Have you seen the new page on the blog? It’s called Poems of Devotion (no prizes for guessing what’s on that page).
What you’ll see when you get there!
You are warmly invited to head over there to read and enjoy a poem. Or perhaps two, or seven! The choice is yours.
The page, as you already guessed, seeing right through the extremely obscure title, is dedicated solely to devotional poems I have composed. Many have been written in recent times, though there are some which are, well, no longer the new kids on the block (get it? New kids on the block? New page on the blog? Oh, okay, never mind).
I hope to continue my occasional practice of featuring a poem in a post (perhaps with its story or some other commentary). But, in time, all my devotional poetic pieces will be on the new page.
You are very welcome to visit the page, Poems of Devotion, to read, to contemplate, and if you so wish, copy anything you find there for your own reflections or to share with others.
Love & beauty; What else is there?
I’m grateful that I have come somehow to compose these poems of praise and love. I call it a gift of grace that has been granted me. It is a gift I now ask that I may share with you.
I feel like talking more … Sorry. Start again. It’s not what it seems and, well rather than get into it now, just read on a bit and all shall become clear.
Anyway, there’s an old joke that goes like this: One friend says to another friend: ‘How come you’re always talking to yourself?’ To which the second friend replies: ‘Well, you see, I always like to talk to the most intelligent person in the room, so I look around and usually I find that it’s me. So I end up talking to myself’.
Okay, maybe not so funny. Could be taken as bad manners or rude come to think of it. But that’s how jokes often are isn’t it?
Anyway, and here we get to the little bit of clarity I promised, you’re probably going to remind me that I have often said I would like to talk less, and be quiet more often.
That’s still true, but this is different. You see, lately I’ve been feeling the need to talk more about various aspects of my ‘inner life’. You know the sort of thing: confusions and worries; niggling issues bugging me; that kind of stuff.
And my community hear and experience quite enough of my inner life, with its contradictions, mood swings, and the rest; I have no intention of being more of a burdon than I probably already am.
So, I look around and ask who’s left? Me! Myself! I! Not exactly the most intelligent person in the room, so there the joke breaks down, but it does indeed look like I might end up talking to myself after all.
Well, it’s kind of a yes and no sort of thing. ‘Myself’ is the individual with this mind and body, making these words appear on the screen. It’s the ego self, the me that’s the being who walks, talks, breathes, and … Well you know what else.
But, and this is the brilliant bit, if I separate the words to read My Self, will it’s a whole other story. For a start, Self is not ‘mine’. Self is that part of me that is consciousness; and it’s not a different entity than ‘your’ consciousness, or anyone or anything else’s.
So, if I start talking to this Self that’s actually anyone and everyone, and not just me, who is it that I am in fact talking to?
Sounds to me like I’d be talking to you, and you, and everyone else; to the trees, the birds; everybody!
And yes, that’s exactly right. For me, there is only Self – consciousness – that is indeed anyone, anything, everyone, and everything in the Universe, both seen and unseen.
In other words, I’d be talking to God; the Divine; the Absolute Reality; the Thou Art That described by at least one of the world’s great spiritual traditions.
Which is to say, I want – need – to spend some more time talking to, and in conversation with, God.
Phew. I’m glad I figured that out.
You might remember the prayer I wrote a while ago to the Divine Mother? Seems like a good place to share it with you again.
Occasionally, on this blog, I have had the good fortune to be able to share with you a poem I have written.
I say occasionally because, at best, I am an occasional poet – or rather than take on that label, it’s better to say that sometimes words in some kind of poetic form emerge.
From time to time said poetic emergences could be called devotional. Devotional in the sense that my words seek to express praise, recognition, gratitude or similar sentiments, ideas, thoughts, and so on, directed towards those things I regard as sacred.
That might be ‘God’ in the direct sense that we all would understand right away, or it might be the divine as manifested through objects, people, or other beings in the material or non-material world.
Actually, come to think of it now as I make these notes, I realise that according to that not so short definition, most if not all my poetry has been devotional for quite some time now. Yes. I think that’s right.
Anyway, to get this post moving along a bit. A few days ago, I mentioned to my community, ‘I’ like to write devotional poetry.’
‘You do already,’ was the unanimous response. To which I replied, ‘I suppose so, but I want to sing praises.’
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
And that, my friends, became the title of a poetic effort from me expressing just that exact prayer.
Now I share with you those words that were given me as I ‘just sat’ in our temple.
I WANT TO SING PRAISES
Devotional poetry. That’s what I want to compose. Actually, is there a calling to such composition? Yes, for I do hear the call; it resonates deeply. But, my ego-mind, it’s not listening. Anyway, composing poetry devotional is of the heart; It leaves the mind behind. Looks like one more ‘make the mind your friend’ moment. Praise be all that is.
You know, for all my prayers; for all my mental discipline – efforts at mental discipline – for all my meditations, chanting, and other practices, I still just talk way too much for my liking, and often it feels like it’s only talking for the sake of talking.
I still just open my mouth and let come out any old thing that keeps the noise going. Oh, it’s worse than that: sometimes when I talk it’s rambling and waffling that I cleverly (or not so cleverly) disguise as intelligent, rational, and based logically on knowledge that I either have or haven’t got. Either way, I somehow seem to think I’m offering words of well thought out wisdom.
Whereas, as I said, the noise I make is so often rambling, contradictory , ill-informed, thoughtless waffle.
Enough! Blimey, that’s enough. Talk about opening a post on a calm, relaxed, optimistic, and compassionate note.
Here’s the thing: I want to devote my entire life to devotion and prayer. And that requires at least some silence. Yet, instead, I merely talk about the joys of silence, about the joys of full-on devotion to the divine, and as well I occupy so much time and energy to just voicing random thoughts that come and go, go and come, without rhyme, without reason.
Okay, here’s the second thing: I long with my deepest longing to be silent – to not simply stop talking, though that would be an excellent beginning. No, I want to be quiet; I want my vocal chords to have a break and let my true voice speak through my life, through this blog, my photographs and in whatever way I am lead.
So, what to do? Well, here’s the third thing, thing number three: all I need to do in order to both stop talking so much and be silent is to just sit. Sit and do nothing. There is no thing that I can do that will magically turn me into an oasis of silence and peaceful calm.
Sometime in the dim distant path I read someone paraphrasing The fouth Noble Truth in two words, Just sit. Buddha did indeed know what he was talking about. And I do get the irony: when I talk, I need to say something that helps, not just make noise and try to avoid silence.
I’m rewriting this post after initially making it another two for one thing. One of those two questions had been: ‘What is prayer?’. As in what form can and does prayer take, my prayer that is.
Then I realised that all the thoughts, all the contemplations and reflections I came up with in answer, belonged more correctly in the How question which will be coming in due course.
Which means, that in this post we will be looking at just the one question, which also is only about my own personal prayer life.
What do I pray for?
As it happens, I have already spent a little time on this question in the Why do I pray? post back in November. I think it would be a good start to begin this post with a quote from that one:
‘So,’ you might ask, ‘you pray without any ulterior motive at all? You don’t pray to get things? You don’t pray for healing for others or yourself? You don’t pray for peace and happiness for the world or for yourself? None of these things?’ These are good, valid questions. And the short answer is yes, of course I do. I do pray for healing for others and myself; I do pray for communal and personal peace. As for happiness, well who doesn’t pray in one way or another for a just a little happiness now and again? However, I do draw the line at praying for material things, like money and material objects to possess, none of those kind of things. I believe I don’t pray for such things. I think so anyway.
Now, I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that those two last little sentences are broadcasting a very clear message: Obviously there is some uncertainty in my thoughts about what I actually in fact do pray for.
Somewhere, sometime, recently I wrote to the effect of that there is nothing to pray for, and that there is nobody to do the praying. This, of course is not a notion we can really get to grips with while living in a material body in a material Universe.
It’s nore for those dwelling in some transcendental realm where everything that exists has ceased to exist, and all that remains is pure consciousness.
So, obviously while we continue our existence as embodied beings, living in a material universe, there is much to pray for and there are many of us who do pray. Speaking only for myself personally, I know I could pray more, better, and deeper. As I’ve mentioned many times, my aspiration is to make my entire life – physical, mental, spiritual, – a prayer.
Okay, that’s all very good and fine, but I still haven’t answered the question: What do I pray for?
Well, as I mention in the quoted passages above, I pray for healing and peace for other people, the world, and for myself. I pray for happiness, health, and freedom from suffering for all beings.
But it’s not that I’m directing my prayer to some being up there in some heavenly realm who sits arbitrarily dispensing favours or denying them, and who acts according to the quality and quantity of prayers sent their way.
No, it’s more about, as I talk about in Who do I pray to? the post before this one, directing my attention, thoughts, actions and everything else, to the symbols that represent for me the natural flow of the laws and order of the Universe. Why?
Seeking alignment, I think that’s the best answer. By praying I am seeking to align myself, to put myself in sync with those natural laws, with the flow of that natural order.
Referring to the quote above, the peace and healing I pray for are like affirmations of my desire for that alignment, and that the entirety of Self itself be in alignment. That Self I speak of is of course all that exists in the Universe.
It’s similar when talking about praying for material ‘things’ while remembering too, that healing and peace are also in fact ‘things’ of the material world. Perhaps the best way to put it is to say that it is not the ‘things’ themselves that I pray for. With the risk of sounding like i’m repeating myself, it is correct alignment with all material existence that I am praying for.
Actually, it is more than that now I think about it. My prayer – and my life – is actually about my seeking to properly and fully realise that (to quote the glorious Desiderata:
No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should
We suffer when we label that unfoldig or a person, a thing or event or whatever as good or bad, desirable or undesirable; when we think there is a them and there is a me or an us always separated; when we are compelled to gather possessions and yet still think we never have enough. These are the dualities of material nature.
My prayer is to realise, not just know in my mind, but realise in my heart, that there are no dualities. There is only … Ummm. Well, perhaps that’s it: There is. Only. Nothing else. Only. Is.
Today, a poem for your reading and contemplative pleasure. The title of the poem comes references a verse from the Bhagavad Gita in which Lord Krishna talks about what are acceptable offerings: He tells Arjuna that God, or the Divine will accept even a leaf as an offering of devotion.
So, when I returned to the Hermitage one day recently to find two leaves on the ground at the front gate, I recalled that verse and decided to make of those leaves, just such an offering.
It wouldn’t be quite correct to say that I never get calls or texts on my phone. What would be correct is to say is that the vast majority are to do with what I might call The Bureaucracy: Reminders of Doctor and dentist appointments, notices from various government bodies, library notices; all that kind of thing.
And there is another emerging category that’s actually a lot more welcome: while my partner hermit and I have always phoned each other, lately we’ve been texting more and more as an extra way to communicate with each other.
Sometimes these texts are about the mundane things we all have to do in the world, but then there’s another dimension in which texting allows us to keep in touch with each other’s feelings, thoughts, doings, and simply as a means of keeping the connection open and strong.
The other day, for example, such a text arrived unannounced in my phone. Like some I get from The Bureaucracy, this one was essentially a little series of reminders. But rather than being about the things of the outside world, these ones, in this text, spoke directly and deeply to the enrichment of the inner life – my inner life.
Powerful messages, all of them, that really go to the heart of one’s (my) efforts to live a life more centred on my spiritual quest and my commitment to living more in sync with Absolute Reality.
On first reading of this text (and on each rereading, of which there have been many), I really felt strongly that I needed to contemplate deeply and prayerfully on the pieces of this whole. And, as well, to share my reflections with you.
Sit in your cell as in Paradise
This little – yet tremendous – injunction references an answer to a question posed to Abba Moses, one of the early Desert Fathers:
Go sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.
Essentially Moses’ advice is, remain within the confines of your dwelling place – whatever and wherever form that place takes. This can be a literal geographical location, or even your own body as it moves in the world. We all have a body, we all dwell there.
Sitting in one’s cell is not a simple or passive activity. It is in fact hard work as we wrestle with the mad monkey mind, and attempt to grow spiritually.
So, what about the ‘as in Paradise’ bit? Well, to me this feels very much like thinking of one’s cell as the place to be. What I mean to say is that it’s the only you can possibly be in right now, in the present of the here and now.
It’s not about judgements of is it good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, painful or not. Just acceptance of where youu’re at right now. Doesn’t mean you’re stuck there and by no means suggests you resign yourself to your circumstances. It simply means you see it like it is, at this moment.
And it’s about understanding that, while you are in that place, it’s where you know you need to be. Your cell – your dwelling place – has within it everything you need to live, grow, learn, and prosper in the spiritual life.
Whatever the ‘place’ you are in is like, we can try to cocoon ourselves, make a space within the space, even if it is just being aware of our bodies sitting in the space. Cocoon myself is an expression I’ve been using lately to describe the act of isolating myself in any way I can from my surroundings. This can apply on the macro scale or the micro as we seek to centre ourselves and find quiet and a peaceful place.
It’s not as if in this cocoon (or whatever it might be) that all will be bliss and light all of a sudden. No, I think the suggestion here is we try to develop an attitude of non-attachment towards the things of the world that trouble us, those things that cause us suffering, precisely because we are attached to them.
That is the purpose of sitting in your cell. That is the everything that your cell will teach you.
You know my friends, I’m a bit weary tonight, and with your permission I will continue with this sharing of my contemplation, my reflections, in my next post.
‘Why do you pray?’ I ask myself. It’s not a rhetorical question: I really do want to know; it’s one of those big ‘Who am I?’ kind of questions.
‘I pray because I pray,’ I hear myself answer, sounding as if I am indeed responding to a rhetorical question.
‘So’, one might think (as I well might and sometimes do) ‘you pray without any ulterior motive at all? You don’t pray to get things? You don’t pray for healing for others or yourself? You don’t pray for peace and happiness for the world or yourself? None of these things?’
These are good, valid questions. And the answer is of course I do; of course I pray for healing for others and myself; I do pray for communal and personal peace. And happiness? Well who doesn’t pray in one way or another for happiness?
I do, however draw the line at praying for material things like money and physical objects to possess, that sort of thing. I believe I don’t pray for ‘things’. I think so anyway.
So, what do I mean when I say ‘I pray because I pray’? Well, it’s not so much that it isn’t true, its just that at this moment that praying for praying’s sake isn’t the whole of life activity that I would like it to be. I would say it is a core aspiration that I am working towards.
You see, I want to pray, and to make my whole life a prayer. A prayer of praise and devotion; a prayer of gratitude and loving; and a prayer of service to all living beings.
If that’s the aspiration, then how come I’m still praying for all that other stuff of the world? Healing, peace, happiness, and the rest? How does that work one might ask (as I might and sometimes do ask myself).
Here’s what I’ve figured out so far: I have a strong sense that any prayers or prayerful activities I might make, are like vibrations, or ripples that interact with the vibrations and ripples emanating from countless, infinite even, other beings and from the fabric of the Universe itself.
In other words, not only the ‘created’ Universe, but the consciousness that is the origin and cause of the Universe, which is in reality life and love itself. Prayet is a way, I think, to make manifest an already existent link or union with what the hermits call the ‘Invisible Community’.
For example, if I’m chanting my mantra at any time day or night, I know that there are at least tens of thousands, if not millions of other beings all over the Universe doing exactly the same thing.
What I’m trying to say here is that, until I reach that pure state of making my prayer solely for prayer’s sake, for praise, devotion, gratitude, then it’s okay that I still pray for things that speak of a clinging still to the world (within my own boundaries of course!).
After all, all those creatures in who knows how many worlds and realms, all praying at the same time? There are some very powerful vibrations we’re talking about here.
I’ve been studying and thinking abut Bhakti – the absolute pure love for and devotion to God – for a while now. And, for me, God is all those other living beings and the Universe itself (or better to say, all that exists, which I might add includes me!). So, in that sense praying for healing, for peace, for happiness, well, it’s good for us all.
Reading the other day about the deeper meanings of the word Amen, a memory surfaced.
A memory from the summer of 1971. I was seventeen years old; young yes. I was hitchhiking around Europe, and as for this memory in particular, I was sitting day by day in the Dam Square in Amsterdam.
The memory of which we are speaking involves chanting. One day (or it could have been more), chanting, along with dozens, perhaps hundreds of hippies, freaks, travellers from all over the world, assorted tourists and locals. Chanting Amen. Just like Sidney Poitier sings in Lilies of the Field. Minus all the verses; we chanted the chorus only. Amen. To help get the vibe, just go here.
Anyway, it was a nice memory, a memory of a day (and more) of music in a time of exploration, on the road and trying to be free.
More that that though: experiencing the memory gave me the feeling that that day, in the Square, had included at least a moment of devotion.
Sure, it was likely just one more tune among many sung during those times, but as I think about it now, I sense a distinct vibe of devotion and praise. I recall a sense of a kind of rejoicing in the word itself – Amen.
Anyway, here is the resulting poem. Do look up the chant; and do please join in, add your voice – your own distinct vibration – to the gathered voices.
Amen
DAYS OF AMSTERDAM CHANTING
Once upon a time I hitchhiked to Holland. Another mad attempted escape, trying to leave the madness behind. Amen.
Crashing in the park in the night, beneath a bridge – when it rained, behind the bushes – when it didn’t. Amen.
Squatting in the Square in the day. Sometimes singing days. Dozens of hippies, freaks, travellers, and even a few tourists and locals. Amen.
Many memories of those days remain. Like this one: I was 17, you see, in those days, squatting in the Square – Dam Square. Music in all directions. Truly surround sound. Guitars, bongos, reedy things like flutes and whistles, even a trumpet I can recall. Amen.
Then, a chant erupts, and soon engulfs the gathered. Amen … Amen … Amen, Amen, Amen.
And, now, I’ve joined the chanting, maracas shaking held high, as if in exalted devotion, as I sway to vibration overwhelming. Amen.
This entrancing word, this creative vibration, how long did it linger, permeating the very air I was breathing? Amen.
Memory informs: it was hours. That is to say, it was eternal – or was it a mere moment? Same. Of course, Amen – Om – the vibration of creation was never born, is never changing, always existent. Amen.
Always creating. Always dissolving. Then again creating. Making manifest that which was unmanifest. Amen.
Or, is it a sound and light show? Amen, the word, the vibration, the sound shining a light on what is there already? And what is there already, is all there is. Amen Amen Amen
Today I went on a pilgrimage.Not that I don’t undertake all kinds of little pilgrimages all the time. And even more, it’s not as if my whole life – just like yours and everyone else’s – isn’t one ongoing and continuing pilgrimage.
All true; but this one, today, was embarked upon in what might be called, a classic manner: on foot, to a place of sacred significance, and in a spirit of contemplation of the nature of the journey as well on that which is being pilgrimed too. (I am positive there is no such word!)
In this case, today’s pilgrimage, that place was a church about two and a half kilometres from the hermitage. It’s a place I have visited several time, but today was the first time I set out as a pilgrim and walked in the way and spirit of the pilgrim.
Our Lady of the Rosary is a Catholic church dedicated to the Mother of Jesus in her role as patron of the Holy Rosary, a Catholic way of prayer that has evolved over time and is a key part of the lives of many Catholic people.
Just to the right, just inside the door there is a plain brick wall in which there is a small niche. The niche holds an almost life-size statue of Mary. She stands, hands folded over her chest on which sits the Dove of Peace.
You can see from the photo that the church itself is a lovely, quiet, serene place full of good vibes and nice peaceful energies. The object, however, of my pilgrimage was not the church in itself, but stood just inside the side door accessed through an equally peaceful, fountain centred garden.
I have come to offer her – this form or manifestation of the Divine Mother – the prayer I wrote to her which I hope you saw when I posted it on this blog recently.
I had decided that my pilgrimage vow would be fulfilled once I had knelt at her feet and offered her the words of my heart in prayer.
My reverence for the Divine Mother is well known, and especially in her form as Mary the Mother of Jesus. Or Our Lady as we called her as good little Catholic children way back in the long ago. And I know I have said often that the entirety of the material and non-material cosmos is a manifestation of the Divine.
So, why then a special trip on foot, that I’m labeling a pilgrimage to a specific site, so I can kneel at the feet of a statue that I know perfectly well is made of stone or plaster and is simply a symbol of one aspect of the Divine?
Actually, the question has answered itself. The pilgrimage and my associated actions worded in that question tell us the why.
It is about acknowledging at a heart level and in my own way, that that symbol, that form, is actually representing a particular aspect of the Divine that I revere.
Besides, I’m not the first person who’s knelt at that spot, at Mary’s feet. I don’t know the age of the church, nor do I know the history of that particular statue, but I think we can say for certain that many hundreds, if not thousands of other people have been there where I was and spoken words from their hearts.
Being honest and true now, what I can say is that, as I said to my partner hermit: ‘I feel like i’ve been on a pilgrimage’.
And I do. I’ve walked – praying and chanting – to a sacred place where I have prayed at the feet of the Divine in the form of a likeness of Mary. I feel blessed that I actually got to offer the prayer I wrote to the Divine Mother.
Somehow I feel a link was established. A heart (mine) opened ever so slightly. I acknowledged the Divine, and I sense that I might just be – ever so slightly again! – topped up with a bit of the Grace that is in reality our true state.
Mary in the Garden (enhanced by a fellow Hermit Pilgrim. Thank you)
So, this is the story of my pilgrimage. I was absolutely exhausted when I arrived back at the hermitage. Most likely that was due to the heat, the traffic, and the noise encountered on the way I trod.
But, now I’ve shared this little tale with you, I’m not tired. Anyway, the Way is not always easy, and we are all very well aware of that aren’t we?
Namaste friends. The Divine in me salutes the Divine in you.
It’s a walk to take,
a pilgrimage to make.
Sometime soon.
Said by me long ago, I don’t know when or where. It was one of those ‘You’re a poet and don’t know it’ moments.
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 