Highest aspiration

May we follow our highest aspiration

we can grasp in our awareness

whatever that may be.

If thirst and hunger run strong

then let them hunt their goal.

No call to the higher is heard

if the body does not yet trust the soul.

If desire for prestige, wealth, and power

have arisen, seeing the value of the hoard

Then let them soak up what they're longing

Til they stand amidst abundance, and find bore.

If desire to know and experience

lie in the ashes of the past hungry flame

let it scramble and travel and stumble

grow its mind by exploring the game.

If you realize that experience is filtered

and distorted by the lenses within

look inside then and curiously ponder

the mechanics that steer your ship.

If you touch on the point of reflection

that projects who you are to the world

poke and play with it to become familiar

with that which you have long believed that you are.

If you sink yet behind all your lenses

that have painted the picture of you

stay awhile then and wonder what lies there,

whence comes consciousness, love, and the True.

If the source of the light is ascertained,

even as mind doubts and rebels,

blend your burgeoning theories with practice,

walk the highest hope you can sense.

And if testing, you perchance catch a glimmer

of that same light within you outside,

follow the scent as far as it leads you,

seek the resonance you feel in between.

And if chasing, you find in another

those same lenses, mechanics, and light,

feel the truth of our shared global theatre,

and to recognize it train your sight.

If you grasp the illusion around you,

yet continue to play a separate part,

seek to share what you've reached on to others,

who know not that they too seek the light.

Yet remember their worldly perception

may be still ignorant to their pain,

and remember your arduous uphill

was true only because you held your own rein.

Human frame

This human frame is our legacy,

gifted to us by our parents,

whose gift it once was too.

Each of us the bequeathee

of a biological machine beyond our ken.

Literal spaceships bestowed to us trainee captains,

in order to carry out the will of the unseen.

Within this human frame are also packed

the capacities to feel and to think.

All of us make use of these frameworks;

each of us is strapped tight into the controls.

We fumble and bumble and stumble around,

pulled towards pleasure, adjusted through pain,

at times we lose track of our vehicles,

whose coordination requires practice.

At times we are led astray by

the pitfalls of pride and of shame,

oblivious to the frivolity of the details of the observed

relative to the profound unity

of the underlying Unseen.

We pretend we are somehow masters

of these vehicles we but learn to control,

and suppose ourselves the makers

of these sheaths we hardly understand.

Forgetful explorers of what Is.

The physical tasks must be dealt with

in dense, heavy, spatial form,

yet our fruits lie not in matter,

not in wealth nor fame acquired,

though they may serve as stepping stones

as we realize the nature of desire

and its role in our growth.

The riches become subtler and lighter,

as we shift our focus from feeding our bodies

to feeding our souls.

From refueling the vehicle to enjoying the journey

And learning about What Is

On this field trip we call a life.

We are not the vehicle.

We are not the driver.

We are the schoolchildren.

Decades and centuries and millennia ago,

Human life was essentially the same

as in today's fast internet world.

Our hungers, passions, and fears live still with us,

unchanged constants in our vehicles, despite cultural growth.

And many have yet to learn to steward them consciously,

to be equanimously informed by their true signals,

then choosing with conscious will,

instead of being swept away by their forces,

and resorting to their animal nature, desperate to survive,

which in its desperation, forgets love.

And in lovelessness grow greed and pride,

flourish separativeness, hatred, and blame,

like mold and pests gladly inhabit

a house left sunless and untended.

The homeowner can only tend to it correctly

if he knows, appreciates, and cares for it

with learning, wisdom, and love.

Our legacy, long-trodden,

these vehicles of senses and earth

are not our own triumphs;

they are the products of an ancient craftsmanship

which our minds are but starting to grasp.

They are the instruments that collect experience

given to us so we may grow.

So we may satisfy our thirst

of what it means to be.

Of what it means to choose and feel

a single path within the Ocean,

anchored by the service of

our persistent, ceaseless bodies.

Our aim is not survival,

it is wisdom, grace, and love.

And these, of soul and not of body

cannot be copied, but must be cultivated

into the garden of our being

with the pain and effort of experience

with the tools we craft thereby:

discipline, understanding, discernment,

efficiency, dispassion, clarity, patience.

And with trust, allowed to grow

and to continue the work of the same ancient craftsmanship

to which we ourselves are servants and tools.

Current of Humanity

We the people

are but the myriad sparkling droplets

arisen from the running current

the front of the wave

pushed forward by the momentum

of the river of humanity

since ages long gone.

Some of us leap atop the wave

and see the wave unfolding.

Some of us flow amidst the turmoil of the current

wild and ancient, caught in the strife

with little respite to breathe or to see or choose

the larger unfolding pattern.