No Retreat: poems on the way to waking up

Shambhavi Sarasvati is a contemporary devotee, yogini and teacher. She follows in the footsteps of other women spiritual practitioners, such as Mirabai and Lalleshwari, whose devotional poems trace a step-by-step map of the journey to the heart of wisdom. This is a journey fueled by prayer, determination, wonder, lament, praise and unstoppable longing.

Written during solo spiritual retreats and periods of the eruption of intense spiritual feeling, Shambhavi's poems report in raw, tender and playful language about our shared human efforts to wake up and discover more of who we are.

Most Glorious Teacher,
please break down
the rock of my defenses.
If these words are insincere,
do it anyway. - from No Retreat