Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Don’t ask questions
with simple answers.
Ask the questions
that bring you face-to-face with the Mystery.

Find a new way each day
to let love pour
through your being.

When you know where the Beloved lives,
you are content,
no need to argue with others over street names.

Be thankful for this day
of possibility.
Who knows what magic will unfold?

Remember gratitude.

Each one of us does not exist
except as an empty field
in which God meets God.
We are the flash of self-recognition
that lights the face of the Divine.

There is an inner perfection
the same for everyone.
The psyche may go through the motions,
but its journey is done.

Who am I excluding from my heart?
How can I fix that?

Love and compassion are effortless.
The soul is exhausted by the effort
to stop this natural outpouring
of the living heart.

We don’t float to heaven.
Like a tree, we sink roots deep into the rocky soil,
and so, year-by-year, reach higher into the heavens.

The Divine is experienced by the heart.

The intellect, at best, can only trail behind
and take notes.

Right action heals
in ways that even “success” cannot match.

Religion that does not inspire
outward compassion and inward awakening
is not religion.

All objects, all people
that tug at your desire:
unzip them.
See what tumbles out.

To a materialist,
appearance is reality.

To a mystic
appearance is an expression of reality
–which can reveal, but also deceive,
and always holds secrets.

The map of the human soul
is a topographical map, with mountains
and valleys, and rivers of life everywhere.

The purpose of life is awareness.