I picked up the glass of water
A ring of residue remained
I wiped the surface
The table remained
I took away the table
The room remained
I took away the room
Its memory remained
I took away memory
Nothing remained.
Nothing had been there all along.
In Reflection
Cleanse me of all affectations
Move away the dark clouds
So that I may see a clear blue sky
And know
Through such a seeing
That I now stand face-to-face
with a truer reflection of me.
Help me deny meaning
To the sound of my thoughts
And the words of my speech
So that I may understand
That these sounds belong not to me
But are the lyrical oracle
Of the whispering wind.
Reveal to me that my laughter
Is but the human expression
Of a gurgling, falling stream
That embraces every stubborn rock
With good humor, born from inherent faith
A knowing that no rock can stop
The powerful current of overflowing joy.
When I see before me
A sprightly bed of beaming yellow flowers
Do not fail to remind me
That although my eyes see
The yellow-ness of the flowers
It is really the flowers seeing
Their beautiful brightness through me.
And then
Why must I fear my desires
Or suffer them as a perversion
When in truth
They are the fire
Whose flames rapidly rise
In eternal longing of the highest virtue.
Lead me to realize
That the essence of my conflicts
Lies in my having made true
The non-existent, the false
The personal, the ‘me’
And that I have lived
In severance and in denial of the true.
I have fashioned myself
From the gift of your senses
And called them ‘mine’
But I exist not
Apart from you-
O Fire, Earth, Wind, Sea and Sky
I exist as you and for you.
The Mind
The mind is movement
perceived by the virtue of stillness
It is an influent
whose ultimate source
and ultimate end
is a mystery.
Watch then, you
with the eyes of your soul
its spectre of affections:
of fear and sorrow
of longing and ecstasy.
And even though
in its search for truth
it makes things true
Distance its truth
as one would a lie
And marvel at its virtuosity.
Appreciate it
As you would appreciate a Monet
not just for an enchanting picture painted
but also for seeking to understand
the illuminating and glorious
light of the day.
Right now
Time, our common inheritance, is given to us bit by bit, in instalments. It is apprehended as the gap between two experiences or two memories. We experience time in our experience of having moved forward, or in having left behind an experience or in having grown. It is in the growth of our consciousness that we experience time. And although it is our common gift, we differ in the way we experience time…in what we choose to do with it. For some, time is the dull, aching persistence of memory. For others, it’s marked by the chase of a desire for an imagined future. Our being is often torn between our past and our worries or hopes for the future.
Our experience of time is dependent upon the quality, quantity and pre-occupations of our thoughts. The more the thoughts and the more they revolve around your self and your plans, the more you will stand defeated. The rich rewards time yields can never be claimed by one who is under the captivity of his/her own mind. They can only be reaped by those who are free of their past and have faith in a yet unseen future. This faith allows them to live without fear-in the here and the now.
We swim through life in a sea of eternity. The past, present and future are our mental constructs; they have no basis in reality. We simply move from the present to the present, bit-by-bit. We grow, or at least we ought to, in our ability to grasp the wealth of a single moment. Right now is all I am bequeathed. Right now is all that I have.
My grand ideas keep me from appreciating the little. I equate ‘more’ with ‘more’. I’m unable to see that in the dimension of time, a breadth of accomplishment lies in the depth of a moment. Is it possible that in this moment of a single breath, I accomplish all that I must accomplish. In wanting something more than what this moment is offering me, am I not missing something? What is a year after all, if not an exponential day? And what is a day, if not an exponential hour? And what is an hour, if not an exponential minute?
The question then should be : How do I raise the power of my present? The only way to raise the power of the present is to LIVE IN IT. Living in the present requires that we be free of worry and entrenched in faith. The faithless move from one enchantment to the next, foolishly bypassing the miracles of their own lives. Unable to see the value in their existence as it is, they long for another. In their longing, plans and journeys are made, things are acquired and positions sought. They wait for that moment when they will taste the times they long for, looking down in irritation at the present that seems so indifferent and ordinary. They often talk about ‘killing’ time, rather than ‘living’ it. To have faith, is to awaken to the power of both- REASON and INTUITION. A person of faith knows that he has all that he needs to ride heroically on this moment. It’s not wiled away in longing, but befriended through an exchange of capabilities. The moments are lived as a celebration; they’re not wasted in planning a celebration. The wise know that there is nothing to be gained in life, that life-in this moment- is the gain itself.
Right now-
I realized
Cannot be met
With charming words
It will meet you only in silence.
Right now-
Wants and desires
An immediate and intense union
A disappearance of two
And the appearance of the one.
Right now-
Refuses to conform
To the conventional, the old
Where the world ‘exists’ in a long-dead relationship
Between subject and predicate.
Right now-
I am worthless in what I know and possess
But valuable (I sense)
In my sheer presence
Beggared of all accumulated wealth.
Right now-
I am humbled
By this lack of basic ability
To share with you
The gift of the new.
Right now-
I realize
I shall have to make do
With greeting cards and amusing knick-knacks
To convey fossilized feelings to you.
Right now-
I appreciate the distance between us
Hoping that wherever you are
You are alone, immersed in your own presence
Receiving this gift that I lack the ability to give.
Poem
What is a poem
if not a reflection
of the mystery of my being…
How can I claim authorship
or even meaningful intent
When my own existence
is as momentary
as a drawing in still waters.
Living on a prayer
I breathe who breathes
I am one, I am all
In the span of one breath
I rise and I fall.
There’s nothing I am
There’s nothing I’m not
I come into being
From the womb of your thought.
In your heart I exist
As longing, as pain
For every loss of illusion
I stand as your gain.
When clouded by darkness
Having lost sight of trust and love
Keep your feet on the ground
And your gaze above.
This and That
For something to be this
there’s got to be that
For all that is good
there’s got to be bad
The more you try to hide
the more you show
In order to have
you’ve got to let go
Seemingly far away
when measured from what’s near
Strength only emerges
in the face of fear
For everything I’ll know
there are two things I won’t
So the more I know
the more I don’t.
Anonymous
I could not have written
All that I seem to have written
Considering
I understand more fully
‘my own thoughts’
Long after
The pen has traced
Their smooth moonwalk.
Passing Away
When so many of my beliefs died
Did anybody mourn their passing?
There were no condolences; no warm compassionate hug
Were they worthy of only an indifferent shrug?
Why then am I programmed to grieve
The decay of mortal flesh and bone?
What belief is that
Which brings me back to your graveyard stone?
And what will happen
When that belief too shall pass away?
Will I mourn your death
Or shrug it away?
Retribution
He stabbed her repeatedly
in the chest
with daggered words
sharp
honed with hate and spite…
Love can be a lethal cocktail
Dangerously acidic
He threw it in her face
repeatedly
Stunned by his outrage
She sat there and silently wept;
now empty, beggared and bereft
of all guard, ammunition and daggered words…
“I just don’t have the words,” she said
“He stole them from me.”
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 