poor to be late. And thus it is that time goes by while I give it to every querulous man who claims it, and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last. At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate to be shut; but I find that yet there is time. from " The Gintajali " by  Rabinadranath Tagore ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen

  81 On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time. But it is never lost, my lord. Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands. Hidden in the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness. I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers. from " The Gintajali " by  Rabinadranath Tagore ...in truth,  OdiliaCarmen