Poetry Chaikhana Blog

We don’t get the greatest gifts,
we give ourselves to them instead.

On Those Words “I am for My Beloved”
by Teresa of Avila

English version by Megan Don

Already I gave myself completely,
and have changed in such a way
That my Beloved is for me
and I am for my Beloved.

He pierced me with an arrow
laced with the herbs of love
and my soul became one
with her Creator;
I no longer want another love,
since I have given myself to my God,
That My Beloved is for me
and I am for my Beloved.

/ Photo by stevekc /

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, and we are also in the season of Lent. I thought this meditation on love and the soul’s yielding to the Beloved was just right.

I was sent this poem directly by the translator, Megan Don. She is the author of Falling Into the Arms of God: Meditations with Teresa of Avila — a truly beautiful collection of contemplations inspired by the writings of Teresa of Avila.

According to Megan Don, this poem by Teresa of Avila was written about her well-known mystical experience of feeling her heart being pierced with a rapturous love by an angel. This mystical experience also inspired the great Bernini to sculpt the controversial mystically erotic sculpture of Teresa.

A few of my own thoughts:

Saints and mystics the world over speak of the heart being touched, pierced, opened. They speak of being surprised by love. The problem is, we hear the world “love” and “heart” and we think of the simple sweetness of Valentine’s Day cards. We aren’t encouraged to develop a real concept of what these great souls are attempting to describe.

When the mind settles and the soul waits in courageously vulnerable readiness, the most amazing thing happens: the heart blooms. The heart opens and expands. Effortlessly, the heart reaches out, with a wider span than you ever imagined possible, embracing all of creation. We become flooded with something beyond feeling or emotion; there is a sense of finally recognizing one’s very nature within the heart. That this is home. That this is the seat of your being.

When focused inward, you are enraptured, filled with bliss. When focused outward, you are an embodiment of love, love that permeates everything. We begin to feel so much more, all the world’s suffering and searching and occasional surges of life, and it is all beautiful and somehow a part of us.

Think about these things. Consider what it means to have your heart truly “pierced” by the Divine. How do we prepare ourselves? How can we, in full honesty, say, “I gave myself completely,” and “I am for my Beloved”? What is the weakness or vulnerability that the “gentle hunter” leaves us in? What does it mean to be “changed with new life”? The big question: What is the real experience that allows you to say, “my soul became one / with her Creator”?

Have a beautiful Valentine’s Day afterglow, fully at rest, fully alive in the heart.

Teresa of Avila Spain (1515 – 1582) Timeline Christian : Catholic

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We learn the way
by knowing our hearts.

Every Shaped Thing
by Ivan M. Granger

Sighing,
every shaped thing
turns
heavenward.

I can only
point
up.”

— from Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey, by Ivan M. Granger

/ Photo by hsld /

It has been a little while since I have featured one of my own poems, so here is one for you today…

I wrote this poem when I lived on the island of Maui years ago. I was standing outside with a scattered forest of eucalyptus and wattle trees in front of me, with Haleakala volcano to my back. I was standing there in a state of deep meditation, when I opened my eyes — and I just saw how everything is reaching, turning, pointing heavenward. The material world, when objectified becomes a confusing tangle of desire objects; but when seen truly, quietly, it acts as a great signpost guiding us, pointing out the direction.

All of creation — every person, every thing, even every idea, “every shaped thing” — is just a reflection of the divine radiance present everywhere.

Whenever we desire a thing… or person or experience, we artificially deify it, the desire and mental fixation becoming a low form of worship. We may tell ourselves, “I want this, I want that,” but what we unknowingly crave is not the thing itself, but that spark of the Eternal barely glimpsed within it. The desired object becomes a “gilded god” — false in the sense that it is not truly the wholeness we seek; but also, like an “idol” or icon, when approached sincerely and openly, material creation embodies something essential: it points to the Divine which it reflects.

No individual can ever gather enough objects of desire to satisfy desire. Every time we acquire that desired object or experience — a new job, a new lover, money, an ice cream sundae — there is a fleeting sense of satisfaction… and then it’s gone. And we’re already feeling desire again and looking for the next object to hang the desire on. We’re looking for the next thing that sparkles. But it is not the object we actually seek, it is that shine. And that shine is the spark of the Divine.

When we learn to see in gold the glimmer of the sun, then we see that everything shines — everything! — ourselves included. And then we are truly satisfied.

Ivan M. Granger US (1969 – ) Secular or Eclectic Yoga / Hindu : Advaita / Non-Dualist

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Many bodies,
Many objects,
Many thoughts,
Many experiences –
One Being.

Nirvana Shatakam
by Shankara

English version by Ivan M. Granger

I am not mind, not intellect, not ego, not thought.
I am not the ears, the tongue, the nose or the eyes, or what they witness,
I am neither earth nor sky, not air nor light.

Truly, I am Shiva, pure awareness.
Shivo Ham! Shivo Ham!

/ Photo by energy /

This is one of the most important poems by the great Hindu philosopher-saint, Shankara. These lines are a distillation of Advaita Vedanta, the vision of non-dual reality. This is the realization that when we truly see and know, we recognize that underlying and supporting the complex diversity of creation is a single Unity. And within that Unity, even the individual is in no way separate or different from that vast Divine. This is why Shankara keeps returning to his refrain:

I am knowledge and bliss.
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

You might ask, why Shiva? If all is One, why then identify with just one god from among the many gods in the Hindu pantheon?

Some schools of Advaita Vedanta do tend to avoid the theistic language of gods and, instead, speak only of the Self — the immense Self that is at once the heart of every individual and also the heart of all Being.

But when adherents of Advaita do speak of Gods, they usually speak of Shiva. Shiva is the favored god of meditators, yogis, ascetics, those on on the path of gnosis. Shiva is seen as pure Being, the fountain of all being. When Shankara repeats, “I am Shiva!” he is declaring that he finds no separation between his individual self and the center of all selves.

I am…

Shankara says “I am” throughout. By reading this poem, we enter into his realization. We take on his awareness. His declaration of what he is and is not becomes our own.

I am not mind, not intellect, not ego, not thought…

Much of this poem is a list of what Shankara realizes we are not.

This is an expression of the ancient practice of neti neti — not this, not that. It is a spiritual examination of everything, while slowly recognizing that no single thing contains us.

We are not the mind or intellect. We are not the senses or the organs through which we perceive the world. We are not the elemental building blocks of the body or the mind.

He also states we are not the qualities or preferences of the personality. The things that tug at us or that repel us, they are not what we are, they are not fundamentally real either. Relationships, family, even life and death — none of these things define us or truly tell us who we are.

Shankara has basically negated everything: the body, the mind, desires and fears, relationships, even the hope for liberation itself. What then is left? That’s the question that resonates throughout. Surface ideas of identity would say that nothing remains and one has hit a dead end. Not so. Something remains. When all the rest has been swept aside, something remains. All the things you thought you were can be lost, yet you fundamentally remain. Beneath it all there has always been that glowing Self, steady, aware, at rest, blissful, invulnerable. And it says simply, “I am.”

Free from doubt, I am formless.
With knowledge, in knowledge, I am everywhere, beyond perception.
I am always the same. Not free, not trapped — I am.

In celebration, we can sing with Shankara –

I am knowledge and bliss.
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

Truly, I am Shiva, pure awareness.
Shivo Ham! Shivo Ham!

Shankara India (788 – 820) Timeline Yoga / Hindu : Advaita / Non-Dualist

More poetry by Shankara

The present moment is always unique,
a profound mystery,
and never to be missed

Looking, Walking, Being
by Denise Levertov

“The World is not something to
look at, it is something to be in.”
– Mark Rudman

breathing to sustain
looking,
walking and looking,
through the world,
in it.

— from Poems: 1960-1967, by Denise Levertov

/ Photo by Amizyolaroid /

Okay, let’s start off with those wonderful lines:

Looking’s a way of being: one becomes,
sometimes, a pair of eyes walking.

This poem is a response to the Mark Rudman quote, “The World is not something to / look at, it is something to be in.” Denise Levertov answers that looking IS being.

The eyes
dig and burrow into the world.
They touch…

I suspect that Rudman was discouraging passivity and lack of presence, but Levertov, I think, is getting at something deeper still. Humans, all beings, in fact, are fundamentally beings of awareness. Each individual is a point of perception, a viewpoint in the universe. We are, each of us, “a pair of eyes walking.”

We are present through perception, not action. Yes, action and interaction can be a powerful way to force us to pay attention, but it is also common to use action to shut down the awareness. Whether in movement or in stillness, the real goal is to keep the eyes open and feel fully with the heart and with the gut. We want to do more than look, but to see, see deeply, to see what is ignored and glossed over, to “dig and burrow in the world.”

Even in complete stillness, truly seeing is one of the most profound actions we can engage in. I’ve seen people brought to tears by a gentle gaze in the eyes. This is what the soul craves, to be seen, to be recognized, to be truly acknowledged. This is true not just of the human soul, but of the world soul. I think of this when Denise Levertov writes of how the world “looks at one looking.”

And language? Rhythms
of echo and interruption?
That’s
a way of breathing.

We forget that language is built of breath. We see the written word and we read it silently. Words become mental concepts, tools of the intellect. But words are not fundamentally discrete units of meaning. They flow and stop and flow again, as the breath does. Words aren’t inherently meaningful; they are the ornaments that accompany the flow of awareness.

Words affect breath. Thoughts affect breath. Breath guides awareness.

…breathing to sustain
looking…

Breath, too, is communion. Through the breath, we bring the outside world inside us, inside the body, inside the awareness. The boundary between self and the world is bridged by the breath. Through breath, we touch, we feel, we internalize, we connect, we participate, we come alive. Through breath we move and we see.

…walking and looking,
through the world,
in it.

Denise Levertov US (1923 – 1997) Timeline Secular or Eclectic : Beat Jewish

More poetry by Denise Levertov

It is in the darkness
that we learn to see.

Screening its face amongst lotus stalks
by Mahendranath Battacharya

English version by Rachel Fell McDermott

Screening its face amongst lotus stalks
the golden bird
            contented
            limbs listless with love
                  eyes open
sleeps on the flower with v, s, s, and s
emblazoned on its petals.

Oh soul, whip up the wind; let the bird fly
            flower to flower
towards Her mate in the sahasrara.
When that happens the five elements in you
            earth, water, fire, wind, and ether
will dissolve, and you’ll be free
            to merge in the Supreme.

— from Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott

/ Photo by FirenzeLotus22 /

This poem by Mahendranath Battacharya is a stunning example of the beautiful and technically precise language that emerges from the Tantric Kundalini tradition of Yoga. But the meaning might not be obvious at first glance. Let’s spend some time together unlocking its meaning, and I think you’ll see what a profound poem this is…

Screening its face amongst lotus stalks
the golden bird…

First, what is the “swan”, the “golden bird”? It is the awakening Kundalini Shakti, the spiritual force that typically lies dormant at the base of the spine. The Kundalini is more commonly described with serpent imagery, as a sleeping snake curled around an egg in the seat. But when it awakens, it rises up, or flies up. This is why you’ll get unusual imagery of winged serpents among various spiritual traditions, or sometimes snakes that turn into birds or birds that hold snakes in their mouths. The Kundalini is experienced as being serpent-like when it is dormant, and bird-like when it is awakened and rises.

In this poem, the “golden bird” at first is “Screening its face among the lotus stalks…” The lotus flower is a common Hindu metaphor for the chakras, or subtle energy centers, primarily located along the spine. Mahendranath Battacharya describes the Kundalini as “screening its face among the lotus stalks,” meaning it is initially hidden from conscious awareness. It is there and very much alive, but constant sensory input overwhelms the chakras, in effect hiding the Kundalini from notice.

Hidden and unnoticed, the Kundalini “sleeps on the flower with v, s, s, and s / emblazoned on the petals.” The repetition of the letter S doesn’t make as much sense in English, but it is a reference to the three Sanskrit variations of hard s, soft sh, and hard sh. In Kundalini Yoga, these four Sanskrit letters are visualized as being inscribed on the “petals” of the base chakra. In other words, this is both a technical and poetic way of saying that the Kundalini rests in the base chakra and must be awakened.

In a flower bud above
reigns the mantra “ram.”
Repeat “ram! ram!”

The mantra “ram” is often associated with the third chakra at the solar plexus. This chakra is commonly described as being the seat of the will and the gateway to the higher realms of awareness. It is a sort of energetic ‘traffic cop’ — when the third chakra is sluggish, it tends to keep the energies of the lower chakras bottled up, but when it is cleansed and invigorated it starts calling to the lower chakras, ‘Wake up!’ and to the Kundalini, it urges, ‘Rise! Rise!’ So, when Mahendranath Battacharya tells us to repeat “ram! ram!” he is saying to awaken that third chakra, which in turn warms and rouses the Kundalini.

Let no obstacle stand in your way;
get to work –
you are young and fresh.
Break this fake sleep and snap out of your dreams;
then the storms of this world won’t concern you.

But, of course, to do this, we must shake off our spiritual sluggishness. We must “get to work” and purify the mind, stretch the awareness, cleanse our energies. Yet, what else is all of our life force for? We have vitality, we are “young and fresh;” we should put it to good use! We must break the “fake sleep and snap out of [our] dreams” of limited perception and the false sense of self.

Oh soul, whip up the wind; let the bird fly
            flower to flower
towards Her mate in the sahasrara.

Mahendranath Battacharya urges us to “let the bird fly / flower to flower / towards Her mate in the sahasrara.” That is, we must let the Kundalini Shakti awaken and rise from chakra to chakra along the spine until it reaches the sahasrara or crown chakra. This is where the union occurs between the Divine Feminine (the awakened Kundalini Shakti) and the Divine Masculine (the Heavenly Spirit or Father Sky recognized in the crown center). When the two merge, we are finally One, and the Supreme is perceived within and without everywhere!

…and you’ll be free
            to merge in the Supreme.

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Build up a tolerance for the unknown.

How can you be at home in the immense, mysterious,
and formless Self,
when you are only at ease with what the mind has defined?

A Psalm
by Thomas Merton

When psalms surprise me with their music
And antiphons turn to rum
The Spirit sings: the bottom drops out of my soul.

While God sings by himself in acres of night
And walls fall down, that guarded Paradise.

— from Selected Poems of Thomas Merton, by Thomas Merton

/ Photo by Admond /

I apologize that it has been several days since our last poem email. I was floored by another bout of chronic fatigue, leaving me barely enough energy to keep up with the essentials of my day job. But I think I’m rebounding now. And I’m glad to be back with you all…

When psalms surprise me with their music
And antiphons turn to rum
The Spirit sings: the bottom drops out of my soul.

How about that for an opening? I love that phrase: “the bottom drops out of my soul.”

The first two-thirds of this poem are an ecstatic meditation on the mystic’s experience of union. A flooding of love and joy. A sense of profound clarity. An awareness of universal harmony amidst the kaleidoscopic multiplicity. An inner music. A giddy feeling of drunkenness.

But the tone of Merton’s poem shifts near the end.

And I go forth with no more wine and no more stars
And no more buds and no more Eden
And no more animals and no more sea:

There is a deflation in his final few stanzas. The riotous sense of life is replaced by emptiness.

I can’t quite decide if he is suggesting the return to mundane awareness, or its opposite — moving beyond to a state of utter stillness, where all of creation opens into a cavernous spaciousness, where no ‘thing’ remains, no boundary exists, only scintillating awareness in the substratum of existence.

While God sings by himself in acres of night
And walls fall down, that guarded Paradise.

Sometimes the question is more interesting than the answer. So let’s let that question mark hover in the air.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Thomas Merton US (1915 – 1968) Timeline Christian : Catholic

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Love the day.
Look deeply into the eyes of your child.
Spend time with yourself.
These are true worship.

Interrelationship
by Thich Nhat Hanh

You are me, and I am you.
Isn’t it obvious that we “inter-are”?
You cultivate the flower in yourself,
so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself,
so that you will not have to suffer.

I support you;
you support me.
I am in this world to offer you peace;
you are in this world to bring me joy.

— from Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh, by Thich Nhat Hanh

/ Photo by jmurawski /

This poem by the great modern Buddhist teacher and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh was written during a retreat for psychotherapists held in Colorado in response to someone else’s statement, “You are you, and I am me, and if by chance we meet, that’s wonderful. If not, it couldn’t be helped.”

This is a brief meditation on the Buddhist teaching of “inter-being.” Within the nondual awareness cultivated in Buddhism, especially the Zen Buddhism taught by Thich Nhat Hanh, nothing exists separately of everything else. Everything, ourselves included, is recognized as being a meeting point of shifting forces, environment, time, and perception. It is only in that touching, that interaction, that forms arise and individuals are said to exist. Remove those forces, and individual beings and objects cannot exist. In this sense, as individuals we are not spots that occupy space on the blank field of creation, rather we are empty spaces that are only suggested by the confluence of various forces. Discover that empty space, and you discover the eternal, blissful Void that is the true Self — void of form and “thingness,” but filled with life and awareness.

To return to Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem, as individuals with a certain body form and name and history, we exist only in the perception of each other. This is how he can pose the question, “Isn’t it obvious that we ‘inter-are’?”

By cultivating pure and compassionate awareness within ourselves, we transform those who perceive us, for their perception of us is a part of what they are composed of. And the more we “transform the garbage” in ourselves, the less that garbage shows up in those around us.

In this way of inter-being, the more we discover peace, the more we offer peace; the more we find joy, the more we bring joy.

Thich Nhat Hanh Vietnam/France/US (1929 – ) Buddhist : Zen / Chan

More poetry by Thich Nhat Hanh

See — you are
a lamp
lost in light.

The angels have bowed down to you and drowned
by Farid ud-Din Attar

English version by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

The angels have bowed down to you and drowned
Your soul in Being, past all plummet’s sound –
Do not despise yourself, for there is none
Who could with you sustain comparison;
Do not torment yourself — your soul is All,
Your body but a fleeting particle.
This All will clarify, and in its light
Each particle will shine, distinctly bright –
As flesh remains an agent of the soul,
You soul’s an agent of the sacred Whole.
But “part” and “whole” must disappear at last;
The Way is one, and number is surpassed.
A hundred thousand clouds above you press;
Their rain is pure, unending happiness;
And when the desert blooms with flowers, their scent
And beauty minister to your content;
The prayers of all the angels, all they do,
All their obedience, God bestows on you.

— from The Conference of the Birds, Translated by Afkham Darbandi / Translated by Dick Davis

/ Photo by N3T1O /

Isn’t that a striking opening couplet?

The angels have bowed down to you and drowned
Your soul in Being, past all plummet’s sound…

We are drowned, but in Being, in the Real. We are past sound, in a place of soundlessness. And we find ourselves dropping through great depths, measuring like a plummet weight. Perhaps we are even going beyond our ability to measure.

When we are finally confronted with the vision of Being, when the soul is “drowned” so that the Eternal utterly surrounds and fills us, we are brought to a place of utter stillness and silence. This is not so much an absence of sound as it is a pristine quietness of the awareness. You may still be conscious and coherent, but there is no vibration in the mind. It is as if the entire audience of a concert hall has fully settled down, no whispers, no coughs, no shuffling in the seats, complete silence and attention, finally ready to hear the symphony in all its subtlety and beauty.

But “part” and “whole” must disappear at last;
The Way is one, and number is surpassed.

But let’s back up for a moment… Why are the angels bowing down to you? In Islamic tradition, God insists that the angels bow down to his new creation — Adam, humanity. The angel Iblis (Satan) refuses, and this is what sparks his rebellion.

This story is confusing and even a bit shocking. Christianity, especially Catholicism, views angels as being much higher in the heavenly hierarchy than humanity, so why would God insist that they bow down to humans? Satan’s refusal sounds kind of reasonable, given the obvious imperfections of humanity.

Here is one possible way to understand the story: Human beings exist on many levels. At our spiritual core, we are fundamentally one with the Eternal. When we see this clearly, to bow down is to honor God. But the nature of Satan/Iblis is to see only the outer rind of creation. In Adam he sees only the limited physical body and the fallible ego personality, and refuses to bow.

Satan’s initial failure is not exactly malice or even willfulness, it is blindness. All of the other failures follow from not seeing clearly.

Coming back to our poem, this is why Attar tells us not to belittle ourselves in our own minds–

Do not despise yourself, for there is none
Who could with you sustain comparison;
Do not torment yourself — your soul is All,
Your body but a fleeting particle.
This All will clarify, and in its light
Each particle will shine, distinctly bright –
As flesh remains an agent of the soul,
You soul’s an agent of the sacred Whole.

He is saying not to get caught in Iblis’s blindness, which leads to disappointment and hatred. Instead, recognize that we are each, at our center, part of the Whole, an expression of that immense Being of light and bliss and unity. This is our true nature and our true Self.

What’s more, no action, no thought can sever us from that Being. The worst we can do is blind ourselves, and reinforce the delusion of separation. We can go down dark paths in life and do terrible things, but that doesn’t really change our nature, it just mars the surface. No matter how lost an individual has become, there is always a path back to the Heart, and that is never tarnished.

And when the desert blooms with flowers, their scent
And beauty minister to your content;
The prayers of all the angels, all they do,
All their obedience, God bestows on you.

Farid ud-Din Attar Iran/Persia (1120? – 1220?) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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The real you
is ever new and alive
and much too big to be your own.