Just about to open my tablet to retrieve an email I’d sent myself a day or two ago with a prayer attached that I’d found in a book.

But I stopped: I felt, no, no need to transcribe that prayer; I sense some words of my own that are struggling to emerge (actually paraphrasing a very vague sense and direction here; I rarely think – or speak – in such a formal way). So, I left my tablet and reached for my notebook instead

So, what emerged? Well, it’s a prayer and it’s a poem. It’s a prayer or a poem, Either or, and both. In any case, here is the first draft – I only got these words down on paper a half hour ago.

Words from my heart to my heart. A prayer to my Self, a prayer to all that is. And it’s a poem too, remember!
So, now I share this prayer (or poem?) with you.

I am, you are, we are.

Thou art that

MY LORD, WHAT SHALL BE MY PRAYER?

My Lord, what shall be my prayer?
Oh, where even to begin.

There are painful fragments from the past,
fear-fuelled fantasies of the future.
None of them real. None of them mine.
The mind only controls.
Yet clinging to them haunts me.

I aspire to monkhood, to the hermit life.
Yet to desires of many kinds I am attached.

I long to be absorbed in Bhakti;
I long to worship, to praise, and to celebrate All
Ceaseless prayer I aspire to,
to be absorbed in communion.
Yet again the ego-mind
fills me with reason’s illusions
and endless words of the world.
I am barricaded, from You.

I strive to remember who I am;
to recall who You are.
Within the words of this prayer lies that memory:
I am. You are.
Thou Art That.