Look Back

It's no problem to look back at the unfolding of your life.
Just don't believe it.
When now is transformed, the past changes.
Totally veered off course.
You can only live now.
Even if your thoughts refer to back then.
You aren't in charge of the business of arising forms.
Cells want to complete broken cycles.
Mind wants to stay safe.
Heart wants to wander around loose.
If you are stuck, it's not in the past.
You can only be stuck in the present place

Body Coordinates

Body in space, dreamed coordinates.
Solid to touch, a dust mote blowing in the Mosaic.
Body sensations are no less ethereal than wind.

Edges blur, out of time, back to childhood.
Caretaker self is the dreamer, not the source.
One touch is only a flap of butterfly wings.
Gone and a new speck of life jumps in.
Blood illumines the outline, the way
bark defines the trees.
Body in mourning, body at play.

A great unfolding, fully engaged, alive.
Find all those secret treasures
you thought were lodged in its cells.
Burst them open with one focused moment.

Stars and treasures have no roots.

Religion

A seeker tells the master, "It would be better to be free of religion.
The people could seek for truth untethered to structure,
and be free to explore every avenue unconstrained by doctrine."
Is that not a superior state?
The master replied: "Is the tomato plant more fruitful when it sprawls on the ground?
It's fruit is eaten by slugs and stepped on by all."
Some things thrive when staked, blooming beyond their circumstances.
The structure helps it withstand its own weight, grow and bear fruit.
The world is full of structure.
The wise know when to be staked and when to be freed.

Stage Managed

The whole thing is loving itself every minute.
Nothing stands between love and where you are now,
Except a few words that solidified as they fell to the ground.
Words fly by like old tired trains rumbling through familiar neighborhoods.

A transparent director holds the stage together, keeps the actors moving.
He whispers familiar lines you can count on to bring the same reactions.
The audience laughs or gasps predictably.. appreciating the cleverness.
Fortunately, the stage manager knows who you are.

He stands beyond the footlights with your cue cards.
Here, here. You are home right here.
Everywhere. Throw kisses and bow.

Causeless

Why put a fence around your heart and say "stay out"?
You will be surprised to find out that love has  x-ray qualities.

The place that contains you is utterly defenseless, despite your efforts.
Why look around to see whether people are noticing you?
Whatever fears lurk in your mind, others see only their own shadows.
Go ahead and put words around the arising sensations if it pleases you.
Your clever deductions are only synapses firing along conditioned lines.
You cannot escape the pure causelessness of whatever happens.
For even the causes come unbidden.

Beyond

The hand that holds the moment,
The space into which life flows,
The eyes that see now and beyond.
Rest assured that the highest possible blessing
is unfolding.
A man searches his whole life for fullness.
A woman devotes her life to home.
Even if at the end they cry out for spirit,
The lack was never true.
Do you trust your own goals better than
the ordinary urge to live?
Come back to the ticking clock, the campfire, the day's mending.
Take only one step. Your heart knows the way.

The Roar of Longing

Longing roars from the underground stream.
It wants to climb a golden thread,
From under waves and layered soil.
To have the strength of the sun.
To speak from no less than being.
To be a silent reflection of the openness.

Favorites for my brothers and sisters:
Mantras, rituals, cushions, cunning, questions.
Dancing, silence, singing, service, journeys
What goes on there? The wandering continues.

For this life allows no supplication to higher orders.
Perhaps a little humming on a cushion with a book.
Allowances for multi-tasking in the spiritual quest.
Or, just notice the constant serving light.

Seemingly tied to life by eyes, touch, thoughts.
Is the heart not open?  Work on that, will you?
Is the body too dull to know itself?
Only a mind would stand and wait for life to be complete.

Despot! Is the waiting in vain?
The rest of the senses have jobs to do.
Even so, is there one less drop of life in this story
if the heart is only ajar?

Is it vain to wait for fullness, while living a life of privilege?
These are all ink for the pen.
Something can come along and bring the pen to a stop.
Or not, and words flow again.

The best I can do is listen to these inner poems.
See if they cover the seeker with the knowing mantle.
No outright prayers, acceptance, or high counsel.
Is it greedy to draw breath in the middle of windstorm?
No more than to want freedom from a gilded cage.

Photographs

A click, then reflection cast down one dimension.
Captured attention - in pixels or paper.
Likely to rewrite what has never been.
The instrument takes away life, to make a
Quirky, guilty meandering form out of time.
Lays flat but leaves the judging mind.
New every glance.

Never leaves the moment alive, and the mind supplants it.
Focus spiraled down to a point of light.
Light the only notable, the first cause.
Proofing from movement, engraved in fragile.
Plentiful!

Rain

When you hear the rain tapping on the roof,
Cars rushing by on wet pavement,
See candles flickering in their holders.
Where can you go?
You are already home.

When you feel the wind on your face.
Fall into the moon, the galaxy, the night.
Smell the rose scent of petals.
Where can you go?
You already have the stars.

Word Song

To be free, live in both worlds.
Sing the names of places and things,
but know their ethereal nature, too.
At times, use a conventional tone,
Live what is given you. Not the dream twice removed.

Silent songs play before and after each state.
Hum the name your mother gave you.
And a hundred others along the way.
Notice a smile tugging at the corners.

To be free, live in both worlds.
Respond to a downy feather under a name.
This is what you can never quite know.
A name is a single note,
In a sonata playing in no time.

To be free, live in both worlds.
Let the words fall out of your mouth.
Let the end take care of itself.
Meaning, is like a drum. Loud now.
But just as a whisper will be, faded.
Keep your heart in the aerial view.

Advaita Pointer #7

If you manage to cast off the dreaming self, the pedestrian version, follow it home.

The Astrologer's Word's

An astrologer named Lake, once told me,
"You can trust this life."
And she didn't mean me, in particular.
She meant you too.

She told me this was a watery life.
Maybe too much water for fifty+ years.
Dousing the fire needed for change, emergence.
She should know. Even her name means water.

I watched and waited.
And the fire crept in soon enough.
Building. Winning. Casting water aside.
For now.

Fire smelted a new path.
And it reigned. Until it too became ordinary.
All that was needed,
Is a little rain to balance things out.

Neither fire nor water win forever.
In the tides of life, it is more like a dance.
Water leads, then fire.
Whenever they meet. Steam.

Subterranean Farming

You thought Love was finished with childhood trauma.
Layered under all those painful half-ended feelings.
Mother love. Father love.
There was never enough.

Did you fly into a rage over broken promises?
A cloud covered the warming sun.
Shame rose like a bitter wind, owning it.
Broken promises have wandered here before.

Why would a tiger wait on your hearth
after a wonderful day?
Open your arms and embrace this visitor.
Though resisting, let the tiniest welcome escape.

Beautiful child. Love this part of  you.
Child of unseen hands.
How wise that the love of truth allows this
Opening gates to subterranean terraces.

Though hidden from you,
these gardens are well tended.
Ordinary life sponsors the farming.
And though you eat the fruit, you know it not.

Extraordinary life and promises of love,
bring the plants to full bloom.
Sudden storm! The fruit falls and opens.
Wasps fly out.

They sting from every direction.
Scream and rage
After such a nice day!
Find your voice against the hateful.

In a crack of sunlight
peering between boards.
Find that stopping place
and wait.

Rage. Wait. Smoky ash and fire -wait.
Don't be alarmed.
Stings rage, Shame rises. Wait.
What finds you in the waiting?

In the calming - full acceptance.
Later, you can gather the pieces of the puzzle.
Or just throw the shapes away.
The work is done either way.

This human thing has its a rhythm.
Dry your eyes
Put on music.
Soon enough, don't rush.

Later, the improving mind
will want to strengthening your spiritual defenses.
Don't try to improve this road with new asphalt.
The rutted, muddy path IS the wakening.

Pour love in all directions and be grateful.
This is how the human thing works.
You are its passenger,
It's prisoner, it's angel.

Come Back From the Whisper World

Come back, come back, from the whisper world.
Gently pull your thoughts from cares about time, children, and money.
Gaze instead at the steam rising in that piercing ray of sun.
Rising there to remind of the hidden.
Form is only form because of your gaze.
The dance is all around, we swim in it.

Come back, come back, from the whisper world.
Gently pull your thoughts from chores, work, and dinner.
Gaze instead at the steam rising in that piercing ray of sun.
Notice the footstep sounds, the wave of movement.
Smell the wet lush pine tree needles scattered.
Take a peek at the full understanding.

Illusion

To say that the world is an illusion,
Is to take up a sword in an endless fight.
Do not deny what appears before you in some shrug of the shoulder.
Illusion means a trick of the eye, but that is not what you are.
The eye reports faithfully. The hand knows the chair.
The feet steady the walker. The ears know music.
Declared illusions are about denying, not revealing.
Instead, embrace this defenseless space.
The only false is the naming, the owning, the report.
The hand appears whether named or not.
All else is the march of energy, and you, the cadence.
It's not that there is no world.
It's that it has no name.

Whisper World

The seeker asks: "What is this life? Who lives it?"
It is one slice of eternity rolling into awareness.
The whisper world give names, meanings.
And any improvements that it certainly needs.
Why not? It is all spider's web silk.
Rejoice that nothing reigns from out there.
The holiness is woven throughout, unending.
A tapestry of play lights, sounds, sensations.
Pray, save yourself from the plague of defining "real"
Notice the noticing. Receiver of life.
This mosaic is bounded by love.

Smoke Ring

Like a smoke ring, you are formed instantly on the outbreath.
Wavering, hovering, seemingly real. Has shape. Has movement.
Only once, for a fleeting moment, existing in the round.
Once formed, immediately losing ground, fading away.
Delight or hate the form. It hangs on, like a wake, then gone.
Another takes its place.... or not. Maybe peace.
You are like this. Look and see quietly.
Form, fade. Form, fade. One movement.
Nothing more.

Spiritual Haircut

If "on the path" you know, hope, pray, that with each passing day, bits of the self will wear away leaving a core of truth, like a spiritual haircut. It's a popular idea. True only in that it appears that you once behaved or thought or felt a certain way, and now that has become transparent. Not true, in that whatever appears as the self is none other than the core. The fear, the anger, the desire or aversion, dance through awareness - held or not held - just as importantly as the generosity, love, and humility. All are hummingbirds of light. You fly.