Odes
to the
King of Hearts

 

Aude Gotto

2001 © Aude Gotto


 
CONTENTS

Your gifts
What a beautiful picture I can see
I reduce the world to the inside of my head
Your idea of happiness
My Love story with You is a story of destruction
Faces of God
The broken cage
Only weep for Love
Does God exclaim: "You fool..."
I shall leave this job to You
The Eye of the Storm
Is there anything that God isn't?
Emptiness

 

 

Your gifts


Today Your gifts to me, Oh Beloved,
are a pain in my head,
a cramp in my gut
and an overwhelming exhaustion.
May I accept them graciously
knowing that Your Compassion is as infinite
as Your Knowledge of what I need.

It is a long apprenticeship
to loosen my attachment to my body;
to learn that this physical frame
is not my identity,
that I have a Soul - that I am a Soul, -
undisturbed and free of pain,
though, God knows, I don't feel it!

It is hard to receive gratefully
when Your gift is suffering,
and to offer my helplessness
to You, my Creator and Sustainer.

Absorbed in my body's clamours for attention,
I fail to notice
Your other gifts:
the sun has come out and a gentle light
shimmers on wet leaves;
the house is quiet,
the flowers I picked yesterday are still bright;
the morning is clear and clean and expectant,
and Your smile says:
Take heart, have courage,
I am giving you
another day.

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What a beautiful picture I can see


Oh Beloved, here I stand, discouraged and crestfallen:
I strive so much to be good,
helpful, caring and efficient;
to succeed in my efforts
towards spirituality, service and discipleship.
Yet when I have finally exhausted myself with striving
I must grudgingly recognise
that this is still the old bondage
of "I, my, me and mine".

Oh Meher, what a life change it would be
if I shifted my vision
onto You instead of me;
if I used the same energy,
the same stubborn perseverance,
in just trying to please You
remember You and obey You
without a thought for the results.
If all action and every moment
was an occasion to find You,
instead of this obsession with myself:
my achievements or my failures,
my talents or my faults.

Oh friends, what a beautiful picture I can see
when I imagine myself out of the way:
the horizon no longer obstructed
by my self-centred concerns,
my life becomes free, wide open like sea and sky
to the Beloved's unbounded Presence.

Oh Namo, you still stand outside
this beautiful picture,
looking at it with longing.
Don't sigh, let it inspire you,
and remind you that the Ocean
is your ultimate destination.

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I reduce the world to the inside of my head


Oh Meher, how often I reduce the world
to the inside of my head
and then complain of feeling hemmed in!

I walk across the wide green fields,
the autumn sky pale and tender,
silvery reflection in the glass-like pond;
The birchtrees stand graceful and poised,
gently shedding their golden leaves
with a soft whisper.
The countryside is a vast and peaceful offering.

Yet I see nothing but the tips of my muddy shoes
and I hear nothing but the jagged noise
of my on-going inner quarrel.
Though I appear to be walking along a country path
in a God-given landscape
in reality I am going round in circles
on a treadmill of my own making.

"Stop-Look-Listen" says the signpost by the railway track.
Oh friends, how about this for an undertaking?
To stop the inconsequential chatter
of our overwrought minds
(not to argue, just to STOP);
to look up, and out, and receive the beauty of God's world
as His gift to all of us;
to listen to the inner voice of His guidance
speaking in the newly found Silence.
What about it, my friends?

Oh Namo, your mind is a stuffy cinema
where the same old movie has been showing for years.
It is time to stop the projection
and throw open the windows.
Then who knows what might happen?

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Your idea of happiness


Oh Meher, You tell us that happiness
is our birth right,
and You work to help us receive it.
But Your idea of happiness
is not the same as ours.

Oh friends, the happiness we have in mind
is a pain-free life
full of beautiful things and pleasant people;
a life without sorrow, struggle or conflict
where we get what we want
effortlessly
and never lose it.

Oh Lord,You know how ephemeral
are the objects of desire;
You know (as we forget) that happiness is an inner treasure
not to be found in the outside world.
So You work to break our attachments to unreliable wants
which prevent us from discovering
the imperishable sweetness within.

Oh friends, we complain that the Lord's methods are harsh
when He shapes the events of our lives
to reveal the poverty of wordly pleasures
and the limitations of human love.
We cannot see
that in order to give us a taste of Real joy
He must first remove the illusions
on which we set our heart and hopes.

Oh Beloved, the happiness You have in mind
is not an absence of pain
but a freedom from desire.

Independent of ties and possessions
it endures like a rock
when the waves of sorrow and loss
crash over us.
Because it lies deep within ourselves,
beneath our tears and fears,
it can never be taken away.
It is the knowledge of God's Love
when all that we treasured is lost.

Oh Namo, when you are deprived of what you most desire,
and stripped of your dearest hopes,
you cry out that the Lord is cruel!
But look deeper and you will know
that His strong hand,
peeling off your snake-skin despite your cries,
is moved by nothing but compassion.

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My Love story with You is a story of destruction


Oh Beloved Meher, the world doesn't understand
that my love story with You
is a story of destruction.
How can I explain
that I am bleeding joyfully
under Your arrows?

Oh friends, it is true that I talk about struggles a lot,
and often I groan with pain;
my body suffers, my mind rebels,
but beneath all this turbulence
my heart treasures a happiness beyond words.

Oh dear Lord, Your loving hand
tears me apart and throws the pieces away;
grinds me down between sharp stones;
cleans me with such thoroughness
that I fear nothing will be left.
This is what You want, is it not:
fine dust blown by the wind,
a clean and empty pipe for water or music,
a clear and transparent glass pane,
no obstacle to the sun.

Of course it hurts.
But I know so well and so deeply
that Your hand is the hand of Love,
and beneath my fear and pain my heart cries out:
"Yes, yes, dear Lord, do Your work,
do with me what You will,
I trust You, and Love You, and am Yours."

Oh Namo, when you reveal what is in your heart,
you appear mad to others
and even to yourself.
But this madness is more precious
than any wisdom.

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Faces of God

Behind the solemn features of a Byzantine Christ
the blue-faced Krishna in a Radjput miniature
the enigmatic smile of the Angkor Buddha
and behind the familiar mustache and deep eyes
of the Man who said: "Don't Worry, Be Happy":
the same One God whom, try as I may,
I cannot see, grasp or conceive.

The face of Power, the face of Joy.
the face of Peace and the face of Compassion:
behind all these Forms, beloved and worshipped
in different places and different times,
the Formless One both hides and reveals Himself.

While I live in this world
of garments and veils
I cannot see the true Essence
of the One I seek and yearn for.
So I close my eyes
and there, in the darkness
the eye of my Soul is given a glimpse.

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The broken cage

The stopped jar must be broken
for the captive perfume to escape.
When the Beloved breaks my will
and shatters my pride
the fragrance of His Presence
suddenly fills my heart
with overwhelming sweetness.

Standing among the wreckage
of my proud personality,
at this moment I discover
the Beloved's gift:
the song of a free bird
who knows dawn always comes.

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Only weep for Love

Only weep for Love, my dear,
Never weep for grief
Or self-pity or shame;
Only weep for Love.

Whenever you feel sadness
Think of your Beloved
So that the tears that flow
Will be tears of love.

Never blame yourself, my dear:
What you are, you are.
If you find you're a coward,
A selfish, stubborn, insensitive
Individual
Nevermind, my dear, nevermind.
Just think of your Beloved
And try only to please Him
by practising
A little more courage, a little more love,
A little more surrender.

Never complain, my dear:
If your body is in pain,
Your mind in turmoil,
Your life in a mess,
Never complain;
Just think of your
Beloved,
Of His Love and Forgiveness,
And it will become so plain
That everything is His gift,
The touch of His loving hand.

So always weep for Love, my dear,
Never weep for grief
Or self-pity or shame.
Only weep for Love.

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Does God exclaim: "You fool..."

Does God exclaim: "You fool, you shouldn't have stumbled!"
When we fall into the same pothole
For the hundredth time?
No. He just says: "Here, give us a hand!"
Helps us up, dusts us down
And adds: "Next time, why not look where you put your feet."

Does God exclaim: "You fool, you've done it again!"
When we have got stuck, waist high in the mud,
By taking a path we knew was unsound.
No. He waits
Until we've finished cursing
Ourselves, all the muddy places on earth,
And God for creating both.

When we finally look round
And reach for His hand, He pulls us out,
Washes us down;
"Next time, try another way" He says,
With a friendly shove.

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I shall leave this job to You

After all these years
Of toil and trouble
Striving to better myself
Finally Your Message
Penetrates through my thick skin:
You love me just as I am.
So I have decided
To give up trying to change myself:
I shall leave this job to You
And just enjoy Your Company.

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The Eye of the Storm

Oh Beloved, we seek peace and tranquillity.
But we cannot find them in this world or in our minds
filled with noise and anger.
Peace lives, undisturbed, in the eye of the storm.

In the circles of illusion rage the fires of desire,
the bitter tears of disapointment quench them with a hiss
and the billowing smoke of worry obscures our vision.
The clamours of battle rise, as the armours of selfishness clash;
in the circles of illusion all is chaos and conflict,
and peace cannot be found there.

We must cross through to the centre,
to the still place, the quiet place,
where from the pool of Silence
the source of Life springs eternally.
The stillness, the sweetness, is there always,
unmoved, unpolluted, perennial,
waiting for us to come
and kneel by the pool to drink.

The still point at the centre has no dimension, no duration;
in the circles of illusion time and space make a great show:
universes and galaxies explode and expand,
centuries and light years fly past, for the enjoyment of scientists.
Yet all this excitement would not exist
without that stillpoint, immaterial and Real,
the Eye of the Storm.

In the kingdom of illusion rules the tyranny of results;
its ministers are fear and guilt.
But in the centre, where all striving ceases,
there is no success or failure
only the certainty of Being.

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Is there anything that God isn't?

I look up
to the brilliant blue space
of a clean swept sky:
pure, unsullied, infinite emptiness;
You are here.

I look down
to the damp carpet of rotting leaves,
thick, dark, crowded with small crawling creatures;
life incessantly devouring and devoured,
to perpetuate its myriad separate forms;
dirt, death and decay:
You are here.

Is there anything that God isn't?

I look far,
out onto the sea,
vast expanse of ceaseless movement,
eternally changing and forever the same;
stretched out naked to the horizon,
revealing nothing of its unfathomable depths,
teeming with unseen life.
You are here.

I gaze into the fire:
leaping flames, fascinating and wild,
insubstantial but so powerful,
warm comforter on winter nights,
deadly destroyer if I come too close:
You are here.

Air, Earth, Water and Fire:
the elements of our visible world,
a multiplicity of forms
pointing to the Oneness beyond;
fleeting clouds, seasons, waves and flames:
everchanging impermanence which speaks of eternity;
movement and repose, life and death,
energy and substance:
there isn't anything
that God isn't.

On a bright morning, when hope sparkles
and we stride into the world with confidence,
when life is a great adventure and we feel strong,
You are there.

In a quiet moment of peace, when the whispers of expectations
and the clamours of desire have ceased,
and we hear
the small voice in the centre,
You are here.

In the agony of physical pain
or the throes of mental turmoil,
when worry and guilt tighten their grip,
when tears of shame and frustration
roll, burning, down our cheeks,
You are here.

In the dullness of boredom
or the darkness of despair,
the pangs of loss, the nameless fear,
You are here, You are here!

There isn't anytime, anywhere,
anything
that God isn't.

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Emptiness

The real nature of the flute
is emptiness
just as the real nature of the mirror
is emptiness.
Make me empty as a flute
so You can fill me with Your music;
make me clear as a mirror
so I can reflect Your beauty.

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