Bhajan, Kirtan – Goes On And On

When I sing Ram my heart
is opened, stilled and active both,
emboldened and awash in joy;
from the root of my spine to my crown

I am home, at home in this Body,
as if in a Temple full of powerful tones,
overtones and undertones, harmonies
which can really hardly be described.

When I sing Krishna I am
out of my skull with an ecstasy
curing ills, and maintaining health, longevity;
I need no radio, MTV, CDs or company,

I am never lonely because never alone.
Whether aloud or muttered or on silent tongue,
nestled in Love's bosom I am,
wherever these blessed Names are sung.

When I sing Shiva only the Self remains,
there is no what or who, no questions of matter,
but grounded in Body and from Body freed –
into dimensions of Body, which returns to seed;

I disappear, I manifest, I am here and I exist,
as I hear and as I'm real, so may I ever present feel
in this world as in every other: nourished by my Divine Mother.
Ah, there's a Love which can't be spoken, but only sung.

Tears Of Love

Sufism says, “God is your lover, not your jailer“ - and means it and practices it. Islam has proven time and again to prefer it the other way around. Religion is in every other case I know of - more or less, yet quite frankly when you look at its core: about freedom, not dictatorship. The Muslim mentality tends strongly toward subjection to the latter, coupled most unfortunately with that peculiar combination of projected victim-status with delusions-of-supremacy, and with subterfuge to boot, such as was exceptionally witnessed in the Germany of the '30s and '40s. It pains me most severely to even put this into so many words, but it has to be done, come what may. Is there another religion I haven't heard of in our generation, in this century, where you can be murdered with impunity for merely leaving it, or converting to another, or satirizing or exercising critical analysis of it?

The darkness of so much Church history had entirely inhibited my early life from trustingly approaching the New Testament. The light of Swamis had made it not only approachable but readable, sparklingly clear. I cannot open the Gospels or the Epistles without being choked with tears of rejoicing at the clarity of what I see presented. How that escapes others I no longer know, I guess they were out when the Swamis came by. When Suras from the Qur'an were recited during ceremonies of those lovers of God and of Hu-man-kind, the same tug at my chest occurred, the same tears flowed, the mind became also still. I guess the Sufis know something Muslims don't – it causes them to sing, it moves them to turn about, it makes them wild with a fiercely fine light in their eyes, their hearts soaked with love, not dried up with clichéed theo-ideology.

Tears of Love

There is a movement, and a rest -
something like a cough suppressed,
a wringing, wrenching sensation in my chest.

Old tissue proves all too worn,
a breaking through this, and it's torn,
breaking forth from the heart, and born

like a dervish in the Sema room -
this itself so like a rose in bloom -
opening into the Turn, consumed

by that which words cannot express:
but tears which on these cheeks so press
like water in the wilderness

do Love justice as no other.
Sovereign love for one another
draws warmest smile from that Divine Mother.

Loving, Serving, Remembering

Love, serve, remember:

Love everyone, serve everyone, remember God.

There is only one way one actually can love everyone, serve everyone – that is to remember God, there is absolutely no other possibility. Otherwise one is “trying to“ and that is either helper-syndrome which is based on a need of one's own, or social concern which is admirable but greatly limited and frustrating – because in both there is only ego. It is in remembering God that the inner movement comes, and from which the grace may come to indeed love everyone, serve or feed or nourish everyone.

One isn't at all distanced from the human side of giving, of being available, attentive, or generous – one's humanity and warmth is not forgotten but enhanced, empowered and rendered conscious. Remembering God is not like "remembering to believe in," this would be to remain trapped in the external, like remembering "someone else". One can only remember what one has experienced, where one has been. That's why we're instructed to remember. God is your Origin and your Source, That's where you came from, so buy it or not, That's where you return to and Remember, because That never “left or abandoned“ you (for where?), because That Alone exists and not your ego. And That, therefore, is Who actually loves, Who actually serves and nourishes – and Who actually Remembers, in you and as you when you are in the act of Remembrance. The practice and the mastery and the conscious absorption in Remembrance is 24/7 on every breath. That is serving everyone, that is nourishing the planet and all those around one. Any outward "form" of service or generosity will come from this and will make its mark in the world.

The surest way of becoming acquainted with all this is through love, in falling in love. When one meets, directly in-person or indirectly, a Being who thoroughly embodies this, one will be smitten with love for that Being – who is both mirror and enabler – who is worthy of all love and reverence. Through such a one will one grasp Remembrance of God.

Repetition of mantra is not for building up points in a merit system for oneself, that's all external religion, tailored to ego. Like dhikr-allah among the Islamic-expressive dervishes, or it's silent form, fikr – the former coming from the Arabic “to remember“ and the latter "to think" or hold in thought – one is keeping in the Eternal Moment of Remembrance through the repetition, whatever the mantra - let's take om sri ram jai ram jai jai ram. (Was Rama really God or someone merged in God, is God Ram and we say Rama when referring to this guy who lived and had this adventure in the Ramayana and was there a Hanuman?) Lovely work, inspiring, multi-layered as always – but if one wants to get super-involved in all that, one can go spend 20 years with pundits in the Himalayas. Or one can practice, here and now, immersing oneself in this love-bond with the Beloved. Om is now and every-other-now. Sri isn't just some holy application, it means all forms, male or female, are of the Divine Mother. Ram is God and God is Love. Jai is victory. So: God always wins. With God is victory. God is Most Great. Allahu-akbar.

Where is this divinity? Don't look around, it's in the mantra or dhikr itself, God is there in every syllable, they are atomic and loaded. Repeat them consciously. What is their power? They will awaken in one the Memory of Origin, the faculty of Remembrance. So one can go on Remembering, ever more consciously until the only one left Remembering is God/Allah/Ram HimSelf, as the ego becomes more and more absorbed in this love and less and less in itself.

One does what one does, but dropping the ego from the doing every time the identity with it asserts itself, one stays in the Remembrance, on the breath or intoned, and remains concentrated and relaxed. As Krishna also instructs in the Bhagavad Gita.

Two big things lost through all this are pity and self-pity, which are almost the same thing. Also envy, jealousy, resentments and grudges.  Expectations and judgment will be tamed, disappointments overcome or less important. Drama and trouble will be survived and gotten through intact. One will take oneself far less seriously and remain one-pointed in love, on God. One will be present and available for others in a way never imagined, instead of breaking one's neck trying to "be there" for "others" - as the illusion of "others" is not being nourished here, through the repetition of Remembrance: that there is no "other," only the One Self - which is awakened in the atmosphere around the very one absorbed in the practice of Remembrance.

Now that is love, that is serving, that is remembering.