threshold

Anyone who has probed the inner life,
who has sat in silence long enough to experience
the stillness of the mind behind its apparent noise,
is faced with a mystery.

Apart from all the outer attractions of life in the world,
there exists at the center of human consciousness
something quite satisfying and beautiful in itself,
a beauty without features.

The mystery is not so much that these two dimensions exist -
an outer world and the mystery of the inner world -
but that we are suspended between them,
as a space in which both worlds meet . . .
as if the human being is the meeting point,
the threshold between two worlds.







Kabir Helminski
The Knowing Heart
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Entrance

Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.





Rainer Maria Rilke
Translation:  Dana Gioia
Photo:  Peter Bowers

One being inside all

Lovers, it is time
for the taste of fire.

Let sadness and your fears of death
sit in the corner and sulk.

The sky itself reels with love.
There is one being inside
all of us, one peace.

Poet, let every word tremble its wind bell.
Saddle the horse with great anticipation.

Flute notes are calling us into friendship.
Begin again.  Play the melody
all the way through this time.

Sun-presence floods over.
Quietness is an empty cup.

Accept that you
must hide your secret.










Rumi
Translation:  Coleman Barks
Photo:  Peter Bowers

It Depends On You

If in your heart you make
a manger for Love's birth,
Then God will once again
become a child on earth.

Angelus Silesius
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Lighting of the Candle

Jyoti Jyoti Jyoti Swayam

Jyoti Jyoti Jyoti Param

Jyoti Jyoti Jyoti Arul

Jyoti Jyoti Jyoti Sivam

Vaama Jyoti Soma Jyoti

Vaana Jyoti Jnaana Jyoti

Maaha Jyoti Yoga Jyoti

Vaata Jyoti Naada Jyoti

Ema Jyoti Vyoma Jyoti

Eru Jyoti Veeru Jyoti

Eka Jyoti Eka Jyoti

Eka Jyoti Jyotiye

Light O Light of Self-Effulgence

Light O Light of Absoluteness

Light O Light of Gracefulness

Light O Light of Auspiciousness

Light of Siva, Light of Moon

Light Divine, Light of Wisdom

Light of Heaven, Light of Yoga

Light of Wind, Light of Sound

Light Delight, Light of Water

Rising Light, Vital Light

The Only Light, The Only Light

Give us Light, O Light of Lights

Arati Chant

Annuniciation

Even if I don’t see it again—nor ever feel it
I know it is—and that if once it hailed me
it ever does—
And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction
not as towards a place, but it was a tilting
within myself,
as one turns a mirror to flash the light to where
it isn’t—I was blinded like that—and swam
in what shone at me
only able to endure it by being no one and so
specifically myself I thought I’d die
from being loved like that.





Marie Howe
Photo:  Peter Bowers

the one guest

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth -
it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it's you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.





Rainer Maria Rilke
Book of Hours
Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
Photo: Peter Bowers

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety -

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light -
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.





Mary Oliver
Photo:  Peter Bowers