The paling of my enclosure

The paling of my enclosure                                                                        

It’s hard to get to know another. 

We rarely see more than the bars of their cage.

Hard for me to show myself, as I pace and roar,

only dimly aware of my own captivity,

yet ever conscious of my vulnerability,

letting not others near enough

to see between the paling of my enclosure.

What we fear and detest in others

is not the poor ensnared creature within

but the barrier erected to keep others out.

Add to that our own defenses and a double bind exists

that each heart’s lament rarely penetrates.

One of the difficulties in breaking from our cage,

even in our staunchest resolve,

is that in our exposure we encounter still

the repellent bars of other cages

which sends us scurrying back

to the safety and sanctimony of our own.

O child of God, the Avatar comes along,

an assortment of keys jangling from His belt.

The plundering of the apple tree

The plundering of the apple tree                                                                          

When God shaped the clay into Adam and Eve,

He knew already of the trespassing to come,

the eating of the forbidden fruit.  Violation

of Oneness was the sin in the garden;

Oneness in which there is no personal liability.

His creatures became sinners 

by trespassing into individuality; in duality

finding themselves opposed to their Creator.

The truth is they were and we still are

wholly one with God and His divine will

(such as the plundering of the apple tree),

their sin and ours, their guilt and ours,

tied up not in Reality but in the Illusion

of otherness and alienation. 

O child of God, there’s nothing doing outside

God’s will and without the sinner, there is no sin.

Next to nothing

Next to nothing

I agreed to become Your slave.

You unsheathed a terrible sword

and began cutting me loose

from the bindings of the world.

The freer I become the more enslaved I am to You.

The chains of my fear broken,

I am ever more afraid of losing You.

Ridding me of desires, desire for union

binds me all the tighter.

Chains of desire exchanged for chains of love.

Gratitude makes for links of enormous strength.

And wearing those chains,

I float above the muck of this world.

When I become next to nothing –

a dust mote rising in Your sunlight,

I will be ready for the ultimate freedom!

How much lighter is my load already,

since my eyes first caught the glimmer of Your blade.

O child of God, become the perfect slave of the only man

          Who is perfectly free

and one day you’ll be granted the freedom beyond all bindings.

                                  (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

Lies to myself

Lies to myself                                                                                             

When His truth reveals the pattern of lies

I’ve told myself, the lies my self has told me,

annihilation seems nearer to being the mere

erasing of a mistake, the removal of a rotten plank. 

Numerous sins the lies cover and compound

drenching me in unworthiness and dread. 

But my Lord tells me ignorance, not evil,

is the cause of sin and dishonesty,

each dispelled by truth – with lies (to myself)

being nearest at hand and the obvious place to start.

Ignorance dispelled.  The learning of myself.

Realization of the truth – the truth of karma,

of Oneness, the truth that I am not the sinner

but the immaculate, awakening drop soul of God.

O child of God, Meher said, God is Perfect Honesty

and you are, in Reality, One with God.

Your tomblike silence

Your tomblike silence                                                                                 

I’ve adjusted my theories about You,

at times, but I’ve held firmly onto them.

Whether they be right or wrong,

I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I know You not at all; You know my every sin.

You are ever clothed in the divine mystery;

I am naked and ashamed, afraid

to be in the same room with You,

cooped up in Your tomblike silence.

I keep up this chatter to escape

Your soundless, fearsome intimacy.   

When I run out of questions

I’ll be totally at Your mercy, just as I am now

but with no words with which to pretend otherwise.

O child of God, the truth you are seeking

will never be on your side.

Abandoned houses

Abandoned houses

Tonight my heart’s fire rages; nothing to do

but throw myself in the river flowing at my Beloved’s feet.

Once, I drifted free as a ghost.  Now I am rooted in holy soil

like the banyan trees on the path to my Beloved’s door.

Under a dormant sky, the restless ocean heaves and sighs.

How can the gulls, darting here and there, ever fathom its depths?

Windows of a long-shuttered room have been thrown open –

to fresh air and sunlight, music and laughter . . . .

Important people of the world, sleep on – moving about

in your dreams; jabbing the air with your fingers.

The mandali are giving out holy prasad.  Those old bodies

remind me of abandoned houses the winds blow through.

O child of God, your heart resides within His heart;

wherever your willfulness leads, remember, the Beloved

          goes with you.

                                           (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

According to His will

According to His will                                                                                

Baba said we could please Him

by having no thoughts, words or deeds

we would not hesitate

to think, say or do in His presence.

A way He has given us, I thought,

to strictly tend to our kindness and virtue.

Years later, I came across Eruch’s elucidation.

It’s mostly about remembrance, He said –

our making a provisional reality (unto ourselves)

of the ultimate Reality that Baba is

the divine Companion.  Remembrance 

by feeling we are always in His presence,

mindful of His wishes and seeking

righteously at every moment

to think, speak and act

according to His will.

O child of God, the Godman’s teachings

exemplify the Oneness of God.

The Mystery of mysteries

The Mystery of mysteries                                                                           

The Mystery can’t be spoken say the Masters,

but it is (apparently) embodied by the Living Word

Who may or may not choose to converse

beyond the pronouncements of His own Presence.

Speaking of the Mystery, I always come to the point

where I don’t know the definitions of the words I use,

like having learned a foreign language by rote.

But I’m told it’s my language, an exile raised

where the duality of words and meanings

are too limited and primitive to explain

or contain the Mystery of mysteries;

thus, a stranger am I, on a foreign shore

praying to become dumbstruck forever

by a mere whisper of the original Word.

O child of God, incessantly the wordsmith

points out the essential futility of speech.

My green heart

My green heart

We must live for God and die for God, You said.

I once thought these were two different things.

The more death makes brittle my bones,

greener and suppler is my heart.

Suppleness is necessary for yielding.

Death is necessary for new growth.

In the Tomb, while sitting at Your feet,

a fire ravaged my house.

The floor of my chest turned to burning coals.

Underneath the blackened rafters, settled among the ash,

my green heart now is weaving a nest.

Wonderful things have sprung up:  these ghazels,

songs of praise, tears of gratitude;

attempted fidelity, an awkward love . . . .

Why not consider yourself already dead? You asked.

This makes sense to me.  I was born in Your Tomb.

O child of God, one morning the old shell gave way

to new growth and turned your blackened heart green.

                             (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

Oneness lost

Oneness lost                                                                                                        

Adam and Eve bit into the apple

and tasted loneliness – the One become three,

shame and shyness before the Father

and one another as sin began

to bloom in each private darkness.

We are trying yet to be no longer alone,

to be trusted and trust, to be loved and love

while concealing our naked fear.

The purpose of our every move is to get back

to that original paradise, merely a distant

memory now within our blood and bones;

our loneliness an ancient longing

for the Father in the Garden

and the restoration of Oneness lost.

O child of God, let the wine of Meher

remove that bitter taste from your mouth.

God, by definition

God, by definition                                                                                                

I’m idling at a stop sign, free to turn

east or west.  God’s not in the seat next to me

wondering which way I’ll go.  God knows.

God, by definition, already knows. 

How is my own will free if God already knows?

And where might there enter in,

any idea of personal freedom?

East or west, whichever direction I choose

is and will always be determined

by an authority greater than chance

or circumstance, greater than myself.  

Determined by the Oneness of God’s vision

and the assigned sovereignty

of my personal unfolding destiny.

O child of God, the value of your musings

is your subsequent focus upon God the Beloved.

Eloquent tears

Eloquent tears

They call You the Silent Master.

Not one word in forty-four years!

Yet, You spoke to me within my heart.

Now it’s my turn for silence.

Before Your benevolence and generosity,

gratitude is mute, the poverty of language laid bare.

If my silence does not reach Your ears,

look into my eyes:  Read these eloquent tears.

Feel Your lover’s heart tremble where in thrilling

rushes of breath, Your love-secrets are being told.

O child of God, pure gratitude is very near to love

and a necessary step toward complete surrender.

                                      (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

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The blessedness

The blessedness                                                                                          

Your name was once a plea I made for mercy.

Now it’s an anointment and a benediction.

Now it’s a speechlessness and a shelter.

Eruch described it as a beholden.

He was talking about the blessedness

of being at Your mercy – 

the blessedness of being at Your mercy.

Beholden to You, a relationship

wherein the pardon is mine to receive   

and Yours alone to give. 

The blessedness of being at Your mercy –

the Father of mercy

in our one and only intimacy

before the two become One.

O child of God, Meher answered your beggary

with the only coin in His purse.

drawing by Rich Panico

The love of which He spoke

The love of which He spoke                                                                       

Bent deep in the pretzel-shaped body and mind of Zen,

I was confused when I first read of Meher Baba

and His emphasis on love.  What has love,

I wondered, to do with enlightenment?

Soon I was off myself down the path of Love,

finding that the love of which He spoke

was not my kind of love but the God-is-Love-kind. 

Groping for an approximate synonym,

I settled for Oneness – something to do with Oneness.

Lately, I’ve employed a more startling substitute –

Love is another word for annihilation;

for the flames of self-immolation.

Meher Baba’s kind of Love is the Love

my intact self will never be able to fully

give or receive, only able to become Love Itself

through obliteration and non-existence.

O child of God, meditate on Love

from the viewpoint of God’s aloneness.

Rose dust

Rose dust

I’d gotten used to the dark –

like some slinking night-creature,

when Your sun found my narrow cell,

striking through the bars, my heart-rose.

O, how it ached – after so many years;

turning and stretching toward You!

They ask me to explain who You are!  How to explain

Light and the irresistible turning toward Light?

Lord, when my heart-rose reaches perfection –

cut it off at the neck.

Wear it in a garland around Your throat.

Discard it as You please, dried petals under Your chappals.

O child of God, the sunlight that animates the heart-rose,

under the wheel of time will crush its red, delicate bloom.

                                       (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

Our rendezvous with destiny

Our rendezvous with destiny                                                                      

Baba on route to the rendezvous in Prague

instructed Elizabeth to pull off the road,

where He paced the shoulder deep within Himself, 

urging Elizabeth later to drive faster

upon the rain slickened two lane.

Only in retrospect can we note the calculation –

having to be at a certain spot

at the precisely scheduled moment.

When we have seemingly failed again our Beloved,

sidetracked, distracted, rather than

dwell upon our guilt and discouragement

might we not view our lapse

as God’s adjustment to the pace

of our divinely scheduled arrival? –

humbled yet heartened by the faith that we are

doing nothing and God is doing everything,

in total control, down the long winding highway

to our rendezvous with destiny.

O child of God, repent of your shortcomings

but don’t overestimate your clout.

The Source of grace

The Source of grace                                                                                 

In my youth I assembled

the great puzzle of the universe,

God being the only left out piece

which was fine with me. 

It felt like freedom, yet fear

lurked in the interstices 

and I was soon sick with it:  afraid

of freedom; afraid of myself.

My universe now long since broken into rubble,

it was grace that led me through;

a life of grace I in no way deserved

nor understood at the time

and yet now I ask for more – instructed

to ask for nothing, I ask God for more –

the grace of being the Source of grace,

forever free and no longer afraid.

O child of God, annihilation in Union

is the only refuge. Your self is made of fear.

My heart's dust

My heart’s dust

The truth of Your holy words

is but a shadow of Your silent Truth.

Your nouns and verbs, dry as paper –

until they strike a smoldering heart and burst into flames.

Holy instructions have little meaning

until they reach the heart’s ear

and release Truth from its prison.

Reach my innermost ear, Lord.

Better yet, write Your Truth on my heart

directly with Your divine finger.

Let it stay there all of my days

and when my body fails, write it in my heart’s dust.

O child of God, long for the day His Truth lives inside you,

not mere words, but the living Word.

                                 (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

Until love dawns

Until love dawns                                                                                          

At first I trusted everything as real.

Myself, my life, my world.  Then I met You

and I soon began to question everything,

finding not one plausible place to stand. 

After all these years I’ve come to know

I must trust by faith everything

as being (real or not) God-ordained,

my human existence, however impermanent,

perfectly suited to fit my soul and God’s scheme;

my unrevealed and indefinable self

a divinely structured vessel shaped for God’s use

to answer His one question 

and unveil Himself to Himself as God.

If I am to trust anything there’s nothing else

to trust but God.  God is everything.

To trust everything is to trust God.

O child of God, trust in God is the only

feasible approach until love dawns.

The ancient Chandler

The ancient Chandler                                                                                   

God bless the Candlemaker and the candle

lighted within each of our chests.  God bless

the projected light and shadow images

flickering upon the curtained screen,

emerging from the tumultuous awakening

of God within us.  God bless the candleglow

illuminating each drop soul, defining its boundaries,

disclosing its purity, eventually to reveal

its origin and essence.  God bless

the lighting of one candle by another;

the flame of longing and the mingling of light.

God bless the yielding of darkness

and the opening of the gates. 

God bless the ancient Chandler,

His duty to perform – the dispelling

of darkness by the light of Love.

O child of God, if you must use words to describe

Meher’s Light, then you have not yet begun to burn.

The cup of Your heart

The cup of Your heart

The cup of Your heart is brimful of mercy.

You can only pour what is in Your cup.

Within You is no deception, though sometimes

You spoke in a language all Your own.

No jealousy, though You warned us

of following other Masters.

Not a hint of lust – in fifty years of ministry!

No anger, though You often chastised Your closest ones.

You were offered treasure houses, but remained indifferent.

Without arrogance, You declared Yourself perfect.

Without pettiness, You saw to each detail.

Your heart held no fear, yet You bore the universe

          on Your shoulders.

All-powerful, without corruption or cruelty, Beloved One,

Your heart is overflowing with the wine of mercy.

O child of God, the Beloved is flawless, without equal,

yet He is slave to the love of His lovers.

                                    (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)

In a motel lobby

In a motel lobby                                                                                           

Feel heavy these days, though I’m skin and bones,

trudging the path I once raced down. 

Not much I care to see with these dimming eyes,

while nearer to death I seem to or  pretend to

make out more distinctly Baba’s ineffable silence.

Inured now to a mystery that no longer seems a barrier,

merely a depthless realm offering no sure footing.

Innumerable ages I’ve been wandering,

seeking the door to my own heart 

while God, motionless in His infinity,

needless in His oneness, sated in His omniscience,

heartless in His incorporeality is posted forever

on both sides of a door that does not exist. 

I wonder what goes on here.

Where there is a search there is a presumed deficiency.

These are just words I write in my ignorance and need.

Something to pass the time –

like reading a dated magazine in a motel lobby.

O child of God, don’t lose heart. 

You’re not alone in your quest to find the Father.

The long remainder

The long remainder                                                                                     

He said in His silence He is always speaking

and His words have come to us

as well as His silent universal work.

Came and became and has become

and always was and is an essential component

of the world’s collective and individual karma

whether one knows Him or not.

We don’t find our Redeemer after a long search,

then choose to follow Him.  Way back,

at time’s genesis, He chose us, at the birth

of the soul-flight, the existential diaspora.

Chose us for whatever appointed time we come

into His Godman orbit and embrace,

to take His hand and as always and ever,

be delivered the long remainder

of the illusory journey home.

O child of God, the work of the Avatar is too vast

and timeless for the human mind to grasp.

Words

Words

My heart sings when You come near, or falls silent.

You offer wine, yes – but more often, holy bread.

You put Your finger to my lips.

Words, You gesture, never tell the Truth.

You gave our tongues one sweetness:

Meher Baba.  Meher Baba.  Meher Baba.

You put on Your coat so Truth could walk around.

You took form, but held Your tongue.

Open the heart’s ear, o pilgrim,

and the Beloved will serenade you.

O child of God, listen to His silence.

Let it guide you toward the true poetry of Infinite Being.

                                    (from The Garden of Surrender, 2004)