Remnants of the Way

Remnants of the Way                                                                                 

Once the Way is lost, Lao Tzu taught,

then comes virtue – birthing innumerable sins,

the far-reaching and the trivial –

pride, disdain, judgment,

envy, division, exclusion . . .

inevitably creating its opposite;   

setting up the incessant battle within.

All because we have strayed

from the original mandate; abandoned God

as constant Companion, inner arbiter and guide, 

creating instead our own world

from the remnants of the Way,

striving without wisdom, purity or strength

to live by (and constantly failing) our own rules.

O child of God, the Way, the Truth and the Life

is the lost inheritance of each soul.

The sum of existence

The sum of existence                                                                    

Seven times seventy, instructed Jesus.

Because a grudge-bearer like myself

is not really who I am and the trespasser

is not to blame and truth is honored

in the surrender of forgiveness. 

The culprit being a provisional, apparently

essential, impostor sorting out and managing

the mind’s disparate sensations

but errant in its identification with the body

and mind creating within each of us

an artificial separation from the sum of existence.

Self-perpetuating, without compunction,

navigating illusion, keeping us rigidly

to the karmic path, but that ill-borne personality,

impermanent and transitional,

is not (as per my Lord) who I am.

I am the Self, a God-infused,

love-instilled, eternal ocean-drop of soul.

O child of God, compare the Oneness of God

to the cramped duality of your inner being.

Meherabad Hill

Meherabad Hill

A song rises from the crest of Meherabad Hill

and enters, also, my heart; sets my eyes to weeping.

A sacred rose opened perfectly in the garden

one February morning;

the honeybees flitting from flower to flower.

The banyan trees whisper to lovers climbing the Hill,

but only to the quiet ones, listening already with their hearts.

That glorious morning I entered a proper pilgrim into Baba’s Tomb.

Hours later, I emerged a drunkard, singing songs of the Tavern.

Motor traffic on the road to Ahmednagar, shouts and loud laughter.

All those people hurrying past the Tomb of my Beloved.

The night is deep and jeweled.  From this Hill I could touch the moon.

Someone already has – leaving His prints on the old man’s face.

O child of God, at Arti you wept through all three prayers.

How did you come to this place after so many years of wandering?

This old house

This old house                                                                                           

This old house grumbles

in the wee hours of wind and rain;

my body griping, too, lying awake –

cramped muscles, aching back,

the roil of digestion, urgency in the bladder.

Running through the usual worries, my mind,

distraught, complains of a lack of diversion

while my heart aches for refuge and peace.

But there is another part of me awake,

unmolested by all the bother –

the core of me which You have unveiled,

employing these awakenings for communion,

solace and a centering upon You,

the warmth of Your presence flowing

from the hub of my being to hush and settle

all the rancor of the peripheries.

O child of God, the storm didn’t wake you.

Your Lord has called you to His court.