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THE SEARCH
MANHOOD
THE STARS
1971-1985
WHY WAS THE MASTER SILENT?
THE BALLAD OF THE PENNILESS KINGS
"...the expressive beauty of the All-Pervading Beloved."
GETTING DRUNK
THE SEARCH
Every morning, when I wake up,
I wonder when I'll REALLY wake up:
It's been years now,
And still no sign
Of REALLY dying
And being born.
And like a Pilgrim in the desert,
I keep plodding on,
Looking for the only non-mirage there is,
The City called LOVE.
And how do I know this City exists?
In answer, my mind takes me back
To a small room, long ago,
And the broad smile of a friend,
As he told me God is Love,
And WHO God IS.
And as he spoke,
And then stopped speaking,
His smile went on and on,
And the room filled with a Presence,
And time and space collapsed
Completely into Love,
Into which we both disappeared,
yet remained:
AND THE SUN ROSE IN ITS GLORY,
AND BATHED ME WITH ITS LIGHT,
AND FED ME WITH ITS HONEY,
AND BLESSED ME WITH ITS SIGHT,
AND IN THE FOLDS WITHIN MY 'ROBE',
FOR A MOMENT I KNEW TRUTH,
AS TOLD OF SINCE THE ANCIENT DAYS...
AND I'D FOUND ETERNAL YOUTH.
And my friends,
When I left that room,
I sang another song,
And searched another search,
For nothing I'd known before
Could matter very much,
Once Time and Space
Had given way to LOVE,
Like the thinnest membrane
Parting to reveal
The vastest Universe inside.
And I saw
That what I'd known
Had never been very real,
But only stood to mark time,
As we wind our way
To that LOVE
Uniting All.
MANHOOD
I am a foundling.
My Beloved has raised me
From a child to a man.
Now the mysteries of Manhood
Lie before me.
He has crafted the Light
In which my days run,
Sunrise and sunset,
Until my end,
Magnificent the web of meaning
He has spun to tell our story.
He has crafted our lives
As gifts to Him,
Rushing in rivers of significance
Down to the ocean of His Love,
Sweet our journeying dreams
Down days of measured moons and suns
And poetry of gilded light
Cut in thickness like cake,
And sculpted into Creation
By His loving, sensitive Hand.
I am glad my Master has called me
To His Castle Sublime,
His Round Table,
And I may live
What most know only in legends.
And I am glad I responded,
For He once planted a resilient seed
In the soil of my heart,
Which will not be satisfied
Till it has blossomed
And earned a place in Love's Garden.
So though I may return time and again
To the cities of vacant dreaming,
My heart knows a sadness there
it cannot quench.
City of Love,
May I never leave you.
Heart, may I always be
Cupbearer to the Beloved,
Whose chalice, sacred, concealed,
Pours forth Love upon all.
City of Love, in your precincts
May I serve my rounds,
Until He calls
For the drink that unites us.
THE STARS
The stars that were over my head this morning
Were there from the First Day,
Those stars I hid crooknecked from in cities,
While travelling my wayward way.
Slowly, then faster,
I began to see, eyes blinded at first by neon and streetlamps,
And the stars' nights' closeness only speaking
In a few forays into the Midnights between cities,
Bedazzling my eyes to see the jewels
Darkness was strung with.
And always I wanted to stop, and enjoy, and stare, and pray,
But a motor inside me was going too fast,
And in vans or cars
I sped back to cities
To undo my mind's
Tightly wound springs.
Then in a dozen years
I came out under the stars,
And behold! The Canopy of Heaven
Was still there,
And I murmured and prayed in valleys
Like green cups for my love, and It said:
"You were too busy before,
But we have always been here,
And we always shall be."
That which I was too busy to love
Patiently waited for me.
Now I have finished my business
And am free to love,
And the Morning Star's Song
Has come to me with a Joy
That had always been concealed
Within my heart,
And the Heavens have exploded
into Singing,
And the weeping
Of the morning dew.
1971-1985
When it began, they showed me a chart:
"We are facing Illusion
With our backs toward God," they said.
"On the Spiritual Path,
We gradually turn around."
I knew it was true.
It was more real a truth
Than the world that went on around me.
A DOOR HAD BEEN OPENED TO THE OTHER WORLD.
And I went back to St. Louis,
And nearly fainted
To see the pigeons on the sidewalk
On a street near where I'd grown up.
The way the sidewalk sparkled!
The cool solidity of the cement!
The intoxicating sky!
The wonder of passing humans!
Shoppers, merchants, vagrants,
ALL ONE FAMILY!
And the Beloved withdrew the Glimpse He had given
of the OTHER WORLD in this world,
And I became a vagrant,
And wandered the earth losing all I touched.
And when I had lost all,
The Sun came out again,
And it was even brighter this time!
In spite of Comings and Goings--
Or perhaps BECAUSE of them--
I saw--Oh, Beloved, I saw--
That there IS no world, but only You!
That Your Chart describes
The withdrawal of consciousness
From Creation unto the Infinite,
That Path travelled by a few,
Which You have now laid out for all!
And so, what a plight You have left us it!
No world, only our helpless Road to You!
Helpless and glorious!
No one has ever travelled a path
More glorious than each of us!
And so when I see the pigeons on the sidewalk
Or the people in the Marketplace,
I still nearly faint.
And once I heard You Singing unto Your Creation:
"For I have loved you dearly,
More dearly than the spoken word can tell."
Don't leave us in darkness!
Don't let our tears be idle!
Shower Your Grace upon ALL,
So they won't think us mad,
But will share the drunkenness
You have been drowning us in
For so long.
WHY WAS THE MASTER SILENT?
"Oh, Master, why were You silent?"
I asked of Him one day.
And He turned and looked at me
With His kind, All-knowing look
That understands all questioning,
And in my mind an answer
began to form:
"Silent?" asked the Ancient One.
"Be silent a moment
And hear Me speak.
I speak in the roar of the sea,
In the squawking of the gulls
And the padding of soft shoes
on pavement."
"Be still and you will hear Me speak.
For only in the noise of your mind
Can My Voice ever be lost,
My Voice that crashes as waves on cliffs,
And throbs in the tiniest baby's cry.
The Universe is ever alive
With the Music of My Word."
"Yet if in this form that you see,
I do not talk with My mouth,
It is so you will learn
To always be guard over yours,
For I have come in an age
When words spew forth from mouths
Like lava from volcanoes,
Covering all in their ashen haze."
"A word is sacred as a star--
Yet when men exchange these jewels
In the world's Marketplace,
They poison them
With their boredom and contempt.
A pure word flies from a tongue
Like a bird flying home to God.
My Silence is a Treasure house
Of words that will come to life
When the pure of heart speak truly,
And My New Humanity
has come of age."
"I come to restore the key
To this Treasure Chest called Man:
I come to bring back the Wholeness
that was lost.
And if I do not speak words,
Then know that I need not:
For all words, on every tongue,
Are Mine."
(1976/1998)
Many have spoken the truth,
And it marched them to their crosses and graves;
Many have marched into the fires
And become a glowing coal.
Many have wordlessly borne
The stings of scorpions and the fangs of snakes,
And the love was shining in their eyes.
Many have driven lonely, forgotten pathways
Without a drop of rain
And neither sun nor moon as guides;
Many have crucified their flesh
And fasted from human company
In timeless, trackless deserts. Many have known
The torture of desire attacking the flesh,
Yet have withstood,
And the love was shining in their eyes.
Many have fasted, many have prayed,
Cycle after cycle after cycle
For a glimpse of their Beloved;
Many have tumbled over cliffs, breaking every bone,
And gotten up and marched on again,
And the love was shining in their eyes.
Many have heeded the call of Truth
And followed where it led,
Though the world thought them mad.
Many have left all they had.
Many have heard the Call
And known it not,
But the Call sought them,
And plotted their ruin,
So that, poor, they might be rich.
Many have died for Love,
And many have died into Love,
Age after age after age,
And the love was shining in their eyes.
Many now the new Christ stirs
Like sleeping snakes
Uncoiling slowly as they hear His Call.
Yes, many are they whose earthly ruin
AVATAR MEHER BABA has plotted:
The fortunate unfortunate, by whose ruin
He takes them from the Wheel of Sorrow
And bids them go be free.
And ruined, they stand in the roadside dust
Singing hymns of His praise:
And the love is shining in their eyes.
After I had long been engaged in deep sleep,
The Dawn of Wonder came by the other night, and said,
"My son, I've put you to sleep,
But now I'm waking you up a bit,
I who tapped you on the shoulder long ago
And told you of my being,
But wouldn't show you much!"
I said, "But look at me. I am bereft."
And He said, "Yes. Finally. Now you are ready to see me."
And behold in the cosmos the moon
Seemed so close it appeared to be inside me:
The stars were points of light radiating dazzling circles,
The lake lapped still and contained their reflections,
And all this had been touched by some wand
To make it a beauty
I had never before suspected in the night.
"I have closeted my secrets," said he.
"But as you become poorer, you will come into them."
"For that which tapped you on the shoulder long ago was Truth,
And when you were not looking I put my Mantle about you,
So that none else could touch you."
"No matter what you do, poverty will be your bride,
And will show you secrets too light for the heavy eyes of the worldly."
And the Spirit was gone and left me clutching the gown of Paradise.
GETTING DRUNK
Either I've spent the night
Getting drunk in the Tavern of Illusion,
Or some strange wizard
Has cursed me with
The multiple vision of a fly!
I see Your Oneness
Refracted thru a prism
of Manyness.
Frightened,
I try to stagger toward You.
I try to pull the mask
off every face I see.
I try to swim upstream
To the Source
Of this Torrent of Hallucinations
That Thunders each instant out of Non-being,
Yet I am swept by the current
And washed, again & again,
Down the Niagara of Phantasms,
Toward the Lowlands
Of the River of Kundalini.
I try to hold to Higher vision
Like a man grabbing at a limb on a bank.
Meanwhile,
Somewhere far upstream,
You sit in Silence,
And all this Maya-Show
Inscrutably comes out of You.
The Veils of Illusion
Are a heavy quilt
I cannot lift
While I dream,
Unless YOU Dissolve
The draught of Enchantment
Or the wizard's spell,
With Potions
You Alone possess.
Latest revision: August 27, 1998