Mukund Dev Sahoo
(This poem is originally an Odia poem written by Mukunda Dev.)
“I” am burning with violence,
with the sense of alienation and the wealth of others,
with the feeling of alienation and my own,
I am burning in my own actions.
“I” am burning with anger,
my body and mind are burning with hatred because of the non-fulfillment of my desire.
“I” am burning in the discussion of others, If someone is rising above me, then I have been thinking for his lower, And I burn with my inner fire.
“I” am burning with greed,
Not satisfied with what I have,
I am looking for more,
burning with the fire of dissatisfaction with the longing of the tongue and the hunger of the mind.
“I” do my work with a desire to get a good reputation and satisfy my ego and I have kept the certificate of good fortune hanging in my physical house.
And I am burning with ego.
“I” am burning with Maya and seeing other women and men from the bodies of others,
I burn with the flame of desire.
By burning my body with the fire of Maya,
I am burning with adultery.
“I” am burning with the fire of religion,
due to the difference of religion,
I divided man into human beings and forgot that death is the last religion.
When the body will no longer be burnt,
when I sleep on the bed of death by the fire of the pyre,
then all will be forgotten for whom I always worry.
The wheel of time goes on turning,
the sun of righteousness comes and goes, in the morning of life,
in the evening of death, all the flames will disappear into darkness.
What flame am I burning?
Let me see once from my own intuition,
“I” am burning so much from inside that my sight is not reaching there but the soul is still not burnt which is invisible from me.
When the hand is involved in the burning fire, then the whole body and mind trembles,
to see the fire which is burning from inside,
it needs silent and constant meditation.
Then you will know in which flame “I” am burning.
Mukund Dev 