the unknown flute

I know the sound of the ecstatic flute,

but I don't know whose flute it is.

A lamp burns and has neither wick nor oil.

A lily pad blossoms and is not attached to the bottom! 

When one flower opens, ordinarily dozens open.

The moon bird's head is filled with nothing but thoughts of the moon,

and when the next rain will come is all that the rain bird thinks of.

How is it we spend our entire life loving? 

~ Kabir 

Sssh

Sssh the sea says

Sssh the small waves at the shore say, sssh

Not so violent, not

So haughty, not

So remarkable

Sssh

Say the tips of the waves

Crowding around the headland's

Surf. Sssh

They say to people

This is our earth,

Our eternity.

~ Rolf Jacobsen

from The Soul is here for its own Joy

edited by Robert Bly 
photo by Eliot Porter 

I have received and am still receiving

  illustration by Vladimir Radunsky

 for On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne

How strange is the lot of us mortals!

 Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, 

though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection

 one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — 

first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being

 our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, 

unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. 

 

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life

 are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, 

and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure

 as I have received and am still receiving.

 

 I am strongly drawn to a frugal life and am often oppressively aware

 that I am engrossing an undue amount of the labor of my fellow-men.

 I regard class distinctions as unjustified and, in the last resort,

 based on force. I also believe that a simple and unassuming life

 is good for everybody, physically and mentally.

 ~ Albert Einstein

our rebelliousness

Those who are indignant at and rebel against
the things that befall them are blind with self-love.
I speak to you now in general and in particular, and
I say that they take for evil and regard as misfortunes, ruin,
evidence of hate towards themselves, the things that I
do out of love and for their good, that they may be
saved from eternal loss and receive the life that shall not
pass away. Why then do they murmur against Me? Because
They have put their trust in themselves, and so all becomes
dark for them and they do not know things as they are.




~ Saint Catherine of Siena

a process of intellection

We name, we give a term to our various feelings, don't we?
 In saying, 'I am angry', we have given a term, a name,
 a label to a particular feeling. Now, please watch your own minds
 very clearly. When you have a feeling, you name that feeling;
 you call it anger, lust, love, pleasure, don't you? And this naming 
of the feeling is a process of intellection which prevents you from looking
 at the fact, that is, at the feeling.

You know, when you see a bird and say to yourself that it is a parrot
 or a pigeon or a crow, you are not looking at the bird. You have already
 ceased to look at the fact because the word parrot or pigeon or crow
 has come between you and the fact.

This is not some difficult intellectual feat but a process of the mind
 that must be understood. If you would go into the problem of fear 
or the problem of authority or the problem of pleasure or the problem of love, 
you must see that naming, giving a label, prevents you from looking at the fact.

~ J. Krishnamurti

from The Collected Works

Vol. XI, 350,Choiceless Awareness

art by Edvard Munch

glorious

~ MaMuse

as the rain

As the rain on the mountain peak runs off

The slopes on all sides, so those who see

Only the seeming multiplicity in life

Run after things on every side.

As pure water poured into pure water

Becomes the very same, so does the Self

Of the illumined man or woman, Nachiketa,

Verily become one with the Godhead.

...

The adorable one who is seated

In the heart rules the breath of life.

Unto him all the senses pay their homage.

When the dweller in the body breaks out

In freedom from the bonds of flesh,

What remains?  For this Self is supreme!

We live not by the breath that flows in

And flows out, but by him who causes the breath

To flow in and flow out.

~ The Katha Upanishad

(Death as Teacher)

translated by Eknath Easwaran

looking into a face

Conversation brings us so close! Opening

The surfs of the body,

Bringing fish up near the sun,

And stiffening the backbones of the sea!

I have wandered in a face, for hours,

Passing through dark fires.

I have risen to a body

Not yet born,

Existing like a light around the body,

Through which the body moves like a sliding moon.

~ Robert Bly

from The Light Around the Body

 

body and soul

 
Without Contraries is no progression.
Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate,
are necessary to Human existence.
From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.
Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy.
Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.


All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors.


1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body; a Soul.

2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the Body;
that Reason, call'd Good, is alone from the Soul.

3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.


But the following Contraries to these are True



1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul 
for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, 
the chief inlets of Soul in this age

2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body
 and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

3 Energy is Eternal Delight





~ William Blake
from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

inside the rose

.

.

That camel there with its calf running

behind it, Sutur and Koshek, we're like

them: mothered and nursed by where 

and who we are from, following our fates

where they lead, until we hear a drum

begin, grace entering our lives, a prayer

of gratitude.  We feel the call of God,

and the journey changes, A dry field

of stones turns soft and moist as cheese.

The mountain feels level under us.  Love

becomes agile and quick, and suddenly

we're there!  This traveling's not done

with the body.  God's secret takes form

in your loving.  But there are those in

bodies who are pure soul.  It can happen.

These messengers invite us to walk with 

them.  They say, "You may feel happy

enough where you are, but we can't do

without you any longer!  Please."  So

we walk along inside the rose, being

pulled like the creeks and rivers are,

out from the town onto the plain.  My

guide, my soul, your only sadness is when

I am not walking with you.  In deep silence,

with some exertion to stay in your company,

I could save you a lot of trouble!

.

~ Rumi

from The Glance, Songs of Soul-Meeting

translated by Coleman Barks

art by ramel jasir

sweep aside the dust

A small fish swallowing a big one,

Like a Buddhist priest studying the Confucian classics;

It can penetrate the entanglements of buddhas and demons,

And sweep aside the dust collecting on the Law.

~ Dogen

from the Zen Poetry of Dogen by Steven Heine

 

the entry

Not from saying names, 

or praying to statuary.

Not from holding your breath

till you are blue in the face.

Not from twisting your torso this way, now that,

till you are like a string

striving to become a knot.

Not from reading saints' lives

or fingering a billion beads.

Only this:

The moment between the breaths.

The stillness between the notes.

A firefly extinguishes itself,

bleeds darkness

before its final flare.

 ~ Dorothy Walters

from Marrow of Flame 

(homage to Kabir)

 

 

child of heaven and earth

As a child of heaven and earth, 

you are a mix of infinite openness and finite limitation.  

This means that you are both wonderful and difficult

 at the same time.  

You are flawed, you are stuck in old patterns, 

you become carried away with yourself.  

Indeed, you are quite impossible in many ways.  

And still, you are beautiful beyond measure. 

 For the core of what you are is fashioned out of love,

 that potent blend of openness, warmth, 

and clear transparent presence. 

 Boundless love always seems to sparkle 

through your limited form.

~ John Welwood

from Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart

the broken thread

Once upon a time, there was a Sufi mystic. Like many mystics, he did not hold any formal position or title. He lived completely in the world, and the only way you knew anything was special about him was the sense of sweetness that seemed to cling to everything he touched.
During the day, he functioned as a shopkeeper, carefully sweeping and stacking and dusting the majestic tapestries, which he sold to support his family. There was a gentle buzz about the shop, a calm flow of traffic that never seemed to cease, from early in the morning when the shopkeeper’s wife unlocked the door and switched the sign to read open, until the evening hours, when the last rays of the sun settled across the dusty streets.

Gradually, the people who came to visit the shop began to linger, to breathe in the fragrance of the mystic, and upon their request, he began to teach. One of his students asked one day if he could begin to spend the afternoons as his assistant. He had no need of pay; he wanted to learn, and the mystic simply smiled, and so it began.

The boy was very polite, and so when he saw his master doing a very peculiar thing one afternoon after a new shipment arrived, he stared only for a moment and did not ask a question. Two days later, when he saw his master doing the same very odd thing, again he politely turned his eyes aside. And so again the third and the fourth and the fifth time. But finally, his curiosity could be contained no more.“Master,” he said, addressing his teacher.
The mystic turned and gazed with soft, deep eyes.
“Master. Why is it that every time you get a shipment of new tapestries, you grab a pin and loosen a thread in the center of each? I’ve seen you do this five times. I know how you love the tapestries, how you teach to always care for what we have here on earth.” He turned his palms up. “Why?”
The Mystic’s soft eyes did not change their expression. “That is the secret,” he said.
The boy’s face grew red and flushed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
His teacher continued. “The secret of the love. In the broken thread, the place of the flaw, is where you find your way to God.” 

 ~ Sufi story
art from  the Dome of a Sufi Saint by majhul

we phantom figures

46

For in and out, above, about, below,

'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,

Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,

Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

47

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all Things end in - Yes -
Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be - Nothing - Thou shalt not be less.

49

'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and Thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

51

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

52

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help - for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

2

Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."

7

Come , fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
 The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly - and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

20

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears -
To-morrow? - Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.

32

There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of Me and Thee
There seemed - and then no more of Thee and Me.

55

The Vine had struck a Fibre; which about
If clings my Being - let the Sufi flout;
Of my Base Metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without

56

And this I know: whether the one True Light,
Kindle to Love, or Wrathconsume me quite,
One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.

~ Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

First Edition, 1859

translation into English quatrains by Edward FitzGerald