Last Post: 2007

Wake up. Day calls you
to your life: your duty.
And to live, nothing more.
Root it out of the glum
night and the darkness
that covered your body
for which light waited
on tiptoe in the dawn.
Stand up, affirm the straight
simple will to be
a pure slender virgin.
Test your body's metal.
Cold, heat? Your blood
will tell against the snow,
or behind the window.
The colour
in your cheeks will tell.
And look at people. Rest
doing no more than adding
your perfection to another
day. Your task
is to carry your life high,
and play with it, hurl it
like a voice to the clouds
so it may retrieve the light
already gone from us.
That is your fate: to live.
Do nothing.
Your work is you, nothing more.

~ Pedro Salinas ~

Love

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills.
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.

~ Czeslaw Milosz ~

Whatever we need is what is given.

~Adyashanti

Existence

or Consciousness is the only reality.
Consciousness plus waking we call waking.
Consciousness plus sleep we call sleep.
Consciousness plus dream, we call dream.
Consciousness is the screen on which all the
pictures come and go. The screen is real,
the pictures are mere shadows on it.
~Ramana Maharishi

Excerpt from A Thousand Names for Joy

What's not okay about dying? You close your eyes every night, and you go to sleep. People look forward to it; some people actually prefer that part. And that's as bad as it gets, except for your belief that says there's something else. Before a thought, there's no one, nothing-only peace that doesn't even recognize itself as peace.

What I know about dying is that when there's no escape, when you know that no one is coming to save you, there's no fear. You just don't bother. The worst thing that can happen on your deathbed is a belief. Nothing worse than that has ever happened. So if you are lying on your deathbed and the doctor says it's all over for you and you believe him, all the confusion stops. You no longer have anything to lose. And in that peace, there is only you.

People who know that there's no hope are free; decisions are out of their hands. It has always been that way, but some people have to die bodily to find out. No wonder they smile on their deathbeds. Dying is everything they were looking for in life: they've given up the delusion of being in charge. When there's no choice, there's no fear. They begin to realize that nothing was ever born but a dream and nothing ever dies but a dream.

When you're clear about death, you can be totally present with someone who's dying, and no matter what kind of pain she appears to be experiencing, it doesn't affect your happiness. You're free to just love her, to hold her and care for her, because it's your nature to do that. To go to that person in fear is to teach fear: she looks into your eyes and gets the message that she is in deep trouble. But if you come in peace, fearlessly, she looks into your eyes and sees that whatever is happening is good.

Dying is just like living. It has its own way, and you can't control it. People think, "I want to be conscious when I die." That's hopeless. Even wanting to be conscious ten minutes from now is hopeless. You can only be conscious now. Everything you want is here in this moment.

~ Byron Katie

"Perfection is realized only in the moment.

The past tugs, the future holds.
In the moment, no resistance"
- Anonymous

American Advaita: Winter Solstice, 2007

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
-Wallace Stevens

With us, one needs to be a waking sleeper,
that in the state of wakefulness,
you may dream dreams.
The thought of created things
is an enemy to this sweet waking sleep;
until your thought is asleep, your throat is shut,
no mysteries can enter.
Mystical bewilderment must sweep thought away;
bewilderment devours thought
and recollection of anything other than God.
- Rumi, Mathnawi III: 1114-1116, version by Camille
and Kabir Helminski, Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance

Whenever you notice that some form of negativity has arisen within you, look on it not as a failure, but as a helpful signal that is telling you: "Wake up. Get out of your mind. Be present."

- Eckhart Tolle, from The Power of Now,

Self-enquiry,

is a passive rather than an active process.
Mind is allowed to subside into its source even while
engaged in normal activity, which then becomes an
undercurrent of witnessing that gradually extends
throughout all waking hours and begins to pervade
all one's activities without intruding on them or
interfering with them.
~Ramesh Balsekar

All questions and problems go POOF! right now in this present, spontaneous moment of being, in which there is nothing at all but awareness watching. Every moment is brand-new, free of all content. Right now, the whole world is brand-new. Nothing ever existed before this very second. An independent "you" seems to exist, as a few disconnected thoughts float in - an image here, a memory there - and they glom together and you start believing a story that there is a whole person. And then in the next moment, a different image, a different memory, and they glom together, and a wholly different "you" is thought of. You think they are all the same "you," but they are obviously not. "You" changes every moment, as different thoughts of "This is me" arise, and form different patterns. So who are you? In every moment there are different thoughts arising and forming your idea of who you are. You might insist that you have a lifetime history, but as you recall it right now, you'll only be recalling tiny glimpses of it, flashes, distorted memories. The stored "history of you," even if it did exist as a whole somewhere in the brain (and it does not - those memories go through changes as they recede in time), you can only be recalling any tiny portion of it at a time, a few brushstrokes, like an impressionist painting. So where is this solid story of you? Is it really real? So what is being pointed to is this - that you do not exist as a solid, discrete entity as you believe, and ALL your questioning and suffering and problems refer to this NON-EXISTENT entity. You ask: What am I not getting? Why are you getting it and I'm not? There is no difference between what's going on for you and what's going on for me, what I "get" and what you "get," because neither of us has ever "got" anything. Both of us are in the same boat. That boat is: right now, there is awareness going on. - Annette Nibley

Shoveling Snow With Buddha

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.

Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.

We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.

And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.

After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck.
and our boots stand dripping by the door.

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.

~ Billy Collins ~

(Picnic, Lightning)

Thanks to Joe Riley @ Panhala@yahoogroups.com

An Improvisation For Angular Momentum

Walking is like
imagination, a
single step
dissolves the circle
into motion; the eye here
and there rests
on a leaf,
gap, or ledge,
everything flowing
except where
sight touches seen:
stop, though, and
reality snaps back
in, locked hard,
forms sharply
themselves, bushbank,
dentree, phoneline,
definite, fixed,
the self, too, then
caught real, clouds
and wind melting
into their directions,
breaking around and
over, down and out,
motions profound,
alive, musical!

Perhaps the death mother like the birth mother
does not desert us but comes to tend
and produce us, to make room for us
and bear us tenderly, considerately,
through the gates, to see us through,
to ease our pains, quell our cries,
to hover over and nestle us, to deliver
us into the greatest, most enduring
peace, all the way past the bother of
recollection,
beyond the finework of frailty,
the mishmash house of the coming & going,
creation's fringes,

~ A.R. Ammons ~
(Poetry, 1994)

Thanks to Panhala

 

The Seperation

True worship is effortless, supreme meditation in the continuous, unbroken awareness of the within, the indwelling presence. It requires no effort because there is nothing in it to be attained which one does not already possess.

What is generally understood to be prayer is nothing more than one fictitious entity called 'me' begging for something from another fictitious entity called 'God'.
~ Ramesh S. Balsekar

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, "I surrender!"

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.
~ Hafiz about 1320-1389

Kali

Ever-blissful Kali,
Bewitcher of the Destructive Lord,
Mother --
for Your own amusement
You dance,
clapping Your hands.

You with the moon on Your forehead,
really You are primordial, eternal, void.
When there was no world, Mother,
where did You get that garland of skulls?

You alone are the operator,
we Your instruments, moving as You direct.
Where You place us, we stand;
the words You give us, we speak.

Restless Kamalakanta says, rebukingly:
You grabbed Your sword, All-Destroyer,
and now You've cut down evil and good.

By Kamalakanta
(1769? - 1821?)

English version by Rachel Fell McDermott

Archaic Torso of Apollo

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Ultimate Understanding

The central point of the ultimate understanding is that at any and every instant there is nothing but perfection in the totality of functioning that is the universe. Thus, the present moment and whatever it offers is accepted in total and uninhibited pure enjoyment.
~Ramesh S. Balsekar

Nothing

Nothing sings in our bodies
like breath in a flute.
It dwells in the drum.
I hear it now
that slow beat
like when a voice said to the dark,
let there be light,
let there be ocean
and blue fish
born of nothing
and they were there.
I turn back to bed.
The man there is breathing.
I touch him
with hands already owned by another world
Look, they are desert,
they are rust. They have washed the dead.
They have washed the just born.
They are open.
They offer nothing.
Take it.
Take nothing from me.
There is still a little life
left inside this body,
a little wildness here
and mercy
and it is the emptiness
we love, touch, enter in one another
and try to fill.

~Linda Hogan

In the realm of the passing away

This is the realm of the passing away. All that
exists does not for long.
Whatever comes into this world never stops sliding
toward the edge of eternity.
Form arises from formlessness and passes back,
arising and dissolving in a few dance steps between
creation and destruction.
We are born passing away.
Seedlings and deadfall all face forward.
Earthworms eat what remains.
We sing not for that which dies but for that which
never dies.

By Stephen Levine
(1937 - )

Praise Song

Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there's left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn't cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it's all we have, and it's never enough.
~ Barbara Crooker

being no one, going no where, having nothing

"Spiritual maturity is being ready to let go of everything.
Giving up is a first step, but real giving up is the insight
that there's nothing to be given up, since nothing is your
property."
~Nisargadatta

As awareness bends back on itself,

a breathtaking, eternal reality shines forth, pristine and untroubled by everything that has happened in the created world.

Remarkably one has been transported to the instant "before the beginning" of all creation while the familiar world is seen as an expression of an implicit void.

The infinite sense of awe and wonder is amplified when the silent question of how can this be?, is followed by the startling, all-encompassing presence of grace.

When awareness turns to the "world" it may be shocking to realize that people are not who they appear to be, but whether they know that is an open question.

All searching for tangible evidence of who they are ends in the same, formless mystery that one discovers when looking at one's "own" awareness and being.
- Michael Regan

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened


~ e.e. cummings ~

(Complete Poems 1904-1962)

Individual Volition

The notion of individual volition has been referred to as "the bite of the deadly serpent of ego" because it is the very root of the concept of bondage or unhappiness, and the only thing which can free man from its poison is the abandonment of his identification with a particular object as a 'me'.
~Ramesh S. Balsekar

Four Poems

I think it will be winter when he comes.
From the unbearable whiteness of the road
a dot will emerge, so black that eyes will blur,
and it will be approaching for a long, long time,
making his absence commensurate with his coming,
and for a long, long time it will remain a dot.
A speck of dust? A burning in the eye? And snow,
there will be nothing else but snow,
and for a long, long while there will be nothing,
and he will pull away the snowy curtain,
he will acquire size and three dimensions,
he will keep coming closer, closer . . .
This is the limit, he cannot get closer. But he keeps approaching,
now too vast to measure . . .

——

If there is something to desire,
there will be something to regret.
If there is something to regret,
there will be something to recall.
If there is something to recall,
there was nothing to regret.
If there was nothing to regret,
there was nothing to desire.

——

Let us touch each other
while we still have hands,
palms, forearms, elbows . . .
Let us love each other for misery,
torture each other, torment,
disfigure, maim,
to remember better,
to part with less pain.

——


We are rich: we have nothing to lose.
We are old: we have nowhere to rush.
We shall fluff the pillows of the past,
poke the embers of the days to come,
talk about what means the most,
as the indolent daylight fades.
We shall lay to rest our undying dead:
I shall bury you, you will bury me.

~Vera Pavlova

(Translated, from the Russian, by Steven Seymour.)

Circles 4 (from Life of the Future World)

& the secret

ITS MEASURE IS RIGHT & LEFT
MEASURE OF ITS RIGHT ITS LEFT
MEASURE OF ITS LEFT ITS RIGHT
IT HAS NO IMAGE SKIES
IMAGE OF ITS RIGHT LEFT
IMAGE OF ITS LEFT RIGHT
& ITS BIRTHPLACE BEING FROM NON-BEING
FATHERING FROM NOTHING NAMES

MY NAME IS OTHER THAN
WHAT HAS NO IMAGE
MY IMAGE IS OTHER THAN
WHAT HAS NO NAME
& I HAVE NO NAME OTHER THAN IMAGE
& I HAVE NO IMAGE OTHER THAN NAME
EN-EY-EM-EE WRITTEN OUT FULLY
MY NAME AN IMAGINING FOR MY TRUTH

By Rabbi Abraham Abulafia
(1240 - ?)

English version by Jerome Rothenberg and Harris Lenowitz

Hat Tip Poetry Chaikhana

Close the Gap

The words known as: Self-Realization, God-Realization, The Absolute,
Moksha, Liberation, Freedom, Truth, GOD, Enlightenment, Nirvana and
any word that hasn’t been mentioned, are all pointing to the same
thing. The question is what are they pointing to?

We use the word “Unconditioned” to refer to all of the above. The
Unconditioned is none other than you minus the Conditions.

Some of us see the Gap quite easily and for others it’s more subtle.
The Gap is in believing that God, Enlightenment or the Unconditioned
is somewhere other than where I AM.

Most teachings agree on the word Omnipresence. Omnipresence
being true, the question that arises is: Where Can I go where GOD
is not? The obvious answer is nowhere. There is nowhere I can go
where GOD is not! That is a most profound statement to be realized.
If there is nowhere I can go where GOD is not, then God must be right
where I AM.

If we truly embrace Omnipresence then that will Close the Gap quite
nicely.

Three statements on closing the gap

You are you and you are THAT which is Significant.

There is nothing for you to do in order to be you because you are
already you.

You are already you because you have never been anyone else.

Please ponder the three statements deeply. Doing so will Close the
Gap.

Cultivate Awareness of the Unconditioned

Most of us have been focused on the Conditioned since birth and we’ve
had quite a bit of help to have that focus. Our parents, siblings,
friends, schools and any thing else that we call society is one big
condition.

Birth and Death and every thing in between are a Condition.

The Ego believes that it can create conditions that are favorable to
it and having done that, it will be happy.

The difficulty is that this is only a belief and one that the Self
Improvement people are trying to sell to us. Yes friends you can have
it ALL! You can have the MONEY! You can have the TOTALLY HOT
BODY of all times! You can have a love relationship that exceeds the
love of Romeo and Juliet!

The above is what Ego wants and what society is trying to sell to it.
Please stop buying into this. Even if the Ego could acquire these
things it will then need to maintain them or they will be lost.

No matter how well they are maintained and that of course assumes
that one acquires them to begin with, they are destined to perish.
The reason that they are destined to perish is because they are
conditions. Conditions do not unfold. Conditions always collapse in
on themselves.

The Ego is actually the opposite of the Four Principles. The Ego does
not close the gap it creates gap. Ego does not cultivate awareness of
the Unconditioned. It prefers to cultivate awareness of the
Conditioned. The Ego doesn’t attempt to deepen in wisdom and
compassion because it’s too focused on itself to care about others.
The Ego does not trust or rest. The Ego does not unfold it collapses
in on itself as does all other conditions.

Be Willing to Forever Deepen in Wisdom and Compassion

Wisdom and Compassion are both necessary. There cannot be one
without the other. Wisdom relies upon Compassion for a true
understanding and Compassion relies upon Wisdom for a true
expression.

Wisdom without Compassion leads to arrogance and Compassion
without Wisdom has no direction.

Most people seem to favor one over the other. Some find Wisdom
comes more readily than Compassion and others will find the
opposite to be true. Therefore, we focus on that one which does
not come so easily.

If Wisdom comes easily, then focusing on Compassion is most wise. If
Compassion comes easily, then focusing on Wisdom is most
compassionate. This is true simply because we need both together as
one.

A very good example of Wisdom and Compassion being together is
found in the Heart Sutra. In the Heart Sutra there is Avalokiteshvara
Bodhisattva which is the highest emblem of compassion within
Buddhism and the Bodhisattva is speaking about Wisdom.

We would have a tendency to expect an expert on Compassion to
speak about compassion, but it so happens that the Bodhisattva of
Compassion speaks about Wisdom.

It is actually quite natural that the epitome of Compassion would
speak about Wisdom because that is a very compassionate thing to do.

Wisdom and Compassion are not something that we create. They are
qualities of the Unconditioned. Engaging the Unconditioned is to
engage wisdom and compassion. As we Cultivate Awareness of the
Unconditioned, then we are also deepening in Wisdom and Compassion.

Trust and Rest in the Unfolding

Trusting and Resting in the Unfolding is the culmination of the other
three principles. To the degree that we Trust, it is to that degree
that we Rest. The more we Trust, the more we Rest. The more we
Rest, the more we Trust.

Trusting is not based on blind faith. What has caused you to be
interested in Truth itself? That is what you Trust. It is important
to point out how rare it is to attend Satsang. Approximately one
percent of the human population attends Satsang. That means there is
a 99% chance that a person will not attend Satsang and yet you are
attending. How do you explain that? Learn to trust that which brought
you to Satsang.

Do not believe anything. Believing is something we do when we don’t
know. When we know directly then believing is non existent. Believing
is something we use to fill the Gap because the gap is uncomfortable.
It is much better to be honest by saying “I don’t know” then to
insert a belief in order to be more comfortable.

Honesty is a characteristic of the Unconditioned. When we honestly
don’t know then we are much closer than we would be if we inserted a
belief. Believing is an illusion of knowing. Do not settle for
anything less than knowing directly for yourself. Being honest about
not knowing opens the door to knowing. Inserting a belief closes the
door to knowing.

Trusting and Resting are based only on KNOWING. Before you say
that you know nothing, you MUST know something or otherwise you
would not be at Satsang.

~John Taylor

The play of concepts is endless. Concepts about the body, the mind, spirit, universe, cosmos, big bang, small bang, how the world came into being, shiva, shakti, etc. And then there are concepts about concepts, and thoughts about the nature of thoughts! What to do? The questions are thoughts and the answers are thoughts. And thinking about questions and answers requires thoughts. What to do? Nothing to do. The quicksand of concepts entangles one more and more, the more seriously one takes them. It is the stuff of religion, philosophy, spirituality, great writers, great thinkers, great teachers, great leaders, etc. The presumption to understand, teach, and help others to improve themselves reveals the unrelenting grip of the ego. But the ego is not bad. It is something natural. It arises as a natural condition. The wise say, that, "I am the doer" notion is bondage. The real method to self knowledge is simple. To go to the root of the ego or the mind, one needs to become aware of one's complete helplessness. That takes time. That takes spiritual maturity. To feel truly that 'not my will Lord, but thy will be done'. In doing so, the surrender can take place and one can naturally do what one is destined to do. If by Grace, one can bring the awareness upon its own essence, to see and feel its own essential being, that is all that needs to be done. That is all that can be done! In this awareness, one can stare at the originating point of thoughts and feelings and symbols and visions which rise in it, and see itself as the source, not as a thought but as a well of being that perpetually springs forth in itself and dissolves in itself never losing its inherent quality of naturalness, sat-chit-ananda. It is the essence of simplicity. Pure Being. That is what Sri Ramana taught. To be aware of the "I AM" as feeling/awareness. That is the direct practice. To be simply aware of yourself. Spiritual practitioners seek complex and glamorous practices leading to rich experiences and knowledge. This is good as well. All according to one's inclinations. But there are some who have consumed enough knowledge and enough experiences and lose the desire for any of it. Spontaneously, the directness of one's own awareness manifests as one's own self. One's Own Self is the Self of all. One Heart. Same Heart. All Heart.


Harsha

Vicki Doesn't Live Here Anymore (With Apologies to Alice)

I don't live in my mind anymore. I visit there, but only when I fall
asleep. I don't mean on the bed; I mean when I fall into a lower state
of consciousness than awareness. Awareness is my home and it isn't for
sale at any price. I would gladly list my mind but there would be no
takers. Who wants a ramshackle little piece of property that is gray
and divided into lobes. Not much chance of a makeover there.

For Sale by Owner: Dilapidated mind. Needs new roof and synapses. Can
be had for a song (the one that goes through my mind day and night).

I used to think that my mind was smart, even brilliant. Back in the
day it was. But now it can't even remember who's on Larry King Live
after just hearing it promoted thirty seconds ago. And yet it
remembers every injustice it has suffered since birth. And is waiting
to get even. Oh, my mind is a dangerous and stupid place to live. I am
sure there is lead paint on every window sill.

There is one room in my mind that has never been opened. It is called
The Room of Prejudice. Next to it is one with no door at all. It's The
Room of Resentment. It's used so often that one fine day I just took
the door off the hinges and threw it away.

I used to think that the mind was a terrible thing to waste; now I
know better. It's a terrible thing to use if you don't know what you
are doing. The only time you should visit your mind is when you are
accompanied by awareness. Then a very strange thing happens. It
disappears. Just like Judge Crater....just like Amelia Earhart and
Jimmy Hoffa. Just like a warm plate of brownies or clothes at a nude
beach. Gone.

I am not sure why I wrote this essay except out of gratitude for
finally moving upstairs. Of course, the mind still bothers me but I
just knock on the ceiling and tell it to shut the heck up.

~Vicki Woodyard

11 October 2007

Barren of events,
Rich in pretensions
My earthly life.

Obscurity My real name.
Wholly unto myself I exist.

I wrap no soul In my embrace.

No mentor worthy
Of my calibre Have I.

I am all alone
Between failure
And frustration.

I am the red thread Between Nothingness And Eternity.

Sri Chinmoy (Between Nothingness and Eternity)