your longing is made out of the very stuff for which you are longing

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What we are looking for is what is looking. 
 
―Francis of Assisi

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The now is our self. 

We are not present in the now.

We are the now.

The now is not a container that contains our self along with everything else. 

It is our self, eternal presence.


—Rupert Spira
Presence

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the river

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The river is of the earth
And it is free. It is rigorously
Embanked and bound,
And yet is free. “To hell
With restraint,” it says.
“I have got to be going.”

It will grind out its dams.
It will go over or around them.
They will become pieces.


—Wendell Berry

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It is by God’s Grace that you think of God. —Sri Ramana Maharshi

 

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You said, ‘Who’s at the door?’

I said, ‘Your slave.’

You said, ‘What do you want?’

‘To see you and bow.’

‘How long will you wait?’

‘Until you call.’

‘How long will you cook?’

‘Till the Resurrection.’

We talked through the door. 
I claimed a great love and that I had
given up what the world gives, to be in that love.

‘You said, ‘Such claims require a witness.’
I said, ‘This longing, these tears.’

You said, ‘Discredited witnesses.’
I said, ‘Surely not!’

You said, ‘Who did you come with?’
‘The majestic imagination you gave me.’

‘Why did you come?’
‘The musk of your wine was in the air.’

‘What is your intention?’
‘Friendship.’

‘What do you want from me?’
‘Grace.’

Then you asked, ‘Where have you been most comfortable?’
‘In the palace.’

‘What did you see there?’
‘Amazing things.’

‘Then why is it so desolate?’
‘Because all that can be taken away in a second.’

‘Who can do that?’
‘This clear discernment.’

‘Where can you live safely then?’
‘In Surrender.’

‘What is this giving up?’
‘A peace that saves us.’

‘Is there no threat of disaster?’
‘Only what comes in your street, inside your love.’

‘How do you walk there?’

‘In perfection.’

Now silence. 
If I told more of this conversation,
those listening would leave themselves.

There would be no door, no roof or window either!


—Rumi
talking through the door

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Meditation Celestial and Terrestial

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The wild warblers are warbling in the jungle
Of life and spring of the lustrious inundations,
Flood on flood, of our returning sun.

Day after day, throughout the winter,

We hardened ourselves to live by bluest reason

In a world of wind and frost,

And by will, unshaken and florid

In mornings of angular ice,

That passed beyond us through the narrow sky.

But what are radiant reason and radiant will

To warblings early in the hilarious trees

Of summer, the drunken mother?

—Wallace Stevens

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