The wayfarer who has traveled this ancient journey, who has been burnt in the fire of love’s passion, is remade, reformed from the depths of the soul. Love takes us back to love; love reveals our innermost nature and takes us to where we belong. Once we have awakened to the oneness within the heart, we become immersed in this oneness more and more completely. The inner and outer worlds dance together, the song of the soul becomes the texture of our life, and the deepest meaning of being human resonates within us. The mystical path never ends just as love never ends.
*Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, PhD. Love Is a Fire: The Sufi's Mystical Journey Home.
Your eyes dropped
tears of longing on me,
like oil flowing down clothed me
with the sadness you feel when I say,
if not in word in act,
"My Love, I don't have time."
Once, you said to me,
"Brian, I have the sweetest lips
in the whole world!"
I said, "My Love, I never knew."
"I know, for to taste this sweetest
you must learn to be
still and quiet."
Just started learning about this quietness, this silence of the heart, touching this longing to go there often. I a young professor, behind the little white chapel, on the far side of the lake, no one would see or know me there, no students to teach and no colleagues to converse with. I stand, amidst the wood, silent trees and spacious sky, standing quiet, learning to be still, to say "No" to the hustle and bustle of my world, to honor the deep call to a natural solace, yearning for home, to return home, to be home, to know Love again and again and again... endlessly or more. Now, some twenty years later, after those visits into that wood, behind the chapel and lake...
I am learning, after these many years,
to allow stillness, quietness, to arise.
Almost nothing in my culture encourages
this silent, restful contemplation.
I am home and learning, still, to return and be home.
I am learning no one can give this to me, and
I need not wait for permission, validation, encouragement.
I can let go the messages about doing something else,
anything appearing more profitable than this, that arise.
I am learning at the most unlikely places, like
waiting in a line at the grocery store,
sitting in a vehicle with traffic at stand-still,
standing beside the darkly flowing, silky sheen river,
to welcome this quiet contemplation.
I find, when I seem to reach some bottom to the whirling mind, below the surface of everyday chatter verbal and nonverbal, a Word waits, saying, "Welcome home, my friend."
Then, I am not, though a sense of person arises,
and I do not, for there is nothing to do;
doing being all happening around and in this body,
all a nonpersonal flow, life happening always now.
Here, I am not a person, a mystic, a sage, enlightened, wise;
I am nothing, nobody; unspoken, undenoted, unconnoted.
This is not a holy place or unholy place.
This is not heaven, nirvana, somewhere, nowhere.
Here, I smile, and oft arises, "Thank You, for Love."
Yes, I am still learning
how wonderful
home is.
Which is to say,
I am still learning
how wonderful
Love is.
*All material, unless another source is cited, is authored by the presenter of Lotus of Heart, Brian Kenneth Wilcox, Florida USA. Use of the material is permitted; Brian only requests that credit be given and to be notified at 77ahavah77@gmail.com .
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union, is available through major booksellers.
*Move cursor over pictures for photographer and title.
The Sacred in Me bows
to the Sacred in You
