V


Put aside all hope, all gain and loss, all dreams of glory;

All yearning, hate, anger, fear, envy, and jealousy;

All dread of sickness, injury, aging, and dying.

Your mind-body is but a temporal dream.

You are eternal, sovereign, absolute.

 

* * * *

There appear to be many paths

In the return to isness.

All are equal in the quest home,

Because, like Dorothy's adventure in Oz,

No one ever really left Kansas.

 

* * * *

Understand the subtlety between

Claiming you are god,

And knowing you are godness.

One cannot be, and the other never was not.

 

* * * *

You are a window to the eternal,

But must part the tattered curtains,

And wipe away the smudge, to see it.

 

* * * *

There are the ignorant who think they know,

And the ignorant who know they do not.

 

* * * *

Whether you were born by chance,

Or chose your parents through karmic design;

Whether you exist just once, or well past a gazillion times,

With a succession of identities playing out through the abyss of eternity;

From the indivisible perspective, it is all very much the same.

 

* * * *

Explore love as much as you might with all your beingness,

It is the awareness within all, that is its unfathomable cradle.

 

* * * *

You may sit quietly and breathe with your eyes wide open or tightly shut;

Chant spiritual songs or hum mantras until your mind is three shades of blue;

Practice every sort of rigid, dogmatic, death-defying diet or prescribed exercise;

Submit to ancient beliefs, rituals, and traditions; wear costumes and deify symbols;

Practice any discipline, worship any form your mind or another's might conjure;

Real meditation is the serene awareness of every moment's birth and death,

And no system is required to discern and freely perceive your birthright.