Finding grace
Mehera asked, years ago,
why You chose
so barren a place for
Your ashram
(and Your Tomb) landscape
of dust
and thorns; scorpions,
cobras and kraits.
Then, My lovers, You said,
will come only for Me,
nothing else.
These days, You’ve turned
much of my world into
dust and thorns –
a bleak, prickly terrain
devoid of sustenance and
satiation,
rife with scrapes, stings
and venom,
so that each day, I show
up only for You
and when side-tracked,
return only to You,
as the friendly ground
shrivels
and the periphery grows
wilder,
more and more, finding
grace
in the isolation and
disparity,
in eccentricity,
disillusionment and despair.
O child of God, rejoice when
your life becomes a Tomb
in the desolate region of
a strange land.
The bruising rose
You told the story of an
innocent woman
accused of adultery –
tied to a post in the
marketplace,
everyone who passed
required by law
to cast a stone or some
filth upon her ...
which she endured with a
noble dignity;
her daughter was brought
forth, throwing
not a stone nor filth
but, a simple rose ...
and the mother shrieking
in agony
as it brushed her cheek.
Let he who is without sin
cast the first stone,
You told the crowd in
another marketplace.
You, of course, could
have cast that stone,
but You have come down,
bound Yourself
among the stones and
filth
of our marketplaces to
endure unjustly
the fateful punishments
of being human
and to weigh in Your
innocent hands
the culpability of each
stone-and-rose-wielding
patron, each laboring,
fearful heart.
O child of God, the
Beloved is ever merciful.
Protect Him from the
bruising rose of your infidelity.
The prayer of Immensity
I used to crawl through
the Universal Prayer
on my hands and knees,
entering through a hatch
in the O before
Parvardigar.
By lying flat, twisting
myself here and there,
I could inch my way to
the last word of worship.
But, one morning, midway
through, I tripped
a hidden switch or
brushed a secret lever,
or, perhaps, it was the
power of one word
spoken with heartfelt
sincerity –
the whole prayer expanded
to the dimensions
of the descriptions
within it.
Not just the firmament
and the depths,
but on all planes and
beyond . . .
the three worlds and
beyond . . .
the source of Truth, the
Ocean of Love,
beyond and beyond and
still yet beyond . . .
time and space,
imagination and conception.
I found myself in an endless
void as the words
of the prayer rose to my
lips and faded in my ears.
O child of God, this is
the prayer of Immensity –
the Immeasurable, the
Unnamable and Incomprehensible.
O child of God, recite
faithfully the Universal Prayer.
It’s about you and who
you really are.
Grace intruded
Grace intruded upon my
habitual sorrow
and marked me for its own
like a pattern of ink
under the skin,
like an imperfectly
minted coin,
a misprinted postage
stamp
or a raw diamond selected
for its flaws.
Plucked like a flower
for a vase on a bedside
table;
like a wild colt culled
from the herd –
lassoed, corralled and
broken;
like a shell found on the
beach
or an injured bird unable
to pursue
its migratory route,
I left the broad path
for the narrow and the
crooked
and now – no path at all
. . .
making my way as everyone
must
who tramps toward the
gates –
without precedent,
yet, with a Companion who
by turns comforts,
inspires, fortifies and
illumines the way ahead.
O child of God, Grace is
beyond your ken.
To whom much is given much is required.
The crux of embrace
As its fragrance is
hidden in the rose,
my Beloved said,
so My presence is hidden
in the human heart.
Under our noses, Lord –
undetected
within ourselves and
others.
Only faith and desire
keep us daring
the crux of embrace.
Yes, the heart gets tipsy
at the first nip
of Your wine – dances in
it’s cage;
deeper in the cup, it
grows weepy and ponderous.
And when Your fire sweeps
through –
first, a searing pain,
then . . . burned rubble
from which to look out
sheepishly upon the world.
But, You promised us, You
promised Your presence
every moment woven into
the heart’s delicate
warp and weft, so pervasively,
the rose,
having never set tender
foot beyond its vast domain,
goes about wailing and
weeping
at the absence of its own
scent.
O child of God, turn from
the world’s enticements
to discover within, the
fragrance of God.
The darshan moment
Living for tomorrow
is a pilgrim in the
queue,
absently fingering a
garland,
inching his way toward
darshan.
Living in the past – a
pilgrim
walking back to the
retreat
empty-handed under the
stars,
the warmth fading in his
chest.
O pilgrim! Edge your way into the darshan moment!
Within the doors you’ve
burst through,
in the kneeling and
bowing moment,
on the floor of cold
stone tears.
He awaits you – expects
you – every moment,
a cleft of shoulder and
neck
in which to hide your crumbling
face
and empty your heart; a
pillar to lean on,
a gaze from eyes shining
with an unearthly love.
O child of God, live in
the darshan moment.
Before and after are the
nuances of a listless dream.
Confine yourself
O Meher, You confined
Yourself – in the Jopdhi,
in the table-cabin, in
the bamboo cage,
in sundry mountain caves,
in the blue bus,
in a hut atop Tembi Hill;
in the crypt before . . .
and after
it became Your Tomb.
You confined Yourself –
in Your great Silence; in
Your human body.
You confined Yourself,
perhaps
to show how we might be
free.
O pilgrim, retire now to
the narrow,
holy cell of remembrance;
of contemplation
and meditation; fetter
your mind and tongue
to the unyielding
repetition of His name.
Confine yourself to God.
If God is not enough,
what is?
O child of God, it’s
Illusion that’s restrictive,
repetitive and
tedious. The Truth of Meher is boundless.
Where my heart used to be
You left a ruby where my
heart used to be.
There’s a fire inside
that stone.
Now the world is a busy
dream
on the periphery of its
hard lucidity.
Now its heat and glow
is the gauge of my every
endeavor.
The myriad paths of my
calculations
peter out into sunlit
fields and green woods;
wires cross and sputter;
mechanisms derail.
Cause and effect? –
Hoisted on its own petard.
This balladeer is a
drunkard and a romantic, yes,
yet, when he stumbles and
injures himself,
he remains thoroughly
intoxicated,
his Dulcinea ever more
pure and wieldy.
Just so, the fire in the
stone
rules his prodigal heart
–
for what would deter it?
In joy, it burns. In suffering, it burns.
O child of God, nurture
the flame within.
This burning is the foot
path to liberation.
On parting
We wish each other the
best . . . but, really,
what might we hope for
one another?
Our itinerant Lord, from
the new life’s path,
spoke of hopelessness.
I begin to catch His
drift,
many hopes and partings
later.
To believe in Benevolence
Eternal
is to eschew hope, to
shake the dust
from our sandals every
step,
tendering the apples of
our eyes
what our Lord tenders . .
. hopeless love;
not a thought for
ourselves . . .
or others – hopeless love!
No prayers but praise for
the One
whose totality of Love
and Mercy
allows not hope’s grip
nor foothold.
O child of God, timid
hearts hope.
The brave-hearted love . . . regardless of outcome.
