wine belongs to those who can sip it from the fruit while still on branches

REVISED; Grapes belong to those who can wait for wine. Wine belongs to those who can sip it from the fruit while still on the branches. Branches belong to those who feel the arms of their beauteous love around them all day all night regardless of where they are. Days belong to those who see the sun reflected in the happily moist eyes of their beloved. Nights belong to those who can burn like a glow-worm to guide their beloved into their hearts. Hearts belong to those who purposely court dangers. a heart that dreads dangers is fit to lie beneath a tail, becasue that is what "co-ward" literaly means. A lover's heart invites death, tempts death and if that does not work, rapes death-- it wants death so badly. Anything that belongs to death does so to underscore the strength and intensity of life. Therefore, anything that belongs to death in this sense actually belongs to life and love. A poet cried out in "separation" from death and actually comiserated with death: kabraan udeekdian mainu , jion puttraan nu maavaan!" ( Graves pine for me as mothers pine for their long separated sons" Shiv) Love belongs to God. God belongs to me, I belong to all, you belong to all. Let love guide you to the illuminated Cross, because for ever will you wear that Cross around your neck, for ever will it settle there, for ever kissing your warm, throbbing bosom. The pendant on the virgin's heaving bososm is there for this reason alone. Those who walk with love towards the Cross embrace life, becasue there is life only beyond that Cross, no matter which side you approach it from. Let's walk slowly, noiselessly, almost motionlessly step in step twoards the cross and kiss each other under the shadow of the towering cross. experience death once so that you may live for ever. Experience death while still alive, that alone is knowing death . Spake Nanak: "Nanak Jeevatiaan mar raheeye, aisa jog kamaaiye." And after such death, -- live . And love, becasue there is no such thing as a loveless life. A loveless body will soon rot and decompose. A loveless mind always stinks. Let your mind be a garden in full bloom, exhaling fragrance all around. Lovers, prophets, martyrs and saints have found a simple name for that fragrance: Love. Do not stand in the way of love. Do not stand in the way of fragrance, becasue in so doing, you will hurt fragrance but little, but you will hurt generations and generations of children, starving them of fragrance. Join the children and sing and drink and inhale the fragrance. And if the fragrance smells familiar, be not surprised. It is your fragrance, the fragrance of love that you have been too scared to let out. Love's true enemy is not hatred; very often, it is a propellant of love. love's true enemy is fear. You are not willing to pay the price. You enter love's empire as your enter a duty free shop, expecting a marginal gain.If thats how you do it, you are right, because you will get that marginal gain-- at the cost of love. Cast fear away, and in the vacuuam thus created, love will rush in of its own from all directions; you need do nothing more than just close your eyes, lie back and allow love to fill your dark, stnking voids. Once thats"s done , you will wake up as Jesus, Nanak, Mohammad, Buddha, Nam Dev, Ravi Dass, Krisna ..or MEERA. The game is simple. Its your call -- would you rather be a stinking, rotting yet somehow walking carcass in the valley of flowers or would you allow the nimble healing fingers of love touch you, kiss the leprosy off your body, mind and soul, and turn you into a garden where laughter, fragrance and lovers' esprit de corps fill every nook and corner of the place. Love and religioin are not about who others are; they are about who you are. And the moment you see the two as two and not as one, you have fallen, perhaps irredeemably, till a Nanak walks your way and picks you up and holds you close to his bosom. Or you can make Nanak smile gently by donning the mind of a Meera. But the prophets will still care, keep kissing the cancerous ulcers you like to nurture ; the prophets will wait around near the bend, so that they are there when you wake up. But its your call really. Because its your life. There will be those who will excel in 'wise restraint' from love; you cannot live by love alone, they wil tell you. Listen to them; you will not fall 'grievously low'. But as a prophet said,"you will not soar high." Love is not about falling; it is about soaring. Those who have lived it have repeatedly shouted from atop the mountains : Ghatt, ghatt mein har jio basse, santan kahio pukaar.......ANd " Kaite jeevan preet bin, sukk gaye kumlaaye ..."