Change

July 20, 2011

There is nothing so urgent as the need for change,

But how to change the formed and crystallized ind,

The body with its habits learned ere birth,

Desires that intrude upon the calm

That seeks to enter or from depths within

Would guide by spirit-force this errant life.

Man wakes to realize his ignorance,

Reads treatises and texts to find a way

To lead his being to a higher life,

Or finding empty all religion's laws

Her dicta and her endless certainties,

Turns away from tired, well-worn paths

To seek within himself the living truth.

No longer does he wish the great escape,

The heavenly reward, abandoning earth,

Or some nirvanic state, the body left

To wither as dried fruit upon the vine.

No intermediary he would find

To navigate for him the vast unknown

But by his lonely self ascend to God.

This does he understand, that deep within

In an unexplored region of the heart

Lies the answer to his spirit's dream,

Aware, while he asleep moves through life

A puppet or automaton of fate

Who seeks for answers he already knows.

How hen to break the mould of centuries

Yet keep intact this shell which he informs.

Is there a light to illumine the dark below,

Within, a fire, a flame unquenchable

That burns eternally in mortal clay.

For One he seeks from whom he cannot flee

Or hide no longer in the guise of form

Or would outrun to save the life he loved

And yet would leave when something in him stirred.

Dissatisfied, unsettled and alive

He turns within to his eternal quest

And meets at last the warrior of time,

His hidden soul the godhead to reveal.

And thus, intrepid traveller by faith,

An uncompromising vision of himself

Exposing all that shuns the path of change,

Begins anew the climb from peak to peak

And suffers all experience to grow

Into the One he glimpses from afar,

And nothing shall his questing spirit stay

For finding That he through the ages sought,

Birth and death but milestones on the way.

He shall not cease for joy within him now

Accelerates his search as peace and calm

Support his slow and still unknowing steps.

Knowledge comes infused with sudden light

And gratitude, companion of the Way

Accompany his soul's great ascent

As there leans down to lift him higher still,

While choirs sing in rapture's tones the OM,

The hand of God who now on mortal soil

Blesses and sanctifies this suffering earth

That beauty once again be worshipped here

And man transformed become God's instrument,

With peace and love all contraries unite

This world, the sanctioned home of the Supreme.