I Am That - Nisargadatta Maharaj

The more I read, the more I find myself drawn not to the austere, cold Maharaj, but to his ardent questioners.  Instead of a sterile, dry, self-satisfied I am, they live in a more interesting and plausible universe: a God exists, creates and causes, has mercy, loves and suffers with us, and respects freedom; persons exist, not universal consciousness in some disconnected semi-bliss, but "focalized, centered, and individualized in a person;" the world exists, and is not an illusion to be overcome, but a field for the "knowing, knower and known" --

"Consciousness implies a conscious being, an object of consciousness, and the fact of being conscious.  That which is conscious I call a person.  A person lives in the world, is a part of it, affects it, and is affected by it."

I'm fascinated by the book, not by the Hindu master, but by the people who talk with him and challenge him.

The Price

Who never lost, are unprepared
A Coronet to find!
Who never thirsted
Flagons and Cooling Tamarind!

Who never climbed the weary league -
Can such a foot explore
The purple territories
On Pizarro's shore?

How many Legions overcome -
the Emperor will say?
How many Colors taken
On Revolution day?

How many bullets bearest?
Hast thou the Royal scar?
Angels! Write "Promoted"
On this soldier's brow!


Emily Dickinson
The Poems of Emily Dickinson  (Franklin), 136

A Glimpse Beyond

Our lives are Swiss -
So still - so Cool -
Till some odd afternoon
The Alps neglect their Curtains
And we look further on!

Italy stands the other side!
While like a guard between -
The solemn Alps -
The siren Alps
Forever intervene!


Emily Dickinson
The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Franklin), 129

Havel - Good Moods 5

"The highest phase, as it were, of this 'contemplation' is my final and best mood.  It is difficult to characterize concisely and accurately; it is a sense of general and fundamental joy that I am alive, that I am, that my life - in spite of everything - has meaning, that I have done some good, that there are people who know me, understand me, share with me - though it may only be at a distance and in general  terms - my fate.  They know what I want and why I do what I do, they think about me, worry about me, wish me well and - perhaps the most important and wonderful thing of all - they are fond of me.  It is an experience of the manifestation - the vivid presence - of an otherwise hidden, yet all-determining dimension of the spirit, that is, the presence of faith, hope and the profound conviction that there is a 'meaning'...I don't have this mood often at all, but it is very useful: it fills me with strength and energy and courage, substances I need desperately."

Vaclav Havel
Letters to Olga

Evanescence - Dickinson

In lands I never saw - they say
Immortal Alps look down -
Whose Bonnets touch the firmament -
Whose sandals touch the town;

Meek at whose everlasting feet
A myriad Daisy play -
Which, Sir, are you, and which am I -
Opon an August day?


Emily Dickinson
The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Franklin), 108

Summer - Dickinson

A something in a summer's Day
As slow her flambeaux burn away
Which solemnizes me.

A something in a summer's noon -
A depth - an Azure - a perfume -
Transcending extasy.

And still within a summer's night
A something so transporting bright
I clap my hands to see -

Then vail my too inspecting face
Lest such a subtle - shimmering grace
Flutter too far for me -

The wizard fingers never rest -
The purple brook within the breast
Still chafes it's narrow bed -

Still rears the East her amber Flag -
Guides still the sun along the Crag
His Caravan of Red -

So looking on - the night - the morn
Conclude the wonder gay -
And I meet, coming thro' the dews
Another summer's Day!


Emily Dickinson
The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Franklin), 104

Havel - Good Moods 4

"Contemplation"

"It is a kind of higher degree of introspection, when I no longer allow myself to be carried along so freely by memories or dreams of returning from prison, but rather I think to a purpose - about everything possible: myself and my life, my writing, the things that relate to my situation at the moment and of course - above all, perhaps - about many general themes.  I once wrote to you about how, in the first weeks and months of my imprisonment I imagined, very vividly and almost physically, all the things, now denied to me, that constituted my life outside, how I missed things so intensely and looked forward to them in a very sensual way.  Now - with the passage of time - these experiences are not nearly as immediate and urgent and instead my home (my 'particular horizon') operates inside me, with increasing clarity of meaning, moral content, demands and hopes, in other words in terms of what lies beneath its sensory surface.  For this reason too, 'contemplation' - as the manifestation of a deeper, more spiritual relationship to the values of the world and my life - is coming to prevail over those two more 'down-to-earth' levels - remembering the past and imagining the future....It may be a slow process; something worthwhile is going on inside of me - perhaps.  Many things are becoming imperceptibly clearer, silently firmer, or are being discarded and classified.  Much that is superficial and impulsive is falling by the wayside, while the value of other things is being recognized more deeply."

Vaclav Havel
Letters to Olga

Spring

An altered look about the hills -
A Tyrian light the village fills -
A wider sunrise in the morn -
A deeper twilight on the lawn -
A print of a vermillion foot -
A purple finger on the slope -
A flippant fly opon the pane -
A spider at his trade again -
An added strut to Chanticleer -
A flower expected everywhere -
An axe shrill singing in the woods -
Fern odors on untraveled roads -
All this and more I cannot tell -
A furtive look you know as well -
And Nicodemus' mystery
Receives it's annual reply!

Emily Dickinson
The Poems of Emily Dickinson, 90

An apt poem for a beautiful Easter Day