Guru Purnima: Full Moon of July

 

Today is Guru Purnima, full moon of the Guru. Seems like yesterday. It was 1970. With my beloved teacher, and my best friend Eric, both resting in peace now. My teacher never called himself "guru," never said, "follow me." He simply said, "I will show you how to awaken the Guru within your own heart. That is the radiance of the real Guru."

After many lives of seeking, you find the one whose breath, whose whisper, whose mere glance, frees you from any further need for a Guru. Then you bow down, not because you are seeking anything from him, but because you let go of the search, and now you live in the ocean of free energy whose very nature is gratitude. Jai Guru Dev.

I don't want to be invincible.
I want to be astonished by loss.

I want to be stunned
and defeated by wonder,

shocked into a new creation
where only dancing is allowed.

I want to fall down again and again.
How close can my head come to your toes

before it shatters into spirals of gold?
Lift me up, I'll do

what a fountain does to sunbeams.
Step on me, I'll be the sky.