Poetry Chaikhana Blog

An Improvisation for Angular Momentum
by A. R. Ammons

Walking is like
imagination, a
single step
dissolves the circle
into motion; the eye here
and there rests
on a leaf,
gap, or ledge,
everything flowing
except where
sight touches seen:
stop, though, and
reality snaps back
in, locked hard,
forms sharply
themselves, bushbank,
dentree, phoneline,
definite, fixed,
the self, too, then
caught real, clouds
and wind melting
into their directions,
breaking around and
over, down and out,
motions profound,
alive, musical!

Perhaps the death mother like the birth mother
does not desert us but comes to tend
and produce us, to make room for us
and bear us tenderly, considerately,
through the gates, to see us through,
to ease our pains, quell our cries,
to hover over and nestle us, to deliver
us into the greatest, most enduring
peace, all the way past the bother of
recollection,
beyond the finework of frailty,
the mishmash house of the coming & going,
creation’s fringes,
the eddies and curlicues

/ Photo by jenny downing /

This is such an interesting poem to me. The first section is a fascinating, very specific exploration of how perception shifts when we are walking rather than standing still.

When we are stationary, we perceive our immediate environment — the small “circle” of our world — as being fixed. Because we don’t move, the world around us doesn’t move, and suddenly everything we see seems very “real” — concrete, tangible, “locked”

But when we move, when we start to walk, we “dissolve the circle;” we step outside our own bubble. Objects are no longer stationary. Our eyes can no longer lock on things. Instead, our vision flows over things, their edges are less defined, their reality softens.

We notice that the self, too, changes its nature. Perceiving a world of fixed, solid objects, we imagine ourselves to be the same. In a soft, moving world, we see the self not as a thing but as a flowing process of perception.

This reminds me of something I used to practice some years back. My wife and I usually share driving, so I am often in the passenger seat. When conversation would wane and I found myself sitting quietly in the moving car and nothing to do I would watch the world go by in two specific ways. First, I would fix my attention on passing objects, a street sign, a tree, a pedestrian, my head turning as we approached and then passed. Do that a few times and you can get dizzy. Then I would switch and look out the side window and intentionally not focus on anything in particular, just letting the world slide by in a fluid blur. Not only does the world’s apparent tangibility shift, but the perceiver changes: consciousness shifts, attachment reflexes lessen. The way we look at the world influences the way we are in the world.

The second part of A. R. Ammons’s poem does an interesting jump in theme. He then speaks of the “death mother” and the “birth mother.” How does that relate to perception, walking, and standing still? We can begin to understand his meaning when we recognize what he is saying about them: Birth and death are not figures that mark the beginning and endpoint one’s life. He suggests that they both journey with us all along. And, when it’s time to pass through the “gates” of life, both of them, birth as well as death, tenderly guide us through.

Passing through that threshold of life-death, is similar to “dissolving the circle” of beginning a walk. We leave the fixed reality of physical life, and enter a more flowing relationship to existence, with a more fluid sense of self. He envisions a state of “great peace,” unburdened by will, recollection, and vulnerability, all things that require wearying effort and attachment. This poem gives us a picture of death not as a stopping point, but as the beginning of a journey, one of panoramic vision and panoramic self.

A. R. Ammons US (1926 – 2001) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by A. R. Ammons

Giving
by Kahlil Gibran

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights, is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their wealth naked and their pride unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and and instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life — while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

— from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

/ Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography /

I hope everyone here in the US got through the presidential election. The media megaphones are powering down. The candidates have claimed their offices. Now is when the real work begins — pushing our representatives to actually represent us, insisting that political, economic, and societal structures do a better job expressing the aspiration of the human spirit and the needs of the planet which is our home. A daunting task, but isn’t that why we’re here?

…Which sort of leads into today’s poem by Kahlil Gibran.

Who do we help? Who do we give to? Who do we choose to care about and feel connected to? It’s a very reasonable response to say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.” The problem is that reason, for all its usefulness, is stuck in the head; the questions of giving and connection are questions for the heart, not the head. And the heart knows what the head does not:

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

When we work deeply with service and giving as part of our spiritual path, we begin to understand that the meeting of needs and the sharing of resources is not enough. That surface approach is usually a sign of ego’s touch, a way to crown oneself as the giver. We haven’t yet discovered what it means to be worthy to give. When we see clearly, there is no personal merit. Giving is our nature. It is the natural flow of life, and we are part of that life. When we give we have simply ceased to constrict our own spirit… and then our hearts untighten and we can witness life flowing through us all.

For in truth it is life that gives unto life — while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

We should daily ask ourselves, “What gift can I give?”

Kahlil Gibran Lebanon/US (1883 – 1931) Timeline Christian Secular or Eclectic

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I’ve mentioned before that I am gathering together material for a Poetry Chaikhana anthology. What would you like to see included?

- What is your favorite Poetry Chaikhana poem? Is there one that dances in your mind, opens your heart, a poem you return to again and again?

- Do you have a favorite poem commentary, something that made the poem come alive for you or spoke to you on a deep level?

- Is there a certain thought for the day that said the right thing to you at the right moment?

What do you really want to see in print? Help me fill this first Poetry Chaikhana anthology with delights and treasures! I’d love to hear from you…

Whoever finds love
by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

English version by Coleman Barks

Whoever finds love
beneath hurt and grief
disappears into emptiness
with a thousand new disguises

— from The Essential Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks

/ Photo by MoodyBlue /

I first came across this Rumi poem excerpt several years ago on a wonderful CD called Secret Language: Rumi, A Celebration in Song, by a Ramananda. Even now when I hear these words sung in my inner ear, repeated over and over, a hypnotic man’s voice, a soaring woman’s voice–

Whoever finds love…
Whoever finds looove…
Beneath hurt and grief…

Most of us live our entire lives with a thick veil or filter draped across existence — the ego-mind. Everything we perceive or imagine is colored by that filter. When the ego falls away we “disappear” — the normal sense of self as a separate, isolated entity amazingly fades out. The mind grows quiet. Any movement in the mind is perceived as a minor ripple that does not affect the clarity. As a result, the endless projections of identity, form, and enforced relationships between aspects of reality disappear. Instead, there is only a unified Whole, which includes us. We, like that Wholeness, are now understood to be formless, fluid. In this sense, we are spaciousness in an even vaster spaciousness. This is how we “disappear into emptiness.”

So, the disguises… Being formless, we still participate in the realm of form, because that is all the realm of form understands. Rather than a trap or a fixed identity, it becomes a game. You pretend to be someone, so other someones can relate to you. You wear masks that suit the situation, and then change them as the situation changes. Yet none of them is “you,” and you know this. Being formless, you can assume any form. You have “a thousand new disguises.”

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi Afghanistan & Turkey (1207 – 1273) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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Kubla Khan
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
      Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

      The shadow of the dome of pleasure
      Floated midway on the waves;
      Where was heard the mingled measure
      From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
      A damsel with a dulcimer
      In a vision once I saw:
      It was an Abyssinian maid,
      And on her dulcimer she played,
      Singing of Mount Abora.
      Could I revive within me
      Her symphony and song,
      To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

— from The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge / Edited by William Keach

/ Photo by foureyes /

It’s Halloween today. As a child, next to Christmas, Halloween was always my favorite holiday. I loved the masks and costumes, toying with my identity, hiding behind what is seen. I loved the time of year, the chill breeze and thick sweaters, bare branches with a few bright leaves, the blue daylight illuminating it all. And, I have to admit, I loved the giddy, creeping sense of death… and the implied question of what lay beyond. Spirits, magic, monsters, and nighttime, they evoked in me a childish delight in the sense that there was something more to the world, something hidden, secret, another reality in the shadows. I felt the holiday tugging at me, my goosebumps an invitation into the unknown…

Happy Halloween!

==

This poem is the classic, the best known of all Coleridge’s poems — Kubla Khan. I chose it for today because, along with its imagery of an exotic, strange paradise, I’ve always found it just a bit haunting, even eerie. It’s not only that we’ve encountered a new land, it’s as if we’ve stepped into a new dimension, a land of Faerie and dream. The normal rules don’t apply. Even the familiar can’t be entirely trusted. But that little bit of uncertainty, mixed with wonder, serves to bring our attention fully into the present moment. Every detail, every little encounter is enriched as a result. Remembering this, we can discover Xanadu down any street on any day…

Samuel Taylor Coleridge England (1772 – 1834) Timeline Secular or Eclectic : Romantic

More poetry by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Remove duality and do away with all disputes
by Bulleh Shah

English version by J. R. Puri and T. R. Shangari

Remove duality and do away with all disputes;
The Hindus and Muslims are not other than He.
Deem everyone virtuous, there are no thieves.
For, within every body He himself resides.
How the Trickster has put on a mask!

— from Bulleh Shah: The Love-Intoxicated Iconoclast (Mystics of the East series), by J. R. Puri / Tilaka Raja Puri

/ Photo by GollyGforce /

Today is the beginning of Eid ul Adha, the Muslim holiday of sacrifice, a time to offer what is precious in life to God.

That word “sacrifice”… many of us instinctively recoil on hearing it. It conjures ideas of self-impoverishment, a sort of self-cruelty. We imagine giving up something valuable, handing it over to some other vaguely defined person we name God. Sacrifice, properly understood, is not that at all.

Sacrifice is really about opening the heart and the recalibration of our relationship to every person and every thing. It is consciously acknowledging the value of what is specific, while recognizing it as part of the greater Whole. Doing this, we restore the vision of vast Unity, establishing that at the center of the heart; orienting from that perspective, we can then understand the true value of a human relationship, a job, a home, a meal, a possession.

When we don’t regularly do this, we start to take the Trickster’s game too seriously. Instead of delight at the endless variation of existence, we become bewildered by the mask and forget how to see into the heart of things. Seeing, we once again become participants in the game, not pieces.

Sacrifice, in other words, is not about loss; it is about balance and clear vision. It is about removing duality. To sacrifice means to make sacred, to reawaken awareness of the sacred.

Have a wonderful weekend, with renewed awareness of the sacred everywhere.

Bulleh Shah Punjab (Pakistan/India) (1680 – 1758) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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O I saw witchcraft tonight
by Mirabai

English version by Robert Bly

O I saw witchcraft tonight
in the region of Braj.
A milking girl going her rounds,
a pot on her head,
came face to face with the Dark One.
My friend, she is babbling,
can no longer say “buttermilk.”
– Come get the Dark One, the Dark One!
A pot full of Shyam! –
In the overgrown lanes
of Vrindavan forest
the Enchanter of Hearts fixed his
eye on this girl,
then departed.
Mira’s lord is hot, lovely
and raven –
tonight she saw witchcraft
at Braj.

— from Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems, Translated by Robert Bly

/ Photo by AMagill /

The “Dark One” referred to in Mirabai’s poetry is Krishna, whose name can be loosely translated as the dark one.

In this poem, milk is the ambrosial drink, the sweet subtle liquid-like substance often perceived during states of sacred ecstasy.

Mirabai herself is the “milking girl going her rounds.” She is the mystic gathering the blissful substance of divine union, traveling town to town as a mendicant ascetic, with her awareness making the pilgrimage through the psycho-spiritual centers of the spiritual body (Vrindavan forest, where the Enchanter of Hearts is found).

The milk pot is “on her head” — a reference to the skull as the bowl that catches the fountain of the rising Kundalini Shakti and the descending heavenly liquid.

When the ecstasy of spiritual union is strong, it is sometimes associated with an outpouring of words — one more reason so many mystics become “babbling” poets.

Her skull, the “pot,” is full of Shyam — Krishna, God — and from this overflowing cup of divine milk, she is eager to share with all.

– Come get Krishna, the Dark One! A head full of God and a heart touched by the Enchanter! –

Mirabai India (1498 – 1565?) Timeline Yoga / Hindu : Vaishnava (Krishna/Rama)

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A Spiritual Journey
by Wendell Berry

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.

— from The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982, by Wendell Berry

/ Photo by LittleLottexo /

I keep returning to the poetry of Wendell Berry. Few writers these days are truly willing to be still and to befriend the world of growing things outside the city limits. In the modern world, that’s practically considered blasphemy. Writers like that get labeled “poet” and a “crank” so they can be safely ignored — unless their writing is unavoidably good, filled with the presence and heart secretly craved by culture. Wendell Berry’s words are like that.

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long…

Wendell Berry US (1934 – ) Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by Wendell Berry

Buddha in Glory
by Rainer Maria Rilke

English version by Stephen Mitchell

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

— from Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell

/ Photo by .Bala /

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–

Just a few lines so marvelously convey the sense of being centered, profoundly still, yet at the same time expanding into the galactic infinity…

all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

And even though every being and thing that steps onto the stage of existence, from the tiniest molecule to brightest sun, must sooner or later exit again, yet we come to recognize something here that is bigger still, and deathless.

But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

Rainer Maria Rilke Germany (1875 – 1926) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke

Last night, as I was sleeping
by Antonio Machado

English version by Ivan M. Granger

      Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt – blessed vision! –
that a fountain flowed
here in my heart.
I said: Why, O water, have you come
along this secret waterway,
spring of new life,
which I have never tasted?

      Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt – blessed vision! –
that it was God I had
here in my heart.

/ Photo by Ecstatic Mark /

Feeling better, so we’re back. I thought I’d return with a new translation of one of my favorite poems.

I featured a version of this poem about half a year ago, the well known version translated by Robert Bly. Although I generally like the feel and rhythm of Bly’s rendition, I find one important detail frustrating, even misleading: The repeated line, which I’ve translated as “blessed vision,” he rendered as “marvelous error.” This causes readers so much confusion that I finally decided to do my own translation. Machado’s actual line in Spanish is “bendita ilusión.” A more exact translation might be “blessed illusion or dream.” When I read that, I don’t hear Machado calling this experience an “error”; it’s more of a vision…

This is my favorite poem by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado. Actually, it’s one of my favorite poems, period.

It speaks so richly for itself that no commentary is necessary to be caught in its spell. But I do want to take a moment to explore how this poem strongly parallels the mystic’s ecstatic experience…

In this poem, Machado discovers continual delights in his heart. Similarly, in the state of mystical union, the heart seems to expand, filling with a joy that encompasses everything.

The fountain flows from his heart, running along a “secret waterway.” It is a “spring of new life.” This is often part of sacred ecstasy. Mystics often experience a sensation of drinking some unknown liquid that warms the heart and fills one with a bubbling sense of life previously unknown and unimagined.

This “drink” is perceived as being sweet, eliciting comparisons to honey or wine. Thus, Machado discovers “white wax / and sweet honey” in his heart.

In such overwhelming delight one feels radically restored and whole. All past guilts and “sorrows” seem somehow resolved, transformed into the very matter that this joy is built upon.

And the awareness is filled with the perception of a radiant light, while the body is permeated with a great warmth — like a “blazing sun.”

Indeed, caught up in this experience, how can you doubt that it is God you have inside your heart?

Antonio Machado Spain (1875 – 1939) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

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Clear Wine
by Binavi Badakhshani

English version by David and Sabrineh Fideler

A mystic is one
who passes away –

Now whole, he displays
the Most Beautiful Names.

— from Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition, Translated by David Fideler / Translated by Sabrineh Fideler

/ Photo by mudgalbharat /

A couple of brief observations:

“Clear wine without dregs” is a variation on the classic image of the awareness being like silted streamwater: When the flow is natural and untroubled, the silt settles to the bottom and the water is clear, allowing the light to pass through unhindered. But when the water is turbulent, silt rises and clarity is lost.

What we commonly think of as the self or the ego is really nothing more than that silt, the murky dregs. The ego doesn’t really have any tangibility in itself; it is simply a clouding of the awareness that we have grown used to. A mystic is one who has learned to let the flow of heart and mind grow smooth, natural, still. As the dregs settle, the mystic’s ego-self “passes away,” and the wine grows clear.

The “Most Beautiful Names” are the many names and attributes of God. In other words, such a one, one who is “now whole,” “displays” or embodies the qualities of the Divine.

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Peace of charity in the annihilated life
by Marguerite Porete

English version by Ellen L. Babinsky

Of this life, says Love, we wish to speak, in asking what one could find:

1. A Soul
2. who is saved by faith without works
3. who is only in love
4. who does nothing for God
5. who leaves nothing to do for God
6. to whom nothing can be taught
7. from whom nothing can be taken
8. nor given
9. and who possesses no will

— from Marguerite Porete: Mirror of Simple Souls (Classics of Western Spirituality), by Ellen Babinsky

/ Photo by TheGost4u /

This poem has several surprising statements that overturn our common notions of spirituality and striving and the need to help others. Marguerite Porete seems to be almost taunting us with the bluntness of her words. So let’s look a little more deeply…

There is a debate that has gone on for centuries in virtually all spiritual traditions. In Christianity, the question is formulated as, “Is one saved through faith or through works?” (In Eastern traditions, the question might be rephrased as, “Does enlightenment require effort and service, or are those a distraction from the ever present truth?”)

Here Marguerite Porete gives us a checklist of qualities of the awakened soul. It is a vision of the Self utterly at rest. It is “only in love” — nowhere else. The soul is so complete in itself that “nothing can be taught” to it and “nothing can be taken / nor given” to it.

And, for her, activity has nothing to do with the soul in its wholeness. Action, effort, even service, imply an externalization of awareness and a dualistic view of the universe. It implies a creation of multiplicity and separation and incompleteness, while the soul in communion with Love only witnesses completeness. This is how she can say that the awakened soul “does nothing,” not even “for God.” It is because the soul “leaves nothing to do for God;” the soul, in fact, sees nothing undone that must be done. Every noble action is a form of ritual, an attempt to awaken wholeness and holiness within by enacting it externally. When that unity is finally found within, the outer world is not seen as separate from that wholeness.

The soul, overcome with this vision of unity, within and without, “possesses no will.” That is, it has no self-will, no will to action. Love is its will.

Marguerite Porete states plainly that, in her view, the soul “is saved by faith without works.”

Having said all this, I’ll add a little more of my own perspective to this question. Even in the deepest, most still communion, one does not become inactive or cease to be of service to others. In fact, this is where service truly begins. But action is no longer performed through self-will. Instead, action naturally flows through you, free from self. There is simply expression that passes through you. It is not even truly action or “works” anymore, because that suggests ‘you’ are ‘doing’ them — and you are not; it just naturally comes through you as warmth and light naturally radiate from the candle flame, without effort. One naturally works and wills for the wellness of the world — but there is no feeling of work or will.

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Whatever It was
by Devara Dasimayya

English version by A. K. Ramanujan

Whatever It was

to It I pray,
O Ramanatha.

— from Speaking of Siva, by A K Ramanujan

/ Photo by FallenKnite /

In this poem Devara Dasimayya almost appears to be describing a piece of architecture or sculpture: the earth as the base, a pillar topped with a lotus and the moon, draped in a folded material “of sky.” And some mysterious “It” is both makes this structure and houses Itself within the creation.

We can understand this poem as a description of the body and its spiritual energies. The body’s fundamental material, its “base” material, is earth. The wind or vital breath is its pillar, traveling up the energetic column of the subtle spine. The lotus is the crown chakra and the moon is the brow chakra, often called the third eye. To be “covered… with folds / of sky” is to be surrounded and filled by akasha or the subtle ether that permeates all space. Akasha is sometimes described as being in “folds” as an early metaphor (appropriate to a weaver) that suggests how distant points of the same fabric can touch, Point A can touch point B by folding the cloth together until they meet. A more contemporary idea is the hologram, where every point contains the whole image within it, thus every point contains or is connected with every other point. The etheric akasha is the same way; it is holographic — through this subtle substance of awareness, all points touch.

And within this magical compilation of forces, dense and subtle, that make up the body — “with Itself inside” — resides “that Mystery.” God, here, is not an external being or force, but a presence within. The truth of the mystic is to look within for the Divine.

In Devara Dasimayya’s vision, God is “indifferent to differences,” that is, the Eternal is perfectly whole, complete, still. The Eternal One witnesses the fluctuations of dualistic experience without being tainted or disturbed by it. There is no fluctuation amidst the fluctuations. There is a universal oneness amidst the endless variety.

To that “It” does the whole universe pray…

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Autumn wind
by Kobayashi Issa

English version by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto

Autumn wind –
mountain’s shadow
wavers.

— from Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter, Translated by Lucien Stryk / Translated by Takashi Ikemoto

/ Photo by sektordua /

Something to welcome in the Autumn season today…

In that “autumn wind,” late in one’s life, far down the road of one’s spiritual practice, the imposing shadow cast by that “mountain” (of matter, world, self) seems somehow to waver, becoming less tangible, more dream-like, leaving us in a surprisingly fluid reality.

Before long it’s not just the trees and the grasses that dance in the wind, but mountains too!

Kobayashi Issa Japan (1763 – 1828) Timeline Buddhist : Zen / Chan

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Nocturne
by Andrew Colliver

You are woken in the night
by something that cannot speak
in daylight, that has no purchase
in the hard currency of your life.

- From the unpublished manuscript A Day of Light, by Andrew Colliver

/ Photo by halaquinn-arcadias /

The Autumn Equinox is coming up (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere) — a time to to slow down our work, to welcome the coming chill, to see the final splendor of nature’s color, to greet the growing dark. It is a tentative time of transition. We feel fragile while our senses awaken when confronted by the uncertainty of winter. With the shorter days and longer nights, we turn from the outer world and renew our solitary citizenship in the worlds within.

The time calls to mind this poem I recently discovered by Andrew Colliver. A poem that aches with nighttime loneliness, yet it is a poem of awakening.

Some wonderful lines here:

[It] colonises your spine, feeds
you up into the stars…

You are momentarily disappearing,
to enter your own voice…

And what about that final “unimaginable emptiness” –?

you have returned to
your own faithfulness,
your own unimaginable
emptiness.

The poet doesn’t really suggest that the loneliness has gone, but there seems to be an impression of fulfillment and wholeness in this emptiness, a completion of one’s being in some way.

Why do so many eastern traditions, most especially Buddhism, emphasize emptiness or nirvana? As a teenager I used to wrestle with this question: How could void ever be a goal? It seems so bleak, such a stark negative.

It took a lot of exploration along various pathways before this idea of “emptiness” finally had real meaning for me. The emptiness described is not an absolute vacuum, not a gray lifeless no-place. It is empty only in the sense that it is “thingless,” free from the countless categories of mental objects and fixed definitions. Everything is still there, but it is fluid, no longer disconnected. This “emptiness” is in fact filled, filled with life! It is a great primal pool of potential and expansive awareness. What it is empty of is that most central of things which defines our reality: the little self, the ego. It is empty of the ego’s endless stories about itself. It is empty of the ego’s filtration of reality. There is no “I” in this emptiness (“You are momentarily disappearing.”). Without that “I,” there is finally seeing, but without a fixed point of perception. Without that “I,” there is Being, but not separate beings.

Finally free from the small self’s constant coloring of perception, things are simply as they are (“Know this: / what arrives here cannot / be other than itself…”).

Settling into the wholeness and the life of that “emptiness”… now that’s a nice way to spend a solitary night.

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Was it Light?
by Theodore Roethke

Was it light?
Was it light within?
Was it light within light?
Stillness becoming alive,
Yet still?

A lively understandable spirit
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait.

— from Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty, Edited by Alan Jacobs

/ Photo by whatmegsaid /

The carpets were cleaned yesterday. I dragged all my furniture outside: a couch, tables, chairs. Even my computer, so I could work… outside. It was a lovely day. A reminder for me that we have too many roofs in our lives, not enough sky…

I’ve also been recovering from a bit of the flu, so I fell asleep on the couch outside. When I woke up, my eyes opened to the sunlight streaming through green leaves overhead. And I lay there, wrapped in that timeless state of light fever, watching the world and its light moving about me, yet somehow remaining still.

Was it light?
Was it light within?
Was it light within light?
Stillness becoming alive,
Yet still?

Theodore Roethke US (1908 – 1963) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by Theodore Roethke

Flames
by Chinmoy

What is important
In Infinity?
Smiling flames.
What is important
In Eternity?
Climbing flames.
What is important
In Immortality?
Glowing flames.

/ Photo by rickydeviant /

Smiling flames… Climbing flames… Glowing flames…

Why does Sri Chinmoy keep repeating that flames are so important?

Fire has some important layers of meaning as a sacred metaphor. First, it represents intense purification. We are the gold in the alchemist’s crucible, and the fire burns away the dross — imperfections, false attachments — until we shine with our innate essence.

But on an even deeper, mystical level, fire is actually experienced. In ecstasy, there is often a sense of heat — filled with immense love — that permeates the body. This warmth seems to emerge from the seat, flares in the belly, and rises upward, fanning out at the heart. As this fire moves through the body, it also moves through the awareness, consuming all thoughts (or, more accurately, the subtle agitations from which thoughts emerge). This fire burns away even the thought of “I” — only the sense of this living flame remains.

This is such a wonderful fire that mystics often describe it as a flame of love, so enchanting that, like the moth, you want to dart in and be utterly consumed.

This is Sri Chinmoy’s flame. This is the flame of Infinity, the flame of Eternity, the flame of Immortality.

What is important
In Eternity?
Climbing flames.

Chinmoy India (1931 – 2007) Timeline Yoga / Hindu

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