Love must love

Love must love                                                                                                
 
It came about, says Meher.
Non-duality was split
 
into Beloved and lover,
Reality and shadow, Spirit and flesh.
 
Oneness shattered into multiplicity,
eternity into time, infinity into space.
 
Silence broken by sound, light into color,
quiescence into action.  It came about.
 
Illusion was (and is being) created (apparently)
by the True so that through loneliness
 
we might glimpse God’s Oneness,
in helplessness view His omnipotence
 
and through our heart-connection
receive a haunting taste of Love Eternal.
 
O child, God is Love, says Meher.
And Love must love.

To wait and watch

To wait and watch                                                                                           
 
You’ve told me for the longest time that I do not exist
(only God) so it’s not a matter of me taking any action.
 
I don’t even have to cease being myself.
I never was myself, only an illusory existence
 
ever within the inviolable Oneness of God.
It is for my God-self, not my fallaciousness, to realize this –
 
the outcome of destiny and grace – a gift from God.
Nothing for my dust grain, helpless, hopeless,
 
non-existent self to do but to wait and watch;
view over the eons the unfolding of God’s infinite Being.
 
O child of God, the sanctity and enormity
of such an endeavor demands your constant and utter vigilance.

 

Puja and arti

Puja and arti                                                                                
 
I asked the way to Paradise.  You pointed
to the door I was standing in front of.
 
That door?  I asked.  It’s so near!
I thought it was at the end of a long journey.
 
That’s the door!   Wonderful to know it’s here.
Everyone’s looking for it.
 
I should go and tell the others.
That would be selfless service.
 
That sacred door!  A temple
should be erected in front of it,
 
puja and arti performed; singing
Your praises before that wonderful door.
 
You wait here.  I’ll go make a few phone calls
and get things started.
 
O child of God, you read His words again and again
and still pretend you don’t understand.

                                  (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

The pitch and spell

The pitch and spell                                                                                           
 
Viewing the world from Your attic window,
I soon turn back down the stairs
 
into the hollows of the house.
Out there, I am ever a rube falling
 
for the pitch and spell of a barker.
Sophistication comes from the Greek word
 
sophia, meaning wisdom. 
Its modern definition is worldliness;
 
its current synonym – Godlessness; 
its antonyms – innocence and faith.
 
Lord, set me apart from the cheap wisdom
of sophistication, the invalidity of worldly ways,
 
finding my strength and wisdom solely
in the sanctity of Your eternal Presence.
 
O child of God, to learn the ways of the world
is to uncover the bright trappings of despair.

A hopeless tangle

A hopeless tangle                                                                                             
 
Birdlike gestures of long ago
pulling love out of thin air,
 
slender fingers pointing to the truth,
are now unraveling the tight little knots of lies
 
I have told myself over a lifetime,
presented to the world as being who I am.
 
At the same time, in a lower register,
plucking delicately at my heart strings,
 
assuring me it’s His hands unveiling my naked self,
affording me a courage I would not otherwise  have.
 
His Hands exposing the deep shame of my being
a volatile, makeshift creature, a hopeless tangle      
 
of anxieties that never quite coalesced
into one steady, whole, abiding self.
 
Lord, don’t let me die holding these frayed ends,
carrying these bindings into yet another lifetime
 
but unravel my falsity down to its empty core.
Disentangle me from the ages-old web of my illusions.
 
O child of God, find the faith and equanimity
to allow the Avatar to do His work.

Another empty cloak

Another empty cloak                                                                            
 
Gool Rukh, where did you go?
Gool Rukh, rose-cheeked princess
 
buried in the sands of Rawalpindi,
reappearing as One-with-God;
 
a nightingale serenading the Beloved,
until your feathers turned into rose petals.
 
Grown in your Poona garden – the Heavenly Rose,
brow-kissed, christened by Tajuddin,
 
seated on Narayan’s throne; the Sacred Rose,
tossed at Sai’s feet, bruised by the stone of Upasni.
 
Gool Rukh, where did you go?
Yielding to God, to snow-haired Babajan,
 
showing Merwan the secret place
to yield his life to the great Rasool.
 
Merwan joined you there, Gool Rukh,
another broken cup, another empty cloak.
 
O child of God, when you find that place,
who you once were will be no more.

                               (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

The power of Love

The power of Love                                                                                                    
 
I have decided to follow Jesus
(proudly goes the old hymn).
 
One day we might view those lyrics
as a bit of sincere, yet self-centered
 
sentimentality, born of naiveté,
presumption and zeal.  It’s not that anyone
 
ever decides alone to follow the Christ.
It’s more like the time comes about
 
for a reunion of the Spirit, a piercing of the heart,
a sobering up, a summoning home
 
and follow we must – no turning back, no turning back –
loyalty and resolve not from adamant hearts
 
but from the intractable tide of our destiny.
Comes a time when we stop seeing ourselves
 
as deciding the course of our life 
and begin to truly follow our Lord,
 
learning moment to moment where
we are bound and what we are next to do.
 
O child of God, when the power of Love
becomes our fate, the result is irresistible.

Crustaceans

Crustaceans                                                                                                      
 
Coming to the end of a long voyage.
Time to dry dock my little sails-struck boat
 
before it’s retired altogether;
it’s hull to be scraped clean of crustaceans
 
accumulated over a lifetime
(many lifetimes, You say),
 
attachments that slow me down,
alter the course, thwart my purpose,
 
distort and conceal my original shape and colors –
to the point of my mistaking
 
these ragged appendages for being
an intrinsic component of the boat itself. 
 
My Lord has taken up the task
with various abrasives, chisel and rasp –
 
the simple technique of showing me
each foul accretion and the damage done,
 
slowly returning to and revealing
the useful, shining, seaworthy hull beneath.
 
O child of God, let Meher prepare your vessel
for your next venture into the great unknown.

A chain of islands

A chain of islands                                                                       
 
For years, I’ve searched, inside and out,
for the mighty bird of Love.
 
All I’ve found is a feather, here and there,
from its brilliant plumage.
 
My concern for the world has been reduced
to a chain of islands
 
with my name and the names
of my loved ones on them.
 
O Beloved, let this fist of my heart
loosen its grip, open and stretch. 
 
The gesture for love takes two hands –
Your heart and mine in perfect unison.
 
There are other gestures we could make.
You could dig my grave here in the soft sand
 
or I could sail from this island out into the Ocean –
spread Your name to the New World.
 
O child of God, even half-hearted gestures are preferable
to the bitter clench of fear and faithlessness. 

                                   (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

Prayer from a closet

Prayer from a closet                                                                                         
 
Enter into a closet to pray, said Jesus,
so that, perhaps, we shall find in its solitude
 
and darkness that our every prayer is from a closet
built of skin, blood and bones; set upon an earthen floor,
 
thatched roof of logic and reason,
studs of habit, crossbeams of time and space.
 
Windowless to let not in the revealing, relieving light;
wrapped in our dark, solid, clapboard ignorance;
 
constructed by the Self to hide Himself from Himself
and experience the isolation, vulnerability
 
and limitation which are and have always been
the shadow of His infinite, omnipotent Everything.
 
O child of God, to move closer to freedom
become ever cognizant of your bindings. 

Absolute faith

Absolute faith                                                                                                  
 
Such was the faith of Kalyan that he fetched
a lantern when told by his Master
 
it was pitch dark in the noonday sun –
a figure Meher used to show His lovers
 
the inordinate faith required to reach
the culmination, the consummation. 
 
Not only faith in His every word and deed
as the infallible Christ; not only faith
 
in His avowal that our perceived world
is without substance or menace,
 
but also the monumental faith necessary
to accept without proof that we are not
 
our limited, frightened, lifelong apparent selves
but Him – God the infinite, the omnipotent, eternal One.
 
O child, to reach God you must turn away
from every concept you ever thought was true.

 

Random descent

Random descent                                                                         
 
Seemingly at random, a meteor fell
          from the heavens,
so bright it lit the whole sky.
 
Now it’s gone and those who saw it
can only point to where it was.
 
What do we say to those who ask why
we gather faithfully on the crest of this Hill?
 
The flight of that meteor has seared an arc
into the meat of our eyes
 
so that we see it yet in the night sky;
see it when we close our eyes;
 
carry it with us wherever we go.
Bearing witness, we celebrate
 
its existence until the next
seemingly random descent.
 
O child of God, manna from heaven is never lost,
but flourishes, nourishes and strengthens all mankind.

                                  (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

 

The nothing and the everything

The nothing and the everything                                                                       
 
To ask for nothing is to have nothing.
A turned-out, palms-up, empty-pockets nothing
 
so dire and hopeless it’s without
the notion of worth or gain; 
 
an abandoned house of a heart
where not one whim or vagary,
 
not the zephyr of a wish
floats ephemerally through its chambers;
 
where holding onto the least something
is an effrontery, an impurity,
 
an abyss between you and your Lord
Who has become your Everything. 
 
O child of God, to ask for nothing is to become
the nothing and the everything you are.

 

Be God (New Year's Day)

Be God (New Year’s Day)                                                                              
 
Nothing new in this year’s turning,
nothing left behind; something to do
 
with duality and physicality,
the earth’s rotation and revolution,
 
the corrugation of flesh; the graying of hair
while the mystery of me remains unaltered.
 
Eyes held firmly shut, as best I can manage,
in the timeless shelter of the now –
 
where I float incorporeal and removed
from any relationship to any other object or being;
 
most of eternity present for me to partake of;
wondering when I’ll open my eyes
 
and be no longer myself.
Open my eyes and be God.
 
O child, it might be any moment
in the invariably eternal now.

House of mirrors

House of mirrors                                                                                  
 
There’s a door at the back of my heart
opening upon a heaven-lit garden –
 
the moon:  the shining bow of a ship
plowing a star-glittered sea.
 
I stumble upon that door occasionally –
(an exit from this house of mirrors)
 
linger at the threshold.   
Your flute-music is on a breeze
 
scented with jasmine and neem.
When the music pauses, I hear a Voice
          calling my name.
 
But, always, always, I turn back
into the depths of my heart
 
where mirror upon mirror reflects
the image of the one I most love.
 
O child of God, how long will this enchantment last?
Find that door again and escape this house of mirrors.

                                     (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

The essence of a dewberry

The essence of a dewberry                                                                               
 
She came from the cold northwest,
walking with me through the neighborhood.
 
I pointed out a dewberry bramble growing wild
along the path.  What is a dewberry? she asked.
 
Rather than a general description
or speaking in terms of genus and family,
 
I placed a ripe one in her mouth. 
She bit into it and learned immediately
 
the essence of a dewberry.
The scriptures of every religion
 
at some point are nothing more
than scraps of paper, ink-stained words;
 
old road maps we can never quite
fold back into place.  The essence of the Avatar
 
has to be tasted (shared and savored) to be known.
Descriptions, teachings, allegories,
 
parables and testimonies are as unavailing
as dewberries left unplucked in the bramble.
 
O child of God, only the Essence Itself
can give the seeker a taste of the Truth.

Shadow play

Shadow play                                                                                                    
 
In the world, we play God’s game –
indulge in physicality, personality.
 
Explore our milieu; search for meaning,
fulfill our destiny – all within an ignorance
 
so vast and profound it’s beyond
our capacity to know and accept. 
 
It’s God’s shadow play and we’re bound to it
until by some fated stroke of grace
 
someone grabs an elbow and pulls us (each) 
from the procession; the whole arrangement,
 
we discover, founded upon suggestion
and assumptions built into our human frame.
 
Shadows for the Maker to hide in until He’s ready
to step forth, shatter with revelation our every illusion.
 
And we learn that the price of laying down
this burden of life is so astonishingly cheap –
 
only ourselves, only our fraudulent,
frightened, exhausted selves.
 
O child of God, prepare for grace
by acquainting yourself with the emptiness of phenomena.

Rough and tumble

Rough and tumble                                                                      
 
You are a wild stag.
I spied You at the hill’s crest;
 
followed You down the deer run
into a labyrinth of paths
 
hidden under fallen leaves.  Somehow
I managed to lasso Your neck.
 
Now the adventure has begun.
I can’t let go of the rope or rein You in,
 
a rough and tumble journey
but, O, the sights revealed!
 
I was lost when we met, more lost now –
but . . . You know where we’re going.
 
I’ve nothing to lose following You
and everything to gain!
 
O child of God, you’ve nothing to gain
and everything to lose!

                              (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

To be an instrument

To be an instrument                                                                                         
 
I hope to become inconsequential 
(this poetry not to the contrary). 
 
The Mystery pens it and I attach my name.
That’s all right.  No one knows who
 
this child of God is anyway, least of all me. 
After the illusion of flesh, I’ll be merely a memory
 
(to a few, soon forgotten)
and to others, a printed name.
 
The poems will linger, staunchly
in their stiff black ink, before they fade also –
 
like the final notes of an afternoon recital.
Isn’t this evanescence good and proper?
 
A restorative coda, an emphasis of silence
after a firmly spoken, heartfelt prayer.
 
O child of God, to be inconsequential
is to be an instrument in the royal orchestra.

The Big Picture

The Big Picture                                                                                                
 
The Ocean exists – not the drop, 
except as conjecture or imagination.
 
There’s only the One (per Meher).
Only the Big Picture.  No boundaries,
 
no delineations.  No self, only Self. 
One soul – the Oversoul.
 
There is only God, conscious
of Himself and His shadow. 
 
Nothing piecemeal exists and thus
the conscious existence of you and I,
 
you and I, o pilgrim,
can only be Him.
 
O child of God, it’s difficult to envision, impossible
to put into words and only by grace is it realized.

Shallow grave

Shallow grave                                                                                       
 
This old watch won’t be repaired
but tossed into a drawer to collect dust;
 
a pine box of bones and a suit of rags
lowered into a shallow grave.
 
Giving up any notion of salvation,
all I have is Your name on my tongue
 
and the cold stone of Your Tomb. 
I won’t be saved but You will –
 
Love prevails and whatever shards and shavings,
by Your grip are firmly shaken from me,
 
will not drop into the grave
but catch the wind,
 
spill and glint brilliantly
upon the freshly turned earth.
 
O child of God, can you measure a dream?  
What is the value of God’s hand
          placed upon on your shoulder?

                                    (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

Haunt the shore

Haunt the shore                                                                                               
 
This daily exploration of You has become my life;
no longer an attempt to discover who You are
 
but what You have to give me – this daily reception
of salt-tinged wine, sea-soaked bread.
 
Most would say I’ve turned away from reality
but You are the Reality I am facing now,
 
undistracted by the faithless and illusory.
I see now the process as a morning walk
 
down to the gulled-circled sea
to find what gift has washed ashore
 
expressly for me, each exquisite detail
fitting exactly my lack and need
 
as my Father lovingly provides
the means of my returning.
 
O child of God, haunt the shore
and let the Ocean come to you.

Duhkka

Duhkha                                                                                                            
 
Life itself is suffering, said the Buddha. 
Disquiet in the very hollows of our hearts,
 
the rasping timbre of our throats,
the ruddy marrow of our bones –
 
the everpresent anxiety of our fraudulence.
To suffer means to tolerate, to endure –
 
but to endure also means to persist,
to remain in existence.
 
We suffer because we remain (as per the Mystics)
in the illusive continuity of our selves
 
rather than dwell in the Truth of our ultimate
demise within the One eternal God.
 
O child, the sutras say duhkha is birth, aging,
illness and death – and our false identification with each.

Immeasurable love

Immeasurable love                                                                      
 
These ghazals are the rasp of a cricket,
the gnawing of a mouse;
 
the scuttle of dry leaves across flagstone,      
the creaking of a weak board underfoot –
 
but, standing before You, reading one aloud,
paper rattling in rhythm with my knees,
 
I look up to find You beaming with enjoyment,
gesturing perfection and inviting the whole room 
 
to partake of my delicious accomplishment.
This is why You own my heart.
 
O child of God, you toss everything onto the scales
but your Beloved offers only immeasurable love.

                             (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)