This I know

This I know
that I don't want
to live an idea
even though
it may bring me peace
or wealth or joy.

This I know
that I want
to live the truth
whatever it may bring.

I have lived ideas
of all kinds.
They do not satisfy
but leave me parched
yearning
for what I do not know.

In truth I am free
of the need
to duck or hold
any one thing.
Wide wide open
to all that arises.

The great unknown

White light passing through a prism refracts into the rainbow. It cannot help this; it is its nature to refract into the rainbow.

Nothing can change the reality of the rainbow's source or its true nature. It is light appearing in different colors. Now we may prefer one color to another, but what has that to do with what each color truly is? The seven colors can produce a kaleidoscopic reality of great beauty and intricacy. And we can enjoy the spectacular show. But the entire show is enabled by the light. The entire show is only a play of light. Miraculous!

In the same way, formlessness refracts through the great witnessing into the rainbow of this universe. And you arise and I arise and the moon and the stars, and we dance life. And we are all only the great unknown in different shades and shapes.

The great witnessing is the prism that refracts. The great witnessing is the observer observing the observed. It is the observer that unfolds the observed, from deep within itself, such that the birth of the observer is simultaneously the birth of the observed.

We can name these things and dress them in fancy words and classify them into elaborate systems and there is great joy in all that. But what remains unchanged? The true nature of all things. It is the great unknown.

Where is the love?

Where is the love
In pain or suffering?

Where is the love
In hatred and war?

Where is the love
In death?

I rave and rant
About this elusive love

I bemoan
Its startling absence

Then the anger
Exhausts itself

And I am back
where I started

Even as I berate
My 'lapse'

Something has allowed
My outburst

And something allows
My self-judgement now

Something is ok
with me
exactly as I am

I don't have to be different
or better
In its presence

It is equally present
No matter who or what I am

Can there be
A more restful love?