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!

No Choice, Just Free Will

The Lover of God has no choice,

only free will. For God is love,

and s/he is alone in love with That, in repose,

while all other living forms receive this love.

Whether s/he succors a child or swats a pest,

sweats under pressure or demonstrates poise,

presses house pet or house patient to his or her breast,

s/he hears but one tone, and speaks with one voice:

no choice has s/he, but only free will –

driving to work or fooling about, whispering, singing,

shopping, napping or shouting, even in agitation still,

mounting the barricades in decibles ringing!

Alone never lonely, in times of fear fearless,

lending courage and encouragement: quality of heart

sets the tone sets the pace, even when stern a gentle face

showing life, two ears for hearing, one mouth to impart

this most intimate love, and the secret of it,

hidden in the glance, a gesture, a word, an action,

revealed in a touch, brimming with health, listening with vigor

for the call to serve an awakening, responding when it comes,

breaking rules of rhyme but never reason, inspired only

with the drawing of one breath: open perspectives, no conclusions,

only truth – no trips or sales pitch, no friend of delusions.

All is sacred, nothing special, in-joy-meant shared with all wholly

in order that the Lover of God be enriched, and so this world,

for having no choice, but only free will: to see that all is holy –

in light, in darkness, Love in action, destiny revealed.

A Different Kind of Lover

(Boulder, 1974)

Becoming Govinda's flute
hollow receptive
of the breath
of God
that Divine expression
may ever flow like the blue river
by which sixteen thousand
Gopi maidens made love
with their hearts' desire . . .
To become a different kind of lover
sowing wild oats of a different nature,
the seeds of inner awakening:
that the world may become pregnant
with the Divine intoxication;
until which moment
the well-being of the beloved
is the lover's only task.

Lover Addresses Beloved

Many are my sins, I stand empty and unprepared before my Lord.

Few if any are my redeeming virtues, on whose scale shall I measure?

Yet with the breadth of my heart and the focused passion of my soul,

for you, my beloved, I would cover you and stand by you,

argue on your behalf spanning a thousand lifetimes of sins,

with a prayer, a word, an action, unto my last breath, 

hold your hand preciously in my hand

and walk with you into perfect union, praising God.

For Mevlana (I)

(March 1977, Boulder)

 

The lover knows why he is born:
When pierced for blood
   milk flows from the heart of the lover,
   nourishing even the one who adminsters the wound;
      that one is blessed by the lover,
      who now holds the dagger
         firmly rooted in his heart,
         withdrawing it and replanting it

            again and again,

        as a constant reminder.
The lover carries no fear
   for he carries his manhood in his heart.
       Therefore he is tender like a petal,
           while protected like the pomegranite.
He is veiled and allows himself to be unveiled
   when in the presence of the beloved.
       The lover may be shattered


           over and over again,


       but his pieces will always fall scattered
   to the soil to regenerate as an army of lovers!
Only the lover knows the meaning of constancy.

                 Love has made a fanatic of me;
                 and to the Source of all this
                 I gladly offer my head
                 again and again.
                 Pain rends the veil
                 which hid the cup of ecstasy.


                 Friend, cover yourself
                 with the mantle of secrecy
                 and go naked into the night.
                 There you will find a brilliance
                 which no eye can perceive.

Without the cup of sobriety,
how shall I contain this ecstasy?


It runs over the edge anyway,
and spills on the one whose lips
parted to taste.

                 Beloved Mother, teach me
                 the secret of the spring rain,
                 how it nourishes the earth
                 and makes all life fertile with its weeping.

My heart is with the Brotherhood,
the lovers whose eyes are brilliant with desire
   to serve the One who made them feel this.


   Their feet never leave the ground
   until the Turn is complete.
Their pride is in the One who causes this Turning,
their dignity is testimony of their surrender. 

"If you must know . . . "

I am the Jew no congregation would have a place for, I am the Christian no church could rein in, I am the Muslim no mosque would know what to do with. I am free to worship where I Am.

I am my only pupil. I am alone in the all-pervasive community of those like myself who worship and celebrate God on their own two feet, consciously and creatively and in joy.

My form of expression reflects East and West both, without the least contradiction.

What I do I've been doing already for thousands of years, I am very old. And I am very young, even newborn, I am a child. Like you, I am here to learn and to develop consciously.

I am your servant.

I am here to remind you that God is our Lover, not our Jailer.

I don't believe in some “God-of-Other“ much less try to love that.

I love God, only therefore do I believe in God, for I have faith in That which I love; this relationship only confirms and strengthens and increases my faith and my love. Belief is only an opinion – you can believe in something now and drop it later.

He is closer to me than my own jugular vein, closer to me than my own breath. Therefore I sense my pulse and stay fixed and concentrated on or in my breath, call it breathing practice if you will, the practice of conscious breathng.

Concentration here and now on pulse and on breath, the awareness of His presence, this alone makes me present. Conscious singing is also a form of breath practice, with voice – such are its qualities: it is celebratory and increases joy, or it is healing, or it is creatively enabling for me and for those on whom it works in the surrounding reaches of the atmosphere which it charges. This is a matter of factual practice, not philosophy or discussion. Nor is what is being sung discussed right here. That always depends on what is needed. Sometimes it is to ground, sometimes to elevate and produce more joy.

Imagine someone you love – someone not living with you, but someone you know and see often or rarely – someone you love ever so much. Imagine that that person was everywhere you turned, ever present for you wherever your thought was with or of that person. You wouldn't need to go to their house to find them. Likewise do I have no need of a church, a synagogue, a mosque. Nor do I reject them.

Someone landed in Heaven after living a life hell-bent on getting to Heaven – so she got there, and was ceremoniously ushered in to “Jesus“ - but after getting all excited over this figure who was cut right out of her Sunday-school idea of how He'd always appeared, she noticed it didn't move, it was made of cardboard. She got upset and asked where Jesus was, this is not what she'd quite bargained for all her life.

She was told, “Oh, He's hardly ever here, that's why this is up. Actually, He doesn't even look like this, no image could actually hold Him or depict Him, He's pretty indescribable. Where is He? Oh, He's probably in Hell, goes there a lot, spent His first 3 days there, you know, after His...well, you know. What's He doing in Hell, you ask! Well – what's He supposed to do up here, hand out candy? He passes through all the Hell realms, dear, He brings the highest light into the deepest darkness and...well, you know, transforms outer Being. Oh my, you don't know. Well, you'll have to go ask Him. So if you want to find Him, and be near to Him and give your hand into His hand - go to Hell, if you'll pardon my saying so – go there where He is, not here where you can take it all easy. But please, if that is what you want, if it's Heaven you want, then by all means stay here, you'll be sweetly taken care of, you can chat and gossip with all your fellow believers over coffee and cake. No telling when He may drop by, so stick around, it's very nice here you know.“

So I have no longing to go to Heaven to meet a cardboard Lord, I'll go meet my Lord wherever He is and wherever He'll have me meet Him, and if that's Hell, I can manage that with Him, my Beloved, beside me, my place with Him is there wherever I am needed.

Love of religion is not love of God, the latter has nothing to carry on its sleeve, there is no ego in it. And it carries no aggression or need of recognition or to “prove“ something, therefore it supports no missionizing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YcOQY-n-EWs