AT-ONEMENT WITH HER LORD
After Mira had left the palace in Chittore, Mewar went theough fire. Muslim invasion wrounght havoc in the entire kingdom, and Chittore, the capital itself was in a very bad shape. Vikramjit, who during his rule had banished Mira from Chittore, was no longer the king.
The new King, Udyasingh, was a god-fearing man, who realized that all their misfortunes were well-deserved, for the royal family had ill-treated saintly Mira.
He lost no time in sending the most revered priest of the capital, along with some other dependable persons, to bring Mira back to Chittore from Dwaraka. But when they came to Dwaraka, notwithstanding their continuous, piteous and persuasive requests, Mira refused to retrace her steps.
She would not leave the feet of the Lord. What was Chittore for her? At last the messenger-priest took the extrme step and declared a hunger strike if Mira would not change her mind. This satyagraha of the priest perturbed Mira, for she could not see a man dying for her sake.
Helpless as she was, Mira entered the temple to take leave of Sri Rancchorji, the Deity, and in piteous melody she sang two songs:
Lord, you are the remover of miseries of all beings;
O Giridharalal! Mira is your maid-servant.
When there is misery,
There also is misery's remover.
The Second song being:
O my good and beautiful one,
May your wish be fulfilled!
I have none else to be kind to me.
Without sleep at night,
My frame wastes away each moment.
O Giridhara Nagara, O my Lord!
Do not forget Mira,
May she be joined with you!
We are told God seriously takes the prayers and supplications of the souls that are pure and self-given. Mira's song vibrated inside the temple, and it would appear, also inside the heart of the Deity, while ceaselessly the waves of the ocean broke on the seashore outside the temple.
Mira was alone inside the temple with the Lord. Her plaintive melody poured forth. The priest-messanger was waiting outside with his followers in the joyful expectation that they would ultimately be able to return to Chittore with the goddess of their fortune. The waves of the ocean rolled on. Time waited for none, and the door of the temple continued to stay closed.
When the door was finally opened from outside, the wonder was great indeed. Mira had vanished.
Sri Rancchorji had not given her leave to go. He had taken her unto Himself. Where did she or could she go? The temple was closed.
The priest-messenger was sitting at the door. A thorough search inside yielded no result. Presently the plaintive nectarine voice of Mira was heard singing the refrain of her last song:
O Giridhara Nagara, O my Lord!
Do not forget Mira,
May she be joined with you!
From where did the voice come? Was she hiding somewhere? On searching, Mira could not be found.
She was not to be taken to Chittore for she had returned to her eternal capital, the heart of the Lord. Mira, through the power of her love, had become physically resolved in the person of the Deity.
The proof of this fact was found by discovery of Mira's veil on the face of the deity. In the spiritual history of India there have been a few other cases in which the devotees became dissolved in the person of the Deity.
Andal, who was born with the same ecstatic love for Sri Ranganatha as Mira had for Giridhara Gopala, and refused to marry anybody else but the Lord, got dissolved, sucked in, as it were, in the image of Sri Ranganatha at Sri Rangam. Her hymns, which are some of the most inspiring devotional lyrics in the Tamil literature, are sung as a part of early morning devotion, especially in the months of December and January, everywhere in the Tamil speaking areas of South India.
It is also said that Sri Chaitanya, who was a contemporary of Mira, vanished in the same mysterious way in the person of Jagannath at the temple in Puri. And a similar story is told about another celebrated Indian saint called Tukaram. Mira is commonly believed to have disappeared in the first half of the sixteenth century.