In God we trust

In God we trust                                                                                         

The sea-knowledge of the onetime fisherman

drained his faith and sank Peter short

of reaching Jesus as he walked the pitching sea;

kept the others frightened aboard,

entreating their Savior, yet trusting instead

a makeshift construct to keep them afloat.

But it was Jesus who lifted Peter from the brine,

subdued the storm and brought the ship to shore.

In God we trust . . . there’s no one else –

save our treacherous selves.

Everything is true and congruent to the whole

except our separateness.  The one false thing

(never to be trusted) – our erroneous faith

in ourselves and who we take ourselves to be.

O child of God, the construct of the false self

is the source of an ocean of suffering.

The only one in the room

The only one in the room                                                                                     

In Your presence (and in their memory)

often they would say

You were the only one in the room.

Even Eruch (or some other) interpreting

your gestures or reading the board

became a disembodied voice

as they beheld You –

the essence of Love and Truth,

the only one in the room.

These latter days when we

are alone together so often,

let it be my meditation

to dwell upon You

until You are once more

the only one in the room,

leaving this illusory life,

myself and all the insistent,

suffering world behind.

O child of God, within and without, Meher said,

present and past, existent or imagined, God alone is real.

At cycle's end

At cycle’s end                                                                                                  

You even put it into prayer –
the plea for God to help us
 
hold fast to Your damaan
when, as You predicted,
 
things got rough at cycle’s end
and how easy it would be  
 
to lose our grip in the upheaval
of a world turned right side up.
 
And God has provided us, in silent aid and answer,
with no one and nothing else to cling to but You.
 
O child, God has backed you into a corner
so you might face Him at last.

A horse-hooved knowledge

Horse-hooved knowledge 

A lifetime of wandering here and there
among the trees looking for the forest.
 
A plastic sequin on a cheap gown –
such it is that snags the mind –
 
spangles not only worthless but pernicious
for they divert us from the real and the true.
 
At ocean’s shore the galloping horse stumbles,
unable to enter deeply where it can neither
 
stand nor swim or float; rear or whinny –
do anything other than drown
 
in wild, flaring confusion.  We cling
to the shore and the horse that got us there. 
 
Numerous lifetimes it takes to know
we do not know, can never know
 
anything of the ocean, anything of where
the horse is a foreign, ineffectual creature;
 
anything but the dust-ridden,
horse-hooved knowledge
 
that keeps us ever on the scent, ever
following one false trail after another.
 
O child of God, the mind reigns in duality
but can never leave itself to reach beyond.