A bee in my bonnet

A bee in my bonnet                                                                        

Ever since I heard of that honey-laden hive,

I’ve had a bee in my bonnet,

a brain-itch that can’t be scratched.

A nagging thought that I must have

forgotten something vital – misplaced a key,

unable to remember where I left it.

Thus, have I been for my life’s better part

unable to pay the world my full attention –

reluctant to make its necessary choices.

I don’t believe in choices anymore.

I believe in karma and compulsion –  

to obey or ignore their urgencies.

The Avatar of the age has come

to guide, instill and accentuate

yet another compulsion – the blood-deep

burning need to know who I really am.

O child of God, follow that bee

back to the honey in the rock.

Nothing of substance

Nothing of substance                                                                      

Dust is existence without blood,

wrote the poet Francis.

Most likely the same thought

in a different language

spoken by Francis the saint. 

As in dust at His feet –

bloodless . . . without spit, too,

without tears, dried up,

crushed, yet breathing, speaking,

doing, thinking – serving the Lord.

Returned to the dust from which

the servant was fashioned

long before the ropes lower him

to his earthly repose; serving the Lord

as a jar of dust holding nothing

of substance – nothing of substance –

only the God-part, the love-essence,

the elusive, ethereal soul.

O child of God, emptiness is completeness

(say the mystics).  Nothing is everything.

The less you milk the dream

The less you milk the dream                                                         

As it turns out, the only bargain’s end 

to uphold is my relationship with the One,

my allegiance bit by bit being switched

from the multifarious, strangely enough

drawing me subtly nearer to the many

in which the One is contained.

Non-attachment (inside and out) is more feasible

as I learn continuously that I hold no sway –

becoming not an attainment but a godsend,

not a method but the truth, an immense

and steadfast comfort the more I dare practice it.

Choices revealed as mere competing compulsions –

effete illusions – the compelling force (as Meher avers)

that drives this individual and collective dream.

It becomes a release that is not an evasion

but an acceptance, an acknowledgement,

the long sought key to the long conjectured

and proposed obedience and surrender.

O child of God, the less you milk the dream

the more true sustenance you receive.

The emptiness of the dream

The emptiness of the dream                                                                      

When I began my quest,

the world made perfect sense;

the pieces fit together snugly,

clung tightly into place.

Then You came along,

bounding down the open road,

upending the apple cart,

proclaiming a new life –

a great living and breathing Mystery

and I was intrigued enough to follow,

study, query, surmise and conject.

Years later, You have become

the only thing that makes sense.

Not because I’ve come anywhere near

plumbing Your depths but because

You have shown me the emptiness of the dream.

I look to You now for the unfathomable truth

because everything else in my world

has proven demonstrably false, fleeting,

insubstantial, partial and delusory.

O child of God, it is Maya – ignorance –

that undergirds the Illusion.

The original dust

The original dust    

                                                 

This metaphor – perhaps it will hold water:

I am a clay jug with a crack in it.

Compulsively, I pour into myself

intoxicants, refreshments, elixirs

but end up always empty and athirst,

my vessel inherently unsuitable

for containment and repletion.

Indeed, this hollowed-out jug

is a barrier to my true function,

my ultimate immersion and satiation.

Nothing on earth (say the mystics)

can permanently plug the crack.

The only cure is abstention – allow myself

to become and remain utterly dry.

Then, will my Beloved come along,

return me by His hammer to the original dust.

O child of God, let your malformed nothingness

be absorbed into His perfect everything.

God's door

God’s door           

I see now that knowledge is not

the proper tool – a key lacking

the apposite notches to turn

the given tumblers. 

With the key of knowledge

I might just as effectively

tap urgently on the jamb

or jingle the whole chain like a bell

hoping God comes forth

to see who stands on His porch.

That which opens God’s door

is apparently grace as always

beyond the fingertips of our keyless hands,

induced not by knowledge   

but attentiveness, supplication,

longing and obsessive intention.

O child of God, recall Rumi’s assertion –

you are knocking on the door from the inside.

God's blood

God’s blood                                                                                                    

One day to the garden shall we return,

each of us experience anew

the wonder and bewilderment

felt Adam and Eve first waking up –

one with God and His creation; no will but His.

Biting into the apple was the great sin

of breaking in two and then into pieces

the faith and unity of I and Thou,

letting into our original allegiance

and relationship the taint of the other.

One day afresh we shall look childlike

upon the world – our wonder restored,

our bewilderment savored at every turn

in this miraculous setting,

knowing God again as the Father

and ourselves as God’s blood-

flesh-and-bone brood roaming

shamelessly naked the garden.

O child of God, the breaking of the Oneness

was never real – only heartbreakingly semblant.

The terrible truth

The terrible truth                  

Whether in dreadful sin, saintly labor

or the usual mix of somewhere in between,

 

everyone is dutifully living out their karma.

There is no virtue in reviling anyone

for simply living out their karma. 

But anyone who makes that mistake

is also living out their karma. 

The same again if they refrain. 

The terrible truth is that by any logical equation

everyone and everything, every sin and virtue

in this vast play of duality and divinity

adds up to an irksome, unsettling zero –

each careworn karmic soul being merely

perfect God in His perfectly crafted disguise. 

O child of God, a lakh of lifetimes

requires each soul to play every role.  

Dreaming the dream

Dreaming the dream                                                                                  

I must never take myself to be

my dreamed-up self

viewed as an object apart

from my conscious perspective.

(This should be my daily mantra,

my God-given method.)

I am neither I nor me but the dreamer

never separate from the dream –

Reality Itself readily engaged

in dreaming the dream –

dreaming the dream

of a half-asleep, waking-up God.

So say the various mystics (as best as I can figure),

the Masters, Sadgurus and Avatars like my Lord.

O child of God, words can never elucidate

the essence an intuitive glimpse.

Stand aside

Stand aside                                                                                                 

My quest is through though I am far from the goal.

In another lifetime I might yet be seeking

a path to God; submitting perhaps

to the service and instruction

of a living Master or attempting

various methods to perfect myself  

but my job now seems to be to stand aside,

let my Lord, the Avatar of the age, methodically

separate the wheat from my sanskaric chaff. 

Permit my ambition, fear and desires

to be quelled by the clear signs

of His attendance and guidance

in my soul and Self’s

slow emergence and eternal safekeeping.

O child of God, the effort required to find God?

Become quiescent enough for Him to take over.