Vira Chandra: There are some poems that travel across lifetimes. They’re passed down like sacred cloth—worn, beloved, quietly powerful. Kipling’s If— is one of those poems. It doesn’t preach. It doesn’t decorate. It simply names the kind of strength that cannot be taught in words, only carved through fire.
At first glance, it might seem like a father’s moral advice to his son. And it is. But it’s also something more—something that resonates strangely and deeply with the inner path of those who walk the Way of the Goddess. Those who know what it’s like to be broken open. Who’ve knelt on the ashes of what they once believed in. Who’ve rebuilt—not because they had strength, but because there was no other choice.
The Kaula Shakta path is not always loud. It isn’t always ecstatic or wild or strange. Sometimes, it’s as simple—and as shattering—as holding on when there is nothing in you except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on.’
This isn’t a scholarly exegesis. It’s not an attempt to claim the poem for a tradition. It’s a meditation. A way of listening to these lines not as commandments, but as quiet echoes of something many mystics have come to know: that there is a kind of spiritual maturity which cannot be faked. And that the Goddess often reveals Herself not in visions or revelations—but in endurance, grace, and the strength to keep walking with torn feet.
Let’s walk through the poem slowly—stanza by stanza—and see what opens.
If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
There’s a silence that doesn’t come from avoidance, but from depth.
To stay grounded when others lose themselves—especially when they turn their confusion against you—requires something deeper than restraint. It asks for a center that cannot be shaken by noise, even when that noise is directed at you.
For the sādhaka, this isn't metaphor. It's the lived reality of walking the edge.
When karmic winds blow through family, community, or even the sangha itself—it’s easy to be cast as the problem, simply for not collapsing. But those who walk with the Goddess know: this, too, is Her fire.
The choice is always: react, or remain in the inner flame.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, / But make allowance for their doubting too;
You will be doubted—by strangers, by companions, and sometimes by those you once saw as divine.
Saints, teachers, lovers of God.
They may not recognize where you are being led. Their vision may falter. They may speak from fear or ego, not illumination.
And the heartbreak of that—when your gods speak as men—is one of the deeper initiations.
Still, you do not harden.
You trust your own path, your own pulse, while bowing to the mystery of another's blindness. You do not need them to understand in order to continue.
This is not isolation—it’s intimacy with the Source. With That which guides from within, even when every outer voice turns away.
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, / Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, / Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
Here we enter the realm of hidden tapas—those fierce, invisible disciplines.
Not the tapas of fire rituals or mountain caves, but the inner burn of staying kind in the face of cruelty.
Of waiting through long, dry years without turning bitter.
Of being slandered and choosing silence, not self-defense.
Of being hated and keeping your heart open—not naive, not passive, but unwilling to become what hurt you.
This is the cremation ground of the ego.
The Shakta doesn’t escape the world—they stand right in the center of it, and refuse to become reactive.
They become a quiet flame that neither flaunts nor flickers.
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
This is the line that catches even seasoned seekers.
After years of sādhanā, austerity, insight—it’s easy to begin posing.
Not with malice, but subtly: carrying oneself like a sage, expecting reverence, assuming one's presence is a gift to others.
But true spirituality is simplicity.
The deeper the realization, the more childlike the heart.
Ramana Maharshi, with his bare chest and radiant silence, sat like a child in his mother’s lap.
Patrul Rinpoche wandered the mountains dressed as a vagabond, sleeping in caves, laughing like a fool.
They did not talk wise. They didn’t need to. Shakti flowed from their silence.
The Kaula does not seek to impress.
They know the danger of spiritual theater—how easily wisdom becomes a costume, and devotion becomes a demand for recognition.
To not look too good means to let go of the desire to appear holy.
To not talk too wise means to let the heart speak, not the mask.
This is the tenderness of the true path:
To be nothing, to own nothing, to shine with no need for spotlight.
And that’s when She truly dances in you.
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; / If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
This is the gentle discipline of remaining inwardly alive without becoming enslaved.
Dreams are sacred. They are glimpses of the inner current. But the path of Shakti demands that we hold even the most beautiful vision lightly. To dream, and then to bow, and then to let go—this is part of Her schooling.
The moment the dream becomes your master, it begins to replace Presence. And even the divine can become an idol.
The same applies to thought.
The mind, as Ramana Maharshi said, is two-fold. There is the lower mind—restless, reactive, bound by ego. This mind cannot know Brahman. It tries to grasp the Self and fails.
But there is also the higher mind, the shuddha manas, which becomes transparent enough to reflect the Self. Thought-waves may still arise, but they no longer obscure. They ripple only on the surface, while the depths remain undisturbed.
In the Śiva Sūtras, this clarity is called sahajavidyā—the natural, effortless knowing that dawns when the mind no longer imposes, but rests in its source.
This is not anti-thought. It is freedom from compulsive identification.
You don’t suppress the mind—you see through it.
You think, but do not believe the thinker is you.
And from that clarity, the Goddess can speak.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same;
Here we come to the very spine of the mystical life.
Triumph seduces. Disaster wounds. But both are veils. Both are Māyā, playing roles.
To walk the path with clarity is to bow to both, but not be owned by either.
When you succeed—when the mantra blooms, the signs appear, the siddhis ripple through the body—it is beautiful. But it is not final.
When you fail—when relationships collapse, the vision fades, the body breaks—it is painful. But it is not defeat.
The Kaula learns to smile in both. Not because they are numb, but because they know:
She plays all roles. And behind the mask of gain or ruin, it is still Her face.
Only the one who can dance with both joy and wreckage becomes capable of receiving the Real.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken / Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
This is a bitter medicine many mystics must swallow.
The deeper your insight, the more it risks being misused.
What you spoke from the flame of direct seeing may be taken out of context, reduced to slogans, repackaged by flatterers or tricksters.
Words born from the heart of sādhanā become catchphrases in the mouths of those who never tasted the fire.
But you learn: the truth is not yours to defend.
It does not need protection. It only asks that you do not betray it from within.
A real jñānī knows:
You cannot force anyone to stay with the flame.
You can only burn brightly enough
that they remember what real warmth feels like—
even after they walk away.
To speak from the Source is to release ownership.
You let your words go like seeds on the wind. Some will sprout. Some will be trampled.
You no longer need to watch. You only need to burn.
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, / And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
This line aches. Because it is so real.
Everything built in love—your relationship, your sādhanā, your community, your vision—may one day lie in ruin.
Not because you failed. But because nothing in form is permanent.
And yet, you return.
Not as a victim. Not with bitterness. But with tools that have seen too much, hands that still remember how to hold.
You bend down and begin again. Not because you hope to restore the past. But because building itself is a prayer.
This is the Kaula’s dignity.
Not grand, not glorious—just the quiet grace of starting over, again and again, until even the Goddess bows in respect.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings / And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, / And lose, and start again at your beginnings / And never breathe a word about your loss;
This is the sādhana of surrender—not once, but again and again.
Not just surrendering the ego, but also the fruits of the path. The insights. The position. The respect. The place in the sangha. Even the closeness to the Guru, if She asks it.
You give everything. You lose everything.
And then… you start again. Not from anger. Not from entitlement. But from the same root where it all began: love.
And you do it without telling the story of what you lost.
Not because the loss wasn’t real—but because you are no longer identified with the one who lost it.
You don’t demand to be seen as strong. You just get up. Quietly.
This is the inner posture of the Kaula.
Fire, silence, and the capacity to begin again from ash.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew / To serve your turn long after they are gone, / And so hold on when there is nothing in you / Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
This is not the heroism of willpower. It is the miracle of Grace moving through exhaustion.
There comes a moment—many moments—on the inner path where everything in you says, “I can’t.”
The body is depleted. The heart is hollow. The faith is cracked.
And yet… something remains.
Not a feeling. Not a belief. But a whisper.
“Hold on.”
It is not your voice. It is Hers.
The one who holds on is not the ego—it is the deeper current, the Shakti that has taken residence in your being and refuses to let go.
This is what the saints meant by Divine Will—not the assertion of a separate self, but the flame that keeps burning after the self has died.
And that moment—where nothing remains but that whisper of Will—is the turning point.
The place where many collapse, but the sādhaka is born again.
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, / Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
The Kaula walks in both forest and marketplace, with sadhu and merchant, child and queen.
There is no realm they avoid. But none that owns them.
To keep your virtue among the crowds means not diluting your inner fire just to be liked.
To walk with kings means not confusing proximity to power with power itself.
To keep the common touch means never forgetting the taste of rice, the feel of bare feet on the earth, the look in a beggar’s eye that reminds you: this too is God.
This is not false humility. It’s truth lived simply.
The more deeply you’ve seen the Real, the more natural you become. The less you need to stand out.
The siddha does not float above life. They kneel in it.
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; / If all men count with you, but none too much;
This is the fruit of burning: the heart becomes tender, but no longer breakable.
You feel everything—but you are no longer owned by it.
Neither enemy nor lover can unseat your center.
You do not harden into indifference. You remain open—but rooted.
The opinions of others pass through you like wind through a temple—heard, even honored, but not clung to.
You do not shut others out. But you no longer let them define you.
If you can fill the unforgiving minute / With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
This is kāla sādhana—the yoga of time.
The Kaula does not escape time. They step fully into it.
Each breath, each step, each minute becomes an offering.
No moment is thrown away. No time is cursed. Even suffering is included.
You do not rush through life trying to reach the sacred—you live it as if each second were already sacred.
Even in grief. Even in exhaustion.
To fill the minute is not to strain—it is to be present so completely that time itself dissolves into being.
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, / And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
This is not about dominance. Not about inheritance.
It means: You are now capable of bearing reality as it is.
You do not need to control life. You can carry it, as one carries fire—with care, with reverence, with quiet strength.
To be a Man in this sense is not a gendered ideal.
It means to be whole. To have passed through trial, through ego-death, through the dance of Māyā, and emerged—not superior—but real.
Simple. True. Burned, and alive.
In the end, this poem is not just advice. It is initiation.
Each stanza is a test. Each test is a gate. And each gate leads deeper into the Self that cannot be shaken.
The Kaula does not memorize these lines.
They live them—on the cremation ground of the ego, in the inner sanctum of the heart, and in the ordinary hours of the day.
This is what it means to walk with Her:
To lose everything you thought you were.
And become what only She can see.
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