The Grand Illusion

The Grand Illusion
 
Existence, the Mystics suggest,
is like a motion picture. 
 
Become quiescent and watch
the scenes play out, the plotlines unfold. 
 
Become a bit player
and an audience member at the same time.
 
Accept the unfolding script
as being written by Another,
 
your reactive involvement
involuntarily abetting the Grand Illusion.
 
Do your best (as Meher suggests)
at your God-given tasks and leave Him the rest.
 
O child of God, share your thoughts
but do not overstep your bounds.           

   

Just because

Just because
 
There is just one because.
For everything, for anything.
 
Just one because. We blame fate,
circumstances, ourselves and others,
 
the Devil himself for our misfortunes,
our failures, tragedies and heartaches,
 
but there’s just one because.
For everything, for anything.
 
Such is our dilemma, o lovers!
To love God just because God is God;
 
just because that is the way
His game is played
 
and there is no other. 
So pluck up your courage, o lovers!
 
Face your Creator in all His fearsome aspects
and yourself in all your human frailties 
 
and pray to love Him selflessly, unconditionally –
(the one definitive attribute of true love).
 
O child, God is love (per Meher) and love is God. 
Love God and become God.      

                     

His silence

His silence
 
I’m alone most of these days
with various entertainments handy
 
to keep life’s underlying silence
from seeping in – His silence –
 
a mystery which I am loath to explore,    
it being too lonely and daunting,  
 
too much like nothingness and death
for my frantic mind to contemplate.
 
Is my life so shallow, Lord, that its only charm
is in its excitations and adventures
 
with nothing substantial underneath?
Does its ephemerality render it trivial? 
 
My Lord grants me a gestured reply, 
inviting me to meet Him there –
 
on the edge of the great mystery; to partake
of its silence; to explore its nothingness.
 
I, in turn, recite timidly that old hymn’s refrain –
Lord, take my hand and lead me home.
 
O child of God, it is your mind that is troubled.
Employ only the heart to obey the Silent One.   

A slow roast

A slow roast

I’m in a holding pattern,

awaiting further instructions.

I have rummaged my way   

through this world’s various offerings

and what once engaged me

is now but a shadow play,

a Punch and Judy show

before an unruly crowd.

This spiritual longing is a slow roast

and it’s no fun – all my worldly desires

 

condensed into and focused upon the One,

His Presence ever near,

His sharp flame gathered at the point

like the head of a spear.

O child of God, no need to flee the world –

let the world flee from you.   

               

Until you remember

 Until you remember

There must be some mistake. 

The name on my birth certificate,

the photo on my passport.  That’s not who I am.

I’m not a white, male homo sapiens.

I am not an American, a Southerner,

an earthling.  I am not a seeker,

a poet, a Libra, a lover.

I am not a brother, a father, a grandfather, 

(though my loved ones call me that).

I am not a Baba lover,

(though Lord Meher is my Beloved).

I am not a collection of attributes.

I am none of the labels

that have been placed upon me

by others and by myself.  

belong to no category. 

Not this, not that. I am nothing

but a living lie (per Meher) of the truth that is me.

O child of God, you will remain a spectral wanderer

until the moment you remember Who you really are.   

 

Meanwhile

Meanwhile
 
Do not seek the truth;
advised Zen Master Seng-ts’an
 
way back in the sixth century –
only cease to cherish opinions.
 
Meanwhile, here in the modern world,
it seems that most of my contemporaries
 
consider strong convictions to be a badge of honor,
swiftly expressing an opinion on any and every subject.
 
The old pejorative opinionated
has become an adjective of praise.   
 
But pray we keep in mind, o pilgrims,
it is our false selves
 
with our inherent prejudices
and limited perspectives that form our opinions,
 
ofttimes losing sight of our common humanity     
and separating us from Truth’s inviolable whole.  
 
O child of God, to cease to cherish opinions         
          is nigh impossible.
To admit their inherent limitations, less so.   

 

On the threshold

On the threshold
 

I’ve moved into a mixed neighborhood.

A Zen Buddhist lives to the left of me.

A mystic Christian to my right.

In the park across the street,

a dervish whirls daily among the trees.

At night they gather on my porch

to serenade me with Christmas carols. 

Meher Baba interprets for my deaf ears.

I stand in the doorway, wishing

I had the throat to join them.

In or out, Baba gestures to me.

Not on the threshold.  In or out.  In or out.

O child of God, it’s sung in every language –

this world is not my home.         

                                     

My personal plot

My personal plot
 
Come away from the world.
Putter about in your flowerbed
 
while you are still able.
This poetry is my personal plot –
 
colors and scents,
charming and unworldly,
 
springing from the dark soil;
lively and comely under my doting care.
 
Stop reacting to the world
and it will soon leave you
 
to the ethereal peace
of your garden’s budding beauty.
 
O child of God, abandon the dream
and move nearer to Reality. 

(painting by Joe DiSabatino)

              

So many words

So many words
 
A ghost of my former self,
I’m floating high above the hostile terrain.
 
My mask has been jerked away
and there is no one behind it. 
 
Words are mere stains
on a page, flat and stodgy
 
or wind through the larynx,
empty as a whistle.
 
Waiting with a blank mind
for the poem to come
 
while it is the blank mind
I should be trying to express.
 
Every surrounding thing
now has become extraneous,
 
keeping me achingly shy
of my one central purpose.
 
O child of God, so many words you use
to describe the ineffable.                             
 
(drawing by Rich Panico)

 

Tongue-tied

Tongue-tied 
 
Analogies are a poor substitute for actuality,
as the dream-life is a poor substitute for Reality.
 
I’m coming to the end of descriptions,
writing poems few will ever read.
 
As I fade into singularity and eccentricity,
words become clumsy under my fingers,
 
more ambiguous, less precise.
Not from a lack of vocabulary
 
but a lack of Truth, a tongue-tied lack of God.
I’m chasing down my own death,
 
after which my insufficience  
will return me yet again to the quest.
 

O child of God, listen carefully to the silence 
you keep trying to fill with words.   

            

Rabbit hole

Rabbit hole
 
Words again (and again) after
waking up from some rabbit hole dream
 
to the more familiar one (known as my life),
having lost my command of words,
 
especially the verbs, which demand
I take some sort of remedial action.
 
After a lifetime of interpreting/
explaining myself (and life) to myself, 
 
my stable of words has become as rebellious,
untethered and empty now as the rabbit hole itself –
 
(not a scintilla of wonder or adventure left in it).
I chalk out one more two-dimensional conjecture,
 
tasteless and stale on the sidewalk at my feet
as it is in my mouth and ears
 
and I ask myself – is it my words
that are so ineffectual or is it the dream itself? 
 
O child of God, how difficult it is to put into words
that which you know nothing about.

(drawing by Rich Panico)

      

   

Imagine God

Imagine God
 
To realize God (say the Mystics), 
extinguish your candle.
 
God in His Oneness, manifests
only when duality is broken
 
and the seeker is no more.
In the interim between
 
the first crush and annihilation,
the lover must in all good faith
 
imagine a life of Oneness
and behave accordingly –
 
with inviolate composure and devotion,
marking time until the Truth reveals Itself. 
 
O child, take God to be the Sole Doer
and become the Truth you already are.  

Under His thumb

Under His thumb
 
He was the distant Observer of my youth,
remote enough not to cramp my style.
 
By middle age, I sought a deeper bond,
hoping to escape my fears by settling
 
securely under His thumb. 
These latter years, I take Him for granted,
 
the Great Sustainer, without Whom
there is no Existence and no reason to exist.
 
O child, God is immutable; only ourselves
and our perspectives change with time.   

               

From the inside out

From the inside out
 
Don’t worry, be happy, said my Lord,
which seems, at first, a mere pleasantry,
 
but, o pilgrim, where does your happiness abide?
And on what does your happiness depend?
 
If it comes from the outside
(rather than from the inside out),
 
if it’s something you must
repeatedly chase down;
 
if it is, in fact, dependent on anything
apart from your relationship with God,
 
you are forever vulnerable
to its capricious abandonment. 
 
And how to be happy (per Meher)
from the inside out? 
 
Surrender fearlessly to the terrible
vagaries of the original Whim.
 
O child of God, surrender is when
happiness transcends into sublimity.      

My box of sand

My box of sand
 
I am laboring to unearth the great Mystery
in a sandbox with my trowel and pail,
 
sculpting explanatory castles   
that will not survive the first hard rain.
 
My colleagues and I have our pointed discussions –
sort of like Mel and Ella trading scat rifts.
 
What matters (I have timidly surmised)
is acceptance, devotion, faith and permission,
 
none of which originates with the worshipper.
I go easy on myself.  I’m burdened in a peculiar way.
 
I survey this miraculous realm (of which
I am also made) and what should inspire awe
 
doesn’t – because I am an impenetrable dullard,
built that way per God’s great Whim,
 
thus my search for Truth never leaves
the six-by-six confines of my box of sand.
 
O child, you are an illusory fragment of the One God,
perfectly outfitted with your human imperfections.  

      

The dream of self

The dream of self
 
Adventures, calamities of all sorts
occur in our dreams.
 
All the while, we sleep snug in our beds,
well beyond the drama, safe from all misfortunes.
 
In this dream of life (per Meher)
we experience an array of dangers,
 
sufferings and heartaches,
while our true Self (per Meher),
 
hovering ever near, remains aloof
and untouched, pristinely unaffected;
 
beyond the reach
of damage, alteration or death.
 
O child of God, the Awakener has come
to rouse you from the dream of self.