The Singing-Woman from the Wood's Edge

"What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?

And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,
That was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?
And what should be my singing, that was christened at an altar,
But Aves and Credos and Psalms out of the Psalter?

You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,
As a pixie-mother weaves for her baby,
You will find such flame at the wave's weedy ebb
As flashes in the meshes of a mer-mother's web,

But there comes to birth no common spawn
From the love a a priest for a leprechaun,
And you never have seen and you never will see
Such things as the things that swaddled me!

After all's said and after all's done,
What should I be but a harlot and a nun?

In through the bushes, on any foggy day,
My Da would come a-swishing of the drops away,
With a prayer for my death and a groan for my birth,
A-mumbling of his beads for all that he was worth.

And there'd sit my Ma, with her knees beneath her chin,
A-looking in his face and a-drinking of it in,
And a-marking in the moss some funny little saying
That would mean just the opposite of all that he was praying!

He taught me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin,
He heard me my Greek and he heard me my Latin,
He blessed me and crossed me to keep my soul from evil,
And we watched him out of sight, and we conjured up the devil!

Oh, the things I haven't seen and the things I haven't known,
What with hedges and ditches till after I was grown,
And yanked both way by my mother and my father,
With a "Which would you better?" and a "
Which would you rather?"

With him for a sire and her for a dam,
What should I be but just what I am?"

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay, submitted to AdyashantiSatsang by Mazie Lane

Creation is neither good nor bad; it is as it is. It is the human mind which puts all sorts of constructions on it, seeing things from its own angle and interpreting them to suit its own interests. A woman is just a woman, but one mind calls her "mother," another "sister," and still another "aunt" and so on. Men love women, hate snakes, and are indifferent to the grass and stones by the roadside. These value-judgments are the cause of all the misery in the world. Creation is like a peepul tree: birds come to eat its fruit, or take shelter in its branches, men cool themselves in its shade, but some may hang themselves on it. Yet the tree continues to lead its quiet life, unconcerned with and unaware of all the uses it is put to. It is the human mind that creates its own difficulties and then cries for help. Is God so partial as to give peace to one person and sorrow to another? In creation there is room for everything, but man refuses to see the good, the healthy and the beautiful. Instead, he goes on whining, like the hungry man who sits beside the tasty dish and who, instead of stretching out his hand to satisfy his hunger, goes on lamenting, "Whose fault is it, God’s or man’s?

- David Godman, from Be as You Are

 Q: Why does the Great Death of the mind coincide with the "small death" of the body?

M; It does not! You may die a hundred times without a break in the mental turmoil. Or, you may keep your body and die only in the mind. The death of the mind is the birth of wisdom.

Q: The person goes and only the witness remains.

M: Who remains to say: 'I am the witness'. When there is no 'I am', where is the witness? In the timeless state there is no self to take refuge in.

The man who carries a parcel is anxious not to lose it - he is parcel-conscious. The gnani holds on to nothing and cannot be said to be conscious. And yet he is not unconscious. He is the very heart of awareness. We call him digambara clothed in space, the Naked One, beyond all appearance. Ther is no name and shape under which he may be said to exist, yet he is the only one that truly is.

Q: I cannot grasp it.

M: Who can? The mind has its limits. It is enough to bring you to the very frontiers of knowledge and make you face the immensity of the unknown. To dive in it is up to you.

Q: What about the witness? Is it real or unreal?

M: It is both. The last remnant of illusion, the first touch of the real. To say: I am only the witness is both false and true: false because of the 'I am', true because of the witness. It is better to say 'there is witnessing'. The moment you say 'I am', the entire universe comes into being along with its creator.

- excerpt from I Am That - Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,published by The Acorn Press.

If we ask why Reality, which is in fact one and perfect, is seen by us as many and marred; why the soul, which is really united with God throughout, sees itself as sundered; why the rope appears to be a snake - if we ask these questions we are up against the question that has no answer, any more than the comparable Christian question of why God created the world has an answer. The best we can say is that the world is lila, God’s play. Children playing hide and seek assume various roles that have no validity outside the game. They place themselves in jeopardy and in conditions from which they must escape. Why do they do so when in a twinkling they could free themselves by simply stepping out of the game? The only answer is that the game is its own point and reward. It is fun in itself, a spontaneous overflow of creative, imaginative energy. So too in some mysterious way it must be with the world. Like a child playing alone, God is the Cosmic Dancer, whose routine is all creatures and all worlds. From the tireless stream of God’s energy the cosmos flows in endless, graceful reenactement.

- Huston Smith, The World’s Religions

Therefore: he who knows enough to stop at what he does not know is there. . . . Just take advantage of things as they are. Let your heart and mind roam free. Accept what you can’t get and nourish that center on that acceptance. Then you’re there. That’s all. What else is required? Nothing but that you be willing to act in accord with your own destiny, even if that means going to your death. This is the only difficulty.

- Sam Hamill, trans., and J. P. Seaton, ed., The Essential Chuang Tzu (Boston: Shambhala, 1998),

When you finish being who you think you are
This is who you will be, when you die
You will be reborn to Love everyone and tell the truth

- Neem Karoli Baba

One day while meditating Adyashanti heard a bird chirping and the question arose "Who hears this sound?" He then wrote this poem:

Today I awoke, finally I see the Self has re-turned to the Self.
The Self is none other than the Self.
I am deathless. I am endless. I am free.
The birds outside sing ...
The birds outside sing and there am I.
The seeing of leaves on the trees, that seeing am I.
The body breathes, breathing am I.
I am awake and I know that I am awake.
Seen from the old eyes, everything is asleep, a game, a delusion.
But now I am awake. I am the play. I am the game. I am the delusion.
I am the enlightenment I sought, looking everywhere.
Nothing is separate, nothing is alone.
I am all that I see. All that I smell, taste, touch, feel, think and know.
I am awake and this awakeness is the same as Shyakyamuni Buddha's.
Today the leaf has returned to the root.
I am all name and form and beyond all name and form.
I am Spirit, no longer trapped in a body.
I am free. I am free because I am awake.
So ordinary. Who would have thought ? Who could have guessed?
I am home. I am really home. Ten thousand life times.
Ten thousand life times but today I am home.
Ten thousand life times but today I am home.
This is not an experience. This is me.
I am awake. Finally, I am awake.
Nothing has changed, but I am awake.
Before I tasted the root many times and felt, how delicious.
Today I became the root. How ordinary.

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