Bad News for a Poet

I cannot so much as write an ode to your Beauty,
I am too smitten to speak in verse – this is bad news for a poet.
My devastation in love forbids me every word, spoken or written.
I am absorbed in it, and in absorption no words are possible.
Who then is telling you this? My shadow.
When two Am's meet in the center they form a Not,
when two I's gaze at the Beloved they are You -
two eyes ablaze in Union, lost in your merciful glance,
breathless breathless – the lovemaking is all in that place where
this poor lover knows to bring it, in the seven locks of Yoga,
where each lock of your hair and the lock of Kunda meet
and are one searing Kundalini force rising, bringing this love with it!

A Risk I'll Take

I arrived here with certain impressions,
already within me traditions long in the tooth --
images unfolded ever so gradually in childhood
and reached their head in my heart's search for truth,

some four decades back, as I met and embraced
the path of devotional love and of service, uncompromised,
expressed through traditions of all the world's faiths --
for which I would risk at times being criticized.

I'd loved my Old Testament since I was a child,
now reading the New one I suddenly got it --
something was brewing in me, waking and wild,
wind of The Great Love came in and I caught it.

From this time forth and for a dozen years further,
I studied and practiced, was intimately instructed:
in Scriptures and Yoga, Sufism of some Orders --
and I did love what I believed was Islam, Qur'an and Muhammad.

So what I know now I knew then but not really --
one adheres to a myth and reflects not on all,
for to be confronted oneself is most painfully
clear, yet for love of Sufism I'd felt oddly loyal

toward just that which had seen to the murder of Sufis
over centuries, and of Sikhs, of Hindus, of Christians, Jews,
as a matter of course, a matter of Scripture and example, pleas
for mercy notwithstanding -- so what am I risking if I lose

the shine of unquestioning appreciation for Islam?
The sign of maturity is worth the risk of angering those less awake
who may be appeasers or compromisers, I remain what I am
and always was, and God willing will be:  it is a risk I'll gladly take

 
for the sake of love, that love which brought me here,
brought me here with certain impressions.  The greatest of these
was awakened in me anew, the love which sees God everywhere,
and serves Him in every form, by awakening that love likewise

reflected through these eyes, the smallest gesture, accepting each
fellow creature as divine and dear, overcoming base loathing and fear.
The Sufi tradition, alive in me as ever, how dearly I would any teach
who came wanting it -- Gospels, Yoga, Bhajan, Kirtan -- it's all still here

wherever I am, and should Islam and its Muslims be irritated as hell
that I don't bend, that's a risk I'll take, even welcome -- but bend I won't;
nor for their apologists nor appeasers nor enablers, each of whom I still wish well,
knowing well they wish not the same.  I might regret this but still I don't.

Sufism will always be Sufism, expanding and blessing with its presence and God's;
compassion and empathy for Islam's victims, Muslim and non-Muslim alike,
is the way of ishq, karuna, agape, all terms expressing unconditionally what
"tolerance" never could.  And Islam will always be what it always was, to wake

up to this is by no means easy, but healthier and more responsible --
though should I ever prove to be mistaken, that is a risk I'm willing to take,
for in the meantime I remain for all my actions and sympathies accountable.
And should Islam prove me correct, I will confront it for God's sake.

That's a risk, again, to be taken -- I've had so many come and go -- God will stay,
by whatever name, I wish each dearly that experience.  No illusions, nothing fake,
no Sikh would fault me for defending the defenseless, or one's culture, come what may.
I will witness, I'll speak out, I will pray and I will fight, I'll risk my life -- that risk I'll take.

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.

The Pants of My Murshid

Over three decades since he last wore these,

cloth black and simple, made by a fellow student,

a seamstress – made to order, cut for Yoga

and dispensing Dharma.

By the seat of his pants I now sit in ‘em,

since three decades I wear ‘em off and on,

worn as long since they are.

My Puja-kitty likes these best for burrowing

between my legs while sitting, taking her repose

by the seat of his pants.

Am I smarter or cleverer for wearing ‘em,

did they ever enlighten me –

or is it just sent-to-mental?

I dunno, but the cat sure does love ‘em.

"Getting Religion" II

Religion is like a body –
like a body it has a head,
a heart, a gut, a yoni and a lingam.
And an asshole.

Religion is like a body –
the head is for thinking-too-much;
the heart is for bringing light into the world,
circulating divine nourishment into all organs,
manifesting love as Human so this world might survive
in knowing joy through that One Breathing Truth;
the gut is for drawing the darkness out of its scary corner:
to do the work of offering it into the light;
the lingam is for positive penetration of Consciousness
into the Earth; the yoni is for warmth and depth, bringing forth life.
The asshole, in over-abundance, gives us jihad and all manner of control issues.
(Every body has one of these – only in religion there are ever so many.)

Religion is like a body –
in which head defines and calculates, feels separate from body;
whereas heart is in that body, nourishes it constantly, earthy and divine.
Head thinks thoughts, writes a theology, says heart doesn't think;
heart indeed thinks – but in dimensions of Unity head cannot grasp.
The asshole is entirely thoughtless, narcisstically striving to
dominate and to rule with unquestioned authority.

The Bringers of light – for whom religions were named, systematized
– these always were first of the heart,
feeding the body as only heart can.
They taught in heart, knowing there would be heads later.
And they knew that religion is like a body –
there would be assholes.

When Sufis give themselves over to zikr,
or Yogis to nada and laya, the Yogas of sound –
when these are practiced devotedly in homes,
in temples, in caves, or in ashrams;
when choirs move listeners and members both
to inner heights which only heart can offer:
then is religion like a body well-served.

(O pious egos! Ablutions will never remove your dirt,
a clean heart will: clear your hearts not of taste of pork –
but rather of envy and intrigue, of bigotry and loathing,
of supremacism and subterfuge, of primitive posturing.
If enemies would just finally love their enemies, then
"the enemy of my enemy" just might well be my friend.)

Then you can think with your heart, act from your heart,

heal other hearts through your heart, as God so intended.

For God is Love, and this Love brought us into manifestation.