forget everything

If someone says, "To be enlightened you must

fast and pray all night."

Have dinner and go to bed.

If you see a sign, "This way to salvation,"

run the other way.

If someone says,"This Book is the truth,

you can buy it from me."

Take your money and buy grapes and roses.

If someone says, "He's talking tonight,

thousands will be saved."

Go for a walk…listen to the birds

and watch the clouds, and leave

your backpack, your Bible and your Buddha

under a tree and hope

they will be gone when you return.

Where we are going you can't carry anything,

not even your name.

If there is logic in the above,

be afraid, it's a lie.

But if you feel something in your chest

as beautiful as the grass beneath your feet,

be grateful…open your arms

and forget everything

you ever thought you knew.

-- John Squadra

********

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

-- ee cummings

*********

In Christian circles we say that sin separates us from God.
The concept of sin is, at its root, the forgetting of who you really are.
When you remember that you are indeed, one with God
and of necessity everyone else, then you do not do those things
that we love to categorize with terms such as 'sin'.
Our forgetfulness separates us.
One of our many illusions.

"Nothing can separate us from the love of God…"

-- ron russo

**********

On the night when you cross the street
from your shop and your house
to the cemetery,
you'll hear me calling you from inside
the open grave, and you'll realize
how we've always been together.
I am the clear consciousness-core
of your being, the same in
ecstasy as in self-hating fatigue.
That night, when you escape the fear of snakebite
and all irritation with the ants, you'll hear
my familiar voice, see the candle being lit,
smell the incense, the surprised meal fixed
by the lover inside all your other lovers.
This heart-tumult is my signal
to you igniting in the tomb.

--Rumi

*******

The boat I travel in is called Surrender.
My two oars are instant forgiveness and gratitude
— complete gratitude for the gift of life.
I am thankful for the experience of this life,
for the opportunity to dance.
I get angry, I get mad,
but as soon as I remind myself
to put my oars in the water,
I forgive.

I serve.
I do the dance I must.
I plant trees,
but I am not the doer of this work.
I am the facilitator, the instrument.
I am one part of the symphony.
I know there is an overall scheme to this symphony
that I cannot understand.
In some way, we are each playing our own part.
It is not for me to judge or criticize the life or work of another.
All I know is that this is my dance.
I would plant trees today
even if I knew for a certainty that the world
would end tomorrow.

-- Balbir Mathur