What Would Swami Say?...

Were you ever in love?
Can you imagine a beloved, your beloved,
can you relate to that?

Madly in love with this beloved,
you sing and you sing and you breathe
and you sing some more, on every tone
you're in the presence of this beloved,
and your beloved is with you, never leaving you.
This beloved is unborn and undying,
imparting health and wholeness, lots of
nonsentimental evelasting love.

Whatever the circumstances -- you might get placed
in solitary confinement for being politically incorrect,
and make that your temple.
If you were gagged and bound you'd hum
the beloved's song; if they drugged you
or put you under, your beloved would sing to you.

Were I to make a list of all the variations of my song
to this beloved, I'm afraid it would be long.
And long is the slow melody
of the great Shiva homage, offering refuge,
imparting expansion of crown and heart and matter,
and much earth as well in a highly etheric manner --
making the entire space palpably sacred.

That is how I'd received it first over forty years ago,
hardly anyone sings it like that now.
Yet it's still all there, and I'm still in love.
This is my religion, sealed in faith.

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.

Nursing Home Night Shift Reflections, late '70s

Shiva's Nursing Hum

Between flabby buttocks and pungeant wilted thighs

ancient forgotten breasts and an old woman's sighs:

there is space, yes – there too am I.

Only 3:30 a.m. (she's at it again)

Flooding her sheets and coughing up phlegm;

I've changed every thread on her bed just the same . . .

Ah, glorious decay! This too I am.

But let me once forget her arthritic hip -

Later on she “reminds“ me by the knee I wincing, grip.

And sitting her up in a gerry-chair

I pass this comb through her passing hair.

See if this water carressing her throat

       doesn't affirm “I Am You“ -

transformed to urine or a single tear:

no matter which, it still holds true.

And in her tear, her pulse, her glance -

there indeed behold my dance!

Pan-Handling Trilogy

I. My Backs

Slender limbs rising from twin trunks

Tenfold and labored peering back like weary elders

From knuckle to ruddy knuckle

      hanging skin like a pachyderm joint in runny nylons

Slender but uneven

Patterns intricately woven through and through.

II. My Fronts

Bare side open-palmed smooth and stoic

The lines etched into sturdy fingers are as telling

As the creases dividingthe palms by sections

      and intersections

Less diturbing more reassuring of work offered

      with both hands.

III. These Hands

Leaning over siderail

    dim light

         radiator's hum.

These hands push and roll

      a bony thin-skinned body

             to the left    to the right;

Tugging out drenched   cotton square and drawsheet

                   with one hand

Slipping fresh dry    and smooth    one under

               with the other hand.

These hands   swiftly settle   tired    sagging   form

                                                        into pillowed comfort

                             and I kiss the brow

                   and the cheek          and the eyes

of that smooth withered face     with faint wrinkles     faint smile -

        Shallow staccato breath channels through that nose . . .

Three hours later these nostrils inhale deeply

      as I step out  . . .

                 into morning  . . .  air;

their membrane holds the odor of a hundred bedpans.

MIDNITE SHUNYATA (Bed-toven)

I think that I shall never see
A po'm so pungeant as bedpan pee;
Nor malcontent toward bowel's content -
There's nothing wrong, just incontinent.
For after all you must agree:
These bodies here are no less sentient
Than either one of you or me.

"Balm of the Arab Masses"

I had a dream of which I very rarely tell, and at the same time have referred to in one or two poems ("Cornerstone of Your Faith," for example).  The dream's importance in my life turns on the time and place and circumstances in which it came, but also as a task (or so I 'd understood it) for me to fulfill in my life, and to this day I am wondering whether and how, and whether in the literal or universal sense, but there it is:

Summer of 1976, I'm 21 and leave Boulder for the one and only "Sufi Camp" I would ever attend, and it was at Neve Shalom, a piece of land smack at the midpoint of the boondocks on the Latrun road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.  Across from us was a Benedictine monastery which produced wine - of course.  Neve Shalom was already an established plot of land used for the purpose of Peace Alternatives, of bringing groups of youth together, Muslims and Jews, Christians, Israeli and Palestinian...here was where the four week long camp was to be held and was held; preceded by a three week long work camp to set the camp up; I was in it for the full 7 weeks, and it was all and altogether an experience that's remained with me for life. 

Three individuals were to have been the main feature, not the only but the main, here:  Banefsha Gest, one of the earlier pupils of Samuel Lewis in San Fran, Murshid Hassan who she first introduced to us in the first place, in Boulder, and Rabbi Zalman Schachter who taught in Penn., a wonderful and dynamic man.  The Camp's intention was to bring Jews and Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Israelis to work together, worship and celebrate together and to eat together - and together we performed the Dances of Universal Peace given by Murshid Sam Lewis with all the Hebrew and Arabic and Christian phrases, etc., to finally sow these seeds on Israeli soil, where Sam Lewis never set foot (he'd been practically everwhere else).  This did happen.

As as it so happened, Reb Zalman was certainly there and we in-joyed each other's presence very much.  Banefsha was most certainly there, it was sort of "her" camp - there was much to appreciate about her, but she had this ego.  And that was the rub, why Sheikh Hassan was not physically at the camp, she'd had a falling out with him, and that was its own story.  Where was he while I was there?  He was with us at our house in Boulder, staying there on his 2nd of 3 visits (I got to catch him on the 1st and then later the 3rd) - so in a typically comically "Sufi" madcap way, it was all perfect.  He was where he should be and I was where I should be.  And after his first visit with us in Boulder I carried plenty of what he'd put out there in me.

A quick background, so as to put the dream in still better perspective.  Since the age of 19, now going on just over 2 yrs., I had gone around washing, literally washing, and massaging feet (with almond oil and intuitive reflexol.), as my inner discipline/ love-task to connect as directly as I could with the beginning of the Last Supper in John.  I washed the feet of street transients in Boulder, of students, of guys and women, of the hot and beautiful and the far from hot and not very beautiful, in fact as much and as willingly even-mindedly, the very shabby and dirty, and of my compadres in the house (our khanka / at times ashram), and of every guest who came to us - and that meant as well some pretty prominent ones, including among others, Pir Vilayat.  I had my wash cloth and plastic basin, my hand towel and oil - for a long period I was even seen going around in a Moroccan woven jalabea, sometimes barefoot myself, sometimes with sandals or shoes.   This was all okay in Boulder back then.   And I did this at Neve Shalom where I also brought this concentration to a close.  Pir Vilayat had told me after doing his feet, I should go on to full-body and work on that, which I already had but now expanded more to it.

Among the various Zikrs / Dhikr-Allah (ceremonial Remembrance of God through repetition) evening sessions (often called Hadhrat, or Presence) we did with Murshid Hassan in Boulder, there was one very soft and mild one, or a version of it, where we stood clenched together in a line or a wide circle swaying left, chest, right, chest, left... intoning like a breeze:  Ya...Huu...Ya...Huu.   (By the way, the original "Jews" addressed God with Remembrance of "ya hu," hence Yehudim, its form YaHuwa may appear familiar: Yahuvah, Jehova...)

So I'm on my flight to Israel via Tel Aviv.  I'm starting to compose my Christ-poem which you have already read, "A Prophet's Reward," making myself very receptive, primarily through the text of the gnostic Gospel of Thomas which was unearthed at Nag Hammadi some 30 yrs. earlier, and through the Shiva Sutras of which there were some 107 or so listed at the end of Paul Reps' Zen Flesh Zen Bones, and I found myself picking one and concentrating on that, it was focused on the outgoing breath and holding that point between the exhale and the inhale.  And "dying".  I believe through these two practices, the Thomas Gospel and the Shiva Sutra, I received all the impressions I needed for this poem which was also centered on the washing of the feet.  On the evening I finished this poem, that August in '76, in a big tent at Neve Shalom, Ramadan had just begun.  It was about 1 a.m. and I went into the open field and zipped myself up in my sleeping bag and was out.  I woke up around maybe 8 a.m. with tears streaming from my eyes after having the following dream - which I'd tried to crawl back into but that didn't work:



In the dream I was in  a hole in the ground - in later reflection clearly a well, but there was no water in it, we were standing dry.  We were three:  myself, Reb Zalman and Banefsha.  Murshid Hassan who was not with us there but was thoroughly present and dominant in spirit - or literally, on and in the breath - in that we performed the "Ya Hu" dhikr between us three, hands and arms clenched, swaying in that dry well.  While there was no actual water in which we stood, the entire atmosphere in it and surrounding us and reflected in the dhikr was full of the water element.  And added to this we were weeping together.  Why?  Well one, we were so deeply moved.

And two:  what is most sacred to desert dwellers?  Water.  And where was this well?  In the middle of the fucking desert.  While we were in this condition, there surrounded us inside the well a voiceless voice, that is, no one spoke and yet the voice-impression surrounded us and permeated the place even as the element water had - you could say, it spoke in our hearts and addressed us there.  It said, and I remember this, it referred to our dhikr in there and the condition it brought us to:  "This is the balm of the Arab masses."  - 'of' or 'for' are the same here, the 'balm for the masses' was meant and I also strained to grasp later whether 'Arab' or 'poor' was said, and remained certain with my first impression, that by 'Arab' was meant 'poor' - and not in any positive or any coddling sense.  I did also understand - or misunderstand, but I maintained for a long time - that this was more universally meant, not just 'the Arabs' - today, I see that differently, as I also always maintain:  the real enemies of Islam are the Muslims themselves.  But the dream:  it was really clear to me afterward, that this was the voice of Prophet Muhammad, and the 'well' was his own heart.  Period.

And our instruction, to take this out there, struck me while still in the dream as being like - or being literally, in dream-symbol - carrying a pan full to the brim of water on our heads over the desert to the thirsting masses without spilling a single drop - some undertaking, that.  And this made us weep further.  And with that I woke up, still weeping.  And with, oy, such a headache!

And my Christ-poem was finished and would be read aloud that morning by Banefsha to all present, and my dream was intact even if I wasn't - don't ask me whom I then told this to, I don't even know any more, I was no longer in touch with anyone there interestingly enough.  Except one correspondence to Zalman in 1980, where I hand-typed some 100 letters to Jews and Christians and their respective organizations and congregations, of my intention to some day and somehow make it to Germany as an American Jew and, yes, in the spirit and reality of Christ (some Jew, eh?), on my own recognizance and following my own inspiration (with encouragement form my Teacher but in no connection with any group or sect) to connect specifically with the population of the post-war born generation, mine and the one just prior - of younger Germans who MUST largely be normal feeling human beings like myself (yes, they were) and therefore, if I as a Jew was still so affected by the Shoa, I figured - and I was right as rain here - how thorough and yet ignored, unrecognized by everyone else must their burden be as children and grandchildren of the perpetrators and members and accomplices and those compliant, of the Nazi generation!  I had to meet them and let them meet me, to listen and share with each other, to find each other, to let them know that here was at least one American and Jew who wanted to meet them and hear them out and join with them - and to expose myself to exactly what not one single Jew or American I ever met even once ever considered or considered possible, ever mentioned or even wanted to look into.  Where was our compassion!  If I were the child or grandchild of Nazis, I figured, I'd want to shoot myself.  We needed to meet and we needed to embrace.

As fate would have it, I wound up in the Army in '86 and without my asking and without asking me first, they sent me here to Berlin - really, the Army was the horse I rode in on.  So I joyfully got here, joyfully stayed, stayed longer, remained.  And my hunches were all true and produced 23 yrs. of relationships.  So fine, I'm in Berlin, now what do I do with all these Arabs and world's third largest Turkish population in one city?  The trend is not, nor ever was, toward Sufi thought, Sufi tolerance, Sufi dhikr and universality - rather toward nationalism, mythological Islamic supremacy, playing the victim while milking the generous social system here for all its worth, producing more kids while barring them from normal schooling, i.e., from participation in important and normal activities if not keeping them home altogether, maintaining a parallel society which no politician has the balls (or ovaries) anymore to challenge with any teeth, and of course keeping a tight hold on family holdings in Turkey and shuttling between the two - keeping the wheels greased so that they can get what they want out of Germany without holding a whit less onto the Anatolian illiterate, superstitious and controlling village-mentality.

 I advised a dear American friend who wishes to travel to Pakistan to bridge understanding between Christians and Muslims, that what she is bringing with her there is not popular, certainly not now - and is this an understatement!   On the other hand, when Murshid Sam Lewis (also known, in fact specifically there in Pakistan, as Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti) was over there and in India in the '50s and the '60s, as well as Egypt, Japan... meeting Sufis and dervishes and roshis and masters and saints and swamis of a whole range of caliber and standing and attainment and energy, he was constantly running into them, as American as you could get and yet recognized everywhere he went as one who'd "got it"  - and initiated into and brought further along by several orders and schools - his life demonstrated that when you are there in the breath and conscious of what you are doing there, magical things do happen, which "don't get written up in the papers, as not-news" as he often loved to point out.  This all fed into his eventual breakthroughs in San Fran.

He passed away in Jan. '71 at the age of 75, after tripping in Dec. of the top step of the flight of stairs in their house in San Fran and suffering the expected concussion and any other such injuries as a fall like that can bring on.  That was the entire story as I always had it - there was never anything else to it.  Yet at the beginning of this year, I received word which was from pretty unquestionable sources, and supposedly corroborated when my source asked further (by certain former pupils of Sam's from that time), and that this was already well known among at least some in the Sufi Order - but news to me and very disturbing at that:  he was supposedly or evidently pushed down, at that dawn hour, by a Muslim fundamentalist (what one was doing in THAT house and moreover at THAT hour, beats the hell out of me).

He did not have "friends" among the Muslim Association of San Fran, although he was due to meet with them in the near future. He never had anything to do with them, he just did what he did (and cnfirmed to him by Sufi Barkat Ali in Pakistan) and was better at it than they ever would be: he brought hundreds to chanting "Allah" - and the Muslims blocked any dialogue he may have offered.  Once they approached him in regard to the Dances of Universal Peace which he'd received in inspiration directly from the spheres and the instruction to manifest this directly from real Sufis, the "Muslim Bruddas" approached him there around '67, and said, "We don't appreciate what you're doing," they meant using the sacred Arabic phrases in Dance, praising God and producing actual joy - they didn't like that.  He replied, without losing a beat, "Oh I'm sure you don't - but the only matter of importance here is, whether Allah appreciates it."  He said they took off in a huff without another word, and that he knew then that their arrogance would net them a smashing loss of face in the '67 war with Israel, he saw that coming.

I went on to advise my American friend to always stick with what she knows and come from experience, to stay open to inspiration but trust Allah and no Muslims.  S/He's got your back, I cautioned, they'll try to put a knife in it.  And last of all, I offered her this as a Great Concentration:

"On the in-breath:  TOWARD THE ONE, on the out-breath:  TOWARD THE ONE.  Let it sink deep, take it in, anchor it, let it guide you and energize your work and cover your ass."