This Soul is from elsewhere

Enough of the poor translations
Of half-truths, and beautiful illusions
I want the sanctuary that silence binds

The golden press of pure meditation
That what I love, I will become
So I will raise my words
And not my voice and all that is
Healing will be my hands

And like rains unto the flowers
I will be the cool gentleness
To change the world, I’ll change myself

I will learn to be so calm
That peace will drive all happiness
And I will age with grace and pause
And I won’t hold on and I won’t let go
I’ll just be the soul of the universe
That is love, in chaos find a sign of order.

Mystic Garden #Quote #Poetry

Deeper than me that almost no one knows

The Universe feels
From distances and echoed times
Behold love, in the heart of everyone

An undivided wisdom of a trillion beings
Melted in Love’s own fire
Our spirits flow
Glamor of the rose

Heights of the Heavens
Tremendous opportunity of the cosmos
I feel the source run through me

Wonder-breathing flowers
Gratitude-thinking sun
And all the spirit’s weak lyric repose
And all flavours of mortality

Perfume of the petals of spring
And all the secrets the stars disclose
To galaxy and brethren

In the unaccomplished aeons
My descendants will find a way
To build a love that can endure.

Exile to Bhakti

Exile to Bhakti

I am mad with love
And the ages will not understand
Why I forsake a normal life
For God, for art, for devotion

And no one will understand
My plight, but maybe Sufis
Those that listen for the Tao
Only the wounded

Can understand the agonies of the wounded
Only the downtrodden
Can feel the fire of the rage
Of the impoverished

The Angels knew this
And that is why I am ever
I am made with love
Not for a person, but people

Not for one people, for all life
Not for a God, a symbol or a saint
But for in the possession
Of love that is a lack

But in the recognition of it
I found love habituated
Every part of the world
All the known planets

And found everything beautiful
And somehow nothing worthy of
Divine love, that is why
People know so little about the universe.

The idea of Bounty

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”
~ Denis Waitley

If we can learn to live
Without desire
We can find peace
The mother of it all

Freedom, that has no name
And names can be changed
To suit the needs of the time
But the secrets to living

Are as old as life itself
There is a deep mystery
Around giving thanks
That gratitude, that is its own gate

A prayer that asks not
Anything for itself
But rather, enobles the offering
I am grateful to be part

Of the world
I am grateful to be part
Of society
I am grateful to be alive

Beneath this cosmos
Where beauty and truth
Are actually so wondrous
I feel the non-existence

Behind all that grows and dies
In time, I feel the energy
In space itself, between
Mountains and the sky

And how the trees give
Back to the air
And how the rivers
Sooth the aching earth.

Significant Other

I’ve braided your looks
Into my soul like
A knot of nurturance

Your burgundy tongue
Of earth-laced hope
In truth, I’m not sure

I would survive without you
The writing that writes in me
And the art of harmony

Incarnated in our daily lives
Through the paired fortunes
Of our highs and lows

I live in awe of your embrace
Your laugh over our ashes
The destiny of waiting

A lifetime just for a moment
We’ve swam in darkness
Endured a loyalty of stupidity

To people who were ingenuine
I’ve tattooed your language
Into my consciousness

That I might be able to
Speak and write mandarin
Poems one day, so that

The spoken tongues
Of the ancient Taoists
Might speak through me.

Photography courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Giulia-Mihai-Flowers-501597812

Paradox of Thought

I aspire to silence the voices
That I may speak for all voices
The function of a room is
To keep the body well

The function of a mind is
To keep the soul serene
I will never hear the one true voice
But in the Tao I find ultimate empathy

And I give it to all creatures here
And in silence I feel the snowflakes
The clouds, the trees, the light
In a whole new way against

The night, alive in the day
I become like the breeze
That rustles the leaves
And by disappearing to myself

I have room to identify with everything
That is the function of silence
My friend, we’ve thought of how
The poet spoke the thoughts

Of history, well as a finger points
To the stars, the mind dreams
In silence, language finds God.

Lush

Lush

I had the courage to
Let go of thoughts
And found myself living in Silence

There highest knowledge
Was unbounded like a gold
Center of the void
Delimited by duality
I could see the unity-sphere

And I had the experience
Of nearness to emptiness
Tao is the source of these

Of unity, silence, emptiness
And I felt a sweet surrender
Letting go of what I wanted
Letting go of what I had planned
For something about the universe

That attracted me to living
In the moment, looking at
A flock of birds, or reading
The poem of the world
In fullness to myself
Reverberating with everything.

Once upon a time you were free

Happiness is the absence
Of attachment, I know
It’s hard to believe
But in that freedom
You can empathize with
The cosmos, and are more
Aware of the unity-of-everything

Flow with whatever may happen
Let your mind be free
Stay centered in experience
A path is made by walking on it
Love is made by serving it
Happiness is turning inwards

In the solitude of awakening
Awakening to spiritual reality
Unposssessed by material things
It’s hard to believe bliss
Could be object-less, but
It’s only pleasure that requires objects.

The Soul Achieves Herself without effort

Gradual is our relationship
with the grace behind nature
another spectral October Fall
how the wizard sun confines

and the flamingo sunsets wave goodbye
the fires ebb, the flowers cease
their sport, the stars wink
at snowflakes on their fall

to carpet a sparkling web
sapphire moments drift by
at dusk in the cities
there is a soft glimmer

in the streets, it is cold outside
as we bow one by one into
our brief solitude, with visions
to guide us for the labours of tomorrow

paralyzed by the savings of gold
or the lack of savings in our bank accounts
the wisdom of life is a brief release
the details we once scrutinized

no longer seem so important after all
to live a good life, means different things
at separate points in our story
and nothing in the end intoxicates

like the God neurochemical
call it what you will, the spirit
lives on after all these subplots
the search for a diviner brand

of metaphysics, philosophy, utopia
until there are no visitors to our soul
but a diviner truth, a more united feeling
gradual is our relationship
with what’s beyond the scope of years.

Photo Courtesy:

1. http://www.deviantart.com/art/Be-on-the-road-with-warmly-thoughts-482560577
2. http://www.deviantart.com/art/Deer-Collaboration-483167431

Having a Kafka Moment

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.
~ John Milton

i’ve been growing old slower
with all this beauty around me
my peers lately, have been chatting
about the power of gratitude

every revolution evaporates
so why bother, bureaucracy
prevails, politicians are corrupt

i’ve been growing old slower
since i started not doing politics
not being political, learning
to be productive in the spheres

that aren’t touched by the marketplace
i’ve learned not to lie, by staying silent
i no longer read advertisements

i no longer occupy my time with wanting things
i’ve been growing old slower
with a quiet beginning of understanding
the first wish to die has risen in me

like a bud that will flower
a medication from my own substance
i have the true feeling of myself

only when i give up happiness and unhappiness
there, the world will present itself
to you with its unmasking
like a child that only wants to play

i’ve been growing old more slowly
in theory where I abandon the second world
the idea that suffering is necessary

that pain is a natural argument of time
i’d rather read a book
that serves as an ax for
the frozen sea within me

and associate myself with human beings
that not only lure me into a self-observation
but allow me to laugh at myself better

or realize how pathetically scant
my self-knowledge is compared to say
the awareness that I am growing older
and care less for my youthful failures

by consequence of a natural decline in memory
it’s there, that evil is whatever distracts
me from whatever I consider my calling

at the time, did I mention that
i’ve been growing old more slowly
since I’ve surrounded myself with kind women?
it’s true, women are precisely

my favorite religion, i could hide
in their dogma for any number of years
feeling totally young in their emotions

find many hiding places listening
smiling to their relationship-antagonists.

lineage of non-duality

Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.
~ Saint Teresa of Avila

on the terrace of immortals
i am laughing at mortality
I climb straight to silence

where there is no ambiguity
my eyes are like jade cubes of ice
they smile into the wind
and tear at the rainy sun

through favor or disfavor
I pay no mind at all….
in poverty or solitude

through the dreams of living
be filled with uncertainty and doubt
i speak the original language
of waiting without thinking

of loving without seizing
taking a page out of Wu Cailan’s
indifference, i find the shinning moonlight

is whiter than long ago
what’s the use of contending?
with grief or disgrace?
to both I can aptly respond

only light resides in the
city of the mind, in the
distance of the heart

that knows no separation
between places, centuries, entities
we drift happily like the clouds
our lives turn like the leaves.

into the Tao

Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin; to say that you are weak, or others are weak.

~ Swami Vivekananda

these are great trees
to walk below, temple breeze
on our back
at the edge of dusk
past dew into the greenest moss

we keep it clean
past the gate
into the great-dream

without expectation
we witness beauty
in forever new ways
wandering mountain monks
who have forgotten everything

but the candle and the meditation
the temple tree path
where we follow orange footsteps

into the sea, sequence of sunsets
autumn’s embrace of crystal ripples
on the lake that doesn’t move
ready for the white moon
to shine incandescent above everything

nothing can waver, time cannot bend
to our little will, not willing to return
we leave the world behind
to others who will learn
to leave the universe behind.

SUFI PSALM III

When I to you have reached the Eternal Calm
That no matter or experience can emulate
I will explain to be in the presence of God
So unlike the God or Good I once imagined
As if with the best friend magnified times infinity
Sharing pilgrimage so humbly, my final festival
Never let me forget that Celebration, the loves that
Tastes like meeting, and in all farewells remembers the spark
Of awakened eyes that stops the beasts and flowers
To the river of Prophets I have no more to say
O’ my two private friends, faith and reason
At last you have reconciled your old duality
At the place of Beloved contemplation, last meditation
Lost in that place of bewilderment and amazement
Shall I to perceive the fountain of life
Since water is the source of everything
And Light is the creator of all water
Let us listen to the songs of the Dolphins and the Angels
If I fast, if I am poor, If I sacrifice, it is only
To speed up my union with my Beloved.

Treatise on Silence

Wherefore of one cannot speak
Thereof one must be silent
For silence is listening to the universal

Doing nothing is better than
Being busy doing nothing
Doing nothing is silence of action

Therefore be vulnerable and open
Being open to beauty and bounty everywhere
Therefore be silent and have reverence

It is the space within that makes it useful
There are times when the only correct
Thing to do is to bear out troubles

Until a better day, therefore be patient
As patient as the moon, which does not fight
It attacks no one, it does not worry

It keeps to its natural course and nature
Be as a gentle influence upon others
A subtle light of friendship and hope.

Treatise on Lao Tzu III

He who obtains has little
He who scatters has much
So be like water, go everywhere
Experience everything, experiment

That is the quickest way to learning
She who loves the world
Finds easiest the world inside herself
The sage does not hoard, for there

Is no such thing as real hoarding
The more he helps others
The more he benefits himself
the more she gives to others

The more she gets herself
The career of the sage is personal
Yet the rewards are always impersonal
Nothing is softer or more flexible

As water, so be as water
Nothing will then be able to resist you
Agree to lose yourself, that you may
Be transformed into something else

When virtue is lost, compassion appears
When suffering is endured with a smile
Order begins to stir in the system
For all systems are the same, like water.

Treatise on Chuang Tzu II

I love the taste of surrender
Happiness is the absence of the
striving for happiness, equanimity
How to feel exiting things are really one?

I love the lack of clinging in my days
I have let go of opinions, to admire
The living truth in others
I love the frequency of compassion

My simple importance revolves around
How generous can I be, how grateful?
I just want to breathe my own heels
Send my own dust into the light

Burn a few candles, ring a few bells
Feel infinity dwell in my bosom
For a few mortal nights, be empty
Wander where there is no path

I love the sense of indwelling silence
When it haunts, limitless like a dangerous
Software, it has sustained my inner life
The satchidananda neurotransmitter

Learning the use of uselessness
Learning how to act without acting:
Great truths do not take the heart of the masses
They teach a few how to strive no more

If this is the way, let me learn how to
Name the thing that has no name, as my friend
And be happy with things beyond words and understanding
I am tired of seeing a breaking down into many labels
It has become insufficient for my love of formlessness.

The Bamboo Gathering Sutra

I just close my eyes –
And I can see souls
That dwell above white stone

Waiting, with far-off voices
Calling the future
While candle wax burns

Off of my ignorance
A shower of white snow
That powdery wonder

Like sand-grain of infinity
I bathe in its glow
On a balcony looking out

Into nowhere, I feel the deep peace
Of years clocked only on a journey
Between star and star

I just close my eyes –
And I can remember lifetimes
The senile elements of realities

So brief, I watch them as the pretty
Wail of mandolins, the months
When we were young felt longer

I wait for the jasmine-gardened night
For the fragrance of tomorrow
The dawn where voices join

Like mouths that tremble under waterfalls
And dreams that float like Indian perfume.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Bamboo-Forest-Kyoto-170876421