Spiritual Poetry

Wake up Winebringer!

Wake up Winebringer! And pour me a glass of wine.
Throw dust on the head of this sad earth man.

I’ve taken off my snazzy blue coat and bare-chested
I clutch this full cup.

Even though the rich or the politicians call us “trash,”
To us their blue blood or fame means nothing.

Give me more wine! All their dust blowing around in the wind of pride
And desire is as worthless as a hole.

The smoke from my burning heart
Gags all those with ignorance as their goal.

My mad heart has a secret
That no one knows.

The Beloved has stolen even the sweet solitude from my heart,
And I am content.

No one who has ever laid eyes on this silver-limbed Cypress,
Would ever go looking in the woods for a cypress again.

“Hafez,” the voice of inner wine will say;
“Be careful what you ask for, you may just get what you want!”

By:Hafez

 

"If I Adore You" by Rabia al Basri

If I adore You out of fear of Hell, burn me in Hell!
If I adore you out of desire for Paradise,
Lock me out of Paradise.
But if I adore you for Yourself alone,
Do not deny to me Your eternal beauty.

 

Love - Corinithians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels,
but have not love,
I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.



And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.



And if I dole out all my goods, and
if I deliver my body that I may boast
but have not love, nothing I am profited.



Love is long suffering,
love is kind,
it is not jealous,
love does not boast,
it is not inflated.


It is not discourteous,
it is not selfish,
it is not irritable,
it does not enumerate the evil.
It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth



From: Corinthians 13

 

Apocalypse

Within, without the cosmos wide am I;
In joyful sweep I loose forth and draw back all.
A birthless deathless Spirit that moves and is still
Ever abides within to hear my call.

I who create on earth my joys and doles
To fulfil my matchless quest in all my play,
I veil my face of truth with golden hues
And see the serpent night and python day.

A Consciousness Bliss I feel in each breath;
I am the self amorous child of the Sun.
At will I break and build my symbol sheath
And freely enjoy the world's unshadowed fun.



By: Sri Chinmoy

 

Why wilt thou examine every little fibre of my soul,
Spreading them out before the sun like stalks of flax
to dry.
The infant joy is beautiful, but its anatomy
Horrible, ghast, and deadly: nought shalt thou find
in it
But death, despair, and everlasting brooding melancholy.

William Blake in The Four Zoas.

 

Does the sun walk in glorious raiment on the secret

floor
Where the cold miser spreads his gold; or does the
bright cloud drop
On his stone threshold? Does his eye behold the beam
that brings
Expansion to the eye of pity; or will he bind himself
Beside the ox to thy hard furrow? Does not that mild
beam blot
The bat, the owl, the glowing tiger, and the king of
night?
The sea fowl takes the wintry blast for a cov'ring to
her limbs,
And the wild snake the pestilence, to adorn him with
gems and gold;
And trees, and birds, and beasts, and men behold
their eternal joy.
Arise you little glancing wings, and sing your infant joy!
Arise, and drink your bliss, for everything that lives is Holy!

William Blake in The Visions of the Daughters of Albion.

 

Magnificent Existence

God has made existence magnificent,
He has made it through nonexistence.
He has concealed the sea
And exposed the foam,
Concealed the wind and displayed the dust.
The whirling dust flies like a dancer,
The wind is invisible, known only by trust,
The foam moves all about you,
But without the sea no whirling takes place.
Thought is hidden, speech is manifest.

By: Rumi

 

Song of a Dream


Once in the dream of a night I stood
Lone in the light of a magical wood,
Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang;
And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang,
And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed,
And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.

Lone in the light of that magical grove,
I felt the stars of the spirits of Love
Gather and gleam round my delicate youth,
And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth;
To quench my longing I bent me low
By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow
In that magical wood in the land of sleep..



By: Sarojini Naidu

 

Forever Dance

I am happy even before I have a reason.

I am full of Light even before the sky
Can greet the sun or the moon.

Dear companions,
We have been in love with God
For so very, very long.

What can Hafiz now do but Forever
Dance!

- Hafiz

 

The Lord Is In Me

The Lord is in me, and the Lord is in you,
As life is hidden in every seed.
So rubble your pride, my friend,
And look for Him within you.

When I sit in the heart of His world
A million suns blaze with light,
A burning blue sea spreads across the sky,
Life's turmoil falls quiet,
All the stains of suffering wash away.

Listen to the unstruck bells and drums!
Love is here; plunge into its rapture!
Rains pour down without water;
Rivers are streams of light.

How could I ever express
How blessed I feel
To revel in such vast ecstasy
In my own body?

This is the music
Of soul and soul meeting.
Of the forgetting of all grief.
This is the music
That transcends all coming and going.

-Kabir

 

Love More

No remedy for black hate?
Who says?
Just love
And love more,
That's all.

No remedy for helpless fear?
Who says?
Just love
And love more,
That's all.

No remedy for blind darkness?
Who says?
Just love
And love more,
That's all.

No remedy for lengthy bondage?
Who says?
Just love
And love more,
That's all.

By: Sri Chinmoy

 

Do not go to the garden of flowers!
O Friend! go not there;
In your body is the garden of flowers.
Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the Infinite Beauty.

-Kabir

 

Carrying God


No one can keep us from carrying God
Wherever we go.

No one can rob His Name
From our heart as we try to relinquish our fears
And at last stand -- Victorious.

We do not have to leave him in the mosque
Or church alone at night;

We do not have to be jealous of tales of saints
Or glorious masts, those intoxicated souls
Who can make outrageous love with the Friend.

We do not have to be envious of our spiritsÕ ability
Which can sometimes touch God in a dream.

Our yearning eyes, our warm-needing bodies,
Can all be drenched in contentment
And Light.

No one anywhere can keep us
From carrying the Beloved wherever we go.

No one can rob His precious Name
From the rhythm of my heart --
Steps and breath.

by: Hafiz

 

IN MY SOUL




In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church
where I knee.



Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.



Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is
illumined nothing,



where ecstasy gets poured into itself
and becomes
lost,



where the wing is fully alive
but has no mind or
body?



In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque,
a church


that dissolve, that
dissolve in
God.

Rabia al Basri

 

Andal praises the day (NANNAL)that has appeared of
its own accord for the observance of the vow.What it
means is that for a soul,that day is the Good Day when
he understands all about himself and God and their
mutual relationship of Lord and Servant which is stated
in the Tirumantram.
2.The fruit in getting one's body is for serving the
Lord here and hereafter (NEERADA PODUVIR)
3.All those who have a longing for the service of the
Lord are qualified to join her.(PODUVIR PODUMINO)
4.She speaks of the radiance that attended on the face
of her companions on hearing her requisition.(MADI
NIRAINDA ;the moon is not in the sky alone!)
5.The prosperity of Gokula consists of Sri Krishna's
amiable pranks in stealing butter and girls; i.e.,the
wealth of a Sri Vaishnava consists of his intoxicating
love for and enjoyment of Lord's company.
6.Nandagopa's vigilance in guarding Krishna with his
very sharp spear in hand symbolises the "ASTHANE
BHAYA-SANKA" and "MANGALASASANA-PARATA" which
characterises a SriVaishnava.
Yasoda's over-indulgence of Krishna is responsible
for all his pranks and misbehaviour towards the young gopis.
8.SrimanNarayana is the SOLE MEANS of attaining His Feet.
This strikes the keynote of the Song Divine-TIRUPPAVAI.
NARAYANANE (Upaya Swarupam) NAMAKKE (Adhikari Swarupam)
PARAI (Phala Swarupam) TARUVAN.The safest means of securing
Him is not Karma yoga etc but His Grace only.
That is the sum and substance of this verse.

 

seeker of truth
follow no path
all paths lead where
truth is here

~e.e. cummings~

 

The Music

My friend, the stain of the Great Dancer has penetrated my body.
I drank the cup of music, and I am hopelessly drunk.
Moreover I stay drunk, no matter what I do to become sober.
Rana, who disapproves, gave me one basket with a snake in it.
Mira folded the snake around her neck, it was a lover's necklace, lovely!
Rana's next gift was poison: "This is something for you, Mira."
She repeated the Holy Name in her chest, and drank it, it was good!
Every name He has is praise; that's the cup I like to drink, and only that.
"The Great Dancer is my husband," Mira says, "rain washes off all the other colors."

~Mirabai~

 

If A Tree Could Wander

Oh, if a tree could wander
and move with foot and wings!
It would not suffer the axe blows
and not the pain of saws!

For would the sun not wander
away in every night ?
How could at ev'ry morning
the world be lighted up?

And if the ocean's water
would not rise to the sky,
How would the plants be quickened
by streams and gentle rain?

The drop that left its homeland,
the sea, and then returned ?
It found an oyster waiting
and grew into a pearl.

Did Yusaf not leave his father,
in grief and tears and despair?
Did he not, by such a journey,
gain kingdom and fortune wide?

Did not the Prophet travel
to far Medina, friend?
And there he found a new kingdom
and ruled a hundred lands.

You lack a foot to travel?
Then journey into yourself!
And like a mine of rubies
receive the sunbeams? print!

Out of yourself ? such a journey
will lead you to your self,
It leads to transformation
of dust into pure gold!

~Rumi

 

A NOISELESS, patient spider,
I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.
- Walt Whitman

 

(The Thousand-hooded Serpent) Shesha, Ganesha,Mahesha (Shiva), Dinesha (Sun), Suresh (Indra) all sing in HIS praise
HE who is infinite, endless, unbreakable, unpiercable, undifferentiable, so the Good Vedas say
Narada, Sukhdeva, Vyasa have all failed in their quest to fathom HIM
And yet the daughters of cowherds make HIM dance for a glass of buttermilk


Gods like Shiva and Brahma wish to spread dharma through dhyana
But because Raskhan has a good heart,Krishna comes to him, even though he[Raskhan] is unintelligent
Beautiful wives of the Gods would not hesitate to give their lives for HIM
And yet the daughters of cowherds make HIM dance for a glass of buttermilk