The Tribal

by Swami Krishnananda

Tribal, art thou the coarse which people smile,
The rough and rugged come from Nature's ore,
Half-dressed in clothes, or feeling no such need;
Waking at dawn and sleeping when sun sets,
With no such light which polished call a lamp,
Who eat in hunger and do sleep when tired,
Who love when Nature pushes spontaneous,
Know not the good or bad as they aren't seen,
For who has seen the good or evil with one's eyes,
Except in thought and concept personal,
Art thou despised by high-brow cultured men?
Who dress in heat and eat as time is up?
Who think in distress and anxiety's cares,
And laugh at folk who see not sorrow's face?

Blessed thou art, O tribal, Nature's babe,
Caressed by Nature's fondling tender arms!
To whom belongest thou in family,
Since Nature's group is truest family,
And none is thine and thou none's property.
Free thou movest well wafted by the breeze
Of morning's joy when solar parent blooms,
What dost thou ask but water, air and food,
Which Nature yields and pours in abundance;
Art thou a male or female, what art thou?
To what religion art thou closely knit,
Except in artless art thou choosest free?
To love, adore and wonder at the world?
What is thy tongue which thee communicates,
To others round except the Nature's norms
Which deeply signify what heart does feel!
"Get up in morn" say warmer climate's men,
And bathe thou thrice for prayer and diet,
Let clothes be wet in worship at the shrines,
Drier the dress the less is holiness."
But winter's peaks which strike high mountain's lives
Permit thick coats and men with turbans pray.
"On floor be seated, crossed legs do thou eat,"
So summer's orthodoxy does ordain;
But colder snows on tables spread their dish,
With shoes they eat to priests wonderment.

In climax that community conceives
Community of all belonging raised
Husbands and wives and babes community's
Become the order and the rule of life
To free persons from greed of possession.
But, the, the one to one alone did rise,
And one does cling to one in wedded tie,
Is great morale of law divinity's
As both these needs are highly adored laws,
The wilderness is not promiscuous,
For forest's rule's Nature's innocence.
To whom does one belong as property?
How can one slave to another become?
Then who is what in world's majestic play?
Here each is each, and each is for the all,
The all to each do procurement become
In Nature's rule, the kingdom impartial.
But pride and greed to cleavage rend the all
As 'mine' and 'thine', when none such Nature knows;
Is this the fruit to man forbidden you,
Which eaten sees the good from bad driven?
Where is the 'do' which 'do not' does not touch
To give it life, lest all the good should die?
Does good on bad depend for sustenance?
Else, how come good, if bad is nowhere seen?
Which the law that governs all this life,
The rule that ruled before one ate the fruit?

In such domain of carefree joyous life
Do artless folk and Nature's children love,
Beholding God in light and shade alike,
In storm and calm the common hand at work,
In death of all the life of everything.
The highest good in worst of deeds on earth.