Spiritual Poetry

Perfect Harmony

Since we take birth
In perfect harmony,
Can we not depart from this world
In exactly the same way?

by: Sri Chinmoy

 

At the risk of disrupting the flow of this thread, I have to pose the question - do we come into the world in perfect harmony? It doesn't seem so to me.

 

Hmmm...I don't know....it seams the birth part is painful..but childhood is beautiful and innocent...

 

I've Come Here to Depart

I haven't come here to settle down.
I've come here to depart.
I am a merchant with lots of goods,
selling to whoever will buy.
I didn't come to create any problems,
I'm only here to love.
A Heart makes a good home for the Friend.
I've come to build some hearts.
I'm a little drunk from this Friendship-
Any lover would know the shape I'm in.
I've come to exchange my twoness,
to dissapear in One.
He is my teacher. I am His servant.
I am a nightingale in His garden.
I've come to the Teacher's garden
to be happy and die singing.
They say "Souls which know each other here,
know each other there."
I've come to know a Teacher
and to show myself as I am.

by: Yunus Emre

 

"Infant joy is sweet
but its anatomy is ghast and deadly"

William Blake.

 

We can't turn back the clock
But we can chant for love
Let's cut the idle talk so we can
Chant for love
We always have the time to quarrel
About such problems as money and war
Let's put it off until tomorrow
Who needs another dose of sorrow?

It don't necessitate an act of faith
To chant for love
What alibi is strong enough to wait
To chant for love
Though we don't hold the reigns of power
Somebody else seems to be in control
We mustn't waste another hour
We'll get directly to the soul
If we can

Chant
For a world united
Chant
For a world that's dying for love

The Hare Krishna plays a drum and bell
When he chants for love
The tribal priest is afraid of hell
So he chants for love
I am not pushing some religion
Don't get me wrong,
I never mess with such things
Just be true to your own vision
This is your personal decision

The Dervish spins to a "Hu Hu Hu"
When he chants for love
Nobody knows what the angels do
When they chant for love
You're at the bottom of the ladder
Someone may try to tell you where you should start
But the words, they never matter
If you can feel it in your heart
Then you can


Chant
For a world united
Chant
For a world that's dying for love

Why don't you chant?
You can chant
Chant, chant, chant ...



Todd Rundgren from 'The Ever Popular Tortued Artist Effect'.

 

I love this!

 

Oops...double post!

 

Pilgrim
Lyrics:Roma Ryan Music:Enya Arranger:Enya/Nicky Ryan

Pilgrim, how you journey
on the road you chose
to find out where the winds die
and where the stories go.
All days come from one day
that must you must know,
you cannot change what's over
but only where you go.

One way leads to diamonds,
one way leads to gold,
another leads you only
to everything you're told.
In your heart you wonder
which of these is true;
the road that leads to nowhere,
the road that leads to you.

Will you find the answer
in all you say and do?
Will you find the answer
In you?

Each heart is a pilgrim,
each one wants to know
the reason why the winds die
and where the stories go.
Pilgrim, in your journey
you may travel far,
for pilgrim it's a long way
to find out who you are...
Pilgrim, it's a long way
to find out who you are...

Pilgrim, it's a long way
to find out who you are...

 

"The Song of Creation"
by Max Muller

Then there was not non-existent nor existent:
there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter?
was water there, unfathomed depth of water?

Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal:
no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.
That one thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature
apart from it was nothing whatsoever.

Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness,
this All was undiscriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and formless;
by the great power of warmth was born that unit.

Thereafter rose desire in the beginning,
Desire the primal seed and germ of spirit.
Sages who searched with their heart's thought
discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.

Transversely was their severing line extended:
what was above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces,
free action here and energy of yonder.

Who verily knows and who can here declare it,
whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
The gods are later than this world's production.
Who knows, then, whence it first came into being?

He, the first origin of this creation,
whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven,
he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows it not.

-- Anon. (The Rig Veda)

 

The Living Flame Of Love

The Living Flame Of Love
Songs of the soul in the intimate communication of loving union with God.


1. O living flame of love
that tenderly wounds my soul
in its deepest center! Since
now you are not oppressive,
now consummate! if it be your will:
tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!

2. O sweet cautery,
O delightful wound!
O gentle hand! O delicate touch
that tastes of eternal life
and pays every debt!
In killing you changed death to life.

3. O lamps of fire!
in whose splendors
the deep caverns of feeling,
once obscure and blind,
now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely,
both warmth and light to their Beloved.

4. How gently and lovingly
you wake in my heart,
where in secret you dwell alone;
and in your sweet breathing,
filled with good and glory,
how tenderly you swell my heart with love.

-St. John of the Cross

 

Song

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.


I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

By: Christina Rossetti

 

This poem goes with my new sig...it was just too long:

XIV

The river and its waves are one
surf: where is the difference between the river and its waves?
When the wave rises, it is the water; and when it falls, it is
the same water again. Tell me, Sir, where is the distinction?
Because it has been named as wave, shall it no longer be
considered as water?

Within the Supreme Brahma, the worlds are being told like beads:
Look upon that rosary with the eyes of wisdom.


By: Kabir

 

Celestial Love
Higher far,
Upward, into the pure realm,
Over sun or star,
Over the flickering D¾mon film,
Thou must mount for love,Ñ
Into vision which all form
In one only form dissolves;
In a region where the wheel,
On which all beings ride,
Visibly revolves;
Where the starred eternal worm
Girds the world with bound and term;
Where unlike things are like,
When good and ill,
And joy and moan,
Melt into one.
There Past, Present, Future, shoot
Triple blossoms from one root
Substances at base divided
In their summits are united,
There the holy Essence rolls,
One through separated souls,
And the sunny ®on sleeps
Folding nature in its deeps,
And every fair and every good
Known in part or known impure
To men below,
In their archetypes endure.

By: Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

By: Mary Oliver

 

Miracles


Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim- the rocks- the motion of the waves- the
ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

By: Walt Whitman

 

The Marriage of True Minds

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

By: William Shakespeare - Sonnet CXVI

 

OMGoodness... I <3 this poem. Mirabai is awesome as always.

I Write of that Journey

I remember how my mother would hold me.
I would look up at her sometimes and see her weep.

I understand now what was happening.
Love so strong a force
it broke the
cage,

and she disappeared from everything
for a blessed
moment.

All actions have evolved
From the taste of flight;
the hope of freedom
moves our cells
and limbs.

Unable to live on the earth, Mira ventured out alone in the sky Ð
I write of that journey
of becoming as
free as
God.

DonÕt forget love;
it will bring all the madness you need
to unfurl yourself across
the universe.

By: Mirabai

 

LINGASHTAKAM

1. Brahma Muraari Suraarchita Lingam
Nirmala Bhashita Shobhita Lingam
Janmaja Dukha Vinaashaka Lingam
Tat Pranamaami Sadaa Shiva Lingam

I bow before that Sada Shiva Linga, which is adored by Brahma, Vishnu and other Gods, which is praised by pure and holy speeches and which destroys the cycle of births and deaths.

2. Devamuni Pravaraarchita Lingam
Kaamadaham Karunaakara Lingam
Raavana Darpa Vinaashaka Lingam
Tat Pranamaami Sada Shiva Lingam

I bow before that Sada Shiva Linga, which is the destroyer of desires, which the Devas and the sages worship, which is infinitely compassionate and which subdued the pride of Raavana.

3. Sarva Sugandha Sulepitha Lingam
Buddhi Vivardhana Kaarana Lingam
Siddha Suraasura Vanditha Lingam
Tat Pranamaami Sadaa Shiva Lingam

I bow before that Sada Shiva Linga, which is lavishly smeared with variegated perfumes and scents, which elevates the power of thought and enkindles the light of discrimination, and before which the Siddhas and Suras and Asuras prostrate.

4. Kanaka Mahaamani Bhushitha Lingam
Phanipathi Veshtitha Shobhitha Lingam
Daksha Suyajna Vinaashaka Lingam
Tat Pranamaami Sadaa Shiva Lingam

I bow before that Sada Shiva Linga, the destroyer of Dakshas sacrifice, which is decorated with various ornaments, studded with different gems and rubies and which glows with the garland of the serpent Lord coiled around it.

5. Kumkuma Chandana Lepitha Lingam
Pankaja Haara Sushobhitha Lingam
Sanchitha Paapa Vinaashaka Lingam
Tat Pranamaami Sadaa Shiva Lingam

I bow before that Sada Shiva Linga, which is smeared with saffron and sandal paste, which is decorated with lotus garlands and which wipes out all accumulated sins.

6. Devaganaarchitha Sevitha Lingam
Bhaavair Bhakti Bhirevacha Lingam
Dinakara Koti Prabhakara Lingam
Tat Pranamaami Sadaa Shiva Lingam

I bow before that Sada Shiva Linga which is worshipped by the multitude of Gods with genuine thoughts full of faith and devotion and whose splendor is like that of a million suns.

7. Ashta Dalopari Veshtitha Lingam
Sarva Samudbhava Kaarana Lingam
Ashta Daridra Vinaashaka Lingam
Tat Pranamaami Sadaa Shiva Lingam

I bow before that Sada Shiva Linga, destroyer of all poverty and misery in its eight aspects, which is the cause of all creation and which stands on the eight petalled Lotus.

8. Suraguru Suravara Pujitha Lingam
Suravana Pushpa Sadaarchitha Lingam
Paraatparam Paramatmaka Lingam
Tat Pranamaami Sadaa Shiva Lingam

I bow before that Sada Shiva Linga which is the Transcendent Being and the Supreme Self, worshipped by all Suras and their preceptor (Brhaspathi), with innumerable flowers from the celestial gardens.

9. LingAshTakamidam puNyam
yaaThaet Sivasannidau .
SivalOkamavApnOti Sivena saha mOdatae.

Whoever recites these eight slokas, in praise
of the Shivalinga with the presence of Lord Shiva,
attains that Supreme abode of Shiva and enjoys
everlasting bliss with Him.

 

As I Ebb'd With The Ocean Of Life

As I ebb'd with the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,
Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant,
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,
Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems,
Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land
of the globe.

Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those
slender windrows,
Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,
Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide,
Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me,
Paumanok there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses,
These you presented to me you fish-shaped island,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd with that electric self seeking types.

2
As I wend to the shores I know not,
As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck'd,
As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,
As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,
I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift,
A few sands and dead leaves to gather,
Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.

O baffled, balk'd, bent to the very earth,
Oppress'd with myself that I have dared to open my mouth,
Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have
not once had the least idea who or what I am,
But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet
untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd,
Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,
With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have
written,
Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.

I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single
object, and that no man ever can,
Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart upon
me and sting me,
Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.

3
You oceans both, I close with you,
We murmur alike reproachfully rolling sands and drift, knowing not why,
These little shreds indeed standing for you and me and all.

You friable shore with trails of debris,
You fish-shaped island, I take what is underfoot,
What is yours is mine my father.

I too Paumanok,
I too have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been
wash'd on your shores,
I too am but a trail of drift and debris,
I too leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island.

I throw myself upon your breast my father,
I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,
I hold you so firm till you answer me something.

Kiss me my father,
Touch me with your lips as I touch those I love,
Breathe to me while I hold you close the secret of the murmuring I
envy.

4
Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,)
Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother,
Endlessly cry for your castaways, but fear not, deny not me,
Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you or
gather from you.

I mean tenderly by you and all,
I gather for myself and for this phantom looking down where we lead,
and following me and mine.

Me and mine, loose windrows, little corpses,
Froth, snowy white, and bubbles,
(See, from my dead lips the ooze exuding at last,

See, the prismatic colors glistening and rolling,)
Tufts of straw, sands, fragments,
Buoy'd hither from many moods, one contradicting another,
From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell,
Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil,
Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown,
A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating,
drifted at random,
Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature,
Just as much whence we come that blare of the cloud-trumpets,
We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence, spread out before you,
You up there walking or sitting,
Whoever you are, we too lie in drifts at your feet.

by: Walt Whitman