Three Passions Have Governed My Life

Three passions have governed my life:
The longs for love, the search for knowledge
And unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of people.
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Crises of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.

Love doesn’t make the world round;
Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.

Anonymous...found in an upstairs apartment on the farm where I live during the winter in Bangalore