love much

The important thing is not to think much,

but to love much;

and so, do that which best stirs you to love.

Saint Teresa of Avila

love everyone

If you are seeking closeness to the Beloved,
love everyone.
Whether in their presence or absence,
see only their good.
If you want to be as clear and refreshing as
the breath of the morning breeze,
like the sun have nothing but warmth and light
for everyone.

Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir

Bad dreams and good dreams

Bad Dreams are Good

The cats are in the flower beds
A red hawk rides the sky
I guess I should be happy
Just to be alive

But
We have poisoned everything
And oblivious to it all
The cell-hone zombies babble
Through the shopping malls
While condors fall from the Indian skies
Whales beach and die in sand
Bad Dreams are good
In the Great Plan

And you cannot be trusted
Do you even know you are lying?
It's dangerous to kid yourself
You go deaf, dumb, and blind
You take with such entitlement
You give bad attitude
You have No grace
No empathy
No gratitude
You have no sense of consequence
Oh, my head is in my hands
Bad Dreams are good
In the Great Plan

Before that altering apple
We were one with everything
No sense of self and other
No self-consciousness
But now we have to grapple
With this man-made world backfiring
Keeping one eye on our brother's deadly selfishness

Everyone's a victim here
Nobody's hands are clean
There's so very little left to wild Eden Earth
So near the jaws of our machines
We live in these electric scabs
These lesions once were lakes
We don't know how to shoulder blame
Or learn from past mistakes
So who will come to save the day?
Mighty Mouse...? Superman....?
Bad Dreams are good
In the Great Plan

In the dark
A shining ray
I heard a three-year-old boy say
Bad Dreams are good
In the Great Plan.

by Joni Mitchell in The New Yorker September 17th 2007.

WHY?

Why
is this man sitting here weeping
in this swanky restaurant
on his sixty-first birthday, because
his fear grows stronger each year,
because he's still the boy running
all out to first base, believing
getting there means everything,
because of the spiders climbing
the sycamore outside his house
this morning, the elegance of
a civilization free of delusion,
because of the boyish faces
of the five dead soldiers on TV,
the stoic curiosity in their eyes,
their belief in the righteousness
of sacrifice, because innocence
is the darkest place in the universe,
because of the Iraqis on their hands
and knees looking for a bloody button,
a bitten fingernail, evidence of
their stolen significance, because
of the primitive architecture
of his dreams, the brutal egotism
of his ignorance, because he believes
in deliverance, the purity of sorrow,
the sanctity of truth, because of
the original human faces of his wife
and two boys smiling at him across
the glittering table,because of
their passion for commemoration,
their certainty that goodness continues,
because of the spiders clinging to
the elegance of each moment, because
getting there still means everything?


Philip Shultz
The New Yorker August 27, 2007

Leave This

Leave This

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!

Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?

Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground

and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.

He is with them in sun and in shower,

and his garment is covered with dust.

Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance?

Where is this deliverance to be found?

Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation;

he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense!

What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?

Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.


Rabindranath Tagore in Gitangali

Little Flute

Little Flute

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail

vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales,

and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in

joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

From RABINDRANATH TAGORE'S Gitanjali

Living Others Lives

LIVING OTHERS LIVES

It's week since we returned,

this week will slip into the next

and several others;

yet the dust on the marble floor

the cobweb in the corners

the mouldy smell of the rooms not in use for long

will remain as they are

For we are not the residents here

Only preoccupations, obligations

and tasks live here; time is retailed,

packed and labelled favouring each demanding

customer; time to eat, time to mate,

time to sleep we never have enough.

Forced to live other's lives,

dream others' dreams

we remain.

A.J Thomas writes poetry in English and Malayalam.

An assistant Editor with 'Indian Literature', the journal of the Sahitya

Academy, he lives in Delhi.

My Lady

My Lady

My lady asked me one day

to write poetry for her.

And I said,

you cannot push a button

and expect to see poetry

gushing forth like champagne,

nor to see it return

to the atmosphere of the earth

like a spacecraft not split into pieces.

All she did was to

bang down the telephone.

I did not have the courage to call her,

lest she demanded poetry again.

Writing poetry is impossible. Even if it were not,

at least for some,

I wouldn't have been able to write it at all.

One needs images for writing poetry,

a lot of them.

But i have only two.

My lady asking for poetry,

and my lady banging the telephone.

Are two good enough for writing it?

In between I and the tree ripe with mangoes

In between I and the steak I wish to take

In between I and the mountain I wish to climb

the bridge I wish to build and the road I wish to take

the clouds I wish to dismember and the water I wish to drink.

In between I and all I wish to see, smell and touch,

there is a rodent moving about, talking endlessly, watching television,

making speeches, writing editorials,

dancing with or without a partner,

mimicking, rolling with laughter,

running away and returning again and again

and conquering the world.

I can write only about the rodent,

but that be no poetry.

I hope I have made myself clear.

Writing poetry is impossible.

by Manzur-i-Mouwla.

He is a poet, playwrite, literary critic and literary editor.

At one time Director General of the Bangla Academy,he lives in Dhaka.

I am a Woman

I AM A WOMAN

I am woman

coming from the desert

coming from the long line of tribes

coming from the long line of faiths

They called me mad

They chained me to the wall naked

yet I broke free the bonds

and ran through the pain of my existence

in search of the innocence that was denied me

and they called me mad

and they called me the evil spawn of Satan

yet I broke free the bonds

and ran towards our freedom

where I knelt

before the Mother and the Son

and I called them Salvation

and they named me Nation

and I tore loose the chains of captivity

only to fall once more into bondage

when I was raped by a Mongol

married a Jew

gave birth to a Muslim

watched the child convert to Buddhism

watched the child marry a Bahai

live as a Christian

die as a Hindu

I am a woman

I am the river

I am the sky

I am the clouded covered trees upon the mountain

I am the fertile earth whose song the plants drink deep

I am the long line of tribes

I am the long line of faiths

Don't try to convert me

into something I am not

for I am already all

that humanity will ever be.

SHEEMA KALBASI

Ibn Arabi

My heart has adopted every shape;

it has become a pasture for gazelles

and a convent for Christian monks,

A temple for idols and a pilgrims's Kabah,

the tables of a Torah

and the pages of a Qur'an.

I follow the religion of Love;

wherever Love's camels turn,

there Love is my religion and my faith.

Ibn Arabi, in Monroe 1974:320.

Rabi'a al-Adawiyya

Rabi'a al-Adawiyya was the first Sufi saint and she was a woman.

To those who offered to marry her,

"O sensual one, seek another sensual like thyself.

Hast thou seen any sign of desire in me?"

"It does not please me that you should be my slave

and that all you possess should be mine,

or that you should distract me from God for a single moment".

"Renunciation of this world means peace,

while desire for it brings sorrow.

Curb your desires and control yourself

and do not let others control you,

but let them share your inheritance and the anxiety of the age.

As for yourself, give your mind to the day of death;

but for me, God can give me all you offer and even double it.

It does not please me to be distracted from Him, for a single moment.

So farewell.

"My peace, O my brothers, is in solitude,

And my Beloved is with me always,

For His love I can find no substitute,

And His love is the test for me among mortal beings,

Whenever His beauty I may contemplate,

He is my "mihrab", towards Him is my "qibla"

If I die of love, before completing satisfaction,'

Alas, for my anxiety in the world, alas for my distress,

O Healer (of souls) the heart feeds upon its desire,

The striving after union with Thee has healed my soul,

O my Joy and my life abidingly,

Thou wast the source of my life and from Thee also came my ecstasy.

I have separated myself from all created beings,

My hope is for union with Thee, for that is the goal of my desire.

Who am I?

Who Am I?

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me

I used to speak to my warders

Freely and friendly and clearly,

As though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me

I bore the days of misfortune

Equally, smilingly, proudly,

Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were

compressing my throat,

Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,

Tossing in expectation of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!

March 4,1946, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhöffer, a young theologian of great promise, was martyred by the Nazis for his participation in a plot against the life of Adolf Hitler. His writings have greatly influenced recent theological thought. This article appeared in the Journal Christianity and Crisis, March 4, 1946. Used by permission. This article was prepared for Religion Online by Ted & Winnie Brock. http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=385

Macaulay on Henry Martyn

Epitaph on Henry Martyn

Here Martyn lies. In Manhood's early bloom
The Christian Hero finds a Pagan tomb.
Religion, sorrowing o'er her favourite son,
Points to the glorious trophies that he won.
Eternal trophies! not with carnage red,
Not stained with tears by hapless captives shed,
But trophies of the Cross! for that dear name,
Through every form of danger, death, and shame,
Onward he journeyed to a happier shore,
Where danger, death, and shame assault no more.

Thomas Babbington Macaulay

Amir Khusrau

I am a pagan and a worshiper of love:
the creed (of Muslims) I do not need;
Every vein of mine has become taunt like a wire,
the (Brahman’s) girdle I do not need.
Leave from my bedside, you ignorant physician!
The only cure for the patient of love is the sight of his Beloved
other than this no medicine does he need.
If there be no pilot in our boat, let there be none:
We have God in our midst: the sea we do not need.
The people of the world say that Khusrau worships idols.
So he does, so he does; the people he does not need,
the world he does not need.

Amir Khurau -- Trans. Dr.Hadi Hasan

Justice

I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your
solemn assemblies.

Even though you offer me your
burnt offerings and grain offerings.
I will not accept them.
and the offerings of well-being
of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.

Take away from me the noise of
your songs;
I will not listen to the melody
your harps.

But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an
ever-flowing stream.


Amos - 5:21-24.

Mira and her Lover

That dark Dweller in Braj

Is my only refuge.

O my companion,

Worldly comfort is an illusion,

As soon you get it, it goes.

I have chosen the Indestructible for my refuge,

Him whom the snake of death

Will not devour.

My Beloved dwells in my heart,

I have actually seen that Abode of Joy.

Mira's Lord is Hari, the Indestructible.

My Lord, I have taken refuge with Thee,

Thy slave.

Tanslated by Robert Bly in his Mirabai Versions.

Two Gods?

THE GOOD GOD AND THE EVIL GOD

The Good God and the Evil God met on the mountain top.
The Good God said, "Good day to you, brother."
The Evil God made no answer.
And the Good God said, "You are in a bad humour today."
"Yes," said the Evil God, "for of late I have been often mistaken for you, called by your name, and treated as if I were you, and it ill-pleases me."
And the Good God said. "But I too have been mistaken for you and called by your name."
The Evil God walked away cursing the stupidity of man.

Ode to Ethiopia

Be proud, my race, in mind and soul;
 Thy name is writ on Glory's scroll
 In characters of fire.
 High 'mid the clouds of Fame's bright sky
 Thy banner's blazoned folds now fly,

 And truth shall lift them higher.

Paul Laurence Dunbar in Ode to Ethiopia.

In the Grip of the Lover am I

In the grip of the Lover am I

Who holds me by the wrist

How could I let go?

Only those know of love

Who feel it in their bones

The rest just dig shallow wells

In waste and dreary lands

Some sow their tiny seeds

In dry and billowing sands

Why spend yourself

On affairs so worldly wise

Which you will one day leave?

Lock eyes with eyes!

So says Hussain,

The mendicant of the Lord.

Anwar, Paths Unknown.

The Heat of Midnight Tears

Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,
kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.

If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water,
I would have asked to be born a fish in this life.
If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts
then surely the saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb!
If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves
then the goats would surely get to the Holy One before us!

If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way,
I would have adored a granite mountain years ago.

Mira Bai

Bahai Prayer for Peace

Be generous in prosperity,
and thankful in adversity
Be fair in judgement,
and guarded in your speech,
Be a lamp unto those who walk in darkness,
and a home to the stranger.

Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light
to the feet of the erring.
Be a breath of life to the body of humankind,
a dew to the soil of the human heat,
and a fruit upon the tree of humility.

Peace Prayer

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith'
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in the giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in the dying that we are born to eternal life.


St. Francis of Assisi, 13th Century.

Dreams

What dreams we have and how they fly

Like rosy clouds across the sky;

Of wealth, of fame, of sure success,

Of love that comes to cheer and bless;

And how they whither, how they fade,

The waning wealth, the jilting jade —

The fame that for a moment gleams,

Then flies forever, — dreams, ah — dreams!

Paul Laurence Dunbar from Dreams

Mosque, Temple

Mosque, Temple

Let the pavilions of religion be ground to bits,

let the bricks of temples, mosques, gurudwaras, churches
be burnt in blind fire,
and upon those heaps of destruction
let lovely flower gardens grow, spreading their fragrance,
let children's schools and study halls grow.

For the welfare of humanity, now let prayer halls
be turned into hospitals, orphanages, schools, universities,
now let prayer halls become academies of art, fine arts centers,
scientific research institutes,
now let prayer halls be turned to golden rice fields
in the radiant dawn,
open fields, rivers, restless seas.

From now on let religion's other name be humanity

Taslima Nasreen.

Rumi on "love"

When it comes to love, I have to be silent.
To describe love, intellect is like an ass in the morass,
the Pen breaks when it is to describe Love


Rumi, quoted in Annmarie Schimmel's As Through a Veil, p.101.

Give me strength

Give Me Strength

This is my prayer to thee, my lord---strike,

strike at the root of penury in my heart.

Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.

Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.

Give me the strength never to disown the poor

or bend my knees before insolent might.

Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.

And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love.

- Rabindranath Tagore -

prayer of abandonment

Prayer of Abandonment.

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.

Charles de Foucauld

Golden Words

When the last hour strikes

and finds you taking a sapling

to the grove for planting

GO AHEAD AND PLANT IT.

Prophet Muhammad

Franciscan Benediction

Franciscan Benediction

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger,
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears,
To shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness,
To believe that you can make a difference in this world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

Amen

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Maya Angelou