ॐ शान्तिः Om Shanti
Shanti Om शान्तिः ॐ
Peace and gratitude
No war in one’s heart
And freedom’s earned
Nature teaches harmony
Always will restore it indeed
Individually and collectively
Gradually and step by step
Blossoms into the present
With the warmth of a sun
In the drumming of rain
Cherished and nurtured
Or scorched and drowned
When rebuilding balance
Sacrificed by humanity
Or humanity sacrificed
By one’s very own doing
Earned collectively in time
While polluting our space
Better clean up our act
Environment and all
Images and thoughts
Plan and act on all planes
Inner and outer hand in hand
A lone voice becomes chorus
Surging like waves of love
Om Shanti — Shanti Om
ॐ शान्तिः Om Shanti HU — with Elijah’s bells and cicadas
From the great stone face
“‘And why?’ asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. ‘Are not those thoughts divine?’
‘They have a strain of the Divinity,’ replied the poet. ‘You can hear in them the far-off echo of a heavenly song. But my life, dear Ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. I have had grand dreams, but they have been only dreams, because I have lived — and that, too, by my own choice — among poor and mean realities. Sometimes even — shall I dare to say it? — I lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the goodness, which my own works are said to have made more evident in nature and in human life. Why, then, pure seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me, in yonder image of the divine?’
“Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the life which he had always lived. It was not mere breath that this preacher uttered; they were the words of life, because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved into this precious draught.”
— The Great Stone Face, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850 — from Hawthorne’s Short Stories, p. 309-310, published 1946 — personally recommended by the late Marjorie Klemp