The I of the Beholder

Love is and naught else, for God is Love.

The I which loves and desires to express

is divine indeed, however human.

If after passing from this individuated form

I long for Union there will be none so long as I am.

Should I meet Jesus' embrace how shall I and Christ be?

Should I merge into ha-Shem how shall That be echad if I am?

Paradise is grand, Heaven is indescribable, Union alone is Union – no I.

Rumi is not cavorting with any 72 virgins, he is gone, there is only One.

I, being in love, always want to behold the beloved,

and when this being-in-love ripens to perfection, being-in will fall

of its own as leaves nourishing the earth, and becoming love itself

the beholder will be no more and this I is naught but love itself.

The practice of humility is there to find a path toward effacement.

In its effacement in the Beloved does the I of the beholder attain its purpose,

and all the religion and all the sadhana and all the yoga and all the bhajan

are only there for this I to lose itself in waking up and arriving home.

All Women Are Created Equal

I long for a bygone Feminism without the ism which all morphed into the creature we have today

- which does not even bear addressing here -

I long for a Voice among Women and the Men who stand with them,

to expose and confront the mentality

in the still perpetrator-friendly and victim-hostile public mind

that when school girls, teenagers and young women

are being stalked, accosted, baited, lured, groomed

for a thoroughly primitive and brutal sex industry,

mistreated and beaten, repeatedly raped and forced into a hostage-slavery,

whether by networking pedophiles anywhere

or gangs of Pakistani Muslims in Rotherham or Boko Haram in Nigeria

- anywhere, everywhere: that when these are being spoken of, reported in the press, tsk-tsk'd as being unfairly "treated like whores or sluts"

(for their appearance or because they're often "poor white trash" etc.)

- I want it to go on record, if only this once, right here and on my board,

because I am really fed up over this central point and feel ready

to go out and take no prisoners:

NO "WHORE" AND NO "SLUT" (BY WHATEVER REASON SO REFERRED TO AND WITHOUT EXCEPTION ) "DESERVES" AS IT WERE, ON THIS BASIS, TO EVER EVER EVER BE VICTIM TO PREDATORS AND LOATHED AND LEFT OUT TO HANG BY AN EITHER INDIFFERENT PUBLIC AND ITS INSTITUTIONS OR BY A VERY OLD AND DEEPLY EMBEDDED CONTEMPT TOWARD THE FEMALE GENDER OR TOWARD CHILDREN AS FAIR GAME.
Moreover: whores are human beings, sluts are human beings,
and the one thing I view which decides for me between
human and sub-human (not dissing the animal kingdom!)
is empathy or the absence of it, in whatever sphere we are speaking of.

I wish to see an end to a twisted old prudery toward sexuality,

and to a predator industry so way out of bounds
as counterweight to the latter,

I wish to see every single female from infancy to ripe old maturity,

honored as the Embodiment of Woman, regardless or rather inclusive of,

however she fits into that embodiment;

I wish to see all women as women treated first of all and foremost,

with the dignity of Being Woman.

I know wherof I speak, and it is a fierce love for that Woman.

Real Humility

Real humility, or being humble, isn’t about pleasing others

or forgetting oneself,

not even necessarily about staying agreeably inconspicuous.

It is about standing firm in one’s own identity in the face

of every diversion, debate, digression, or detractor, undeterred

and staying the course – while appreciating others’ perspectives

and craving no one’s approval or recognition or acknowledgement

(and accepting the same graciously if it comes)...

It is about asserting without ego or conceding without resentment,

it is about sovereign command of breath and mind,

about simplicity or non-complexity.

Neither self-hostile nor self-doubting nor self-sabotaging,

it can afford to be wrong and own up to it.

It is not helper-syndrome. 

Grasping this, one forgets oneself in the reality of God
and serves others.

One who demonstrates this humility can be emulated,

as - according to the Beatitudes,

such will inherit the earth.

My Afterlife

Okay, so the way I view The Afterlife goes sort of as follows: "Heaven" is a retirement home for the pious, where they can be served cocktails and energy drinks and play shuffle-board and shoot the shit. "Hell" is where you find slaughterers of families for religion's sake and folks who've stoned women and beheaded children.

Then my number comes up and I'm asked, "Did you practice your Faith?" Come what may, I'll answer yes. For which I'll get a knuckle-rub on my scalp and asked what I want, at which juncture I'll take a pass on heaven, and request that I be suited up with fresh juice and a song in my heart - no halos - and sent back to work wherever They find most suitable.

When asked why, I'll say, "Lord, I just want to be where you'll make best use of me. If there's something to 'get' I want everyone to 'get it' before I'm done." The Lord grins and gives me a dutch rub and a kick in the seat, on to my next assignment.   . . .

Or, it could all look different than this of course, and I'll just have to wait to find out after I've passed the 150 mark after all.