Temple As Body As Temple: Resurrection

When in John 2:19 it reads, “I will rebuild this temple...“

this body was meant – his body, his temple.

Scrub those walls clean, scrub yourself raw,

make yourself holy, obey every rule and law!

He also said, your piety is its own reward,

if it's reward you're after you have it. Word

is far more important than rules and diet:

for in the Beginning was it, so don't deny it!

When the word, each syllable and letter's intaken,

on the breath in devotion, out of sleep you'll be shaken.

The prana of conscious breath drawn by concentration

of will toward the Beloved, courses through – anticipation

will not help you here, but arduous patient dedication

and service, living life to its fullest. And no easy sollution

will make suffering go away, that is the nature of our condition –

still, when spirit is followed and ego is stilled there comes a fruition

of love's tireless work, and the body is temple, even that crucifixion

proved the fulfillment, your temple's his Body – your body, and no fiction.

Self-Realized Santa

(San Francisco, Dec. '85 – prior to leaving for Army Basic, having failed to snag a job as Jumbo Jolly in any dept. store in The City – but also prior to “The Suit,“

where I did – and one better)

Amid the flashing, multi-colored chaos, the hustling and bargain-grabbing, the floor-walker bells popping off and the humming buzzing tide of parents and children drawn into this jungle of commercial mayhem, Tuesday afternoon's Santa Claus composes himself . . . and waits it out.

He is not bored or disgruntled with his job, pressed as he is by sticky-fingered, runny-nosed, often howling toddlers, not to mention the ones that are getting a little bit big for this. He is actually not watching the clock, in fact he is waiting for something else, he is sniffing out the crowd, this department store package-promiser, the brat-appeaser, stuffed elf. Ho Ho Ho . . .

One whining child gets to popone to the Wiz and receive a striped cane; then a quiet shy one, who mouths a big Thank You (for Mommy); then a ram-bunctious one who tinkles a little and hops off before he remembers his token candy (so he can drive his frazzled mother over the brink, since she'd agreed to drive him to see Santa). And on it goes, and the queue grows and diminishes, and then . . .

A girl of about five years, perhaps six and small, edges forward with her mother, a few yards down yet. He takes note. What is unusual about her, this girl, is not the precocity which movies are about, nor any visible confidence, poise, grace, ésprit which set her so adorably apart from the rest. What is unusual in her only he knows, what is rare in her only he will see.

He patiently takes each child on, he does his gig, he relishes the spontaneity when it's there, reassures nervous mothers with a gesture of his hand, waves each family on, then looks at the next bundle of 1980s mess squirming on his lap; he looks down into its face with a benign, casual indifference, reserved and pleasant, and sees hundreds of voices, all desiring for its future . . .

They are clutching the tiny hands rather more snugly this year, these mothers; they are aware, grotesquely aware of the growing number of posted facials reminding them to sharpen their radar against thsoe who covet small children. They are chilled, this bunch, as they give themselves cautiously over to this warm ritual of handing the tots to the old man in the red suit.

His eyes are moist and twinkling, occasionally he has a private word or two with the mother or guardian, as the case may be, listening like some country family doctor to the fractured twittering of trivial concerns. The photographer stands ever ready for those who need the souvenir. She does not look particularly nervous, this girl's mother, and the child is reasonably well-behaved. Yet even at this distance the clutch she holds her in is evident. The line is dwindling, he takes his own time, he is not rushed by all this nonsense, theirs or the store's. The photographer is having a cigarette.

He shifts his position while the next customer is coaxed to the jelly-bellied counter to place her order, brushing off cellophane candy-cane wrappers to make a fresh place for her. Her forehead is wrinkled with the weight of the responsibility she is entrusting to his care, as she'd put a lot of time into this beforehand. He nods and shares her seriousness for a minute and then lightly raises her off his lap to hear the confession of He-Man, or whatever this kid is. Power of the Universe. That's it, that's what he wants. OK, kid – you got it. … Then: she arrives.

There is a pause, a fraction of a pause, not a delay in proceedings but that pause which occurs when you open the door and there stands the guest you'd been expecting anyway, but you have that little pause, because that brief second is frankly timeless, and it is to be savored.

In one fleeting glance his earlier recognition of her is confirmed; not from her,

you see, not consciously by any means – but she is natural, guileless, and their eyes lock as his gaze penetrates into her skull and sets atoms into motion creating new orbits . . .

He leans forward ignoring the girl now, but rather motioning her mother over with a friendly but sober flick of his fingers. She checks the position of her daughter, and the Santa shrugs away her awkwardness with a simple gesture – no one's walking off with the child, who now sits at the step where Santa's great boots are planted. Santa motions the mother closer, still closer, and looks into her face. He says nothing.

Though his breathing is nearly undetected underneath that pasted beard, she is somehow aware that she stands within his breath, engulfed in a most sovereign atmosphere quite independent of the whole department store. And she is oddly comfortable standing with her face so close to that of this calm, sober-looking stranger – Santa or not – who has mesmerized her while taking no possession of her. Something, something now – gently opens in her and Santa speaks . . .

"I want you to listen carefully to each word I use, each thing I say, because it is going to matter to you greatly. As I share this with you, you must drop every untoward reference from your mind, suspend in other words, every innuendo and conditioned impulse to react, so that you can just get what I am telling you. Can you do that?" She nods and poises herself to listen; his voice is kind and it projects gently, his cadence is natural, steady, and his manner direct. He continues without breaking the rhythm of this brief interlude . . .

"I have already plugged in to this child. As your daughter sits with me I am going to open her subtle bodies up and enter her most sacred core, and I will place a seed within her; I am going to stimulate and activate her inner growth. And this seed will blossom in her at a later time, and she will experience her true and sacred Womanhood in a very beautiful and natural way, you may mark my words. And then at some future time, she will find her way to me and I will guide her through an intensity of training which will prepare her for the role she is to play on this planet, for the very hope and salvation of Humankind..." He pauses to let it sink in, scanning the aisle quickly to scope the growing new line, never turning his head from the woman, whose eyes are becoming moist with awe. "Are you getting this?" he asks, gently bringing her into the present.

She brushes a tear with her ring finger, draws back into place a blonde strand of hair. His eyes are incredible, but not threatening or vulgar. They are auspicious to her, and she nods with the movement of a young intelligent woman who doesn't require speech to cut through the confusion and the flood of chatter and claptrap she feels during this new pause, to say Yes, yes I do, strangely, painfully, poignantly, somehow definitely know you. "This is her destiny . . ." he concludes, and the contact breaks and dissipates back into the crowd, all subtly reabsorbed into the commercial onslaught.

He sits, Santa-like, playfully unconcerned, as this young mother thoughtfully raises her yawning daughter and with unpretentious reverence places her squarely into the hands of the Master.

http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2011/12/suit-or-truth-about-santa.html

http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2011/05/cinderallah-dervish-folktale.html

When A Man Makes Love

(July 1987, Monterey)

My lips parted   and I asked the Woman:  Woman,
       how does a man make love?  And she replied
       with such direct simplicity:  O - and
               are you a man?
My ears blushed and my breast flushed full
         I said Yes. I am.         Listen, she said,

For a man first makes love with his ears.
   He listens intently for the silent rustle
      of love's whisper, of skin wishing to yield itself
            to the hand's good touch.
From the fingertips to the soles of his feet
does a man make love   his tongue
    quivers at the mere thought of his beloved's form
                                     his ears
   carry the beloved's name whether it is known or not.
 

The lover is always erect,   never asleep,
                                     his attention steady.
His body is clean but washed with abandon,
     not primped as some self-adulator.  Every hair
       on his body responds to the scent of his beloved
         and his nostrils are always flexed for it.
   What of her absence, I asked, How
           does a man stand the loneliness?
                   She drew so close

 
I lost my breath in the sweetness of her kiss
   and therein was imparted - as the vital sap of my loins
      rose from root to trunk to branch - that
             Woman is never absent.
A man can never love enough.  To love as a man makes love
   is to come out his top    because
   while he loves the Woman he worships the Goddess that she is.

Woman is a body   and so she is every body
  and all that is beautiful in the eye
    of the Man who beholds her
             is Woman.
And in recognizing her she must be touched
   and kissed and carressed and looked at
     and fondled,    every inch of  her
    must be loved and dearly cherished first
       for her to be enabled to enter
         the body  where she belongs.

My eyes hazed in sweat      I asked How
     is a Woman's body never absent?  And her form
    burst over me and I was bathed in her
as though she were liquid air, and I saw with all my heart:
Woman is an aura, and even as you would stimulate
  all those areas of her flesh with your gentle fingers
     and tongue   so must you skillfully and generously
                                     speak to her.

A man makes love
   when he is direct and kind   firm and assuring.
  A man without sincerity never makes love  there is
       no interest there   and no balls.
A man makes love
    when his gifts are frequent and thoughtful -
    their spontaneity is what makes them original.
    Timing is everything  for the man.
Never an abusive word   never an abusive gesture,
  never even in jest hurting the Feeling of the Woman -
      That is how a man makes love.

For him she is ageless, a man does not make love
   by judging looks or counting rings on a tree.
       His eyes are fixed on the Woman timelessly.
I have wondered, I began - and she quietly
     inclined her face to hear -
           Can a Woman love too much?
She smiled and brushed my forehead
    and my temples with such affection I held her
        hand there with mine and breathed
            its touch into my pores.  She answered,

She might change her mind as to the choice of men -
   but she cannot love too much.  No one can love enough.
  When a man makes love he is knowing all the time
    that everything beautiful that he could ever set eyes on
          or give ear to   or touch and hold,
            every expression of beauty,
              every affectionate gesture    is Woman.
        That is Whom he loves.

And Woman?  She is herself the bottom line
        and the last word
           on the very Beauty of God.

 

O My Mind! Be Like This Body

The year is new,

my ignorant habits rather old.

How my debts and deficits loom,

my incapacities mock me, my

incompetence, shortcomings, my

haste, my lethargy, my impatience, my

careless, reckless inconsiderations!

My little cruelties, liberties, the hurts and

injuries inflicted by my thoughtlessness.

I'm haunted by the petty past, disturbed

by the unlikely future, confronted daily by both.

Will creditors come knocking? there's a hole in my stocking.

Not even a good depression provides any refuge.

Existential angst and indecision, banal

and deadening in its itchy grip –

broken promises, broken trusts . . . and

Beloved Rumi says to come anyway, just come!

O my mind! be like this body:

humble, hale and hardy, robust and

full of the Lord's Name.

O my mind! contemplate this deeply,

with feeling, and with interest and passion:

sing it aloud, speak it over again,

whisper it in a murmur, breathe it,

let it ride on the breath resonating

day in and day out, all through the night

and into dawn.

Let it soothe your panic, buck you up –

the Lord's Name isn't some dried crust of the walking dead –

know it to be fresh and living! let it sweeten your tongue,

sweeten your atmosphere, guide your perspective!

It's a very refined and delicate undertaking, you see,

like guiding a silk thread through a fine needle's eye – to

sew the foundation seaming the gap in the sack

of potatoes you are hauling to feed all the neighbors.

"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.

On Silence and Two Sonnets

Holding my speech I'll let the Silence be my speaking,
holding my tongue, my pen aloft, I'll let the Silence compose;
surrendering to patient Silence what we've been seeking,
I'll cherish every thought of you which e'er arose.
And there not stopping, nor for one moment freaking –
but hold you e'er fast 'in me, while this Love grows.

 
I.
Will Tina have me be kind?
Then I’ll be that and more for her sake, as she’d have it;
Considerate and gentle, for indeed she
‘s God, in form of my desir’d Beloved.

There West, in San Anselmo in Silence
Dress’d, tho’ wearing nought but jewels of light;
There she frolics and lives, waits in patience
For the hour, for the day, that very night

When our faces meet, lips part to press,
Seal the advent of Love’s consummation;
Bodies yielding to ev’ry touch, caress,
Giving o’er to this Communication.

And should these lines my Darling so please, sure
Shall’t go better when I serve her pleasure.

II.
In your Body deep am I, you in mine,
Ev’ry breath I draw is of your fragrance;
Muttering your name, Dear, within God’s Name –
Radiating before my eyes you dance.

Lover non-separate from Beloved,
Tho’ t geographic, circumstantial seem;
Two breaths as one shall keep one sacred bed,
And this, Love’s light – from our like faces beam.

Autumn’s wind tells me of your warm embrace,
December’s winter draws me toward your lap;
There to rest and bury my yearning face,
And upon your breasts too, this burning chap!

For if Spring’s a sign of our Fullfilment,
Summer’s star-cast heaven’s our Firmament.

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.

Meanwhile

Speaking His Name – I speak yours.
Addressing Him in Song – I address you singing.
Losing myself in the vision of my Lord and Cherisher,
in the vision of the Self, of the Beloved – I am lost in you.
Now as I devote myself to this Friday evening's praise and melody:
should I but part my lips, my breath is fixed on our kiss,
my tongue is married to yours, and only honey may clothe
the words which issue from my mouth
whether sacred or common, to anyone or whomever;
the sweet red wine I drink – is your saliva,
the bread I partake of – is our Fucking.
My body sways with you, it can hardly keep still!  Emotion overtakes me,
I want to weep for yearning after you – then I'm good, I'll be alright.
The sense of separation passes; the determined, indeed pre-determined,
Union is cherished, assured, vouchsafed.
Like water through an aquaduct, blood through my vessels,
you are consciously inseparable from me, feeding me, keeping me alive
for that day when our bodies will join all dimensions in one
never-ending Act of our Lovemaking.   Meanwhile 
I perform this Shabbos-Kiddush, meanwhile
I perform this Puja, meanwhile
I sing. 

Krishna's Boon

ODE TO LAKSHMI (REDDY) RADHE - 26 Jan 93

I have seen Maha-Lakshmi
in the soft brown form of a young woman.
Her dark generous eyes hold a wild glowing beauty,
sparkling with moist effervescence,
catching the glint of her dangling earrings
and diamond-studded gold chain which graces her neck.
Straight and even and white the teeth which line
the coyly benevolent, gracious smile;
Her lovely face is the picture of India's womanhood.
Long and elegant her fingers, slight and nimble her body.

I encountered her for a brief hour.
Could this be that Lakshmi of ecstatic wealth to whom I've sung,
holder of the keys to fulfillment in all the three worlds,
the lotus-bearing spouse of Rudra
(Lord Shiva's own spontaneously liberating persona)?

And from this dear woman there pierced my heart
yet one other heady image, that of
my Lord Krishna's eternally beloved Radha.
As we spoke, her richly Indian accent striking my ears
(so long unused to receiving its timbre)
as I bent to hear her soft tones,
I recognized indeed the Gopi Radha --
and that radiant energy of the Gopinath,
that sweet laughter of Gopal,
that dance of Govinda's flute, Narayana's joy,
responded from my heart.
The world calls this petite and charming woman, Lakshmi (Reddy),
knowing nothing of the name.
I call her by Radhe, knowing both intimately.

How fitting, to meet her at the end of my Army service!
For it was Lord Krishna whose words to Arjuna at Kurukshetra
prompted me to enlist, now seven years hence.
Seven richly blessed years, since which day
I have in-joyed Krishna's boon -
and whose Ras Lila still charges and delights
my atmosphere - when it pleases him.
When last I'd departed Ft. Dix at the close of a seven-week cycle,
I'd found on a bookshelf the life-story of his famous
Bhakti servant in America.
Now leaving Ft. Dix at the close of a seven year cycle,
I have met Krishna's beloved.
That joy and delight are ever with me,
and no earthly power can ever steal it.

Lakshmi Radhe! May God go with you all ways,
and may His light ever shine within your heart
even as you shine within mine.