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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3639, Saturday, August 29, 2009, Editor: Mark
Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.
Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.
Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood -
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.
- Pablo Neruda
Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.
- Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell
Day after day, O lord of my life,
shall I stand before thee face to face.
With folded hands, O lord of all worlds,
shall I stand before thee face to face.
Under thy great sky in solitude and silence,
with humble heart shall I stand before thee face to face.
In this laborious world of thine, tumultuous with toil
and with struggle, among hurrying crowds
shall I stand before thee face to face.
And when my work shall be done in this world,
O King of kings, alone and speechless
shall I stand before thee face to face.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Late have I loved You
O beauty every ancient, ever new!
Late have I loved You
And behold,
You were within; and I without,
and without I sought You.
And deformed I ran after these forms
of beauty You have made.
You were with me
And I was not with You.
Those things held me back from You,
things whose only being
was to be in You.
You called; You cried;
and You broke through my deafness.
You flashed; You shone;
and you chased away my blindness.
You became fragrant;
and I inhaled and sighed for You.
I tasted
and now hunger and thirst
for You.
You touched me;
and I burned for Your embrace.
- Saint Augustine
Wonder...People travel to wonder at the height of mountains,
at the huge waves of the sea,
at the long courses of rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars;
And they pass by themselves without wondering.
- Saint Augustine