This evening I heard the voice of thousands,
silently asking, "What is my self-worth?"
Ever harping, ever picking, seeking distraction
from this gnawing, desperate measure drenched
in our own illusion that there is a "self-worth,"
and that mine or yours might come up short.
And the answer which uproots the question
is also a question but a better one, namely:
What is my Self worth?
The answer to that question being: pursue Inquiry.
That Self can neither be bought nor sold, nor
measured nor priced nor given nor taken.
What is this Self worth - to me, to you?
As Soul was before religion or psychology,
approaching and addressing the Self is
the stuff of clean sincerity, not vapid ideology;
of conscious desire, not self-conscious flattery.
Love will awaken the interest, Love will guide
and bring us guides, Love will sustain the effort,
Love will inspire and nourish and teach patience,
Love will reveal itself as the very Self that is sought.
There is not a moment without you,
there is no absence. I keep you with me,
I keep you with me. Your breath
is in my own very breath, your subtle body
courses through mine. I will ever tremble for love of you,
I am not ashamed to admit it.
Even standing hand in hand before the Altar
of This Love, as witness with you
to This Love which is ours –
I will have perhaps mastered this awe
in body, but my heart
will always fall prostrate to it.
Though it rocks me to the very foundations
this is not to be shouted from the rooftops,
it is told in but a whisper.
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.
Having gazed at the Sun unwavering,
braving the intensity and losing yourself
in its magnitude for longer stretches,
Something occurs which tastes of fearlessness,
most unassuming yet great in heat,
reminiscent of Moses, or of the Son of Man.
You burn through every personality encountered,
to the manifest Unmanifest,
catching a hint of Soul.
Rumi's catalyst was the Sun of Tabriz,
in the Glance which they shared
a Legacy was born.
Without an I, seeing occurs of itself,
where ego becomes a servant, Am is master:
this doesn't happen overnight or from reading a book.
But a most passionate desire for union helps,
as one-pointed as a breath between two lovers,
concentrating, refining, opening to grace.
The stature is majestic, the gait royal,
though you own much or nothing, no one owns you.
And while you walk the Earth, it turns in your orbit.
The Bhakti path circulates through
the spoken repetitions of devotion,
imbuing them with life and being nourished
itself in return. That is how it works.
I speak my bhakta heart into the Youniverse
and Multiverse, with verses of concentrated abandon
expressing gratitude toward the sovereignty of Love
sage and seasoned, sensing Harmony in conscious repetition
and feeling surrounded, enveloped in unspeakable Beauty.
Reflecting so, this is Remembrance by repetition.
All sounds of praise are welcome here,
all are active planks in the structure of this Temple
through which a breath passes, sounding and resounding
in far-reaching tones embracing the worlds.
These tones, rich and nuanced all, are in Sanskrit or in Hindi,
Arabic, in Gurmukhi and in Hebrew, in Latin, Aramaic, and English.
The tongues of these faiths were created to praise God,
in Whom we live and move and have our Being,
to celebrate the divine in every manifest body –
not for arrogant supremacism or subjugation
parading and asserting itself as "Religion" . . .
Cherishing this in silence, this is Remembrance on the breath.
When "unbelievers" are scorned, loathed, disabused
by one's pious, dry, colorless, sterile contempt
toward all "others" outside one's own little Club,
then are all of one's so-called "praises" and "pieties"
only poisoned and poisonous, these are their own hell-realm.
That bigotry, racism, misogyny, puerile aggression,
only speaks for itself, the ignorance of any ideology.
To keep free of this and its entrapments, walking amidst yet above
the demonic fray of constant forgetting and manipulating
through fear and anger, through domination and attrition –
to grasp the Bhakti path, to carry it in one's own manifest expression:
Holding the Planet in one's heart, this is Remembrance by Being.
Is it true what some say, the Sun doesn't care?
Does it withdraw when you reject it,
or is it somehow sensitive to being liked,
or believed-in, or even addressed?
Are you left in the cold, the dark, bereft,
on its account – or your sins? ...Hello?
Or doesn't the Sun rather give unwaveringly,
indifferent to fatuous flattery or flatulence and dissing,
indifferent to belief or doubt, worship or rejection,
indifferent to all, warming the Earth
and keeping us turning? Warming and giving light,
without which we couldn't stand on two feet,
spread our arms to thank it or flip it the bird.
The Sun gives of its presence because it is present,
indeed indifferent – but that, toward our indifference;
it tells us, “I'm just one of many, some far larger –
insignificant, sure - but for you I'm here, burning.
I didn't set this all in motion, does it matter: but
I'm here and burning: take it.“
So it is with love.
Like the sun we are where we are for a purpose,
there are those who truly need us to be right there.
It is not for us to underestimate our value,
but to become indifferent toward nagging doubts.
Two kinds of wrong thinking are known to us:
thinking much of yourself and your importance –
and thinking too little, judging, dissing.
Both are from want of self-reflection, and irresponsible.
Be where you are and honor this, fill it with your warmth,
give us your presence where you are, be that Sun – be it!
Indifferent and radiating, warming this Earth, waking joy.
As it is with love.
While we are out there judging beauty,
Beauty judgeth not.
What is that, in the pupil of your eye,
where light is filtered by the ego's I?
What is that, so conditioned sure
of what it sees, beholds as were
this so, as you apparently perceive –
and thus perceived, so you believe?
Seamless seeming to see without question,
the face before us, our reflection –
Look with the eye, look with the heart,
look with the soul – they're not apart:
Pupil soft on pupil focused:
view therein the hidden manifest.
Sovereign the Beauty of this beholder,
letting look, be seen, unfold here.
Fearless, lovingkindness unafraid,
undisgusted, seeing undismayed:
Beauty is in the Seeing – so what's Creation
but God's eye's light forming His intention?
While we are out there judging beauty,
Beauty judgeth not.
