The Ball's In Your Court

Oh Friend, sit on the ground!

reach forward and place your hand firmly

on the bare earth . . .

And now:  reverse the question you've wasted

countless lifetimes asking.

You are not here to challenge or to prove

whether God exists or is real.

God by whatever worshipped name or form -

God exists, and alone is real.

So what is left?

You are here to challenge and to prove

whether you exist, whether you are real.

And the pain therein is really poignant.

When the ego becomes selfless,

through love, through grace:

the Self which remains will be the answer

which uproots the question.

You will know without effort

who exists and what is real.

In the meantime you meditate in action,

growing consciousness.

Have fun with it.

C-Food

Contact what you love and hold That in devoted focus.

Carry That which you love every moment in your heart,

on the breath current, in your step;

That will be with you now and in the hereafter.

Come-Union.

What you name "That" or "some other" That, isn't what matters;
let no one dictate to you what "That" is or in what form.
Digest the C-Food and leave the shells behind.

Reflection

I speak to my impatient, righteous indignation
as to an anguished mother:
You are not here to make the world better.
You are an agent of kindness, of light,
of ineffable joy, of God's Pleasure,
a witness to the day here and now, and hereafter.

You are an agent of awakening consciousness,
of surrender.
Don't be the pray-er, be the prayer!
Be what you would have, and you are that.

You are here to love without hope, giving hope;
without recognition, giving succor.
Be the light from which you came,
and the world will be better for it.

Source

To a trickle of water I spoke,
a droplet thereof I addressed:
behold the vast ocean, great river – and sea!
That all is there, in you, you're wet with That:
lifetimes and generations, form after form,
in all that you've weathered, your Father/Mother - and whether
you grasp this or not, it Matters not:
in every atom reeling, molecule, and cell is the genetic image
of your very Source -
(O Human, being – try seeing yourSelf in this droplet)
...so be great, or don't, it's alright,
a wave – a rave, a steam – esteem, a body Mass or a pearly drop:
you came from There, you return There, you are There -
so water you thinking?

For Mevlana (II)

Our Work is a labor of love -

   it hasn't gain or profit for a spearhead;

   it goes back to gratitude

   so deep it's timeless, bottomless . . .

Whether one is fed or another is fed -

   it doesn't matter anymore.

We work because we see no separation,

   not because we do:

but work we must, for it's all we know.

Our Work is a labor of love -

   when the "workers" have dissolved

   into the fruit of that labor,

this Work will return to the realm of Ideas . . .

Love only is real.

(April 1987)