The stillness inside

The stillness inside.

You.

I am the flames... You are the fire.

Remembering you

What if I could somehow put into words...?

How it feels to find You as this private, seeping nectar of sound, playing to me always, as I have answered always... I am this liquid chorus of blood, of veins, of love forever sounding my depths with the oldest of songs, played by this never silent quartet, the chamber music of my heart.

How it feels to sink into this place of complete stillness, of familiar, exquisite intelligence, always here, never distracted, never asleep.

I look around. This is all intelligence.

How it feels to see light as your consciousness, darkness as the silent space where there is no time, no differentiation, only You, only ONE.

To hear the divine tinkling nada in my ear when I love You, look, and see, return your gaze again and again.

And so, I look with love, for there is only You, and your experience... which I think of as me.

And so, I look around with my senses made of worship, touching your consciousness with my own, finding only You everywhere I touch, seek, enter and embrace.

My doubt is You. My choices good and bad, they are all You. This is You, all set in motion, all the Word moving on the dark waters. I cannot fail. I need not struggle, as though there could be anything wrong.

You, You. Only You. My thoughts are You, my breath is You.

I love You so... So deep I embrace You, cast upon Your love with my entire being, my awareness gels and then becomes an ever melting blanket of love soaked warmth and bliss, sinking into everything I know, changing everything behind and beyond what I knew and once thought that I am.

Changed, I can never go back.

Everything, this everything, I know it, I have always known it... I know You.

Becoming You, remembering You, they are the same.

Already here

I feel God. I experience God inside, God's presence and God's love for me, a love just for me. There is a communication there, without words. A gentle surge of feeling and a tender caress of bliss at the secret door of my heart.

God is matching my quiet, my stillness.

Please come in... Beloved.

I am already here, beloved... as you.

Every day

You are so close, my Beloved

Oh God, I am in misery. Misery...

Why must I burn like this, for You, every day...?

You are all I care about, think about, search for with these eyes, this body. You are everything, and all of this... You're all of me, and yet, we are somehow still apart.

I fall into You, then fall out!

Where is the secret? I am so sure I have found it when I fold myself over You like chocolate on a s'more. I feel myself melting... (my marshmallow heart...).

What, again? I have taken the shape of this cup of ego. I think I'm a half-empty cup. Absurd.

What is the secret? I am so sure I know it every time we are ONE. Then I wake up alone and have to call out to You.

There You are on my TV! Stop toying with me.

Open (and open) and show me the one door I can walk through and stop looking for You. It's only polite.

Everyone knows You are right here...

Only my love

Buried, then uncovered
These shifting sands will bring me up

The winds have moved this desert here
The winds cannot move me,
but they will take all of this away

Love
Only my body holds me here

Love
Only my love for You remains







This poem wrote itself in under five minutes, one of my best ever.

Is it enough to know?

Dasaswamedh Ghat, Varanasi

Little touches. You come to me, inside, with little touches of divine love, bhakti, and the warmth of this chaste love, small little touches of fire I know as You.

And I have learned. Don't jump, or grasp. (Don't hold on, don't push away...)

Do not attempt to wrestle and pin God (to the ground)!

I feel and acknowledge Your touch, pranam. But there is no "do" to let You in, to breathe a little easier, to feel a little more golden.

Is it enough to know

That You are mine 

and I am Yours?

Yes.

~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~

The sweetest nectar,
waits inside...

He is the rock star of Brahmins, the flame of the aarti, the shakti so strong in him that he seems to be far away, journeying within, pulling me inward, I find him inside as my Beloved (we are One). 

The oldest

I worship You, God. I worship You as this fire inside, your warmth pressing outward I am salty and sun-kissed in this tropical heat. I look up to catch you just so in the rays of the sun, and smile... closing my eyes, a universe inside, (epiphany!), the deep field of your crown is royally cast with stars made just so, speeding outward to the edges of these latent gills, still fragrant with seaweed and the last reel of celluloid.

I have been cast in a new role, very old (the oldest), this starring role. Only for forever...

I love You.

~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~

Everything in my life could be described as one of two things

an ocean of
g r a c e

Everything in my life could be described as one of two things:

1) Things I did before, until I knew what I wanted to do, and

2) What I do now, what I want to do, what I am born to do

It's as big of a difference as can be!

In the third grade, I discovered the fantasy world of books in the Oz series. Just as quickly this world came crashing down around me when I read the last Oz book. Painful.

I was keenly aware of the absence of anything that I wanted to do in my adolescence. I wanted to leave this world and go to Middle Earth or Dune or Gethen. I knew that if I found "it," I would feel just like this: __________. And it would be deeply fulfilling all the time, not just for a moment.

Alive, magical, fulfilled, challenged, delighted, ecstatic, unfolding, adventurous, calm, grounded, Robert DeNiro (and the ketchup bottle in Heat), know who I am and why I'm here, alive, magical, fulfilled.....

a full measure of
g r a c e

Meanwhile, I spent my life chasing flickers and shadows. (I am half sick of shadows...)

I found things to do while I was seeking seeking seeking... These things filled my time but I was living on my inner resources. My life took from but did not replenish me.

By middle age I was slowly dying, and I knew it. Every year felt worse than the one before.

I tried and tried different things, but eventually I gave up and sat down to wait. I was like the little match girl, burning my dwindling supply of matches, (the resource I must trade for sustenance), one by one... for a little moment of almost warmth.

But then... I found guru's grace (it found me) and this (current) day became inevitable, but there was a lot to "burn" before a new reality could begin. I was still wandering lost, an ex-patriate of the magical kingdom of ___________.


Until... finally...

I FOUND WHAT I WANT TO DO:

Everything changed.

I choose to be alone in the world. Solitary is a feeling, a mental state, and vast re-arranging of my internal priorities and experience.

I have renounced almost all social interaction and the pursuit of a career. Why? Because I'm not interested in them anymore.

healing rays of your luminous
g r a c e

I choose to merge with God. God is everything to me. My life as a solitary and a renunciant means my life has been radically prioritized so that all of my time and resources are for God and my spiritual path.

As soon as I made this change, all the pain was gone, all the soul starvation and dwindling away slipped away like old leaves in a high wind, as I sank up to my knees in moist new soil, warm and fragrant and rich with all the nutrients for my starving soul.

(Your divine grace...)

My life is completely different.

I immediately felt that nostalgic feeling of moving on, saying goodbye to what I've known.

Farewell... I am turning at last to God. I didn't realize how little I need others, who are a part of the play of multiplicity. "Others" aren't bad, nor especially good, just parts of the Self committed to the play. I am not. For whatever reason(s), my path is solitary.

I am saying my farewells to always feeling that I am missing something essential, to yearning and yearning for God, who is out of reach (painful). I am saying my farewells to believing I am separate from God.

I am saying my farewells to painful anava mala, to feeling separate
from God, and the painful feeling of missing something eternal and essential.

an endless shower of
g r a c e

I am saying my farewells to painful mayiya mala, to thinking I like or dislike anything, that everything is either ______ or ______, that I must organize the world based on the dualism of me/not me, mine/not mine.

I am saying my farewells to karma mala, to thinking I am the root of action, that I am the cause of the fruits of my actions, and trying to assume control over the cause and effect of my life and my universe... a very huge burden indeed.

I am saying hello to the exquisite life I always wanted, but couldn't find anywhere. So exquisite, so real, I think of God before I open my eyes in the morning, sometimes before I think of anything else, and pranam in my heart.

Namaste, namaskaar, my Beloved, the purpose of my life. I have installed You as the God of the temple of my heart. Pranam.

an endless pool of
grace-filled
n e c t a r

I make of my self offerings. Pranam.

I make of all activity pradakshina (circling in worship).

I offer each out breath as mantra, your name as my only prayer.

I accept each in breath as prasad, made from your out breath, my Beloved. We are one.

I am so rich to caress this endless string of gleaming black pearls, (lotus seed mala), each one as the very name of my most Beloved, who is Shiva. Om Namah Shivaya.

The sacred flame, Shree Agni, burns here in my heart; I wave the lights as worship at the mystical doorway to Your Transcendent Being, my true self. Om Gurudeva.

The sacred mantra vibrates here in my heart; divine nada (sounds) pull my consciousness up through this divine akasha (ether) to the temple of your heart of hearts, my Beloved Lord, who is Paramashiva. Om.

The nectars of transmission (shruti-smriti-teachings) are the constant abhishek of my heart, the living temple of all inner places, reserved for You alone, Maheshwar. I worship You as everything, Parameshwar. I worship You as my Self, Oldest One, Elder of the Vedas, Triambakam. Lord of Mercy, Hara, Nilakantha. My creator, Omkara. Om Namah Shivaya. Om.

I love you.

Rameshwar Mandir

If you like my prose, may I entice you to visit

my poetry blog, here? spanda·nanda

Perfectionism dissolves...

My perfectionism is dissolving. 

Just enough is good enough. 

This is.... huge.

Delicious darshan

Bruce Munro, Field of Light

Of course. When I have been
slipping out of maya and 
into the blissful silence, 
I have been having Darshan, 
(a spiritual experience).

Space

There

is

nothing

to

hold

on

to

Nectar and the ego

If, upon being handed the clear golden nectar of supreme jnana, one saw fit to hand it immediately to ego, what portion of it would survive?