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Two Love Poems

© Linda Sue Grimes

At age eleven, Mukunda Lal Ghosh lost the comforting love and friendship he had cherished for his little more than a decade of life: his beloved mother died. Although he loved his father, brothers, and sisters deeply, he adored his mother as his the most solacing force in his life. He has remarked in Autobiography of a Yogi: "I loved Mother as my dearest friend on earth. Her solacing black eyes had been my refuge in the trifling tragedies of childhood."

Such grief was one of the motivating factors in propelling the young Mukunda to search for the Mother of mothers-God in the form of Divine Mother. When the young Mukunda learned that his mother's soul had departed the earthly realm, he fainted in despair, feeling nearly lifeless. He says, "Years passed before any reconciliation entered my heart. Storming the very gates of heaven, my cries at last summoned the divine Mother."

The future yogi, propelled by grief, but also by a profound desire to know God, became the great guru Paramahansa Yogananda, who would teach others to reach the most vital goal in life, that of uniting with the Divine Mother or God.

In the great guru's Songs of the Soul, he offers two poems that focus on those all important two black eyes that so impressed his soul in his childhood: "Two black Eyes" and "My Mother's Eyes."

The beginning of "Two Black Eyes" sets the stage, showing a stormy world where the safe harbor offered security and comfort for a young soul: "When my brother or my teacher / Stormed at me, / In the haven of my mother's two black eyes / I found my retreat."

The image of "two black eyes" becomes seared into the readers' memory as they experience this poet's works. Their importance for Mukunda is demonstrated in many repetitions throughout his writings, particularly the creative writing, of this great philosopher/poet/guru.

Other lines repeating that image are "I sought those lost two eyes everywhere," "There were many black eyes / That sought to mother me," but of course they were not the "those that I loved." But the persistent, young searching heart finally won the prized possession: "Looking, searching for her everywhere, / I found my Divine Mother; / And in Her love / I found my mother's love." And as we might expect along with that love, "I found those lost two black eyes."