Of wondrous avail
Seek no farther than the brim of your hat,
looking not up from your task heavenward,
beseeching God’s grace when God
(Rumi said) is in the look of your eyes.
Nor lament the path beneath your feet,
selected by fate, good as any –
an equal distance from the Goal.
Look not into the future,
nor side to side at a myriad of distractions.
Forsake the past also for its failures,
travails, impotence and partialities.
It has served you well enough –
depositing you perfectly
into this particular moment
where God is lodged (per the Mystics)
and of wondrous avail.
O child of God, have you made it plain?
This poem is addressed primarily to the poet.
The heart of the circle
Born into a realm where as a matter of course
a childish heart is soon crushed, sewn up
and packed back down in the chest just as it is
to function brokenly in the name of wisdom,
You’ve come again to sever the threads and let it bleed.
To accomplish, if not the restitution of innocence,
the hearkening of each heart back to its beginnings.
Our minds reject such counsel, opting
for fear over pain, insularity over vulnerability
and busy themselves with worldly affairs,
while hearts, in ones You have directly touched,
begin a slow, planetary revolution toward
and around You, the center of existence,
the unbroken heart of the circle.
O child of God, the mind gives way to worry
and the heart bears thus much needless woe.
Rubble and dust
I misunderstood, years ago, when You
first brought out the chisel and hammer.
I imagined You would shape me
into a worthy likeness
and I welcomed the blows as best I might.
Now I see, Your perfect aim
is to reduce me to rubble and dust
(a tedious task for the tall, cold stone of me).
Rubble and dust – rubble which has no center
and dust where there is no grit or blood.
I should have understood it sooner –
the likeness of You is the absence of me.
O child, God is found, said Meher,
where you are not.
This tallow heart
This tallow heart in which has lodged
over a lifetime every hurt, shame and fret,
You have incised, dug out and lighted
the buried wick, urging me
to become the flame consuming itself.
It’s spearhead blade trimming away the dross,
severing the past, slicing readily into the future,
clean, votive, free and steady
as it melts down the heft of me
to reach a condition worthy of offering.
The soft hiss of the candle-flame
to the heart’s ear is a muted roar,
drowning out the clamor of temptation,
judgment, guilt and fear.
O child of God, consider yourself a flame,
purified each moment by the grace of God.
The inscrutable Whim
Since the Whim’s beginningless beginning,
(no rhyme, no reason,
no cause, said Meher),
innumerable ages (and a mere second) ago,
nothing has ever happened for a reason.
Human explanations over time have offered
theology, astrology, philosophy,
science, sociology and psychology – but deeply buried
below these equivocal rationalizations
there is only the ever inscrutable Whim –
no why, no reason for anything at all
including this flowing, sole, evident,
moment to moment existence.
O child, the search for cause and meaning
inhibits the realization of the truth.
Radical acceptance
“Don’t worry, be happy”, said Meher.
He said also, “Become hopeless”.
That is, walk the razor’s edge
between optimism and pessimism,
forgoing each bright and dark expectation,
eschewing personal judgment and evaluation.
Embrace and practice instead
a radical acceptance of everything as it is,
aligning not with the limited self
but with the Creator Himself
as to what is proper and just,
what is virtuous and necessary,
and become increasingly ensconced,
sans inquiry or estimation, within the inviolable One.
O child of God, surrender to the All-knowing
by realizing the true depths of your ignorance.
Lovers of Meher
You referred to us as lovers, not followers,
perhaps because so few are willing to be led
into such fearsome territory as You inhabit.
Instead, we consider the counsel of Your teachings
and then make our own way, in our own little world.
Lovers, You named us, because the abandonment
of our selves requires not a regimen to follow,
(stuck to with discipline and resolve)
but a way of effortless, irresistible love. Not self-control
but the giving up of self and control entirely.
O child of God, only lovers enter the kingdom gates
and only Meher holds the key.
No how
I sought the why of God and my Lord answered:
the Divine Leela – there is no cause or reason.
I asked the where and when of God.
Here and now, He said.
Here and now.
And the what of God?
Infinite attributes, He replied,
and no attributes at all.
I sought the Who of God
and He answered: I
and you. I and you.
Now only the how remains –
how to go about the merging of the two.
Love, He answered, and with Love
(He pointed out), there is no how –
for how does not exist
within the here and now.
Only Grace. Only
Grace.
O child of God, drop your inquiries of That
which is beyond imagination and conception.
Mercy Flourishing
The reservoir was empty when You arrived,
atop a desolate (but not quite God-forsaken) landscape.
You gave it the name Mercy Flourishing.
Decades later, still the hot winds swirled,
dust coating the paths, porches, withered fields,
green banyans and neems, as I mounted the small hill
to reach Your Tomb and enter Your Immaculacy.
Sometime or another, I thought to bury myself with You
somewhere deep in that merciful ground
as best I could, but half-covered and mournful,
I couldn’t finish the job.
And now I can never come clean.
Returned to the world, everywhere I go
I’m still caked in the grave dust of Meherabad.
O child of God, it’s not a do-it-yourself task.
Reach a humility that allows His grace to flow.
Old age
I don’t hear well these days. Can’t quite
follow the flow of conversation.
Yet, clear as a bell, the Friend’s voice
sounds within me. I get
facts confused;
assumptions proven wrong but my relationship
to Him is ever more precise and certain.
Repeat myself? Yes,
often. And repeat
His name more and more.
Forgetful of the past and present, yes,
but I remember Him now habitually.
And as my eyesight dims,
my focus upon Him sharpens.
The distance from our ultimate Union I know not,
but I find continual evidence of God’s existence
in this illusory realm here and now.
And when I soon leave it
(for yet another respite), o what peace
I will take with me to the grave!
O child of God, you’ve found the Friend.
Each day He brings you nearer to the journey's end.
At heaven’s gate
Two souls stood at heaven’s gate,
the first ordered by an angel
to descend immediately and reincarnate.
I know that man, said the remaining soul.
The most devout man I’ve ever known.
Why was he turned away?
Attachment, the
angel replied.
He lived on the street,
said the man,
his days spent in prayer.
Begged for his food. Owned
little
more than the clothes on his back.
Filth and rags, replied
the angel.
Bewildered, the man said nothing.
His attachment was to
filth and rags,
to his empty belly, his
image
in the eyes of others,
to his ideas
of what is worthy and what
is worthless.
And you, sir,
continued the angel,
have reached this same
critical height.
What have you done to
earn God’s grace?
The man lowered his eyes and did not speak.
Enter paradise,
said the angel, swinging wide the gate.
O child of God, when you think you’ve got it figured out,
be sure you do not have it figured out.
(from
Spoken For, 2014)
Leave the rest
Do your best, said my Lord, and leave Me the rest.
Many years now, I’ve been doing my best
to understand what it is I should be doing
to make the most of my allotted days –
to be not left behind or led astray
but only lately has He brought home to me
that everyone, everyone is doing their best
with what they have been given.
So self-satisfying to picture myself
as a chosen child among the lost
while the truth is we are all lost,
all God’s children, an equal distance apart.
A truth with which we are constantly confronted
but, in spite of our best efforts, choose to ignore.
O child of God, everyone is living out their karma
as best they might.
Leave the rest to Him.
Makeshift scaffolding
Meher, laboring while in the body,
established schools, dispensaries, ashrams –
whole communities and then, at their height,
dismantled, dispersed and abandoned them.
Mere scaffolding, He said, for the real work,
offering no further explanation
to the participants, the world and the mandali.
One day in the not-too-distant future
my lifetime’s structures will be razed,
dismantled, dispersed; things I consider
vital, valuable, steadfast and dear.
The real work having been accomplished
(for this segment of the journey), all the apparent,
quite human and temporal activities,
without sufficient explanation, shall come to an end,
the makeshift scaffolding irrevocably removed.
O child of God, only the real work matters,
accomplished beyond your efforts and ability to grasp.
Ragpicker
The ragpicker makes his usual rounds.
Object of scorn and pity, he began
his profession with a rumor – a priceless jewel
hidden among rags and unwittingly thrown away.
But that was decades ago, the ragpicker now
deeply settled into the routine of his life.
And yet, he has a secret – evenings in his hovel,
he reads eloquent, intimate letters
from a beautiful daughter in a far away land –
words of fire, splendor, palpability and vision!
Evenings of this and, each night,
peaceful dreams follow; each morning
he awakens to a world of infinite possibilities . . .
and thus, renews his search.
For her, the unseen one,
he endures the taunts and whispers,
the countless disappointments and humiliations,
eking out a living, searching for the rumored jewel
among the rags and refuse,
the lost and discarded of this world.
O child of God, wrapping a jewel in a dirty rag
does not stain the jewel, nor diminish its value.
(from
A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)
The heart as a probe
Beyond imagination and conception,
said Meher (of God). So
that
by exploring with the mind ourselves
and the world, we shall find nothing
having to do with God.
Thus,
we are left with the heart as a probe
or an open invitation to drop the quest altogether.
Meher seems to offer both or either
as effectual sadhana.
There’s nothing (apparently)
standing between God and me
but a deeply-rooted concept,
a powerful imagining of myself as a being
separate and distinct from the Mystery
Who created and creates,
sustains and destroys me.
O child of God, to know the truth,
Meher said mind must go.
Love unadulterated
Eye to
eye stand the (man-eating) tiger and I,
a safety
sheet of plexiglass between us;
his ochre
eyes gazing nonchalantly
as I
admire his glinting tri-colored coat
and the
symmetrical arrangement beneath it
of his
latent danger, thrilling power and grace.
In the
wild, I would enjoy no such beauty,
find no
such evidence of his magic and majesty.
My admiration
would be thwarted by terror.
Daily
our vulnerable selves
miss
the terrible beauty of God and His creation
for the
fear of our own pain and demise.
It’s
not the world from which
we must
be liberated but our attachment
to this
human, deeply-held view.
Free
from self; free from mind;
free
from death and fear,
we
shall gain a God’s eye view
and become
again capable
of love
unadulterated.
O child
of God, Meher said where there is fear,
there’s
no love. Where there’s love, there’s no
fear.
Sea legs
On the Atlantic’s edge – trying to keep my sea legs
in the pull of the surf.
Noah kept his sea legs
while navigating an Ocean without a shore!
How did he ever determine which way
to tilt the sails and turn the rudder?
A fine rain is blowing in toward the property
where You once declared, “I never leave.
Isn’t it wonderful that I never leave?”
On the tree-canopied road back towards the Barn –
what negotiations can I make
with the One who moved along this path
before the seeds of time were scattered
and Who shall remain here long after
the dust of time and all its progeny are blown away?
You grant me an interview in the Lagoon Cabin.
Eruch is not there to interpret but the dripping eaves
provide some elucidation –
(as I kneel before Your never-empty chair) –
eloquently hinting at just what I am up against!
From the Lagoon Cabin, I walk towards the Hermitage.
The rain that fell on Noah, blurs my vision,
soaks my thin jacket.
O child of God, the sea, sun, rain, earth and sky
will pass away. Your
Beloved will never leave.
(from
A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)
Where you go to die
Folded body; observing the breath.
Trying to keep a toehold in the here and now
as wave upon wave of illusion crashes over me.
I’ve been told, time and again,
I must live in the now, where the real things are,
but lately I see – the now is where you go to die –
the false self sputtering to a halt
from lack of fuel; thoughts evanescing
before they can take root
and establish fully the ego
where it lives – in the realm
of mind and imagination.
There is only space in the now
for pure consciousness (none for me).
Meditation is a means of acquainting myself
with the reality of my own non-existence
while still tightly wrapped
in the illusion of self.
O child of God, the truth is unclaimed,
everyone cosseted in their own imagination.
Something to be said
There is something to be said for silence
when you’re clamoring to get into heaven.
When you find your entreaties only accentuate the divide;
when the only strategy left is to abandon all
strategies.
A long while ago you discovered there is no why.
Now you’re learning there is no how, no when or where,
only the Who left for investigation, merely a concept,
a designation, unsound in Its true Oneness.
There is something to be said for silence
when you discover the tongue in your skull and mind
will never whisper the Word you need but belongs
to an ancient companion you’ve never really known,
roughly detaining you outside the gates,
keeping you from the truth of Who you really are.
O child of God, it takes many lifetimes for the truth
of Meher to begin its penetration of your habitual view.
Whole cloth
I rub my nose on the carpet before Your chair.
How long before the fabric shreds
and the stone gives way?
How long
before I sink into the dust below?
That celebrated widow put her two cents
into the temple treasury.
Jesus extolled her faith and generosity –
it was all she had! I’m
worth two cents!
Yet, I can’t seem to part with myself!
O child, not the quality, nor quantity of the gift,
He’s concerned with –
but, the commitment, the abandonment,
the whole cloth, full measure,
draining of the cup to the last drop.
O child of God, Your Beloved quotes the poet –
“Hafiz, remove thyself for thou art the veil.”
(from
A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)
