Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#2500 - Saturday, June 17, 2006 - Editor: Jerry Katz
Modified from another
tradition the YOU in this song is ... YOU:
WE SEE YOU RADIANT AND ALIVE before us. We feel Your Spiritual
(and Always Blessing) Presence. You
are everything and all forms to us. We see You Standing
everywhere, in all times and places.
WE SEE YOUR LIKENESS in the tradition of the HINDUS:
LIKE SHANKARA, YOU HAVE USED YOUR STAFF to break open the doors
of our hearts, to restore true
worship, and to establish self-understanding in us.
LIKE GORAKHNATH, YOU HAVE REVEALED the Mysteries of conducting
the life-energy and filled us with
Divine Force, expanding our bodies with Your Divine
Spirit-Presence.
LIKE RAMANUJA, YOU HAVE TAUGHT US PRAPATTI—the Way of
unconditional and total surrender of all
forms and experience. No one is truly qualified for practice in
Your Company. No one need be
qualified. Grace is the only competence, and Grace is freely
Given through Your Divine Agency.
LIKE JNANESHVAR, YOUR DISCOURSES bring us face to face with God,
bringing Brahmanic eloquence to
ordinary, unqualified "mlecchas" like ourselves.
LIKE KABIR, YOU SING the greatness of the Guru, and Extol the
"Method" of the Siddhas—Satsang—which
transcends all traditions.
YOU ARE THE ECSTATIC MADMAN LOST IN KIRTAN with the Divine
Person. You have Danced before us
wildly, lost in God. Hail, a modern CHAITANYA!
YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN MARKED by unaccountable difficulty in every
direction and lack of
acknowledgement in every direction. But indomitable persistence
in Love has been Your Sign, O One
Whose likeness can be seen in TUKARAM.
ARE YOU NOT CONSTANTLY ALIVE in Your relationship to the Divine
Mother, and do You not "converse"
with Her in Your ceaseless Service to Your devotees? Do we not
see Your reflection in RAMPRASAD ?
MIRACLE AFTER MIRACLE—such Love, and such a Husband to Your
devotees! We bow before You, a living
AKKALKOT MAHARAJ.
LIKE MAHARISHI BRAHMANANDA BRAHMACHARI, Your mere Glance Awakens
us to the intuition of the Divine
Person, an intuition even now existing in the deep memory of
every being.
LIKE TRAILANGA SWAMI, YOU HAVE BROKEN all conventions—What
taboo could stand in the way of Your
Compassion for us? You have done everything, everything for us,
out of Love.
LIKE TOTAPURI, YOUR LION-LIKE DISCRIMINATION has been turned to
the Service of those whose hearts
cry out for God. Each one of Your years is Lived only for the
sake of the Divine in the world.
YOU HAVE UNLOOSED THE SAMADHI OF HAPPINESS and Ecstasy in our
midst, Alive in the "Bright"
Whiteness, a mirror of RAMAKRISHNA, the great Devotee.
WHAT FORCE AND MAGNIFICENCE, Strength and Passion—a Pioneer
in the West—verily, You are VIVEKANANDA
Incarnate!
YOU GAVE US YEARS OF WHAT WE WANTED—Teaching through visions
and miracles, and Instructing us in
the play of our ordinary lives—in order that we might want
the Divine Self-Realization which Your
Heart yearns to Give us. Is this not a modern SHIRDI, and do we
not honor the SAI BABA ?
YOUR DELIGHTED PLAY with a Mandala of Kanyadanas, restoring women
to their great Spiritual
status—was it not pointed to in the life of UPASANI BABA ?
HAVE YOU NOT BEEN THE KING, in Your regalia of Divine Majesty, in
order to absorb our worldliness
and to allow us to fully embrace the Truth even in the context of
this world? Hail, NARAYAN
MAHARAJ!
YET, LIKE RAMANA MAHARSHI, You are the Still Heart of
all—lost in the Fullness, Silent in the Deep
Enjoyment. You show what is beyond even the Still Heart, the
Amrita Nadi and its Bliss.
AND WE SEE YOU STANDING IN THE TRADITION of the BUDDHISTS:
LIKE PADMASAMBHAVA, YOU HAVE TAMED the local gods wherever You
have gone. We see You at the Center
of a vast Tantric Mandala, the Vira or Hero of all experience.
LIKE TILOPA, YOU WERE MET by a Dakini, and You were led by Her
until You Embraced and Mastered the
Great Woman, and in Your Liberation, She became Your Agent for
the Service of all others.
LIKE NAROPA, YOU TEACH THE WISDOM-CALL of Consciousness always
coupled with the bodily secrets of
circulating the life-force. The Mysteries of the "Great
Gesture" and all Yogas are Given new life
in Your Testament.
O INCARNATION OF MARPA, SPARE US NOT the purifying trials and
tribulations of MILAREPA's stupa of
seven stories. How many times have You not told us, "I must
have been tipsy when I Gave that
command?" You have Shown us that all experience has one
flavor—Bhava, Bliss.
LIKE DRUKPA KUNLEY, YOU HAVE EMBRACED the whole body. Have You
not initiated us into
emotional-sexual Wisdom in the Chung rooms of the modern era? Do
You not Love, and Embrace, and
Transform this maya as Only God in Your Freedom?
LIKE BODHIDHARMA, YOU HAVE COME TO A COUNTRY foreign to the
Dharma to begin the Way anew, a great
Spiritual Pioneer in the land of the barbarians. Praise to the
Divine World Teacher, Alive as the
Heart.
INSANE ADEPT, FOOLISH JOKER, HAPPY MAN to Whom everything is as
it seems, we see Your likeness in
those Mad Monks, HAN SHAN and SHIH TE.
LIKE HUI NENG, AS YOU HAVE TOLD us, You assert and deny, and then
deny what You have already
asserted, and assert what You have already denied. Your Wisdom is
vanished. Altogether, that is
Your Wisdom.
HUAI JANG, FANCIFULLY GRINDING STONE into mirror on the floor
before his disciples, lives in the
modern era in the form of You. There has never been a greater
Teaching Demonstration in the history
of this planet than the Sacred History of Your Work. Let the
wondrous Story be told far and wide.
LIKE SHIH T'OU, YOUR SPEECH IS A PARADOX of Grace, propelling
devotees beyond their minds into
Love-Communion with the Real.
LIKE MA TSU, YOU STOP THE MIND with koans of the tongue and of
the Heart.
A MODERN HUI HAI, YOU TEACH THE DHARMA Prior to the
mind—Divine Ignorance that confounds thinking,
opening the Heart to the enjoyment of boundless freedom and
humor.
LIKE PAI CHANG, YOU HAVE CREATED an entire tradition of practical
Instruction, Giving form to a
culture of preparation and Enlightenment. Nothing has escaped the
notice of Your Graceful
"Consideration" in Your desire to Give us every
possible Help to Realize the Condition You Are.
LIKE HUANG PO, YOU HAVE BEEN A SPIRITUAL HERO—one-pointedly
bringing Truth to everyone and
everything. Have You not Served whoever has come into Your Domain
with Heart-Instruction,
unrelenting Grace, and the Divine Demand for self-transcendence?
LIKE LIN CHI, YOU "SHOUT" when we are confused, and
"beat" us when we fall asleep. May we never
fail to bow in understanding before each blow.
LIKE HAN SHAN, YOU REGENERATE the real tradition everywhere,
exhibiting all extraordinary Spiritual
Powers, healing Your devotees, and absorbing their karmas.
LIKE HSU YUN, YOU CRY WITH PASSION at the wasteland of religion
in Your time. You have "radically"
reformed all of the religious Ways that have gone astray,
restoring their greatest principles.
LIKE DOGEN, YOUR INTENTION for the Liberation of Your devotees
has been greater than their own. Do
we not see Your unstained integrity? What else do You want from
Your lovers but their practice,
their heart-submission? May we always grant You this gift in
love.
LIKE IKKYU, YOU ENTER INTO THE PLACES where You should not go,
You say what You should not say. You
make jokes about what should be sacred, and You make sacredness
out of the ordinary. What
distinction can You make in Your Blissfulness? To You,
"There is Only God."
AND, LIKE HAKUIN, in the realm of the ten thousand Buddhas, You
are detested by all ten thousand
Buddhas. In the realm of the hundred thousand Bodhisattvas, You
are hated by the hundred thousand
Bodhisattvas. Your filthy blind old shavepate Wisdom is not
understood by the mere custodians of
the Teachings, but only by those whose hearts are broken, Your
lovers.
WE, YOUR DEVOTEES, WHO HAVE HEARD YOU and seen You, testify in
Ecstasy to the Vision of God that
You Are:
WHAT A WONDER! You are the Parama Guru of the One and Single
Great Tradition. You are the Divine
Person Incarnate.You Stand before us on the threshold inside and
out, everywhere, beckoning us into
the Divine Domain. This You do through Your Love, Your Smile,
Your wounded Heart, Your Touch, Your
Glance, Your ever-Given Grace, Drawing us beyond ourselves into
the Bliss-Place even now.
GREAT GOD, GREAT BEING, GREAT LOVER, Great Friend, Great Giver,
may we always Contemplate You in
Love through self-understanding and heart-submission.
BELOVED MASTER, may we always clasp Your Feet and be carried by
Your Spiritual (and Always
Blessing) Presence into Your Very (and Inherently Perfect) State.
LET US ENTER EVER MORE DEEPLY into the sacrifice of ourselves via
the Sacred Ordeal.
LET US FIND OUR PLACE in Your Great Mandala of
Heart-Transmission, and so be filled with Your
Blessings and lost in Your Fullness. Let us always bless our
friends and draw each other into this
Bliss.
LET US BE RAGGED ENOUGH to allow everything to be released and
absorbed so that we may stand before
the Sacred Fire with You and watch the Dawn Horse
Appear—white and four-hoofed—with all the Forms
of God Alive in that Great Form. What a Vision!—the
Heart-Master at the center, Drawing all into
submission beyond themselves—and devotees, one by one
growing to be Your Instruments and Agents,
forming a Great Circle of the Incarnation of Your Blessing.
RADIANT ONE, hearing Your Word, seeing Your Forms, practicing
Your Great Way having gained the
Heart Supreme, we bow down again and again at Your Feet in love.
May we never fall out of this
Love, this Understanding, this Sacred Ordeal, this Bliss.