New Collected (May 16)

The Angel of Death looks like a devil to all but the dying.


Truth is that inexpressible thing which resides somewhere in-between two brilliantly articulated and utterly irreconcilable statements of belief.


For me, "the mysterium" is as real as anything, but not more so. If you believe your visions reflect absolute reality, you're a fool, but if you believe they're empty figments, you're still a fool. Like Keats, I believe the imagination is holy. Like Novalis, I believe the division between poet and philosopher is a mistake and a sign of decadence. The same is true for art, religion, medicine, and science. Until we are all these things, or until we see how we are already these things, we will continue to be fragmented in our views and our expressions. As it is, if you ask a tradesman, you will get a tradesman's perspective, or if a mystic, a mystic's perspective. I myself identify with the mystic who said:

Why think thus O men of piety
I have returned to sobriety
I am neither a Moslem nor a Hindu
I am not Christian, Zoroastrian, nor Jew

I am neither of the West nor the East
Not of the ocean, nor an earthly beast
I am neither a natural wonder
Nor from the stars yonder

Neither flesh of dust, nor wind inspire
Nor water in veins, nor made of fire
I am neither an earthly carpet, nor gems terrestrial
Nor am I confined to Creation, nor the Throne Celestial

Not of ancient promises, nor of future prophecy
Not of hellish anguish, nor of paradisic ecstasy
Neither the progeny of Adam, nor Eve
Nor of the world of heavenly make-believe

My place is the no-place
My image is without face
Neither of body nor the soul
I am of the Divine Whole.

I eliminated duality with joyous laughter
Saw the unity of here and the hereafter
Unity is what I sing, unity is what I speak
Unity is what I know, unity is what I seek

Intoxicated from the chalice of Love
I have lost both worlds below and above
Sole destiny that comes to me
Licentious mendicity

In my whole life, even if once
Forgot His name even per chance
For that hour spent, for such moment
I’d give my life, and thus repent

Beloved Master, Shams-e Tabrizi
In this world with Love I’m so drunk
The path of Love isn’t easy
I am shipwrecked and must be sunk.

Rumi


Who can read Whitman, and not write? Who can be still for a moment, and not be deeply stirred? Here is the sigil and signet of health; a mind rooted in the bedrock of body; a body rising straight into a smile. Here is blood breezing through veins, and every hair perking up to meet the sun. Give me again the voice of that poet who neither mocks nor makes arguments, but witnesses, and waits; as he says.


One cannot question the deepest assumptions,
the ones rooted in the minds of the greatest number of men,
without being labelled an egotist.


Reality is not an example for some more general idea.
Realities are not examples. Realities are themselves.
Reality is itself. There are no laws, really.


The greatest leaders cannot lead.
Their followers have yet to be born.


Most people would rather laugh at,
than listen to, a new idea.


I do not affirm all that I say,
though I affirm the saying of it;
only a few ideas are close to me,
but there are many I have a care for.


It is one thing to make an argument,
another thing to make a case.


You can receive higher intelligence without preparation,
but it will inevitably disorient you for a time.


Knowing something isn't the same as KNOWING something.
Mostly, we're content to pollish a small circle in the glass,
and peer through it, like children spying through a keyhole.


Forgive my faults,
though they are many,
and receive my favors,
for they are more.


The teaching is: "Be Present"
But you cannot be present to everything.
Only to THIS.


When you pluck the beam
that shadows the "I":
Love is bind.


Understanding isn't difficult. Like all illusions, it's easy, just as long as you don't mind that it's an illusion. But it's harder to admit that you don't understand, -- that you can't possibly understand; not in a million years. That takes guts.


A sage is enlightened by the words of a fool,
but a fool is confused by the words of a sage.


Genius is the fruit of self-absorption; authentic self-absorption. Having considered the minds of great thinkers, I've found they have only this one thing in common: they are all turned inward on themselves.


You have to love Dostoyevski, that rambling, boiling, barrelling genius. The characters he created are fuller, and more interesting, than many of the people you meet. And so many of them, like their creator, burn with a heart on fire, anxious, not for salvation, but for sainthood.


If I love only the ones closest to me, let me gather everyone into my heart.


I don't think I'm above them. I just think their ceiling is my floor.


Can we fix our hearts on a single object, person, or ideal? Perhaps. But can we fix them on the Whole? How do we fix them? Where do we drive the nails? Who wants to hang on the cross?


Where God ends, the true religious life of man begins. God has done His part, so that we may do ours. He is incomplete, so that we may choose either to curse Him, or to get on with the business of living and healing one another. We blame God until we learn to take responsibility for the things we wrongly believe to be His concerns. Our real gripe is not with our Creator, but with ourselves. When we do what we think God should've done, there's nothing left undone, and nothing left to do.