Stay awake and see, O mind beloved. Why slumber when you desire to be a lover?

What you have got, give it away dear. For of such receipts, there is no diminishment.

These crumbs of sadness are so stale and dry, Why does their taste matter to you then?

And when the eyes are heavy with sleep, How does the bed or the blanket matter then?

Says Kabir: On this highway of love, Why weep if even you are to be beheaded!

Translated on 2003:10:17 16:00 Atlanta

Listen to this poem in original Hindi here: www.kabirweb.com

Listen to Robert Bly read some more Kabir here: www.vix.com www.menweb.org

Carolina Wren Blue Jays Cardinals Doves

Also spend time botanizing. The tree with the most lovely name: Carolina Silverbell. The leaves of wild ginger are beautiful.

In the discussions of conflict and fear today, peaceable ness wasn’t spoken about. The problem of human violence is as much about what the human body and soul holds and learns as much as in the external world. The only winnable war is the war one much wage to refine the quality of the self. All the external wars, beginning from violence that we inflict on one another at personal level, to the violence we inflict as societies on other societies are futile. The question remains how do we resolve conflict should it occur? Again the strongest and the most meaningful way is dialogue, with the self and with the other.

One of the ways, as written in the Gita, to attain enlightenment is through knowledge (jyana yoga). However this is possibly the hardest way towards perfection. Saint Shankara said the way of devotion (bhakti yoga) is surely much easier. And on reflection he is right because through devotion (to an idea, to work, to a person) perfect knowledge is also attainable.

Christian theology is largely so caught up in the idea of salvation that church ceremonies in part, to me, resemble large scale “sin” relieving shrink sessions for the masses. Then the other issue is that of separation of god from human, god as the third person always external, leading to incomplete understanding of the way to reach God. However given that there has also been a rich tradition of contemplatives with the Christian tradition these problems must then be that of the mainstream religious “businesses”.

The problem with mostpeople (e. e cummings’s usage) is that most people don’t think about a single issue which is “external” to them in the course of the day. Thus the sorry state of democracy in this country and elsewhere.

You come to me quiet as rain not yet fallen Afraid of how you might fail yourself your dress seven summers old is kept open in memory of sex, smells warm, of boys, and of the once long grass. But we are colder now; we have not Love’s first magic here. You come to me Quiet as bulbs not yet broken Out into sunlight.

The fear I see in your now lining face Changes to puzzlement when my hands reach For you as branches reach. Your dress Does not fall easily, nor does your body Sing of it won accord. What love added to A common shape no longer seems a miracle. You come to me with your age wrapped in excuses And afraid of its silence.

Into the paradise our younger lives made of this bed and room Has leaked the world and all its questioning and now those shapes terrify us most that remind us of our own. Easier now to check longings and sentiment, to pretend not to care overmuch, you look out across the years, and you come to me quiet as the last of our senses closing