The sign of love is lila, playfulness. Real love feels light and playful, not
heavy or dutiful. Another sign of love is the presence of the Master, whose breath is the breeze that keeps love's space so pure and clear. The tragedy of love is that it wakens as a vast blue sky, but through attachment and obsession we create heavy clouds. Be the sky, not the cloud.
The mind paints pictures of disaster,
then wonders how it is so anxious.
Why not picture what's really going on
at the center of your heart
where there's a moonlit garden
and countless maidens not quite
as beautiful as you are
whirling with the Lord of Love?
Wait a moment while I
turn on the world.
Now I see you.
My longing for your face
creates a chandelier of galaxies.
It is I who whisper, 'let there be light.'
Let there be mountains, forests, valleys
where your naked feet can taste
the green sting of dew.
Let there be markets, bistros, avenues,
billions of other eyes
set like tiny diamonds around yours.
Let the fabric of this silken cosmos
cover you lips, your cheeks, your brow.
But never let the starry dark hijab,
the veil of the mystery, conceal
your glance:
for that is the fire that makes me
create.
Every home, factory, store, barn and warehouse will be equipped a little
pole holding a sphere of metal alloy about the size of a golf ball.
This little ball will tap into the infinite supply of energy in Pure
Space: the energy inherent in quantum fluctuations of the vacuum.
We currently know that there are infinite virtual photons and electrons in every point in empty space. All we need do is convert them from potential waves of mathematical probability into particles, which is the essential process of Creation.
The field described in this way by quantum physics is also the essence of consciousness. Every mystical
experience in the world's religions describes this source: from Buddhist "emptiness" (sunya), to Yoga's "seedless" (nirbija) samadhi, to Jewish Kabbala's "radiant no-thing" (ain soph aur) to the "unknowing" of the Medieval Christian mystics.
Now it is time to convert quantum
theory to practice: a technology of
limitless, free, clean energy that will transform the world's economy.
Al Qaeda brother, Hamas sister, Arab enemy,
be my friend.
My blood is red like yours.
My wound does not heal either.
The towers have fallen into ash,
the villages are shattered, gutted like quail.
Fathers entered the sidewalk at 90 miles per hour,
children's bones were removed by helicopter fire.
Now we must name each others holocausts.
Let us take off every mask and blindfold
so that we may see more clearly
the shadows of our ancestors dancing in the flames.
If we cannot kiss each others faces,
or hold each others hands, or bind
each others gashes, at least let us taste the salt
on our cheeks and know how all oceans flow
into one.
Al Qaeda brother, Hamas sister, I call you friend.
Your blood is mine, the river
of Isaac and Ishmael flowing back into Abraham,
flowing back to the green oasis,
and the fountain of the Nameless.
Its gate is a place just left of the heart
where the rib is missing:
In you it leads to me, in me it leads to you.
We both believe in Mary's womb.
That is why I share this secret of friendship:
Another womb floats within the silence of that one,
radiant darkness deeper than sorrow.
Friend, both of us have lived there.
'There is another world, but it is in this one.' ~Paul Eluard
Here the Autumn sun sets, breaking its heart on the mountains, spilling gold down to the sea.
It
is just before dawn there, halfway round the planet, where you sleep. As I sit for evening meditation here, I seem to see your head on its
pillow. Your gentle smile is the soul rising to the top of you, like cream in a pitcher of fresh milk.
Do you know that I am there, visiting you, a moonlit mist around your face, deepening the wonder under you eyelids, drawing a sigh from your lips?
On
those
lips I place a tender kiss from another world. Yet surely, that other
world is deeper inside this one than pollen in a lily. Someone more than
I, for I am only a golden germ in the white petals of his radiance, sends his diamond
fire into every atom of your body, whispering:
'Now, in this moment between waking and sleep, rest in Me. In this moment between time and eternity, before the burden of yesterday returns with tomorrow's dream, let us float
together on a milk white sea of stars, neither in this world or the next, playing in
jeweled waves of infinite possibility.'
Pulse of my heart, when you wake and go out, and sense some fragrant memory of that visitation, know that I am with you wherever you
are. I am here to remind you that you were born to bless.
I am the laughter of the breeze, whispering in you hair, 'I
love you.' I travel from star to star, writing poems about the kiss that is pressed forever on the imperishable splendor
of your heart.
The shortest distance between two protons is the void. The shortest distance between two stars is the void. The shortest distance between birth and death, God and the soul, between my heart and your heart, is the void. In the void there is no distance. 'Distance' is the dream you keep inside you like a family secret. Now, apple blossoms burst from my lips. Flowering corpses no longer sleep. Raindrops each contain the sun. The cat opens her eye and the whole universe trembles. Your soul and the boundless sky are one star-clustered emptiness. In a millisecond the sound of an atom sings the whole Koran. Why go on pretending you're not surrounded by miracles? Only what is indecipherable is worth tasting. The bread of Jesus is not on the menu, yet you smell it baking while you're still asleep and it slowly awakens you to the feast of ordinary things. If you don't say Yes to the world this very moment, you are doomed to unending doubt.
Have you mistaken the grace of a guru or a savior for the Original Grace within you?
The grace of a master is helpful, but it is only a secondary grace, a reflection of your true nature. The master's grace is like a flame that lights your candle, so that you can burn for yourself. The master's grace is like a jumper-cable that helps your engine start, so that you can charge your own battery.
Grace is your very nature. It flows not down from above, but wells up from within, like a tear.
Original Grace springs like a fountain from beneath your breastbone, spontaneously drawing attention inward, from the scattered mind to the silent vortex of the heart. Original Grace can be defined as the tendency of awareness to settle into its own wonderful essence, if we will only let it.
For thousands of years, disciples sought inner peace through concentration and thought-control. Such strenuous techniques are like trying to replace one mirage with another. But there is a more graceful way: just see the mirage as a mirage in empty space. We do not settle into silence by trying to replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts: we embrace the emptiness of all thoughts.
Instead of working so hard to choose one thought over another, be choicelessly aware. The Truth will set you free: the mirage of mind is the empty liberated space that contains it. Thoughts are bubbles of the silence out of which they arise.
Mental effort and concentration only swell the identity of the do-er. Resistance only strengthens what we resist.
When we taste something delicious, or behold something beautiful, do we have to concentrate on it? Of course not. Beauty stuns the mind into silence. So graceful meditation effortlessly draws the heart into quietness with a spark of inner beauty. That spark is who you are. Gaze upon yourself in the mirror of the Master.
Jai Guru Dev
_____________________________________
Every
child is gifted. As we grow, we don't lose our gifts, we lose our
gratitude. Teaching our children to read, to write, to do math and
science is not enough. Let us also teach our children sacraments of awareness to
refresh the wonder of their gratitude. Reward them for
noticing miracles.
I am sitting here, you are sitting beside me. God is here, the Goddess as well, the way the sun reposes softly in a white majestic cloud. Flavored by the sea, breezes come and go, laden with memory. Children are laughing here. Couples are strolling hand in hand, moved by the sadness of time. Heads rest on the shoulders of dear friends like falling leaves. Everything whispers, "I love you."
Beat in me, heart, you know who you are:
a river flowing toward the sea,
in the night of my body, a trembling star,
Mary, the Magdalene in me.
Ascend into flesh, fallen splendor above.
Pulse of stillness, you are Love.
Peace to your land. Spend some time in a garden, by a fountain, gently shoring up oceans in yourself against the coming night. Gaze into a flower and listen to water.
Be brave enough to do nothing but that for awhile. Take off your shoes and let your feet caress the soil. Say, "Now breath, enter earth." Root deeper with each exhalation. Smile. Smile as night comes, for you are light. You also grow here with your astonishing blossom of joy.
In love there is no distance or duration.
I am still drowning in the wild sweetness
of your smile.
Even if you forget, I do not forget.
I know that you entered the place in me
where breath disappears into never ending sky.
I entered the place in you
where the heart falls into an abyss of warmth.
We kissed the imperishable splendor.
One moment of love is eternal summer
where our fingertips still dance in each others palms
as we walk by the goldfish pool,
your head at rest on my shoulder.
Suppose the stars I visit all night long,
reciting poems to hungry creatures of fire,
are entangled in the fragrance of your hair,
entwined in that very briefness?
Would you not also say love burns
the past and future to nothing? Photo: carp pond, Volunteer Park, Seattle, by Prima Seadiva
I got so quiet when the breath stopped. When the breath stopped "I" stopped. I got so quiet when your name dissolved
in the place where the breath stopped and the world had not yet been born. Some call it emptiness, the silence so full, so full of your nameless passion! Meet me there, my only love, in the breathless garden that neither of us ever really left.
Life is a mystery not to be understood but lived. Thus, great words do not convey understanding: they convey life itself.
And there is one word that bursts with infinite life when you plant it in the ground of inner silence. This is the word that Shiva whispered to Shakti, Christ to Mary Magdalene, Adonoi to his Shekinah at the world's creation.
This word is the mantra, the divine name. Nothing is more precious than the vibrant energy of God's name. Find it where deep calls to deep in the space of your heart, in brilliant darkness, in the no-thing where breath pours into the breathless.
The
one who whispers that Word is the supreme Lord, and the stream of
whisper-nectar is Mother Divine, from whose radiance every atom of
this universe is formed.
Whisperer, sound and listener seem to be three, but are revealed as one through your astonishment.
It's a very strange planet.
All over the earth, millions of people having sex
and trying not to have babies.
You hear the weeping of unwanted children,
but do you hear the cries from heaven
of those who long to be born?
What mad farmer tills the soil and plants the seed,
then labors to kill it before it sprouts,
or if it does, rips it from the ground?
Meanwhile in her room over the piazza,
a woman sits among lengthening shadows
gazing into the sunset, wondering
of she will ever be mother?
Everybody seems to be having conversations with God. So I had one.
"God," I said, "I only have one question. Why did you create the universe?"
"I don't remember," God replied. "Does it matter?"
I wouldn't take this for an answer, so I pressed Him on it. "Scriptures
declare that you spoke creation in a Word. Doesn't your Word mean
anything?"
God thought about this for a moment, then replied, "No. I was just humming."
I demanded an explanation. God said, "Just humming a melody for my
Beloved. She inspires all that I do, and She has been my delight from the
beginning. At the world's creation, I stroked her dark hair as She lay
her head against my shoulder. We were sitting on a bench in the park."
"Who is She? What is her name?"
I'm not even sure. Sophia?
Shakti? Ishq'Il Haqq? Danu, Mother of the faery people, Tuatha de Danaan? I only know, She is my silence."
"But Lord," I replied, "philosophers and scientists all search for a reason. Is there no reason behind your creation?"
"None at all," said the Creator. "I'm in love. Therefor I dance and play."
"All thy waves and billows have swept over me!" ~Psalm 42:7
We don't get what we search for. We don't even get what we deserve. We
get the ocean of God's love every moment of every day. But it comes to
us in waves too full of paradox and too big for the tiny cup of this mind.
Feel the gesture of your body in space, just as it is, each sensation. Swim among billions of cells. Bathe in quadrillions of sparkling atoms. Sink more deeply into the ocean of your body with each breath. No doing, only awareness.
If you climbed the wildest mountain, visited the furthest galaxy, fathomed the depths of all seas, you would embark on no greater journey, nobler adventure, or deeper mystery than your body. Nothing is more sacred. Your body contains the secret treasures of heaven. Ascent to the higher worlds is descent into your body.
There is no hope for the future. The future is doomed because it doesn't exist and never will. But there is great hope for this moment. Yes, there is every possibility of Presence.
Being awake is not a feeling. Being awake is not a thought. Being awake is the burning away of past and future, this scattering of apples in October rain. Perish into the Mother.
Mountain said to the cloud,
"I need your softness."
Cloud said to the mountain,
"I need your firmness."
Their need engendered a raindrop
in which lovers see countless worlds
if they climb high enough
searching for one small thing. Photo: Located in eastern China's Jiangxi Province, Sanqing Mountain was
regarded as a sacred place for Taoists during the Tang Dynasty
(618-907). It is now an ideal breeding place for giant pandas.
You could have surrendered long before now, but you thought you needed to do something called 'faith.' Carefully observe last summer's roses, how each petal crinkles and singes in a flame of transparency
where wings of beauty enter the world
through windows of death.
Like that, the burning you wanted
started before you started
wanting.
Now, just drown in the unseen.
Call it Autumn.
We are called to form the beloved community in the present moment, for it is not a community of the future or the past.
We are called to form the beloved community in the midst of loss and uncertainty, when nothing is finished.
We are called to gather here and join hands in a circle at the end of time, which is always now, because we are the eternal survivors.
We are called to nourish one another, not with what the world calls wealth, but with the abundance of laughter and tears, and silent jewels of listening.
We are called to form the beloved community in the midst of darkness, because we are the light.
The mystical poetry of all major religions shares a common purpose and vocabulary of metaphors, and many of the metaphors are sexual.
I dare not criticize scholars more erudite than I, but it is wrong to use the word 'erotic' to describe this tradition of mystical love poetry.
Rumi uses 'wine' to represent a divine inebriation that has nothing to do with alcohol. In the same way, such poets use images of sexual love to describe a love that the senses can never grasp.
'Eros', from the Greek, refers to passion for an object. But divine love is passion for the subject, the eternal Self.
Thus Jesus uses another word for love, 'agape,' different from either 'eros' (erotic love) or 'philios' (family love).
The poems of Jnaneswar, Jayadev, Mirabai and Lala in India; Rumi, Hafiz, Rabia and such Sufi masters in Islam; St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa of Avila and the Christian mystics, are not erotic. They are beads of 'agape,' threaded on one golden string of symbolic language across centuries and continents.
The purpose of erotic literature is to arouse sensuality in the lower chakras; this is not bad or good, it's just what happens. But the purpose of mystical love poetry is to awaken the heart, a more refined energy.
Mystical love poetry cultivates inwardness; erotic poetry cultivates outwardness.
Eros engenders sensuality; mystical love engenders the delicate relationship of awareness with its Source.
Poems of mystical love unveil the naked beauty of the Beloved beyond touch, fragrance and sound. For we only know the Beloved through a transcendental fire, not a fire that burns, but a soul-centering flame.
Please do not let any scholar diminish the dignity of this holy tradition by telling you that the poetry of mystical love is 'erotic,' when it transcends the erotic as the moon transcends its reflection in a still forest pool.
At least 100 times a day
you put your heart on trial for the same crime.
But when you stand before the judge
he cannot name a law that was broken.
"You're guilty anyway!" he shouts.
Nodding vigorously, you answer, "Yes I am, yes I am!"
Friend, you need a defender
who can get this case thrown out of court.
A tricky advocate like Jesus,
a mellifluous lawyer like Krishna, wearing bling,
or a mad naked poetess to plead your case,
like Lalladev.
Then you'll walk out of prison free.
The light that dawns on your face
will shine from inside you.
Gardens will turn green again.
And the drowsiest flower will gaze up and whisper,
"See? Nothing was ever wrong."
Something about the universe
wants to be a person.
Atoms, snails, trees, stars,
all spiraling inward.
Even space is awake,
longing to contain you.
You are like a thirsty minnow
swimming in the sea,
and the sea like a minnow
swimming in that minnow's thirst.
God bends with every flower
toward a source greater than light.
Isn't it You?
'The entire universe is condensed in the body and the entire body in the heart.' ~Ramana Maharshi
Arunachala, Rishikesh and Vrindaban are in my body.
The source of the Ganges is a lump in my throat,
where a stream of laughter breaks into tears.
My eyes are sacred lakes high in the Andes.
There's a mesa in New Mexico where earth
gives birth to tribes: it is my navel.
From the crown of my head to the tip of my spine
stretches the desert where Jesus and Elijah
wander, refusing food and water.
But when they get thirsty, I show them a fountain
of prophecy that gushes from my ribcage.
Now I will guide you to a secret place:
the cave of my heart where the archangel whispers,
"Iqra! Recite these poems."
The way Mary's heart contains his love, a grail,
the way stars fall through the void, appearing motionless,
the way a wound heals by remaining open,
the way 'flight' can mean our fear, or our longing,
the way I drink it to the bottom, then drink the emptiness:
morning prayer.
My friends find me a bore now; in every conversation I change the subject to You. I don't go to the tavern anymore; from the rising of the sun, I am already intoxicated.
I don't need wilderness; the dandelion in a sidewalk crack bewilders me enough. I must be getting young.
To the world, what are you?You are the fire in your
belly. You are the radiance of your body, the way it moves, the way it reclines upon its own sweet bones. You are presence, energy, light. But you are not the words in your head. The world does not hear, or care about, the words in your head.
This is the garden of no restraint. Either get drunk or die thirsty. The wine is bewildering love. The cup is how Mary contains it in her heart. Jesus wants you to know, you've been sober too long.
Breathing out, sink into the groundless silence at the center of your heart. Breathing
in, listen to the sound stream that creates you. Hear the note that sings your being.
You are part of the great chorus and your note is unique. The cosmos could not resolve its chord into harmony without you. It is time for you to meditate deeply and experience your own tone, your own inner current of divine music, for that will reveal your destiny.
'Love comes with a knife, not some shy question.' ~Rumi
Joyfully surrender
everything but the blade
that passes through your neck.
Now, even that brilliance.
The art of happiness has no practitioner.
The world turns out to be
just what it is
no matter how much you improve it.
A blossoming weed,
crystals of dew on dog shit,
a pearled spider web blooming at night
between two ruined roses. So many things to be ignorant of: only one thing to know. Stay
right where you are
but never
stop.
Learn from the buzzing one
how to steal honey
and leave the flower.
The meditation practice taught by the masters of the Shankaracharya tradition is often misunderstood; and though profoundly simple and effortless, it is abandoned by many after a short time.
I am referring to Transcendental Meditation, as taught by Maharshi Mahesh Yogi, and Sahaj Samadhi, as taught by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who was Maharishi's disciple for several years. Both techniques of meditation "come from exactly the same source and take our awareness to the same goal." I have those words directly from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spoken to me in conversation at Lake Tahoe, CA.
Why do so many people, upon starting such a sublime practice, soon reject it?
Some things are too simple, too radically direct. The mind often prefers the complicated, the tangential, and the obscure, to gain a sense of accomplishment.
The first reason we reject this profound way of meditation is because we want "I"-involvement. We need the experience that "I" am meditating, "I" am feeling peaceful, "I" am getting a vision of inner light. But in the deepest meditation, "I" disappear completely. Most of us don't want to dive in and disappear.
Of course, when we come out of meditation, "I" return refreshed and radiant. But to experience such results, one must disappear into the transcendent for awhile, which is like death for the ego.
Jesus taught the same principle of transcending. "He who clings to his life will lose it, but he who loses his life in Me will find it." "Me" refers to the higher Self of transcendental consciousness. When we dissolve the "I" in that depth, we are re-created, born again, with a renewed and enriched personhood.
The second reason we might reject this powerful technique of meditation is that we want a personal guru and a personal relationship with God. We don't like dissolving into the impersonal One. The deepest meditation does not cling to any belief, God, or guru. We do nothing, want nothing, and become nothing. Out of this apparent negativity, a universe of positives is reborn. Speaking to us in Estes Park CO, 1970, Maharishi said, "One infinite No creates a universe of finite Yes's."
Here is the paradox of meditation. We
surrender all action and all personal qualities to absolute silence. This is samadhi, transcendental consciousness. But
the personal qualities that dissolve in meditation get recharged. We
rise from meditation to re-engage in the world of action with radiant
minds, energetic bodies, and loving hearts. This skill is the science of being, the art of living.
The flavor of every dish is enhanced by a tiny pinch of salt, yet when we place the salt directly on our tongue, it doesn't have the tastes that it enhances. A little leaven raises the whole loaf, yet we don't taste the yeast when we eat the bread. So a touch of meditation, morning and evening, infuses the whole day with life energy, even though meditation is still and empty.
The silence of meditation seems impersonal, but the personal qualities of happiness, compassion, enthusiasm and sweetness are latent in that emptiness. Maharishi often taught this principle by using the metaphor of quantum physics. Virtual particles and photons of matter and light arise as fluctuations in the vacuum, which is the silent ground-state of all energy. So in the "physics" of meditation, the creative qualities of personality arise from the impersonal field of absolute silence. "You" are re-created in deep silence. Your countenance may appear quite blank and unemotional during the practice: but a radiant smile blossoms when you open your eyes.
"Layam vraja," said the sage Ashtavakra: "Dissolve now." Dissolve into what may seem to be no-thing. Immerse in the Silence that was there before God ever said, "Let there be light." Then emerge newborn.
Thank you Maharshi, for the science of being. Thank you, Sri Sri, for the art of living.
Jai Guru Dev
Article on Maharshi, his master, by Sri Sri LINK. "I have never seen anyone as deep as Maharishi." ~Sri Sri
Out of our deep
sense that "something is wrong," we are anxious to "fix" the world. The injustice, violence, and oppression that we see outrages us.
Yet our very judgment
that "something is wrong" and we must "fix" it, creates distance and tension between our Self and our environment.
The irony is that when we embrace the world, just as it is,
without trying to fix or change anything, separateness melts away, tension is released, and we see creation bathed in the light of grace.
That is when we become a healing
presence, simply by being here. In the glow of our unconditional love, whatever needs fixing feels permission to heal itself.
I am free to roam the universe
like wind knocking down ripe fruit.
Because you have anointed me
I end my pilgrimage: with every step,
I arrive on a sacred world.
You become the infinitesimal star
too distant to see in the night of my heart.
Yet you do to creation what a spark does to a cartload of dry cotton. It happens in an instant when I remember your Name: all creatures catch fire. If there is another word for love I will run naked through the streets setting it on the tip of every tongue, shouting, "Taste and see!"
"First connect to your Self. When you go deep inside, let go of all anxiety, and know that you are loved by the universe. Air loves you, earth loves you, space loves you, sun and moon love you. So you are surrounded by that energy, so much energy of love, and you will just melt in meditation.
"And that is what gives you inner strength, when you feel so solid, child-like again, free from inhibitions, free from worries, doing naturally. All these wonderful qualities just blossom in you, because they are already there!"
You were created in one breath, rough, inspired and whole. Just be that. First draft. Don't edit the Word of creation. Don't try to make it rhyme. The form, the sound, even
the meaning is not important.
What gives this Word life
is the breath inside,
which was never yours to begin with.
I learned this from the Goddess
who whispered my soul.
Here in the wilderness we are permitted to find the Father's face in a blossomless weed. We scent his starry essence in day-old coyote scat. The ground of our naked feet is neither above nor below. The space between thoughts is a vineyard with a secret spring. What gushes out is already wine. Drink here, remember the wonders, the letters in feathers found under empty nests, the broken sky of a robin's egg, lightning bugs throbbing on your fingertip, their cool green sexual fire: remember when Mystery compelled you to open and touch the jelly of the half-formed butterfly. What transgressions in a world without sin! You longed for something deeper than light. Return to the I don't know: it is the source of miracles. What more can I teach you before I go? God is a wisp of fragrance, daylight's golden smoke rising from the fire of night, black and eternal. Beyond heaven, beyond salvation, dwells the inscrutable virgin whore. Some call her Void, but how could a void taste so sweet? She encircles every possibility with forgiveness. She crafts your body with exquisite mistakes. Now pour out half love's glass in libation so that you may drink yet stay thirsty. This glistening wound I offer as your cup: when you drink Me, I am filled. None of us move through this valley of grace without such gashes! How many times must one grail break against another before we awaken and remember that the smoldering in our soul is the body, and this constant shattering of darkness into shards of light is our creation?
Painting by James Tissot (French, 1836–1902) 'Jesus Ministered to by Angels,' Brooklyn Museum
Every step I take on earth, a pilgrimage to the burial shrine of my dearest Friend. A gift for me, these Autumn crocuses are just to say, "I am not here. I have risen. I too am gone on pilgrimage, searching for you." _______
I took this picture at Fort Steilacoom Park in WA State.
Merely to be is perfect joy.
That is why flowers are speechless.
Each petal tells the ancient secret:
creation is Wordless.
You could be a wild iris, seeded by stray wind,
bursting by a ruined fence beyond the empty barn,
where pigeons startle and flash in dusty sunbeams
stuttered through chinks of warped cedar.
Don't try to understand.
The passion in the fragrance of evening shadows
is all that matters, boding good rain.
You pretend too much to understand.
You put love in your eyes and pretend to care,
pretend not to be afraid, not to be alone
in a roomful of clinking glass strangers.
Have you met the real Friend?
There is a gaze through whom emptiness spills
from mirror to mirror its useless beauty
in silent golden streams of not pretending.
Droop if need be at day's end.
Feign nothing.
Trellised on a ruined fence,
bend under graces of weightless sky,
entwined with every weed of revelation.
Flower without trying
and be wild.
The full moon pulls the tides of our body even
when we are not gazing, or awake. Yes, there is a song in the forest, even when we are not there. Our future depends on hearing it wherever we are.
Nisargadatta says, there is no external
behavior or sign that one is your Guru. "Your only proof is in yourself: if you find that you turn to gold, then you know you have touched the
Philosopher's Stone." Wherever you are, in whatever work you do, the instant you turn your awareness inward to touch
the Master, a golden dawn illuminates your empty heart sky, each candle nerve in the star-clustered chandelier of your brain suddenly bursts into flame, the melted ghee of surrender drips down from your forehead to your chest. You need no image of the Master's face or repetition of his name, only an un-whispered touch of remembrance, a Presence-spark, to ignite the
all-destroying sweet ananda-fire into which you are offered and poured. This is not the pouring of a Spirit into you, but the pouring of your self into the un-selved chalice of the Beloved, where you vanish toward the pointless Radiance in the bottom of your heart, which overflows with emptiness and a silence more tangible than flesh. This is how your earthly Master becomes a heavenly fire.
The only ritual that matters anymore
is to press this unknown flower between our hearts
until we drown in the crushed fragrance that rises
from the fissure between yearning and delight,
the undulating hairline fault in the diamond,
a path for us who are made of light, leading
out of form and perfection, into namelessness.
It may be a rose, this flower, or it may be God.
But I will never know the way back to the garden
where I stole it for you, like fire.
As soon as I speak your name, I lie.
And if I call you Nameless, I lie.
If I say Thou I lie, if I say Me I lie.
And if I say One, it is almost the greatest lie.
But Two is the mother of lies.
Let my lies reveal the truth.
Let my lies reveal the tiny blue violet of your face
blossoming through the dark crevice,
splitting the stone.
Let my lies reveal the warm brown hills
and valleys of your body.
Let my lies reveal the flash of your smile
in the warrior's sword, and the scent of your touch
in the breast-bundled softness of an infant's lips.
Let my lies be the eyes of God gazing on creation.
Shiva, Shiva, Shiva! This world of lies!
This poem of lies!
Jesus is no ghost. He mingles mud and spit to heal. His lips brush your fevered cheeks whispering, "arise." Sakyamuni's whole life is an earth-touching gesture, his four dignities - to walk, to stand, to sit, and to lie in repose like a stone at the bottom of the river of breath. When Krishna dances he leaves footprints overflowing with dew and
perfume. He drives real women crazy. Don't be an angel, you have bones, you have stinging tears. The way to transcend your body is to
honor your body. Honor the mushroom-laden loam in your
marrow. Honor the ocean in a skin cell. Honor the sky
in each atom. Honor the sunlight sparkling in your nerves. Honor the luminous curve of matter whose horizon is the touch of a human hand. Every particle of flesh is a
gateway to the Radiance beyond.
Devotion is not measured by physical closeness to the Master, but by
the degree of surrender in the heart. Wherever we are, a thousand miles
away, we can serve and be near.
If I "serve humanity," I may
soon burn out with disappointment. But let me serve the Guru Tattva
dwelling in each heart, the Divine Seed. Let me serve the infinite
possibility of Love planted in all finite creatures. That is service to the Master.
Is one form of service superior to another? It is neither whom nor how
we serve that makes our service pure, but the depth of our faith in the
heart. The social activist uplifts the poor and homeless. Mother serves
by raising her child. How can one be better than the other?
One
protests injustice or marches for peace. Another rescues and heals
abused animals. A student serves by learning human values. A blacksmith
shoes the horse. A merchant expands business, providing jobs. An artist
creates pictures, poems and music to heal the world. A soldier serves by
protecting.
One of the deepest forms of vanity is to imagine
that one's own way of service is better, or that one is really saving
the earth, saving humanity. The earth is impermanent; it cannot be
saved. Humanity cannot be saved. What dissolves cannot be saved, whether
it vanishes in a moment or in ten million years. What is saved is
eternal Awareness of the divine.
When we practice meditation,
for a little while we relinquish all belief, all anxiety, all memory,
every form of 'I,' and we dissolve into boundless Love. Even a moment of
that transcendence sends a purifying thrill of beauty through the whole
creation. This too is of great service.
Serve and be near, wherever you are. Jai Guru Dev.
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