The One Who Taught Me Poetry. An Offering to My Spiritual Teacher

" … I wish to tell all my friends and my spiritual brothers and sisters here in Philadelphia, that inside the heart of each individual seeker, rings the Liberty Bell… This bell has been ringing from time immemorial in each individual soul, inspiring the soul to take part in God's cosmic Drama and to run fast, faster, fastest toward the destined Goal …" - Sri Chinmoy

God is One. Some mystics say 'neti neti', 'not this', 'not that.' It is an eternal mystery. God is the perennial Entity … a divine Source or Ground, from which all else is projected into this Play of Spirit (Consciousness) or Universal Cosmos, if you like. We are all Spirit, or made in the image of God.

Nevertheless, The Absolute is with form and formless; finite and infinite; with gender and also neutral and beyond. She is said to be unspoken, unfathomable, birthless and deathless … combining the triune of omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience. (Sat, Chit … Ananda) Existence, Consciousness … Bliss).

Jesus the Christ, is God with Form - the Spirit made manifest in a direct Incarnation … a descent of the Infinite. God the Absolute, is the same power within, the all-pervading Power, which was there before Jesus the man and always has been.

When I dedicate this poem, or give its credit to my Master, I speak not of Sri Chinmoy, the Indian man, but the same all-pervading Power, manifesting as a direct descent of the Absolute Supreme. God is a self-transcending Entity or Consciousness, which remains Itself, the 'I am That I am.'

There is nothing outside of Consciousness. You and I, all sentient and non-sentient things, are within the same eternal, or self-transcending Spirit. We are mystical and the answer lies inside the Spiritual Heart, which is not separate but within. Praise be! Alleyuia!!

The One who taught me poetry,

Hid in the illumining cavern of the soul.

Kissing my pen with eloquence, She remained

Unbounded, in the melody of Her own Silence.

I have sought Her in America;

In the winding labyrinths of Eternity.

Yet She remains timeless - like words - carving

The fire of tenderness in the Spirit.

Last night She visited my dreams,

Dressed in the most exotic silken raiment’s.

She blew upon my cheeks and smiled sweetly,

I became lost in a maze of bewildering Bliss.

The One who taught me poetry,

Came to me in a beggar’s garb.

Face filled with the Light of wisdom,

The depths of Heaven glistened in Her eyes.

Beloved, it is You who shape my shadows

And my Light, ride the winds and valleys;

Singing love-songs to the cypress,

On the breath of each awakening dawn.

Aye, pleasures! Sweet desires of this body, gratitude!

For though your pinions did pierce my wings,

Love’s woven tapestry harvested through the night,

Carving a circle of rainbows in the Heart.

Thus am I able to endure; to blend

With the One who taught me poetry sublime.

Singing the songs of infinitude, let me bathe in Her

Scarlet nakedness, on Eternity’s golden thread.

- Manatita, The Lantern Carrier. 5^th December, 2018.

- ~Awakening The Inner Light~