SHOULDER AN OAR

1. the all-pervading ocean of oneness
   
2. i awaken on a shore beside the sea
   
3. nirvanic oneness remains always absolute vacuum
   
4. oh worldly web of opposites in tension
   
5. oh indivisible one, nirvanic oneness
   
6. the golden rain of gratitude falls all directions
   
7. swimming through the dream of brahma to its source
   
8. oh nirvanic oneness, only you are not imaginary
   
9. oneness is asleep and has to be awakened by manyness
   
10. in myself i am free, by your grace
    
11. you are the freedom of all-pervading oneness
    
12. you, old man of the sea
    
13. i sit with closed eyes and tour a conglomerate mass
    
14. i think unkind thoughts and say ungrateful words
    
15. when i'm awake, thoughts make sense
    
16. you come along with me as i wander
    
17. i thank you with my mind
    
18. what sound purifies duality of its partiality?
    
19. brahma dreams earth and water
    
20. you weary the blissful heart in the separation
    
21. black and white seabirds
    
22. you imagine divisions of the indivisible
    
23. while wide awake in the all-pervading ocean of oneness
    
24. the physical universe, earth
    
25. consciousness -- mind
    
26. oh awakener with your many lovely faces
    
27. when i lolligag around in the underbrush
    
28. you are all-merciful
    
29. love is not something one has
    
30. how can you be praised sufficiently
    
31. all depend on you who are the oneness
    
32. what sort of love is this that belittles
    
33. loneliness overtakes me
    
34. all-pervading ocean of oneness, you are love
    
35. this elusive love
    
36. love for you makes its presence felt in my attitude
    
37. what's the difference between loving you
    
38. should i distinguish between you and your shadow
39. i play this trick on myself
    
40. open the heart river to irrigate
    
41. the fuel and spark of the sun's energy
    
42. freedom flows out of love for god
    
43. the sound of krishna's flute
    
44. if i say i want to love you more
    
45. you are three oceans in one
    
46. you hide within bodies, feelings and thoughts
    
47. oh awakener
    
48. mind moves from thought to thought
    
49. let mind plow the field
    
50. how odd to know and feel myself infinitely still
    
51. sitting in the early morning sunshine
    
52. you have your fun with me, divine playmate
    
53. oh ancient one, awakener
    
54. brahma belly
    
55. your unity beyond mind
    
56. the seeds of separative personality are ground
    
57. talking about you requires learning a new language
    
58. you go through your protean changes of appearance
    
59. to facilitate relationship with the avatar
    
60. in this worldly circus the avatar leads the parade
    
61. do not cling to any opposite
    
62. you are in everything, not with your meherbaba face
    
63. you busy yourself tirelessly
    
64. the most important fact that mind can grasp
    
65. truth is like a big blob of dough
    
66. the rhythm of mind is emptiness
    
67. all impressions fall before real oneness
    
68. the human personality of the avatar
    
69. you unspeakable zero-many-one
    
70. mind deals in halftruths
    
71. saoshyant vishnu maitreya christ madhi meher baba
    
72. if you lift me up, praise and exalt me
    
73. in your indivisible majesty
    
74. light is to color, hue and vision
    
75. archimedes, with his lever on his shoulder
    
76. klotho, lachesis and atropos, you three old dames
    
77. love is the needle that stitches
    
78. mind, like the rock of sisyphos, rolls repeatedly
    
79. let this golden rain of gratitude ever fall
    
80. without you, avatar, we would never recognize ourselves
    
81. in the nondual state beyond right and wrong
    
82. the truth and beauty of your words
    
83. in the golden rain of gratefulness
    
84. forgive me for clinging in my selfishness
    
85. there is only one oneness, paramatma, and that is you
    
86. the golden rain of gratefulness falls
    
87. in this mighty contest for attention and allegiance
    
88. you also love those who reject you
    
89. oh almighty oneness that nothing can divide
    
90. all projections arise two by two
    
91. your love flows through subtle veins in creation
    
92. pushing through the onslaught of world events
    
93. do not cling to any opposite
    
94. i praise the infinite richness of your imagination
    
95. these poems give me a vehicle of remembrance
    
96. in this market age, when the prevailing worldview
    
97. you are that star which illuminates millions
    
98. you are that unspeakable one reality
    
99. in the practical world
    
100. oh shadowless one
     
101. mind dances around on the two feet of duality
     
102. four strands of consciousness weave together
     
103. you are the dharmakaya, the realm of absolute unity
     
104. when the knowing nature
     
105. one can never lose the ocean
     
106. like beads on a string, you say, as you center
     
107. bring out the words of your new literature
     
108. power -- mental
     
109. first we turn to you as the almighty
     
110. without your love for us
     
111. riding the vehicle of attention driven by love
     
112. newton's law that
     
113. without your love, i could never allow myself to live
     
114. all of these thoughts that i hang on to
     
115. who understands what "one" means?
     
116. the worldly mind resembles a game of tennis
     
117. in order to live in absolute freedom and oneness
     
118. the golden rain of gratefulness falls
     
119. you are at the center of the whole
     
120. the silent voice of oneness
     
121. at best the world promises temporary happiness
     

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shoulder an oar

1. eternal perfect beloved
   
   the all-pervading ocean of oneness
   offers nothing to cling to,
   no convenient device for remaining afloat,
   no secure bottom to struggle to and plant one's feet on,
   nothing but death by drowning.
   
   the limited ego promises a luxury cruise
   with a sincere and witty captain,
   waiters rushing to and from fragrant kitchens
   while dancing girls discreetly slip keys into one's pocket,
   if only one could break through, take charge
   and make it all happen.
   
   but it's only a ship of projections,
   a feeble phantom that dissolves away in the ocean
   where silence swallows up all cries for help.
   one drowns.
   
   yet at the same time, outside of time,
   one becomes the ocean unlimited,
   absolutely immaculate and pure,
   in which the noisy ships are cruising
   with all their tobacco-stained dramas
   and impossible decisions.
   
   one dies into realization of the nondual ocean
   beyond imagination and conception,
   where death itself has drowned and one is free.
   shoulder an oar
   
   
2. eternal perfect beloved
   
   i awaken on a shore beside the sea.
   i recognize this bay and beach of the shoreless one,
   this cove of phorcys,
           halíoio gérontos, halòs atrygétoio médontos,
   old lord of the untouchable ocean of oneness.
   yes, this is my native land.
   
   i am home on ithaka isle, with phaiacian gifts intact,
   by your grace, oh dimensionless one.
   the great bow of herakles lies ready
   to thread twelve axe heads on a single arrow.
   
   i feel family and faithful friends,
   and i remember the words of teiresias
   that from this domain of peace
   i take up an oar and set out for populations
   unfamiliar with the all-pervading ocean of oneness.
   shoulder an oar
   
   
3. eternal perfect beloved
   
   nirvanic oneness remains always absolute vacuum,
   even while producing all worlds and universes.
   therefore rishis say, "rupa shunyatam, shunyata rupam."
   form is emptiness, emptiness form.
   manyness is one, oneness many.
   
   misled meditators imagine you to be nothingness,
   a void of absence, zero.
   they attempt to deny, suppress and disassemble the worlds.
   but one can never see you through nullification,
   beloved ocean of love.
   mere nothingness has no such potential.
   
   nullification leads to the world.
   the entire creation amounts to zero.
   whoever divides oneness creates worlds of zeros
   counted by the mind as manyness.
   
   you can only be found in wholeness,
   that balance of opposites which simplifies all
   in the absolute vacuum of indivisible oneness.
   
   unification leads to you, the ever-beloved
   both in and beyond creation.
   
   oneness loves, oneness knows, oneness does.
   shoulder an oar
   
   
4. eternal perfect beloved
   
   oh worldly web of opposites in tension,
   the creation spans your hands like a cat's cradle.
   your breath whistles through those cables,
   sounding the mighty om which only heart can hear.
   
   we tight-rope walk all around this three-ring circus
   looking for you at one end of the wire or another,
   until somehow we reach both ends simultaneously.
   
   in the span of that silent wholeness
   we recognize your puppetry of love, divine player,
   in the intelligence that cushions our falls
   on a net of unexpected awakenings.
   shoulder an oar
   
   
5. eternal perfect beloved
   
   oh indivisible one, nirvanic oneness,
   you are clothed in your delicate creation
   to make your unspeakable nakedness visible.
   
   even the mountain sits on space, on nothing whatsoever,
   fragile as a rainbow floating in a mist of colors
   that nobody can resist or ignore.
   
   you are the original plan and its final working out.
   you are the self of every living being,
   the figure reflected in the inner mirror of every being.
   
   you play every game,
   winning and losing according to your whim,
   and you are the tears of both victor and vanquished.
   
   everything in creation struggles to be identifiable,
   warring with its opposite,
   until in your amusement and in the joy of your laughter
   the knife becomes a needle and the saw becomes a nail.
   shoulder an oar
   
   
6. eternal perfect beloved
   
   the golden rain of gratitude falls all directions at once,
   falls up and falls down,
   falls from every quarter of the compass
   like bees returning to a hive,
   or like starlight falling on the globe of earth
   from sky in all directions.
   
   each drop of golden rain is an agreement,
   an insight, a solution, a recognition, an acceptance,
   a relaxation, a thank you, a breakthrough, an answer,
   a settlement, a completion, a reunion, a grace.
   
   each golden drop carries a load of divine love
   back to its source in the all-pervading ocean of oneness.
   shoulder an oar
   
   
7. eternal perfect beloved
   
   swimming through the dream of brahma to its source,
   i battle my way upstream against the current,
   struggling through rapids of doubt and confusion,
   flinging myself over white-waters of anger and fear,
   leaping falls of ignorance and desire.
   
   i reach the gravelly shallows of the dream
   in the navel of the creator.
   i swim through him into the all-pervading ocean of oneness
   in which he floats like a planet in space.
   
   no more struggle, no more scenery, no more directions,
   only the absolute bliss of undivided oneness.
   shoulder an oar
   
   
8. eternal perfect beloved
   
   oh nirvanic oneness, only you are not imaginary.
   only you are not a dream.
   
   you are beyond dream in the reality of undivided oneness.
   you are also within dream,
   disguised in your illusions
   of the one dimensional dream of thought,
   the two dimensional dream of thought with feeling,
   and the three dimensional dream of thought with feeling
   and physical form.
   
   you waken us from our solid-seeming dream
   of bodies and worlds bound in shifting opposites,
   to see the dreamer behind the dream
   and also within the dream.
   
   no separation is possible within unity.
   dream and dreamer are identical.
   
   the dreams of ordinary life are called wide awake.
   even your beloved messengers are dreamed up
   by the power of love
   within the universal dream of creation
   to awaken oneness from its deep sleep of unknowing.
   shoulder an oar
   
   
9. eternal perfect beloved
   
   oneness is asleep and has to be awakened by manyness,
   hence the question, "who am i?"
   manyness is asleep and has to be awakened by oneness,
   hence the answer, "i am god."
   shoulder an oar
   
   
10. eternal perfect beloved
    
    in myself i am free, by your grace,
    and in those around me i feel bound
    by the adamant "no" that dams the onward flow
    and the deep groove of "yes" that bends its direction
    like an ancient river bed.
    
    the bodhisattva who opened the himalayan mountain
    and drained kathmandu lake
    must have earned a degree in sanskaric engineering
    from your university of true freedom.
    
    please accept my application.
    
    everyone i meet overflows with false meanings
    like politicians campaigning for votes.
    only you offer genuine freedom independent.
    
    i can't be bound by events which seem to have taken place
    in a past which doesn't really exist,
    nor can i be bound by events which may take place
    in a future which doesn't exist.
    therefore i am free
    in the indescribable wholeness of this eternal moment
    outside of time's imagined tenses.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
11. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you are the freedom of all-pervading oneness
    from entanglement in shifting dualities,
    though consciousness of freedom
    can be created only through contrasts of duality.
    
    sparks of impact as duality strikes against duality
    enlighten consciousness to the reality of oneness.
    
    the heat of friction as duality rubs on duality
    ignites mind's tinder to the blaze of consciousness,
    and that same fire burns away every duality
    until consciousness remains undivided one.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
12. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you, old man of the sea,
    ancient one of the all-pervading ocean,
    you change shape and appearance before our very eyes
    as we hold fast to your daaman.
    
    at one moment you flow like water
    inevitably making its way through stream and river
    back to the indivisible ocean outside of time and space.
    in your inner reality vishnu floats imperceptibly
    as brahma dreams up the entire creation
    of apparent dualities.
    
    at another moment you appear as a tree,
    the tree of life in the center of eden garden,
    with its roots sunk deep in the sky,
    while its leaves, unfolding numberless cycles
    of life in creation,
    fall on the road and river of new jerusalem.
    
    at another moment you burst into fire near and far,
    separating warm from cold and day from night,
    like proteus did on that magical day
    when menelaus pinned him down and held on
    as he changed from lion to serpent
    and fed his vast appetite for life.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
13. eternal perfect beloved
    
    i sit with closed eyes and tour a conglomerate mass
    of projections,
    an architecture of immeasurable diversity
    rising in its individualistic way to the mind's eye.
    
    the axe of mind, like the double-bladed labrys of zeus,
    appears to chop unities into dualities in all directions,
    to build this labyrinth of blind alleys and no exits
    which mirrors human entrapment.
    
    mind hews this architecture of projections,
    each asserting itself in its own way,
    each a passageway turning back on itself.
    
    no matter how sharp the axe nor how often it falls,
    reality can never be divided any deeper than appearance.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
14. eternal perfect beloved
    
    i think unkind thoughts and say ungrateful words
    about your tragicomical game of appearances,
    oh indivisible one, which give rise to the natural world
    full of creatures in conflict and cooperation.
    
    why should i think, feel or say negative things
    about your sport?
    
    i'm afraid that i'll be swallowed up again by manyness
    and become trapped in appearances,
    myself apparently divided,
    unable to find my way again across the rainbow bridge.
    this very fear itself causes separation.
    
    you are indivisible in your game
    as well as beyond your game,
    both of which in reality are only one.
    
    you praise imagination through your variety in nature.
    you praise intelligence through your brilliance
    in cosmic design.
    you praise courage through your ferocity in battle.
    you praise love through the longing of all beings
    to merge in you.
    
    best of all, you remain always yourself
    even while taking on all the shapes and forms
    of divine praise.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
15. eternal perfect beloved
    
    when i'm awake, thoughts make sense
    within the context of daily life.
    
    when i'm sleepy, thoughts fly around
    with the freedom of meaningless fantasy.
    
    when i'm wide awake, thoughts disappear
    within the all-pervading ocean of oneness.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
16. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you come along with me as i wander
    into this worldly labyrinth of thoughts
    about every conceivable matter from serious to silly.
    you, indivisible one, are always here in each thought
    as the unity which underlies every comparison,
    every contrast and every duality,
    no matter how sinful or sublime.
    
    mind can't really divide you,
    nor can it really separate us into you and me.
    
    the inner unity, in fact,
    which underlies every meaning of mind's expression
    is also my self,
    else how could i recognize answers and questions,
    or distinguish effects from causes?
    
    you are that underlying oneness, oh dimensionless one,
    and therefore i am that oneness too.
    
    thank you for the indivisible bliss of being myself,
    the very one i seek,
    the very beloved i longed for and woo'd.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
17. eternal perfect beloved
    
    i thank you with my mind
    by tethering it to the all-pervading ocean of oneness.
    no matter how far it roams
    through the mazy worlds of dual manyness,
    it always finds its way back to the one reality.
    
    i thank you with my speech
    by speaking the compassionate truth,
    knowing full well that language,
    with words all made of opposites
    struggling to separate from each other,
    can really speak truth only by saying your names.
    
    i thank you with my body
    by feeding it to you
    in the embrace of every one and every thing
    without exception, including myself, as your form
    in the infinite varieties of your appearance.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
18. eternal perfect beloved
    
    what sound purifies duality of its partiality?
    what syllables loosen the grip of clinging?
    what words does humanity long to hear?
    what poem does earth need?
    
    every day turns a page of nature, the real book,
    which contains the facts of life
    as well as the poetry of insight and appreciation.
    
    send beautiful poems to warm the hearts of your lovers.
    send poems of experience in the beloved.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
19. eternal perfect beloved
    
    brahma dreams earth and water
    as the horizontal arms of the medicine wheel,
    and fire and air as its vertical limbs
    creating the world dream
    with its great sanskaric tree rooted at the center.
    
    only through the dream of duality
    can creatures become conscious of the reality of oneness.
    creation arises to perform the essential service
    of awakening that consciousness.
    
    oh parabrahmic oneness, seat me firmly in reality
    that i may serve you most effectively within the dream
    and accomplish your purpose there.
    
    ripen this fruit you have long cultivated
    on the tree of commitment to indivisible oneness
    in the orchard of your grace.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
20. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you weary the blissful heart in the separation
    of emerging from you,
    and you renew the weary heart in the bliss
    of merging back into you.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
21. eternal perfect beloved
    
    black and white seabirds
    frolic in the all-pervading ocean of oneness,
    settling on the shore, suddenly taking flight,
    passing back and forth from sea to shore.
    
    they fly in and out through vishnu's navel,
    with their reed voices oboeing shrilly,
    from god-the-beyond-duality to the dream worlds
    of divided oneness
    where two wings are needed to fly, two legs to walk.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
22. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you imagine divisions of the indivisible,
    master dreamsmith,
    and project them as apparent space and seeming time
    through the senses of a host of your own lively creations.
    
    every face in creation, human and otherwise,
    though made of material amassed in various worlds,
    is molded over the structure of your face, beloved,
    like an armature of living sculpture.
    
    the expression of every face always moves
    toward the communication of your presence
    behind each impression of isolated individuality.
    
    every person is exactly like you,
    though clothed in temporary dualities
    of personal history in apparent time and place.
    
    each relates to the projection according to its history,
    yet each, beneath the outer appearance, is only you,
    the master dreamsmith,
    creating an end for every beginning,
    always in balance of come and go, to and fro, joy and woe,
    short and long, weak and strong, right and wrong.
    
    what is temporary and apparent differs infinitely.
    what is real is common to all in infinite measure.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
23. eternal perfect beloved
    
    while wide awake in the all-pervading ocean of oneness,
    i am required also to day-dream
    the worlds of shifting duality.
    you set me free from duality, oh indivisible one,
    even while making me at the same time
    fulfil the requirements of duality as well.
    
    i can only thank your grace for forgiving me
    the wild and uncontrolled shifts of viewpoint
    that make right seem wrong and wrong seem right.
    nothing is good, nothing bad,
    but only appears that way from various viewpoints.
    
    you offer me the best of all possible existences,
    to be in reality one and indivisible
    and at the same time to participate
    in the rough and tumble of daily life in the three worlds
    full of dream projections.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
24. eternal perfect beloved
    
    the physical universe, earth,
    is a projection and extension
    of the physical body through the senses.
    
    the human body creates space.
    objects create space.
    the earth creates space.
    otherwise space doesn't exist.
    
    all of this does not have size,
    being in essence undivided oneness.
    illusion gives it the appearance of size.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
25. eternal perfect beloved
    
    consciousness -- mind
    energy -- feeling
    form -- body
    shoulder an oar
    
    
26. eternal perfect beloved
    
    oh awakener, with your many lovely faces
    you challenge the sleeper
    to open his eyes and behold reality.
    
    one face in its intelligence
    dismantles the very machinery of projection
    which envelopes the sleeper
    in images of activity and place.
    
    another face removes the lens that focuses a viewpoint
    which isolates the sleeper within its limitations.
    
    one face stirs the heart so deeply
    that the sleeper abandons the dream
    in order to be with you, his beloved.
    
    another face ties together the loose ends of the dream
    until it becomes paralysed
    in the net of its own inconsistencies
    and the sleeper abandons it.
    
    one face takes in hand
    the threads of the sleeper's involvement in the dream
    and draws the dreamer to himself.
    
    another face awakens song so loud in the sleeper's heart
    that sleep is no longer possible
    and he awakens to meet the singer.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
27. eternal perfect beloved
    
    when i lolligag around in the underbrush of idle thoughts
    i miss you, miss the shore,
    miss the ocean of all-pervading oneness.
    
    the unity of all beings, things and cycles,
    this outer reflection of inner unity,
    projects the imagined shore of the indivisible pacific.
    
    one step into that unlimited ocean
    fuses time into eternity,
    and removes the directions from space,
    collapsing form into an unspeakable vacuum.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
28. eternal perfect beloved
    
    only mercy is beautiful in authority.
    only mercy brings wholeness to the heart.
    only mercy turns failure into intelligence.
    only mercy patiently attends every step
    until the goal is won.
    you are all-merciful.
    
    only mercy works anonymously.
    only mercy is not deceived by ugliness.
    only mercy stoops in order to elevate the lowest
    to supreme heights.
    you are all-merciful.
    
    only mercy refuses to fall into indifference.
    only mercy releases binding until freedom is totally real.
    only mercy bends the wrong road around until it arrives
    at the right destination.
    you are all-merciful.
    
    only mercy expresses strength through noncondemnation.
    only mercy holds the vanquished in an embrace of equality.
    only mercy cultivates the seed of friendship
    hidden within aggression.
    you are all-merciful.
    
    only mercy continues to care after all hope has faded.
    only mercy frees by forgiving the unforgivable.
    only mercy is unlimitedly spacious.
    only mercy is patient beyond all reason.
    you are all-merciful.
    
    only mercy values the intention apart from the result.
    only mercy hears the inner sense of speech.
    only mercy treats others the way it hopes to be treated.
    you are all-merciful.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
29. eternal perfect beloved
    
    love is not something one has.
    love is what all and everyone is.
    you are love, just as you are the oneness
    of all opposites joined in unity.
    
    one love, not many loves.
    not my love nor your love, but one love.
    your love returns to you as my love.
    
    that one love binds us closer than parent and child,
    tighter even than lover and beloved.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
30. eternal perfect beloved
    
    how can you be praised sufficiently
    who are yourself both praise and blame?
    
    the more i praise you, the greater the shadow of blame
    grows behind me, by the law of duality.
    
    by praising you, i secretly blame you,
    and by blaming you, i secretly praise you.
    the more intense sunlight, the deeper the dark shadow.
    
    you are the one behind and within both praise and blame
    who makes them both equally possible.
    
    when praise and blame fuse together in one place,
    there i see you neither smiling nor frowning,
    yet both smiles and frowns fly out of you
    like rainbows from a sunny downpour.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
31. eternal perfect beloved
    
    all depend on you who are the oneness
    out of which all manyness takes form
    by denial of certain opposites and assertion of others.
    every duality appears to divide the indivisible,
    to create consciousness
    and to project itself as the creation.
    you are the unity which appears to be divided.
    
    all depend on you
    who are the manyness of consciousness itself,
    which is divided into false and true knowledge.
    and you are beyond consciousness too,
    independent of any knowing or unknowing.
    
    all depend on you
    who remain ever oneness,
    original and simple even within opposites.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
32. eternal perfect beloved
    
    what sort of love is this that belittles
    your game of awakening consciousness in illusion?
    
    what sort of love is this that puts down
    your whimsical dream of time and space?
    
    what sort of love is this that avoids
    creatures and characters who people your play?
    
    oh all-pervading ocean of oneness, show me how
    to participate in your divine sport
    in any way that amuses you.
    
    oh perfect beloved, how can your lover
    expect to please you
    without the grace of your forgiving love?
    
    oh indivisible one, how can your slave
    possibly hope for even a moment of intimacy
    unless you happen to will it in your divine humor?
    shoulder an oar
    
    
33. eternal perfect beloved
    
    loneliness overtakes me
    and i think, "where is my beloved?"

    it's so easy to lose you among the enticements

    and irritations of the world.
    
    when i'm busy looking at one or another of my bodies
    rather than at you,
    a veil falls across my mind and separates me from you,

    one lonely man making a sandwich in his kitchen

    to feed you, the almighty unveiler.
    
    as you grow strong on that nourishment
    the veil lifts and i see each world as my own body.
    you are the unity of my indivisible self
    which projects the physical body as the physical world,
    the subtle body as the subtle world,
    and the mental body as the mental world.
    
    all three worlds spin out of self, orbit around self
    and cycle back into self,
    each in the rhythm of its own time.
    it's a mere convention of language
    to say "out of, around and into,"
    because indivisible self always remains totally within
    as well as beyond all bodies and worlds.

    shoulder an oar
    
    
34. eternal perfect beloved
    
    all-pervading ocean of oneness, you are love,
    boundless love which melts divisions
    within an individual,
    leading to the disappearance of separations
    between individuals.
    
    you inexorably draw all into your oneness,
    driving false love, which is desire, out of the heart
    and flooding it with truth from your ocean of love.
    
    you are beyond liking and hating, beyond desire and fear.
    you are the indescribable completion
    of lover and beloved in union,
    full of appreciation and gratefulness.
    
    you bend every river toward the pacific of love.
    you harvest and compost good and bad deeds.
    you take responsibility for disasters as "acts of god,"
    and bear the hatred and blame in your own body.
    
    you give the world a body to wrack and worship,
    a heart to love and long for,
    and a mind to realize and transcend.
    
    you awaken intelligence
    as you restore balance to perfection.
    you preserve the positive purpose
    behind every negative act and situation.
    
    you sever the very root of illusion
    with your blade of wholeness,
    and you ordain that all awaken in heart
    and join you in infinite bliss, knowledge and power.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
35. eternal perfect beloved
    
    this elusive love!
    when i long for it, it's gone far away.
    when i just let it be as it is,
    then i become aware of the ocean of love
    in which i'm totally lost in unlimited love.
    
    because you are love, i am love and i can love you.
    because you are truth, i am truth and i can know you.
    because you are goodwill, i am goodwill
    and i can serve you.
    because you are that, i am that and i can be you.
    
    you are infinite love, infinite truth, infinite goodwill.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
36. eternal perfect beloved
    
    love for you makes its presence felt in attitudes
    and behaviors toward the creation,
    this dream of false divisions and distinctions.
    creatures in conflict struggle to survive
    and extend their empires
    or die and flow back into the ocean of oneness
    and disappear.
    
    it's your dream, beloved, and every particle
    and person in it is only you.
    don't hold back your love
    and deny us the opportunity to melt our hearts
    in the "only you" of each and every thing,
    though we can never deserve or earn such grace.
    
    let nothing be left in our hearts to protect.
    send the generals home with their artillery
    and infantry.
    why should we fear anything from you?
    shoulder an oar
    
    
37. eternal perfect beloved
    
    what's the difference between loving you
    as the dreamer or as the dream,
    you who are indivisible?
    
    every eye is your eye, every glance your glance,
    every vision your vision.
    
    if there is something or somebody in your dream
    whom i cannot appreciate as you,
    help me find the space in my heart to love
    that thing or person even as you certainly do.
    
    break the bonds and borders of my heart
    that keep me cowered in fear and avoidance
    and divide me from the indivisible.
    
    expand this heart out beyond all frontiers
    to all-inclusive love without limitation.
    
    help me give you my head
    so that you can give me your heart.
    kindly help me experience that my heart
    is no different from your oceanic love.
    
    help me bow all the way down
    to the real humility of your love.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
38. eternal perfect beloved
    
    should i distinguish between you and your shadow,
    accepting you and rejecting your shadow?
    
    you love your shadow and stay intimately involved in it.
    at the same time you sit apart from it,
    saying, "love me, love my shadow."
    
    the shadows of every little thing and being
    find their place in your all-absorbing one.
    my shadow clings to yours.
    
    all the darkness in my shadow that i would hide
    from myself and from you, i must love
    even as you who are the ocean of love
    love the darkness that is found within your own shadow.
    
    it is you who send the cat to eat the mouse,
    the dog to kill the cat, the lion to eat the dog,
    the man to shoot the lion, the nation to sacrifice the man
    and time to obliterate the nation.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
39. eternal perfect beloved
    
    i play this trick on myself --
    by asking you for more love,
    i imply that i have not enough love.
    thus i attribute reality to a single side of a duality
    and i block out the ocean of oneness,
    which is your love.
    
    i am on the beach where i smell and hear
    the ocean of your love but i can't see it,
    can't find it or throw myself in.
    
    your truth makes no sense without love.
    i recognize the nightmare experience of being chased
    while in an inexplicably dreamy way i'm unable to escape.
    
    your love tames the wild dogs of duality
    and coaxes them onto the lap of unity
    where they curl up in comfort
    and drift into dreamless sleep.
    
    this oneness of love is the omnipotent truth
    within all and beyond all
    which seems like two but in reality is indivisibly one.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
40. eternal perfect beloved
    
    open the heart river to irrigate
    the lives of your struggling creatures
    with the waters of unlimited love.
    

    oh savior, your world cries out for you now
    in all kinds of voices and languages.
    
    medicine calls in panic through narcotic needles.
    politics calls in the budget's numbing numbers.
    agriculture calls you through the headlong charge
    of deserts on the move.
    
    business calls you in the language of covert war.
    religion calls desperately from prisons of fundamentalism.
    science calls you through genetic codes.
    art calls feebly from senile amnesia.
    entertainment screams for you in violent shock.
    
    send the voices that you want in your creation.
    send language from your heart.
    
    even a sprinkle of your love,
    though less than a river,
    breaks the cycle of drought
    and brings new life to the lost ones.

    shoulder an oar
    
    
41. eternal perfect beloved
    
    the fuel and spark of the sun's energy
    expresses the enormous power
    of the burning question, "who am i?"
    
    the constant changes and endless cycles of the moon
    reflect the numerous thoughts and theories
    which appear to reply to that question.
    
    the earthly canyons and peaks of man and his institutions
    unfolding through human seasons
    declare the concrete answers to that question.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
42. eternal perfect beloved
    
    freedom flows out of love for god
    which brings one closer and closer to you
    who are the very essence of freedom,
    unbound and unbindable while committed totally
    to every being bound within the creation.
    
    in rebellion against bondage,
    some turn to their families,
    addressing the patriarch or matriarch,
    and demand freedom.
    others turn to the government,
    addressing politicians, and demand freedom.
    
    some turn to religion,
    addressing priests, and demand freedom.
    others turn to the mind,
    addressing psychiatrists, and demand freedom.
    
    some turn to economics,
    addressing their employers, and demand freedom.
    others turn to revolution,
    addressing guerillas, and demand freedom.
    
    maybe a few savor a foretaste of freedom by these actions.
    maybe the bonds only tighten and become more subtle,
    like the monster at lerna who grows two new heads
    every time one is severed.
    
    only by turning to you and addressing the self of all
    in an attitude of real love
    can anyone hope to receive the gift of freedom
    which it is your pleasure to distribute to your lovers
    through the blissful grace of your divine love.
    
    oh beloved, identify yourself in everyone's heart
    so that all know which way to turn to address you
    and become candidates for real freedom.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
43. eternal perfect beloved
    
    the sound of krishna's flute
    spreads through consciousness,
    awakening desire to go to him
    just as the delicious smell of baking bread
    draws the hungry to a kitchen.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
44. eternal perfect beloved
    
    if i say i want to love you more
    i create a false distinction and distance between us,
    and i struggle in isolation to find love in my heart.
    
    if i say i want more of your love,
    i also create that false distance
    and choke myself with absence and longing.
    
    both longings block the everpresent reality
    of unlimited love.
    
    when false distinctions of "i" and "you" are abandoned
    to the indivisible self
    of the all-pervading ocean of oneness,
    love is freed from all blockage.
    
    everybody is now or will be a hero of heart in due time,
    a hero of understanding over judgment,
    care over fear, and help over hindrance.
    
    truly i can't ask for love or create love.
    i can only remain in truth
    and be love living love's life.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
45. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you are three oceans in one:
    
    you are the almighty ocean of peace which empowers
    from the divine liberty of absolute freedom
    without rival, opponent or resistance,
    without border, limit or restriction.
    
    you are the all-knowing ocean of truth which enlightens
    from the divine realization of absolute transcendence
    without projection, transference or duality,
    without confusion, ignorance or error.
    
    you are the all-cherishing ocean of love which enjoys
    from the divine bliss of absolute unity
    without separation, distance or division,
    without longing, disappointment or loss.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
46. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you hide within bodies, feelings and thoughts
    so perfectly that nobody can ever see you there.
    nothing accidentally sticks out to blow your cover.
    you never sneeze or hick out of synch.
    
    with perfect humbleness you allow every form
    to assert itself,
    not like jim hensen with the muppets,
    because between shows they lie abandoned on studio tables,
    not like leo tolstoy within War And Peace
    because that often sits inertly on a library shelf,
    not like charleton heston as moses
    in The Ten Commandments either
    because those reels mostly stand in film warehouses.
    
    you never leave, abandon or separate from any form
    in creation.
    you are always actually right there,
    even in the dead body on the way to burial,
    even in old dinosaur bones, closer even than marrow,
    and yet unseen like sand in glass,
    or electricity in a battery,
    or like geometry in a house.
    
    what a glorious moment beyond time and space
    when you step out from within your cover,
    oh beloved, and show yourself to your lover.
    
    what an astonishing reversal of appearance!
    what seemed to be hiding you
    now reveals you as plainly as night reveals stars,
    or the grasp of a new language reveals meaning
    in what was only nonsense sound.
    
    you become even more true and clear
    than all the forms you hid within.
    now they in total reversal all appear hidden in you.
    what tearful laughter, what wedding, what homecoming!
    shoulder an oar
    
    
47. eternal perfect beloved
    
    oh awakener,
    awaken heart to ever greater love,
    awaken mind to ever greater truth,
    awaken will to ever greater service.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
48. eternal perfect beloved
    
    mind moves from thought to thought
    like turning the pages of a fat newspaper
    that seems older and more tedious as time goes on,
    yet the page turns again and the eye fills again
    with familiar old voices.
    
    let this newspaper come to its last page, beloved,
    or let me fold it and set it aside at once.
    
    the newspaper becomes holy scripture
    in the truth of your name, beloved,
    and folds itself silently in the sound of your name.
    it burns utterly without leaving even a trace of ash
    in the love of your name.
    
    oh savior, you establish true freedom of mind,
    freedom from the oppression of habits
    and freedom from the absolute tyranny of opposites.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
49. eternal perfect beloved
    
    let mind plow the field
    where heart-seed can take root and flourish.
    let body cultivate it with strength and skill
    till it yields the fullness of forgiveness and compassion.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
50. eternal perfect beloved
    
    how odd to know and feel you infinitely still
    in the all-pervading ocean of oneness
    without a wave or breath of movement,
    and at the same time feel you rocked
    in the chaotic waves of duality
    even to the point of discomfort and seasickness.
    
    both still and in motion, both one and many,
    you rest and work at the same time.
    
    when you're laughing and crying simultaneously,
    oh beloved, only you can tell
    if the tear on your cheek comes from humor or sorrow.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
51. eternal perfect beloved
    
    sitting in the early morning sunshine
    i gather together the wild wires of my thoughts
    and connect them all to you.
    all the juice flows into your immeasurable oneness.
    
    each one of these wires feeds into you
    from a fragmentary opposite
    and in you links up with its other half,
    coming to rest in the wholeness of unity,
    which cannot be measured.
    
    in you every fragment finds its setting
    and slips so exactly into its original place
    that no seams remain, no cracks or patches
    can be found anywhere.
    
    every he finds his she, every left her right,
    every past finds its future, every complaint its praise,
    every orphan finds his parents and every exile his home.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
52. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you have your fun with me, divine playmate!
    
    even though you are indivisible,
    you divide me from yourself in the things of the world
    and you also divide me out among the countless things.
    
    then you kindly remind me of hafiz, who says
    with all the authority of a perfect master
    that the things of the world are nothing into nothing.
    
    then i have my fun with you,
    discarding nothing after nothing until you appear
    in your indivisible majesty of all-pervading unity.
    
    the very disguise which hid you now reveals you,
    and there is no break in seeing you,
    no respite from your omnipresence.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
53. eternal perfect beloved
    
    oh ancient one, awakener,
    every being and thing pours out of you
    like rain out of a cloud,
    and flows back into you like rivers into the sea.
    
    all emerge from you like leaves
    sprouting from the branches of a tree,
    and merge back into you like compost at the roots.
    
    all come out of you and go into you, beloved,
    but this is only the fantasy-language of mind
    desperately dividing you into "in and out".
    
    beyond the fantasy of infinite separations
    in the reality of your all-pervading oneness,
    mind must retire and dualities disappear.
    there "in" and "out" are identical.
    
    you are untouched by any "in" or "out",
    unmoved in any outflowing or returning,
    yet you are also inseparably merged
    in the fantasy movement of "in and out" flow.
    
    the entire gross plane is your physical body.
    the planes of the subtle world are your energy body.
    the planes of the mental world are your mental body.
    
    you are fully present in every nook and cranny
    of all your bodies.
    in the head you are the ocean of truth,
    and in the heart, the ocean of love,
    and in the abdomen, the ocean of goodwill.
    but the real you lies beyond bodies
    in the undivided ocean of oneness,
    which cannot be entered nor can it be exited.
    
    mind with its two-jawed pliers action
    cannot grasp you,
    either within your bodies or beyond them.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
54. eternal perfect beloved
    
    brahma belly
    vishnu heart
    shiva head
    shoulder an oar
    
    
55. eternal perfect beloved
    
    your unity beyond mind
    projects the creation as your bodies,
    where all must say in truth,
    "i am you, i am that, i am tathata."
    
    whether absorbed in your projection,
    or absorbed in unity, still,
    all must declare, "i am you, i am that, i am tathata."
    
    whether i remember or not,
    whether i feel it or not,
    whether i say it or not, still i am one with you, tathata.
    
    whether anybody understands it or not,
    whether anybody agrees or not,
    whether anybody accepts it or not,
    still all are one with you, all are tathata.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
56. eternal perfect beloved
    
    the seeds of separative personality are ground to flour
    in the mill of forgiveness and acceptance.
    
    they are kneaded with the water of caring,
    well salted with tears of release,
    and baked in the heat of commitment.
    
    finally they are served up joyfully
    to all who are hungry
    in order to sustain them in their search for the mill.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
57. eternal perfect beloved
    
    talking about you requires learning a new language,
    with all the error and limitation, hesitation
    and search for right words and expressions
    that mark a beginning speaker.
    
    words precisely understood in the old language
    convey wrong impressions and implications
    when talking about you.
    
    i attend my lessons and practice
    to speak this newly acquired language of unity
    with the lips and tongue of duality,
    words of unity formed on organs accustomed to division.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
58. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you go through your protean changes of appearance
    while i grip you inescapably in my heart,
    until finally you deliver your perpetual message
    that i am that,
    that imperishable tathata beyond mind,
    that indescribable reality infinitely peaceful,
    infinitely truthful, infinitely loving.
    
    by your grace i realize that i am that.
    without your grace i would never know.
    a thousand lives could pass and i wouldn't know.
    a million could come and go and still i wouldn't know.
    
    i am your will and therefore you are my will.
    i am your love and therefore you are my love.
    i am your truth and therefore you are my truth.
    
    you are the single source
    of all will, love and truth in creation.
    therefore i am your demonstration of tri-une reality.
    
    your inescapable truth of all-pervading oneness,
    imprisons me in the total freedom of i am that,
    instructs me in the unlearnable i am that,
    shows me the invisible i am that,
    that immeasurable love, that indescribable peace.
    
    in reality i am that.
    in the world i am the slave of that.
    
    i serve that most thankfully.
    i concentrate on that and merge in that.
    i break contact with that and disappear
    in dream projections, both inner and outer.
    
    because you are that,
    because your beauty and understanding
    are the bliss and truth of that, i am that.
    
    let my body then be a tower of truth, love and peace
    to all who are caught up
    in the disturbed fictions of carelessness.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
59. eternal perfect beloved
    
    to facilitate relationship with the avatar,
    to focus and concentrate zarathustra, ram, krishna,
    buddha, jesus, muhammad, meher baba,
    who lives in all as the real identity,
    approachable through the heart
    with the help of a peaceful mind,
    
    let the announcement go out:
    
    the one who never left has returned
    to save himself who was never lost,
    and to awaken the many who are actually one
    from the dream that they are not sleeping.
    
    he offers all an undeserved gift of unlimited love
    which all eternally possess
    and constantly long to give away.
    
    oh tathagata, supreme personality, prophet, only son,
    saoshyant, avatar,
    beloved personal projection of god within your own projected
    worlds,
    on your mission to simplify confusion and draw attention
    to the reality of your existence,
    we welcome your divine love in our hearts,
    your divine truth in our minds,
    and your divine service in our bodies.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
60. eternal perfect beloved
    
    in this worldly circus the avatar leads the parade
    riding very skilfully on a unicycle
    like a sad-funny clown who steals hearts.
    
    yogis and saints follow behind him
    riding very seriously on tricycles.
    behind them come philosophers and scientists
    riding bicycles with an air of great importance.
    
    finally the rest of humanity comes rolling along
    hesitatingly in a great variety of wagons and wheelchairs,
    cars and carts of all kinds, both odd and ordinary,
    powered by all manner of animals and ingenious engines,
    all rolling squarely on four wheels.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
61. eternal perfect beloved
    
    do not cling to any opposite, you say.
    enter directly into the all-pervading ocean of oneness.
    drown completely in it.
    only the unlimited love of the ocean exists.
    
    here the question wraps around the answer
    like a peach around its seed.
    here the winner serves the loser.
    here where only circles can be drawn
    ordinary logic hangs limp and impotent.
    here the two-sided coin of good and evil
    buys priceless freedom.
    here the one-legged outrun the two- and four-legged.
    
    here scissors become knives become needles.
    here words become music become all-significant silence.
    here the absence of zero becomes the fullness of many
    becomes the absolute vacuum of one.
    
    here the seven faces of the god-man
    and the countless faces of the men-gods are one face.
    here the lover merges in the beloved
    and even the memory of separation is extinguished.
    
    here you find yourself in everyone and everything,
    caught up in every conflict and contest
    while spanning them all with equal love.
    here you go beyond them to their single source
    that heals all sorrow and spawns all humor.
    
    any clinging to an opposite,
    even the least little no, even the slightest no,
    divides consciousness and creates worlds
    of thought, feeling and action.
    
    even a little yes, a slight yes,
    divides consciousness and creates those worlds.
    
    only agreement, silent acceptance
    and surrender to inviolable oneness
    dissolve worlds in the universal solvent of love
    and usher one into the ultimate reality
    of indivisible self,
    the unfathomable ocean of divine love.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
62. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you are in everything, not with your meherbaba face,
    but with your real face, your parabrahma face,
    your face of absolute unity, your paramatma face,
    your indivisible father-heaven face,
    your allahu-akbar face, ahuramazda face,
    your nirvana-samsara face.
    
    your meherbaba face, in all its twinkling gravity,
    connects the dots of all past ages
    and draws the shifting features of maitreya,
    saoshyant, al-mahdi, the returned savior,
    in all their handsome beauty and inexpressible life.
    
    what other face could bring saints to their knees,
    send yogi's flying out of their bodies,
    empty a thief's hands,
    and awaken the sleeping hearts of ordinary people?
    shoulder an oar
    
    
63. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you busy yourself tirelessly
    with unlimited imagination that fills the ocean of oneness
    full of comical dream figures.
    oh brahma, i don't know whether to laugh or cry.
    
    you hide yourself behind masks of manyness
    and peek out through every duality
    with the double face of janus.
    your silly humor amuses me endlessly
    as it so cleverly obscures the indivisible beloved.
    each mask has its charm and fascination.
    
    you show your real face only to close friends
    in private moments of intimacy.
    
    i strain to catch the contour of your true features.
    i long to see your single face
    that sweeps away all the masks of difference and distance.
    mind, entirely without support, can not stand
    nor can words sit against each other
    in the totality of your divine humor.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
64. eternal perfect beloved
    
    the most important fact that mind can grasp,
    the single fact that both creates and destroys mind
    while at the same time sustaining it,
    the one fact that dispels all mystery,
    answers all questions and puts mind at rest,
    
    the only fact that is, in fact, a genuine fact,
    the sole eternal fact, most ancient fact,
    in and out of time fact, the irreducible fact,
    
    the only pan-galactic fact,
    equally true on every planet and star in every galaxy,
    the single parent of all factions and factitiousness,
    
    is the atomic fact that god cannot be divided,
    that reality is absolutely indivisible.
    
    all is one. god is one. reality is one.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
65. eternal perfect beloved
    
    truth is like a big blob of dough
    all kneaded and punched into readiness,
    whereas words are like spaghetti.
    
    they've been squeezed through a device
    which makes separations and distinctions
    that easily become a confused tangle.
    
    they can be straightened out
    only by adding a sauce of love
    and feeding them all to you,
    oh beloved consumer of confusions,
    you digester of distinctions,
    you assimilator of separations.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
66. eternal perfect beloved
    
    the rhythm of mind is emptiness.
    the melody of mind is fullness.
    
    together they perform the mind's great music
    which creates the divine dance of inhabited worlds
    absorbed in the immeasurable beauty of their own motion.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
67. eternal perfect beloved
    
    all impressions fall before real oneness.
    real unity removes extension from objects that create
    the impression of space,
    and removes duration from motion that creates
    the impression of time.
    
    silent "i am" remains untouched
    by the nuclear furnace of stars
    whirling through the dream sky of creation.
    
    before abraham was, before the founding of the worlds,
    i am ever silent one.
    after the last planet becomes dust in the solar wind
    and the last star flickers out,
    i am as i always am.
    
    throughout the entire adventure of creation,
    in every element,
    in every individual animal, vegetable and human,
    i am independent and imperceptible,
    yet committed and involved.
    i feel and respond to the joy of every triumph
    and the frustration of every failure,
    turning each into its opposite
    as a baker turns the loaves in his oven.
    
    i search for myself in every form,
    and within the appearance of time
    i reveal myself in every form.
    
    i am the silent one who,
    struck by the mallet of desiring to know myself,
    i hear the entire creation sound through my imagination,
    from the grand music of the spheres
    down to the least little thought
    articulated in any person's mind.
    
    the creation unfolds within me in every detail
    and i unfold within the creation in every being.
    i am inescapable, unavoidable and nondeceivable.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
68. eternal perfect beloved
    
    the human personality of the avatar,
    with its unlimited love, uncompromising truth
    and tireless service,
    with its humor and beauty,
    is the divine personality present in every human.
    
    it is the full expression of human personality
    which is achieved when the human accepts and loves
    the divine within himself and within all others.
    
    the divine personality directly expresses absolute oneness
    through the human form
    within the worldly circumstances surrounding humanity.
    
    it is the birth challenge of every human
    and the divine business of every world
    to press through obstacles
    and express the charm, honesty, humbleness and helpfulness
    of indivisible oneness in the world,
    which is the unblocked flow of krishna, buddha, christ
    personality,
    the undistorted pattern of zarathustra, ram, meher baba
    personality.
    
    the truly human personality is divine,
    fashioned from the inside out by expressing
    the realization of absolutely indivisible oneness
    through the head of truth, the heart of love,
    and the body of goodwill,
    not deceived by what is untrue,
    nor disturbed by what is unloving,
    nor frustrated by what is unhelpful.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
69. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you unspeakable zero-many-one,
    so much easier to talk to than about,
    you stand outside of language,
    making a lie of every word
    by your absolutely pure silence,
    and you participate noisily in every word also
    as that very element which gives meaning.
    
    oh, you are clever in your jam-packed emptiness
    that validates every word while turning it aside as false.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
70. eternal perfect beloved
    
    mind deals in halftruths
    because the whole truth wipes the mind right out,
    like a balanced minus-and-plus account
    that adds up to zero, an empty zero to be sure,
    yet full of minuses and pluses.
    in this algebra of consciousness
    the meaning and significance, the message,
    comes from the balance of minus and plus,
    the merging of each minus into its plus-mate.
    that balance expresses itself as oneness.
    
    therefore the appearance of mind is manyness,
    elaborate complexity,
    the truth of mind is zero, void, nothingness,
    and the meaning of mind is oneness, balance, wholeness.
    
    the appearance of mind is the world, samsara.
    the truth of mind is enlightenment, nirvana.
    the meaning of mind is reality, god.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
71. eternal perfect beloved
    
    saoshyant vishnu maitreya christ madhi meher baba
    shoulder an oar
    
    
72. eternal perfect beloved
    
    if you lift me up, praise and exalt me,
    it's only to crash me down from a greater height.
    if you push me down, trash and belittle me,
    it's only to lift me up from a greater depth.
    
    you level both the high and the low in your oneness,
    where there is no place for even the slightest shadow
    of separation,
    not even the minutest particle of intention to separate
    the indivisible into appearances
    of high and low, new and old, cause and effect.
    
    to choose one and reject another is just to play around
    in the children's sandbox of projections
    in the school yard of absolutely indivisible oneness,
    while the teacher carefully prepares yet another lesson
    that will drive the truth home.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
73. eternal perfect beloved
    
    in your indivisible majesty,
    you play the game of appearances,
    creating this rainbow world by passing light through mist,
    projecting seven shining colors,
    and creating this harmonic world by passing breath
    through a tube,
    amplifying seven vibrant sounds.
    
    just as the seven colors come from colorless light,
    light itself comes from you,
    and just as the colors are not separate from light,
    light is not separate from you.
    
    just as the seven tones come from untuned om,
    om itself comes from you,
    and just as the tones are not separate from om,
    om is not separate from you.
    
    with this radiant palette and this vibrant octave
    you create all the gorgeous worlds of appearance.
    
    oh artist, oh composer,
    you take your time outside of time
    and perfect every tiny detail of creation within time.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
74. eternal perfect beloved
    
    light is to color, hue and vision
    what om is to pitch, tone and voice.
    
    just as light divides into the spectrum of colors
    when passing through a drop of water,
    so om divides into the octave of tones
    when passing through a length of tube.
    
    just as the light of the sun passing through the mind
    divides into all images in creation,
    so the sound of om passing through mind
    divides into all the words of language.
    
    light is the appearance of the sun,
    just as om is the sound of the sun.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
75. eternal perfect beloved
    
    archimedes, with his lever on his shoulder,
    ambitious to move the world,
    searches in vain for a fulcrum
    until he discovers that he himself is the fulcrum.
    
    every viewpoint that he confirms
    sets a fulcrum against the lever of unity in his mind
    and determines his ratio of purchase
    in every field of opposites, not just heavy and light.
    
    let him set it in such a way that beauty
    gets small purchase
    and ugliness will topple it into an unused corner of mind.
    
    let him position it in such a way that success
    gets small purchase
    and failure will shunt it into mind's forgotten warehouse.
    
    wherever he puts a viewpoint
    he sets a fulcrum against the lever of unity
    in the mechanics of consciousness.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
76. eternal perfect beloved
    
    klotho, lachesis and atropos, you three old dames of karma,
    you spin sanskaric threads, and measure and cut them.
    
    you spin these binding
    from the fleeces of desire and fear.
    you meter them out in measurements
    of mind, heart and physical involvement.
    
    you clip them with the special scissors of discrimination,
    made from one blade of desirelessness
    and one of fearlessness, pinned with the rivet of love.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
77. eternal perfect beloved
    
    love is the needle that stitches
    together the pieces of duality,
    whose pricks draw blood
    from the heart and hand of the sewer.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
78. eternal perfect beloved
    
    mind, like the rock of sisyphos, rolls repeatedly
    into the dusty valley of manyness,
    refusing by some inner law to sit contentedly
    on the clean symmetrical summit
    which old sisyphos assumes is you, beloved.
    
    but as long as there is a valley,
    that summit can be no more than a symbol for you,
    and the force of mind's duality, like gravity,
    drags the stone down again into the dust.
    as long as there are valleys and peaks
    you are hidden though everywhere present.
    
    when sisyphos has ground the entire mountain
    and his grinding stone as well as himself to dust
    and offered all this dust at your feet,
    then he will see you, beloved,
    as if through a suddenly focused microscope,
    in the mountain, in the stone, in the dust,
    and most shocking of all, in himself.
    
    if he were to offer his drops of sweat to you right now,
    you would stream them together to form a great river
    which inevitably would pour him into you,
    the all-pervading ocean of oneness.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
79. eternal perfect beloved
    
    let this golden rain of gratitude ever fall
    into the all-pervading ocean of oneness in my heart,
    washing away every impression
    accumulated during the great lifetime
    of 8,400,000 births and deaths in form.
    
    all the solid works of medusa,
    and she herself who turns one to stone by a glance,
    all succumb to the one born of golden rain,
    who through a new angle of vision
    brings an end to her binding process.
    
    the golden rain of gratefulness softens my stiff heart,
    reminding me of your grace, the gift of loving you,
    which you offer to your lovers.

    
    

80. eternal perfect beloved
    
    without you, avatar, we would never recognize ourselves.
    
    without you, awakener, we would just continue dreaming.
    without you, prophet, we would wander unguided.
    without you, savior, our hearts would remain flint.
    without you, friend, we would expect nothing but old age,
    sickness and death.
    
    without you, supreme one, we would labor in vain.
    without you, king, we would suffer perpetual exile.
    without you, saoshyant, our minds would fall apart
    in confusion.
    
    our dream of separation into manyness fades, awakener,
    into the reality of oneness.
    everyday roads turn into highways of pilgrimage,
    prophet, to the omnipresent holy land.
    you drill into our pride, savior,
    and blow us away with compassion.
    
    by your law of harmlessness, friend,
    we are freed from birth and death.
    our activities lay up real wealth, supreme one,
    where thief and rust have no business.
    
    you welcome us, king,
    finally home from our long foreign tour.
    at last we embrace truth absolute, saoshyant,
    in your indivisible wholeness.
    
    we find you, avatar,
    beyond all duality as our own real self.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
81. eternal perfect beloved
    
    in the nondual state beyond right and wrong
    omnipresent god simply plays
    his omnidirectional game of "come to me."
    
    every move, whether seen by humans as up or down,
    favorable or unfavorable, lucky or unlucky,
    brings one closer to the absolute truth of divine love.
    
    in the unified state beyond good and bad
    omniscient god simply plays
    his revelations game of "who am i?"
    
    every play, whether appreciated or abominated by humans,
    whether cultivated or avoided, loved or hated,
    strips away a disguise of god as yet another character
    in the variety of his infinite oneness.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
82. eternal perfect beloved
    
    the truth and beauty of your words
    stimulate and expand my understanding
    and move my heart to wonder,
    but the way you live your life overcomes me
    and slays me utterly dead.
    
    you are like the sun and your words are light
    that illuminates my dim and vague surroundings,
    bringing precision into form and shadow.
    but your life is heat that burns me right up,
    incinerates me so thoroughly
    that scarcely even ash remains.
    
    like ikaros i am uplifted into flight
    by the truth and beauty of your words,
    and like ikaros i am undone by the heat
    of your real life and i fall headlong
    into the all-pervading ocean of oneness
    where i drown in your indivisible wholeness.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
83. eternal perfect beloved
    
    in the golden rain of gratefulness
    i feel gratitude for the miracle that is my life,
    but even more so i feel gratitude for the wonder
    that is my death and release from habits of personality that
    limit me in time
    and bind me in the place of physical body.
    
    joy in victory comes from dying to all except you.
    in that death-in-you all joy breaks loose
    and finds its freedom,
    the sting goes out of injustice,
    pride loses it insult,
    grace flows out to all,
    and slakes every thirsty lover in creation.
    
    oh intelligent death, you are even more abundant life, more
    boundless freedom, and an eternity of time.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
84. eternal perfect beloved
    
    forgive me for clinging in my selfishness
    to painful judgments of wrongs i have committed
    against human beings, creatures and the earth.
    such judgments reveal that i hold on to the possibility
    that something can be wrong in your creation,
    which offends my love for you with accusations of failure.
    
    judgments offend my intelligence as well
    in its realization of your indivisible unity
    which cannot in fact be separated into bad and good.
    self-recriminations are old ghosts of viewpoints
    from loveless and unintelligent days past.
    
    not only must i slip myself free of recrimination
    but also must i free every being in creation.
    all of us are you, the single indivisible existence
    who plays in all forms by temporarily grasping
    each of our individual points of view.
    
    your medicine of forgiveness heals the disappointed heart
    of longing for revisions in history,
    and cures the hardened heart of withholding acceptance,
    beloved godman.
    
    the ocean of your boundless oneness
    flows through every division,
    closing the wound with forgiveness
    and sealing it with love.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
85. eternal perfect beloved
    
    there is only one oneness, paramatma, and that is you.
    
    just as earth has only one sun, which is also you,
    while all fire, heat and light on earth
    are reflections of you and parts of you,
    so are we individual atmas reflections and parts of you.
    
    each of us is the very same, not one whit different,
    yet we are wholly occupied
    with our petty furnaces and our minor ovens.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
86. eternal perfect beloved
    
    the golden rain of gratefulness falls
    into the all-pervading ocean of oneness in my heart
    quieting the chaotic cinema of flitting projections
    bobbing in the ocean like survivors of shipwreck,
    calling out for attention and help to be saved.
    
    but i can't save them because i am the ocean
    which drowns them in oneness.
    
    it seems sad to the struggling projections
    to lose their great attractiveness
    and be utterly foiled in their activity.
    finally they slip out of sight and sink out of mind.
    
    but the ocean of oneness, true to its nature,
    neither grieves nor gloats.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
87. eternal perfect beloved
    
    in this mighty contest for attention and allegiance
    between you,
    who are the infinite bliss of absolute oneness,
    and your projections,
    which are the infinite flux of relative manyness,
    human beings have the dualistic habit
    of equating you with good, god,
    and your projections with evil, the creation,
    and find therein numerous grounds for condemning
    the world as deceptive, sorrowful and disappointing.
    
    surely, relative to the world
    you are the greatest highest good,
    yet in reality you are absolutely beyond good and evil,
    independent and undivided.
    
    good and evil struggle with each other
    only within fields of opposites projected as our world.
    
    good and evil take their positions,
    vie with each other, stand or fall,
    all within duality, never touching you in the slightest,
    nor ever casting even the slightest shadow on you.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
88. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you also love those who reject you.
    you love us tenderly and soulfully,
    full of responsive caring.
    
    you are the self of each and everyone.
    how heartbreaking to see one reject oneself
    and labor in blindness,
    attempting to awaken truth in a fragment of projection
    by beating the head against frustration,
    or trying to coax love out of a cleverly made-up phantom
    by repeatedly freezing the heart in arctic indifference.
    
    you, with patience and endurance,
    cure that sorrow within yourself
    and offer it back as the intoxicant of real love
    in ever more refined vintages
    until it becomes the very bouquet of heaven itself.
    
    such is your love for us who reject you.
    how much more for us who recognize you?
    shoulder an oar
    
    
89. eternal perfect beloved
    
    oh almighty oneness that nothing can divide,
    i am a plowed field carrying the seed of your new
    literature,
    and i am the slave who delights to work your field,
    and offer you the crop therefrom without need or duress,
    but solely from the joy of serving you.
    
    let this gratitude find its way into words,
    beloved awakener,
    that others can add their voices to it
    and create a chorus of thanksgiving.
    
    open me up to the words of your new literature.
    drive my hand to pen them clearly.
    pilot my feet to fly them out to the world.
    
    let this golden rain of gratitude thoroughly soak all
    in the graceful flood of all-pervading oneness.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
90. eternal perfect beloved
    
    all projections arise two by two
    in the all-pervading ocean
    of profoundly still and silent oneness,
    creating consciousness by contrasts
    between relative opposites.
    
    the entire cosmic wholeness arises exactly
    like a dream with its impression of self and other,
    first in the concept of separation,
    then the energy of separation,
    finally the appearance of separation,
    until we stand in the physical world
    surrounded by all manner of not-self,
    isolated, longing, frightened and dependent.
    
    the omnipresent heart of wholeness
    suffers the constant sting of denial and scorn
    in the proud divisions of mind,
    projecting separation and contradiction
    into the labyrinth of minos and laws of manu.
    bullman devours it alive and manu punishes it to death.
    
    oh reality
    that beds down the chattering hoards of dualities
    with their endless fantasy world business pressing them
    to work late into the night and rise early in the morning,
    your absolute oneness swallows up mind
    as easily as the whale swallows jonah,
    as simply as sky eats the four directions of a pyramid.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
91. eternal perfect beloved
    
    your love flows through subtle veins in creation
    nurturing, healing, and carrying life to all parts.
    all thrive like cells bathed in your love solution.
    
    when circulation fails, all wither.
    when circulation increases, all flourish.
    you, beloved heart of creation,
    pulse your love through avataric arteries.
    
    all glow in your caring
    and grow strong in the enrichment of your support.
    you make us all immune and protect us all
    from infection and corruption.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
92. eternal perfect beloved
    
    pushing through the onslaught of world events
    and personal events,
    all pressing around for attention,
    makes me feel like a salmon battling upstream
    through white-water and over waterfall
    to reach you, beloved, on your mountain-top throne.
    
    then i see that your throne sits in the far heavens
    and only your feet rest on the mountain peak.
    to see your radiant face i must continue
    struggling upstream into the icy mists,
    and right up through falling snow and shifting cloud.
    
    and there you are, crowned with stars,
    your heart as vast as all space,
    holding all within it.
    
    oh great fisherman, this fish cannot fly.
    i can only thank you
    for dropping a line with baited hook into the salmony sea,
    that you could lift me directly to your self.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
93. eternal perfect beloved
    
    do not cling to any opposite, you say.
    cling only to the opposite-less wholeness
    with which there is no other to compare,
    from which nothing is left out,
    not so much as a particle of oceany earth or starry sky.
    
    where in all creation is there an "i am not that"
    except in the perpetual scramble to divide the indivisible
    into worlds?
    all things and beings struggle to create distinctions
    and hold them in place as long as possible.
    but they can only be temporary and insubstantial.
    
    seen from eternity
    all appear with absolute clarity within one as self.
    
    seen through time
    every thing and being labors to create and maintain
    individuality against the force of eternity.
    all such worlds must burn out, crumble and blow away
    while the indivisible remains involved but unaffected.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
94. eternal perfect beloved
    
    i praise the infinite richness of your imagination,
    the endless variety of dream images that arise
    out of the absolute vacuum of your infinite oneness,
    both those most numerous beyond number
    that never see the light of day,
    and those also numerous beyond number
    which play themselves out as the history of the planet.
    
    our coffers overflow with wealth.
    the wish-fulfilling tree sheds heaps of leaves
    all over the planet.
    no wonder the authorities busy themselves
    making walls, borders, categories, rules,
    banks, prisons, plans, customs, schools,
    and god knows how many other tools
    for the purpose of conveniently handling abundance,
    all of which simply adds to it.
    
    what is hidden from the open eye
    is seen behind the closed eye,
    one might as well try to catch all the rain
    on one's tongue,
    or dam the river with bare hands.
    it's just as though every single word itself
    were a whole new language that one must learn to speak.
    
    oh imaginer, i revel in your infinite wealth.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
95. eternal perfect beloved
    
    these poems give me a vehicle of remembrance,
    a voice to praise you and a telephone to the world.
    
    let them fall in abundance like snowflakes
    that cover the earth's wintry heart
    with the brilliant beauty of your crystalline name.
    
    let them transform winter's sad deadness
    into the gorgeous white purity of your extensive identity.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
96. eternal perfect beloved
    
    in this market age, when the prevailing world view
    comes from the minds of merchants,
    human beings busy themselves buying and selling
    your projections, beloved, creating artificial scarcity.
    
    how can prices be put on you or your projections?
    you are one.
    buyer and seller disappear in your unity.
    
    your projections, indeed those of human beings,
    are endless and infinitely unlimited,
    providing an unlimited though ignored source for goods,
    flooding the market so abundantly that
    by the law of supply and demand no price can survive.
    
    ignorance creates demand and supports prices,
    though a sharper tongue might call it greed.
    
    one ism values gold,
    and under that ism gold becomes scarce.
    another ism values human labor,
    and under that ism labor becomes scarce.
    
    you have to make the world a failure, beloved,
    in order for human beings to find you.
    and when we find you, then the world has magnificently
    succeeded in its very purposeful failure,
    and all such distinctions disappear.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
97. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you are that star which illuminates millions of lightyears
    and gathers a generation of planets around itself
    like a king at court, like a true teacher.
    
    that is your way of sport, but not your real identity,
    which lies between stars in the absolute vacuum
    of oneness out of which all stars and planets arise.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
98. eternal perfect beloved
    
    you are that unspeakable one reality
    symbolized by every form, energy and meaning in creation.
    
    you are that grace which knocks on every heart,
    seeking entry into every life.
    
    you are that omnipresent heart of wholeness
    which though infinitely divisible is totally inseparable
    and therefore heals stronger whenever broken.
    
    you are that affection which melts the heart's isolation
    by satisfying its real desire
    and comforting its imagined fear.
    
    you are that patience, humility and responsiveness
    which wipes out deep grooves of habit
    worn into individual and collective consciousness.
    
    you are that understanding which unties the tangled
    knot of duality
    and finds exit from the mind's tiresome labyrinth.
    
    you are that which is beyond opposites, beyond projection,
    beyond motion and conflict, beyond self-consciousness,
    that simple, pure, unspeakable self.
    
    you are that goodwill which serves every need
    and nurtures every aspiration
    that leads to freedom from bondage and weakness.
    
    you are that indivisible reality within which
    all endless cycles of beings inhabiting worlds
    appear to rise and fall while persisting eternally.
    
    you are that sacred ganges rising like a river
    of champagne from the crown of wakefulness.
    
    you are that all-pervading pacific of oneness
    which is invisible to two eyes
    but seen everywhere in the lamplight of the single eye.
    
    you are that breathless oneness without stir or flutter,
    within which all characters and events take place in time,
    like organs and functions within a body.
    
    you are that infinite power, knowledge and bliss
    which manifests as all-peace, all-truth and all-love.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
99. eternal perfect beloved
    
    in the practical world
    i can neither do all i think good and right
    nor can i do all i think evil and wrong.
    i have to accept both the right and wrong of what i do.
    
    good and evil are categories created by interpretation
    of viewpoints established in mind.
    different minds have different viewpoints.
    often the same mind has viewpoints
    that support conflicting interpretations,
    and the same mind often changes viewpoints.
    
    i can never build my life on such shifting footage.
    i must found it on you, beloved, who are that
    which when divided and interpreted yields good and evil,
    which undivided includes both good and evil as one,
    which is there before any division
    and which remains after interpretation has been abandoned.
    
    like the sun, you warm both good and evil.
    like the rain, you soak both right and wrong.
    like the wind, you ventilate both saint and sinner.
    like the earth, you ground all, beloved one,
    supporting the feet of both success and failure.
    shoulder an oar
    
    
100. eternal perfect beloved
     
     oh shadowless one,
     you maintain this shadow show of creation
     in order to showcase your light to its fullest advantage.
     we shadow-puppets, caught up in the drama,
     lose ourselves in the fascination of hide and seek,
     and fail to notice your light.
     
     if there were no shadow play, we would also fail
     to see your light.
     in the contrast of hatred we begin to recognize love.
     in the chaos of lies we begin to perceive and value truth.
     in the frustration of helplessness we begin to know
     the correct use of power.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
101. eternal perfect beloved
     
     mind dances around on the two feet of duality,
     running, turning and jumping with fascinating skill,
     seemingly inexhaustible, ever-renewing and ever-repeating.
     
     exactly when the audience would take a break
     mind comes up with a new routine
     or delivers an old one with more skill than ever.
     when the audience has had enough of a good thing
     and would make its way home,
     mind dances a frenzy of objections,
     stepping, whirling and leaping all over the stage
     of limited consciousness.
     
     as soon as i notice you, beloved oneness,
     behind the dancer's make-up,
     joining each separate step to each other
     and centering every spin,
     understanding replaces fascination.
     
     now the dancer can also rest and take a break
     and make his way home at the appropriate moment.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
102. eternal perfect beloved
     
     four strands of consciousness weave together.
     
     one is the rich and various dream life that unfolds
     in the half-sleep of awakening,
     seemingly significant yet usually forgotten
     within the first few minutes of attention focused
     in the ever more solid dream
     of ordinary awakeness in the world.
     
     another is the solidified consciousness of the world,
     with upstairs neighbors moving around,
     cars starting and going,
     the whirring of the refrigerator
     and noises of nearby construction,
     the needs of the body, making a cup of tea.
     
     another is the meditative reconsideration
     of current images and events in consciousness
     as one sits with impressions from friends,
     news and film scenes witnessed on tv,
     plans, duties and longings.
     
     another is the sharp focus on you of mind beyond mind
     in the nondual reality of your everpresence
     which is both concealed within all duality
     and totally independently outside of it.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
103. eternal perfect beloved
     
     you are the dharmakaya, the realm of absolute unity,
     free of any tendency whatsoever toward the projection
     of dualities in any form of mind, energy or matter.
     you are bodhi, oneness.
     
     you are the samboghakaya, the realm of profound wisdom,
     oh fully awakened one, where the light of understanding
     falls on all forms of manyness,
     illuminating the inherent sense within chaos.
     you are bodhi observing manas, oneness viewing manyness.
     
     you are the nirmanakaya, the realm of wise behavior,
     oh awakener, within the activity of the world,
     the force that uplifts the conflicting rush
     of world events,
     and imprints it with a mark of divine love and truth.
     you are bodhi influencing manas,
     oneness working through manyness.
     
     you ring the bell of realization that announces,
     like a rooster, the dawn of illumination
     which enlightens the incessant human dream
     of separation and success within the starry darkness.
     
     you are the bell, you are the bell ringer
     and you are the waves of sound that break
     against the isolated shore of every individual heart
     like surf rolling against islands
     arising in the immense sea of your being.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
104. eternal perfect beloved
     
     when the knowing nature
     marries the feeling nature,
     wisdom is born
     and real service becomes possible.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
105. eternal perfect beloved
     
     one can never lose the ocean
     by becoming lost among the waves,
     just as one can never lose the forest
     by becoming lost among the trees.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
106. eternal perfect beloved
     
     like beads on a string, you say, as you center
     every tradition in yourself -- indian, semitic,
     chinese, greek, native american, pacific.
     you draw every meaning to yourself,
     illuminating each with the touch of unlimited knowledge,
     far beyond intellect and mere learning.
     
     you create every tradition
     by planting the original seed and cultivating it
     through the generations of human misunderstanding
     that distort and limit truth
     within the borders of cultures and languages.
     
     you renew every tradition by threading its bead
     on the timeless string of yourself.
     no limitation or separation whatsoever
     can be applied to you,
     no matter how subtle or skilful.
     all is within you, and you are within all.
     
     you are the inner meaning of every thought.
     you are the inner texture of every feeling.
     you are the inner purpose of every action.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
107. eternal perfect beloved
     
     bring out the words of your new literature.
     what do you want to say or sing to yourself
     within your dream of human beings
     and continents thickly blanketed in collective sound?
     
     what is the new sound you bring out of silence
     to penetrate this thick stuff that oppresses all alike,
     to cut through it with the blade of silence?
     
     oh beloved, lay back the covering of distractions
     and expose the simple reality of oneness,
     unpluckable, unstrikeable, unspeakable.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
108. eternal perfect beloved
     
     power -- mental
     energy -- subtle
     force -- physical
     shoulder an oar
     
     
109. eternal perfect beloved
     
     first we turn to you as the almighty,
     asking you to smash our enemies
     and raise us up to high places.
     
     in the failure of might,
     we turn to you and ask for understanding,
     that you remove the veils of our confusion
     and show yourself undisguised and natural.
     
     in the frustration of noncomprehension,
     we turn to you and ask for love,
     that we may delight in your every whim,
     whether it raise us up or confound us,
     whether it belittle or enlighten us.
     
     in love, oh awakener, finally
     we discover a medium sufficiently powerful
     to dissolve the age-old shell of misunderstanding
     that isolates us from you,
     and smart enough to find its way out of the labyrinth
     of mind's perpetual crossroading.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
110. eternal perfect beloved
     
     without your love for us,
     we would never discover love for anybody or anything,
     especially not for you,
     who are at once the easiest and most difficult to love.
     
     you are the beloved who gives everything
     while taking everything away,
     the beloved most attractive to the eyes
     yet impossible to see,
     the most agreeable beloved yet the most dominating,
     the most freeing and most binding beloved.
     
     oh awakener, you are the ocean of love,
     send your wave that erodes away these cliffs of resistance
     and undermines these stiff bluffs.
     let your tide rise.
     
     you are the lord of love,
     grant us asylum in your state.
     command our hearts to make us at home,
     that we can eventually qualify for citizenship
     and full participation in love.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
111. eternal perfect beloved
     
     riding the vehicle of attention driven by love
     i travel up through planning and desiring for myself,
     up through questions that i'm working on
     and further up through what i think i know,
     and there above all i find you,
     the indivisible all-pervading ocean of oneness,
     source and inner sustenance of all,
     without fanfare or self-righteousness.
     
     what humor to watch the mind struggle with you.
     you are sharper than the sharpest needle
     yet larger, much larger than a galaxy.
     how can the mind handle the way you swallow up
     whole galaxies in the point of the sharpest pin?
     
     how can the mind touch your aloneness?
     you are far too simple for mind to grasp
     with your eternity of beginningless beginnings
     and endless ends.
     even dream and music dumbfound mind.
     where can mind set foot in silence?
     shoulder an oar
     
     
112. eternal perfect beloved
     
     newton's law that
     for every action there's an opposite and equal reaction
     describes the physics of consciousness.
     every clinging in mind
     creates an equal and opposite challenge to that clinging
     which eventually breaks it lose,
     allowing consciousness to find its rest in equilibrium.
     
     world itself, full of the countless limitations of
     "i am a mountain," "i am a tree," "i am a cow,"
     "i am a woman, or man, or a leader or a follower,"
     all arise by newton's law from god's original not knowing,
     god's first question, "who am i?"
     
     every thesis in consciousness gives rise to an antithesis,
     creating a synthesis which is itself a new thesis,
     in the dialectics of consciousness.
     
     as final synthesis in which there is no antithesis,
     beloved one, you unravel this stitching that knits
     all the worlds in their endless variety,
     and you free mind from its constant labor.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
113. eternal perfect beloved
     
     without your love, i could never allow myself to live.
     without your forgiveness, i would condemn myself to
     certain death.
     oh meher baba, help me live a life like you live,
     full of commitment yet free and uncaged by circumstance.
     
     you are freedom absolute,
     free of ignorance, habit, conditioning,
     free of any limitation whatsoever.
     
     to be your slave is to be absolutely free.
     the slave of freedom can only be free.
     bind me to you ever tighter in the bond of slavery
     that i, your love-slave, be also free as you are.
     
     don't let me waste eternity lost in petty affairs of time.
     don't let me squander omnipresence
     caught up in ordinary features of local landscapes.
     
     help me to live by dying in love.
     help me live the divine life of "i am that,"
     which embodies wholeness within divided worlds,
     which wills victory for both victor and vanquished,
     and expresses all-inclusive peace within continuous
     conflict.
     
     you livingly demonstrate divine concern for every
     detail of creation.
     oh love-lighthouse, if i did not know you are here,
     i should be insane with worry and terror
     at the world's desperate dying.
     
     but knowing your eternal perfection, beloved,
     and seeing the ocean of your love in every detail,
     i am amazed and freed and comforted
     by so serious a love that stops at nothing
     in its determination to awaken the heart of mankind.
     
     help me to love you more and more
     realize you more and more,
     and serve you more and more.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
114. eternal perfect beloved
     
     all of these thoughts that i hang on to
     as if they were real or true, as if they mattered,
     some lift me up, some press me down.
     they all modify and qualify and interpret
     and comment and blame and excuse and explain.
     
     viewpoints multiply like bees and ants.
     a remark becomes a letter.
     a letter becomes a book.
     a book becomes an encyclopedia.
     an encyclopedia becomes a library.
     the soul, the free and loving soul, becomes
     a librarian struggling to maintain the card catalog.
     
     the night mind looks like the cutting room floor
     at the film factory.
     
     all thoughts cover you over
     at the same time they reveal you,
     the indivisible one giving yourself
     to every development out of your infinite love
     and the sheer endlessness of your play.
     
     gladly i sweep aside everything in mind
     in order to feast on your bliss, oh indivisible one,
     and see in you my own original face before i was born
     and hear the applause of your single hand clapping.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
115. eternal perfect beloved
     
     who understands what "one" means?
     someone says it's like one cookie or one slice of bread.
     another says it's like one cycle -- spring, summer, fall,
     winter.
     someone else says it's like a whole planet,
     as if viewed from space,
     with all its functions and cycles.
     another says nothing, keeping very intense silence.
     
     once i said that "i" is the deepest, most mysterious,
     most magical word of all,
     but now i say that "one" is that word most profound,
     the single-word name of both the nameable and the
     unnameable.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
116. eternal perfect beloved
     
     the worldly mind resembles a game of tennis,
     flying back and forth from side to side,
     perpetually winning and losing without respite.
     
     real gaming begins when the player attempts
     to put the ball over the exact middle of the net,
     and real victory is won when the sportsman succeeds
     in balancing the ball exactly on the center of the net.
     
     the players disappear. net and court also disappear.
     finally the ball itself disappears.
     only the inconceivable trophy of absolute oneness remains
     to gladden the champion's heart.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
117. eternal perfect beloved
     
     in order to live in absolute freedom and oneness in you,
     beloved ocean of love,
     as an artist of life and love,
     i must cultivate the art of dying.
     i must drown utterly
     to the very end of struggling against helplessness.
     
     every part of me that strives to express itself
     still clings to that fabric of opposites
     which must unravel thread by thread
     until the all-pervading pacific of oneness
     closes silently over my head.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
118. eternal perfect beloved
     
     the golden rain of gratefulness falls
     out of the all-pervading ocean of oneness
     and back into it again, like the river ganges,
     just a momentary separation
     into appreciator and appreciated.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
119. eternal perfect beloved
     
     you are at the center of the whole
     as well as at the center of each individual thing
     and being within the whole,
     thus it is said that you are equidistant from all.
     
     in truth there is absolutely no distance
     between you and any other,
     any more than there is distance between a dreamer
     and his dream.
     
     mind comes out of oneness on tour
     among the countless fascinations of duality's fancy,
     and returns again to oneness
     where all accumulated baggage melts away without a trace.
     
     the worldly dream creates pockets of space
     in the absolute oneness
     where worlds of activity play out their imagery,
     like a quick flip through the inner channels
     of a personal tv,
     while you with infinite patience stand aside in eternity.
     
     oh purity in a world of mixture.
     oh stillness in a world of ceaseless action.
     oh silence in a world of amplified noise.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
120. eternal perfect beloved
     
     the silent voice of oneness,
     the voice of love inarticulate,
     clarifies the claims and protests of personality,
     heals the hurts and losses between weak and strong,
     and comforts both criminal and victim.
     
     the priceless gift of oneness,
     the gift of love indivisible,
     melts the giver, the gift and the receiver
     into a single joy of simultaneous sharing.
     this treasure increases when shared.
     
     the everpresent destination of oneness,
     the goal of love absolute,
     lies at the exact place the traveler now stands.
     the moment he seeks out another place,
     he returns again to the road, the search, the journey
     and the destination slips away.
     shoulder an oar
     
     
121. eternal perfect beloved
     
     at best the world promises temporary happiness
     with more or less wild swings between elation
     and depression.
     you offer eternal bliss.
     
     at best the world promises temporary agreements
     among a majority of scholars and scientists.
     you offer infinite knowledge.
     
     at best the world promises partial control
     of one's affairs within guidelines and due process of law,
     including rewards and punishments.
     you offer infinite power.
     
     but nobody finds you through bliss, knowledge or power,
     beloved.
     the only way to you goes through the heart of love
     which makes no bargains, keeps no ledgers,
     and expects no recompense.
     
     love stands independent and free, unconquerable
     and inexhaustible,
     never failing to find a way to win over an enemy
     and burn up the very seed of conflict.
     
     love's almighty victory arises in the realization,
     which marks a human turning toward the divine,
     that it is better to be love
     than to be happy or right or in charge.
     
     the quality of bliss in love soars far above happiness.
     the quality of certainty in love stands unshakeable
     in the winds of opinion and theory.
     the quality of security in love overpowers
     the need to press others into service
     or prohibit them from expressing other wills.
     
     you give the gift of love to your lovers,
     transforming them from human to divine.
     love flies to you, beloved, carrying the lover
     in its arms.
     shoulder an oar
     
     

eternal perfect beloved

1. the golden rain
3. winnowing the ocean
4. salt from the beloved's table, welcome home
5. no separation is possible, one another
6. the pearl tree, sea rose
7. how the rock awoke