Endless Music

The search for a muse is an exercise in futility that consumes the passion of a poet to little avail. What starts as the desire for a beacon in a journey becomes a destination in itself. A destination that is a deceptive mirage of hope that often flatters to deceive. Peace often comes to the seeker in the oddest ways. Frustrated yet again by my latest "muse" I found solace in the mysterious lines of the Creation Hymn. The Rig Veda presents more questions than answers but can also be read as a series of mellifluous verses that are simple and yet enchanting. The Creation Hymn is one such verse that outlines the futility of thought after a certain point. What can be more futile than the questioning of the cosmic conundrum of Creation.And what better answer than the Creation Hymn. I was at peace. The peace of a straining atom and yet such peace..

The Creation Hymn of Rig Veda

There was neither non-existence nor existence then.
There was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond.
What stirred?
Where?
In whose protection?
Was there water, bottomlessly deep?

There was neither death nor immortality then.
There was no distinguishing sign of night nor of day.
That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse.
Other than that there was nothing beyond.

Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning,
with no distinguishing sign, all this was water.
The life force that was covered with emptiness,
that One arose through the power of heat.

Desire came upon that One in the beginning,
that was the first seed of mind.
Poets seeking in their heart with wisdom
found the bond of existence and non-existence.

Their cord was extended across.
Was there below?
Was there above?
There were seed-placers, there were powers.
There was impulse beneath, there was giving forth above.

Who really knows?
Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced?
Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterward, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen
– perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not –
the One who looks down on it,
in the highest heaven, only He knows
or perhaps He does not know.