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Nondual Highlights Issue #2458, Wednesday, April 29, 2006, Editor: Mark



I live far off in the wild
Where moss and woods
Are thick and plants perfumed
I can see mountains rain or shine
And never hear market noise
I light a few leaves in my stove to heat tea
To patch my robe I cut off a cloud
Lifetimes seldom fill a hundred years
Why suffer for profit and fame?

- Stonehouse, posted to DailyDharma



The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory.
Why go anywhere? Just realize that you are dreaming
a dream you call the world, and stop looking for
ways out. The dream is not your problem. Your problem
is that you like one part of your dream and not another.
Love all, or none of it, and stop complaining. When you
have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that
need be done.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, from
I Am That - Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to AlongTheWay



We've come again to that knee of seacoast
no ocean can reach.
Tie together all human intellects.
They won't stretch to here.
The sky bares its neck so beautifully,
but gets no kiss. Only a taste.
This is the food that everyone wants,
wandering the wilderness, "Please give us
Your manna and quail."
We're here again with the Beloved.
This air, a shout. These meadowsounds,
an astonishing myth.
We've come into the Presence of the One
who was never apart from us.
When the waterbag is filling, you know
the Water-carrier's here!
The bag leans lovingly against Your shoulder.
"Without You I have no knowledge,
no way to touch anyone."
When someone chews sugarcane,
he's wanting this Sweetness.
Inside this globe the soul roars like thunder.
And now Silence, my strict tutor.
I won't try to talk about Shams.
Language cannot touch that Presence.

- Rumi, Ode 3079, posted to AlphaWorld



Harvest


As the sun goes down in its well,
lovers enter the seclusion of God.

Late at night we meet like thieves
who have stolen gold, our
candlelit faces.

A pawn has become a king.
We sit secretly inside presence
like a Turk in a tent among the Hindus,

and yet we're traveling past
a hundred watchmen, nightfaring,
drowned in an ocean of longing.

Sometimes a body rises to the surface
like Joseph coming out of his well
of abandonment to be the clarity

that divides Egypt's wheat fairly
and interprets the royal dreaming.

Some people say about human beings,
"Dust to dust", but can that be true of
one who changes from road dust to doorway?

The crop appears to be all one thing,
while it's still in the field.

Then a transformation-time arrives,
and we see how it is:
half chaff, half grain.

- Rumi, Ghazal (Ode) 524, version by Coleman Barks, posted to Sunlight



Sublime Generosity


I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.

The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.

He said, "You're not mad enough.
You don't belong in this house."

I went wild and had to be tied up.
He said, "Still not wild enough
to stay with us!"

I broke through another layer
into joyfulness.

He said, "It's not enough."
I died.

He said, "You're a clever little man,
full of fantasy and doubting."

I plucked out my feathers and became a fool.
He said, "Now you're the candle
for this assembly."

But I'm no candle. Look!
I'm scattered smoke.

He said, "You are the sheikh, the guide."
But I'm not a teacher, I have no power.

He said, "You already have wings.
I cannot give you wings."

But I wanted his wings.
I felt like some flightless chicken.

Then new events said to me,
"Don't move. A sublime generosity is
coming toward you."

And old love said, "Stay with me."

I said, "I will."

You are the fountain of the sun's light.
I am a willow shadow on the ground.
You make my raggedness silky.

The soul at dawn is like darkened water
that slowly begins to say "Thank you, thank you."

Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually
changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.

This comes of smiling back
at your smile.

The chess master says nothing,
other than moving the silent chess piece.

That I am part of the ploys
of this game makes me
amazingly happy.

- Rumi, version by Colman Barks,
The Essential Rumi, posted to Sunlight

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