Sacred Poetry – from the walk September 1

RUMI

Come, come, whoever you are
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come.

……………………………………………

The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere,
they’re in each other all along.

………………………………………………………

There is a candle in your heart,
ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul,
ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?
You feel the separation
from the Beloved.
Invite Him to fill you up,
embrace the fire.
Remind those who tell you otherwise that
Love comes to you of its own accord,
and the yearning for it
cannot be learned in any school.

………………………………………………………………………..

Those who don’t feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don’t drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don’t want to change,
let them sleep.
This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
I you want to improve your mind that way,
sleep on.
I’ve given up on my brain.
I’ve torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.
If you’re not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,
and sleep.

…………………………………………………………………………

There is some kiss we want with
our whole lives, the touch of
spirit on the body. Seawater
begs the pearl to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling! At
night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine. Breathe into
me. Close the language- door and
open the love window. The moon
won’t use the door, only the window.

……………………………………………………………

Learn the alchemy true human beings know.
The moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given,
the door will open.
Welcome difficulty as a familiar comrade.
Joke with torment brought by the Friend.
Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets
that serve to cover, then are taken off.
That undressing and the beautiful naked body underneath,
is the sweetness that comes after grief.
The hurt you embrace becomes joy.
Call it to your arms where it can change.

……………………………………………………………

Nibble at me
Don’t gulp me down
How often is it you have a guest in your house
Who can fix everything?

………………………………………………………………….

If God said, Rumi, pay homage
to everything that has helped you enter my arms
There would not be one experience of my life
Not one thought, not one feeling
Not one act I would not bow to.

………………………………………………………………………..

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings.
Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty & frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

……………………………………………………………………………….

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Br grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

……………………………………………………………………………..

Look at love
how it tangles
with the one fallen in love
Look at spirit
how it fuses with earth
giving it new life
Why are you so busy
with this or that or good or bad?
Pay attention to how things blend
Why talk about all
the known and the unknown?
See how the unknown merges into the known
why think seperately
of this life and the next
when one is born from the last
Look at your heart and tongue
one feels but deaf and dumb
the other speaks in words and signs
Look at water and fire
earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once.
the wolf and the lamb
the lion and the deer
far away yet together
look at the unity of this
spring and winter
manifested in the equinox
you too must mingle my friends
since the earth and the sky
are mingled just for you and me
be like sugarcane
sweet yet silent
don’t get mixed up with bitter words
my beloved grows
right out of my own heart
how much more union can there be

…………………………………………………………………………

Who is at my door?
He said, “Who is at my door?”
I said, “Your humble servant.”
He said, “What business do you have?”
I said, “To greet you, 0 Lord.”

He said, “How long will you journey on?”
I said, “Until you stop me.”
He said, “How long will you boil in the fire?”
I said, “Until I am pure.

“This is my oath of love.
For the sake of love
I gave up wealth and position.”

He said, “You have pleaded your case
but you have no witness.”
I said, “My tears are my witness;
the pallor of my face is my proof.’
He said, “Your witness has no credibility;
your eyes are too wet to see.”
I said, “By the splendor of your justice
my eyes are clear and faultless.”

He said, “What do you seek?”
I said, “To have you as my constant friend.”
He said, “What do you want from me?”
I said, “Your abundant grace.”

He said, “Who was your companion on the ‘ourney?
I said, “The thought of you, 0 King.”
He said, “What called you here?”
I said, “The fragrance of your wine.”

He said, “What brings you the most fulfillment?”
I said, “The company of the Emperor.”
He said, “What do you find there?”
I said, “A hundred miracles.”
He said, “Why is the palace deserted?”
I said, “They all fear the thief.”
He said, “Who is the thief?”
I said, “The one who keeps me from -you.

He said, “Where is there safety?”
I said, “In service and renunciation.”
He said, “What is there to renounce?”
I said, “The hope of salvation.”

He said, “Where is there calamity?”
I said, “In the presence of your love.”
He said, “How do you benefit from this life?”
I said, “By keeping true to myself

Now it is time for silence.
If I told you about His true essence
You would fly from your self and be gone,
and neither door nor roof could hold you back!

………………………………………………………………………………

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, ‘How much is that?’
Oh, I’m just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.
What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly
in that moment,
in that shop.
Where did you go? “Nowhere.”
What did you have to eat? “Nothing much.”
Even if you don’t know what you want,
buy something – to be part of the exchanging flow.
Start a huge, foolish project,  like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

…………………………………………………………………………………..

HAFIZ

Our union is like this:
You feel cold so I reach for a blanket to cover
our shivering feet.
A hunger comes into your body
so I run to my garden and start digging potatoes.
You asked for a few words of comfort and guidance and
I quickly kneel by your side offering you
a whole book as a gift.
You ache with loneliness one night so much
you weep, and I say
here is a rope, tie it around me,
Hafiz will be your companion for life.

………………………………………………………………..

Now is the time to know
That all you do is sacred.
Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God.
Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child’s training wheels
To be laid aside
When you can finally live
With veracity and love.
Hafiz is a divine envoy
Whom the Beloved Has written a holy message upon.
My dear, please tell me,
Why do you still Throw sticks at your heart And God?
What is it in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?
Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.
This is the time
For you to compute the impossibility
That there is anything But Grace.
Now is the season to know
That everything you do is sacred.

…………………………………………………………………

Where dolphins dance again
The work starts
As soon as you open your eyes in the morning.
Hopefully you got some good rest last night.
Why go into the city or the fields
Without first kissing the Friend
Who always stands at your door?
It takes only a second.
Habits are human nature –
Why not create some that will mint
Gold?
Your arms are violin bows
Always moving.
I have become very conscious upon
Whom we all play.
Thus my eyes have filled with warm
Soft oceans of divine music
Where jeweled dolphins dance
Then leap into this world.

…………………………………………………..

Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them,
“Love me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud,
otherwise someone would call the cops.
Still though, think about this,
this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying, with that sweet moon language,
What every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

………………………………………………………

All the Hemispheres
Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out
Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadow and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new watermark on your excitement
And love.
Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.
Change rooms in your mind for a day.
All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.
Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel back home.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of you.

……………………………………………………………………..

How did the rose ever open its heart
And give to this world all of its beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light against its being,
Otherwise we all remain too frightened.

……………………………………………………………

Know the true nature of your beloved
In his loving eyes
Your every thought, word and movement
Is always, always
Beautiful.

…………………………………………………………..

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth
“You owe me.”
Look what happens with a love like that
It lights up the world.

…………………………………………………………

God and I have become like two giant fat people
Living in a tiny boat.
We keep bumping into each other
And laughing.

……………………………………..

Just sit there right now
Don’t do a thing.
Just rest.
For your separation from God
Is the hardest work in this world.
Let me bring you trays of food
And something that you like to drink.
You can use my soft words
As a cushion for your head.

………………………………………………..

This place where you are right now
God circled on a map for you.
Wherever your eyes and arms and heart can move
against the earth and sky
the Beloved has bowed there –
Our Beloved has bowed there knowing  –
You were coming.

…………………………………………………….

I could tell you a priceless secret about
your real worth, dear pilgrim,
but any unkindness to yourself,
any confusion about others
will keep you
from accepting the grace, the love,
the sublime freedom
divine knowledge always offers you.

Never mind , Hafiz, about
the great requirements this path demands
of the wayfarers.

For your soul is too full of wine tonight
to withhold the wonderous Truth from this world.

But because I am so clever and generous,
I have already clearly woven a resplendent lock
of his tresses,
as a remarkable truth and gift
in this poem for you.

……………………………………………………………………..

It is not easy
To stop thinking ill of others.
Usually one must enter into a friendship
With a person
Who has accomplished that great feat himself.
Then something
Might start to rub off on you
Of that true elegance.

…………………………………………………………………………………

The sky is a suspended blue ocean.
The stars are the fish
That swim.
The planets are the white whales
I sometimes hitch a ride on,
And the sun and all light
Have forever fused themselves
Into my heart and upon my skin.
There is only one rule
On this Wild Playground,
For every sign Hafiz has ever seen
Reads the same.
They all say, “Have fun, my dear; my dear, have fun,
In the Beloved’s Divine Game,
O, in the Beloved’s Wonderful Game.”

…………………………………………………………………..

The sun once glimpsed God’s true nature
And has never been the same.
Thus that radiant sphere
Constantly pours its energy
Upon this earth
As does He from behind
The veil.
With a wonderful God like that
Why isn’t everyone a screaming drunk?
Hafiz’s guess is this:
Any thought that you are better or less
Than another
Quickly breaks the wine glass.

………………………………………………………………….

My beloved said, “My name is not complete without yours.”
I thought: How could a human’s worth ever be such?
And God, knowing all our thoughts –
And all our thoughts are innocent steps on the path-
Then addressed my heart.
God revealed a sublime truth to the world
When he sang, “I am made whole by your life
Each soul, each soul, completes me.”
………………………………………………………………………………..

KABIR

I felt in need of a great pilgrimage
So I sat still for three days
And God came to me.

……………………………………………………………

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think … and think … while you are alive.
What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death.

If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten –
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
You will simply end up with an apartment in the city
of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life
You will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity

……………………………………………………………………………………

I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travellers on the river-road, and no road.
Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or nesting?

There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.
There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.
There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no ford!

And there is no body, and no mind!
Do you believe there is some place that will make the
soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a solid place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don’t go off somewhere else!

Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of
imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are.

……………………………………………………………………………….

Are Looking for Me?
Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine
rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:
not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding
around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but
vegetables.
When you really look for me, you will see me
instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

…………………………………………………………….

The Bhakti Path
The bhakti path…
The bhakti path winds in a delicate way.
On this path there is no asking and no not asking.
The ego simply disappears the moment you touch him.
The joy of looking for him is so immense that you
just dive in, and coast around like a fish in the water.
If anyone needs a head, the lover leaps up to offer his.

……………………………………………………………

SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI

It was easy to love God
In all that was beautiful

The lessons of deeper knowledge
Though, instructed me
To embrace God in all things

……………………………………………………

MEISTER ECKHART

When I was the stream
When I was the forest
When I was still the field
When i was every foot, hoof, wing and fin
When I was the sky itself

No-one ever asked me did I have a purpose
No-one ever wondered was there anything I might need
For there was nothing I could not love

It was when I left all we once were
That the agony began
The fear and questions came
And I wept, I wept
And tears I had never known before.

So I returned to the river
I returned to the mountains
I asked for their hand in marriage again
I begged – I begged to wed every object and creature
And when they accepted
God was ever present in my arms
And he did not say, “Where have you been?”
For then I knew my soul – every soul –
Had always held him.

………………………………………..

If he let go of my hand
I would weep so loudly
I would petition with all my might
I would cause so much trouble
That I bet God would come to his sense
And never do that again.

…………………………………..
Everything I see, hear, touch, feel, taste
Speak, think, imagine
Is completing a perfect circle
God has drawn.

………………………………………………..

It is your destiny to see as God sees
To know as God knows
To feel as God feels

How is this possible? How?
Because divine love cannot defy its very self.

Divine love will be eternally true to its own being,
And its being is giving all it can
At the perfect moment.

And the greatest gift God can give
is his own experience.

Every object, every creature,
Every man, woman and child
Has a soul amnd it is the destiny of all
To see as God sees, to know as God knows
To feel as God feels
To be as God is.

…………………………………………………

CATHERINE OF SIENA

The sun hears the fields talking about effort
And the sun smiles
And whispers to me
“Why don’t the fields just rest
For I am willing to do everything
To help them grow?”
Rest, my dears, in prayer

………………………….

ST JOHN OF THE CROSS

You might quiet the whole world for a second
If you pray
And if you love
If you really love
Our guns would wilt.

…………………………………………….

What is Grace? I asked God
And He said
“All that happens.”
The He added, when I looked perplexed
“Could not lovers say “
that every moment in their Beloved’s arms
was Grace?
Existence is in my arms
Though I well understand
how one can turn away from me
until the heart has wisdom.

………………………………………

TUKARAM

Its the old shell trick
With a twist
I saw God put himself
In one of your pockets
You are bound to find him.

………………………….

JOHN O’DONOHUE

May all that is unforgiven in you be released
May your fears yield their deepest tranquillities
May all that is unlived in you
Blossom into a future graced with love.

………………………………………………………

FOR A NEW BEGINNING

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety,
And the grey promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

For Longing
Blessed be the longing that brought you here
and quickens your soul with wonder
May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.
May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.
May the forms of your belonging – in love, creativity and friendship
Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.
May the one you long for, long for you.
May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.
May a secret providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.
May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness
with which your body inhabits the world.
May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage
May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.
May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

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