Give everything you have,
and after you have given,
give what’s left.
After you give what’s left,
give what remains.
After giving that,
give the feeling of having given.
After giving the feeling
of having given,
give what you get
for having given.
Then give again,
never stopping, always giving.
And should it come to pass that you forget,
forgive yourself immediately.
Then begin again,
giving everything you have,
and after you have given,
give what’s left.
Give Everything You Have
The Not-So-Grim Reaper
When my daughter was very young and scraped her knee while playing, as kids do, or had a fever, I would ‘kiss it better’, sing her a song, and reassure her that everything would be OK.
She accepted this without question. I was her mom, and in her eyes, I could heal.
A few years ago when my doctor said “I have some very bad news for you”, I was terrified, frozen with shock. Cancer.
“But, I eat so well, I stay active, meditate! I’m a peaceful person!” Suddenly my life was filled with teams of doctors and I had to think about treatment options. The decisions seemed impossible to make.
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Comfortable with existence
The other day I was admiring the view, open sky, ocean beyond, the verdant earthy profusion after the recent rains, and as I was appreciating how magnificent it all is, a distant hawk caught my sight.
I looked at this free flyer, and I wanted it to approach closer.
Then I thought this bird has excellent eyesight, and can see me perfectly well;
and as soon as that thought entered, he flew right over me, close enough
to completely gaze at one another.
I mean it really made me laugh, for here was awareness and instantaneous connection at its best.
The bird has come before, especially when it senses I am comfortably
locked into contentment, and just silently glides along,
performing an in tune rhythmic dance replicating how I feel.
sunrise calling
small circles
golden eagles
smell of cold
winter’s play
sunrise falling
feathers calling
smoke-rings drifing
summits lifting
all our dreams
are here today
Standing at the Threshold
A few years ago I found myself standing in my closet, madly searching for clean clothes in a last minute attempt to pack before yet another business trip, when I noticed my 4-year old son standing at the entrance. In one hand, he held a small blue wand, in the other — a plastic bottle of soapy water. “Dada,” he said, looking up at me, his eyes wide open, “do you have time to catch my bubbles?”
Time? It stopped. And so did I. At that moment, it suddenly made no difference whether or not I caught my plane — I could barely catch my breath. The only thing that existed was him and that soulful look of longing in his eyes.
For the next ten minutes, all we did was play — him blowing bubbles and laughing. Me catching and laughing, too. His need was completely satisfied. His need for connection. His need for love. His need for knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that absolutely everything was perfect just the way it was.
One Word
It’s a bit late for Valentines but Valentines Day got me thinking about “love”.
The roses and chocolates and the fluffy bears with red hearts for Valentines Day are a bit thin for something that seems to be so significant for human life. For something that is in every layer of ourselves and our human society universally: Love.
The Ancient Greeks had three words for love: Eros, Phillia and Agape. Sanskrit has ninety-six, ancient Persian had 80. In English we label lots of experiences with one word: “love”.
There’s love and marriage, there’s the love of parents for children & children for parents, there’s the soap opera “love”, there’s the compassionate love of people who help those less fortunate, there’s the talk of love for and from a God. Then there’s the lusty love. And the reverse of it all: a lack of love, being brought up without love, not having anyone to love or anyone to love you,
The Joy of Heckling
If you talk to a thousand people who are (or have been) students of Maharaji, you will get a thousand different impressions of who he is and what he does.Your guess about the accuracy of their perceptions is as good as mine. But if you really want to know the answer, you’ll need to have your own experience, while being mindful of the words of Anais Nin, ”We don’t see things as they are, but as we are.” Allow me to be more specific.
If you talk to a thousand people who are (or have been) students of Maharaji, you will get a thousand different impressions of who he is and what he does.Your guess about the accuracy of their perceptions is as good as mine. But if you really want to know the answer, you’ll need to have your own experience, while being mindful of the words of Anais Nin, ”We don’t see things as they are, but as we are.” Allow me to be more specific.ACT 1
When Maharaji was 16, he married. Not to an Indian woman chosen by his parents, but to a 24 year old American stewardess. This troubled some of his devotees — especially those who had chosen celibacy as part of their path to enlightenment. How could Maharaji get married, they reasoned. Marriage was so mundane -. such a distraction - so unspiritual. And so, when Maharaji said ”I do, a bunch of these folks said ”I don’t and split the scene.
The Great Mystery
Here is the great mystery:
Here is the great mystery:My thirst is quenched
as much by my longing
to have it quenched
as it is by the waters that come.
Tell me, oh digger of the well,
which do I drink first?
There Is No Door
I could tell you that my Master
is the one who opened the door,
but that would be a lie.
There never was a door,
I was never on the other side.
We were always in this together, he and I.
If you call the realization of this Oneness,
the opening of a door,
then I guess we have the beginning of a very long poem here,
but since I’m in a really good mood today,
I’ll save you the trouble of hacking your way
through a love drunk’s excess of metaphors.
There is no door! Never was, never will be.
The knocking you hear
is only the sound of your own heart beating.
The One for whom it beats has always been with you,
so what’s all this monkey business about a door?
In Defense of a King
Warrior man, do not despair,
you are not involved in a game of solitaire
It is the strength of your heart which pulls tight your bow,
it takes the fires of love to defeat your foe
Available to you, is the power behind every breath,
an ultimate tool, which determines even life and death
You will not be defeated, if you understand these words,
It is the ocean, not the drop, whose power conquers …