Then the Lord said, Speak frequently upon these things….
1, 3 September 2007 at 3:38 pm
· Filed under Love
This poem also appears at http://dharmainafrica.blogspot.com/
I have never been to Africa
But I have felt its hot red wind
Like the caress of a mother
Whose wrath has been pinned
By the light of the Buddha
Round a child who has sinned
I have never seen the rise
Of the sun on the veldt
But I’ve been in the desert
Where the land has lost its pelt
And the footfall of prophets
On the sand can still be felt
I have never been abandoned
No I’ve never been alone
Since those days when I would ponder
On the meaning of a stone
Through all these days wherein to wander
With You, my Lord without a throne.
No I’ve never been abandoned
And I’ve felt Your hot red breeze
And I’ve known Your hand upon me
Like a voice that says, “At ease”
Or a guarantee of passage
Through a swarm of angry bees.
No I’ve never been to Africa
Nor sat there in that shade
That You’ve set up in the leeside
Of the temple that they made
Where the master sips his tea
And the debt of sin is paid.
But I send there all my loving
And I send there all my care
As we walk upon the dune ridge
With the One who’s always there
And we set the bees a-sleeping
In the comfort of His hair.
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dwaraka wrote @ 1, 6 September 2007 at 8:43 am
Whatever we do, we should remember one thing:
out of fear we are not going to grow; we will only shrink and die.
Fear is in the service of death.
Mahavira is right. He makes fearlessness the fundamental of a religious person,
and I can understand what he means by fearlessness - that means dropping all armor.
A fearless person has everything that life wants to give to him/her as a gift.
Now there is no barrier: we will be showered with gifts, and whatever we will be doing we will have a strength, a power, a certainty,
a tremendous feeling of authority.
Yes, this is all well and good, and I appreciate your good intention. However, nobody can be fearless. To be fearless is to be God and we are not God and to pretend is no good. If fearlessness is the criterion of being a religious person then, I am afraid, there are none. Were we fearless we would have no need of God or Buddha. Is it not better to be what we are, just as we are, and know that we are loved as we are, than to “compound delusion by following ideals” (Sandokai)? We are “showered with gifts” anyway and who needs power of their own when the Lord hears the call of the meek while the mighty have their reward, such as it is, already.
I have never been abandoned
I have never been alone
For in solicitude She holds me
Though I fear, though I moan
Though I quake in inward terror
Still I know She’ll guide me home.
For She knows me in my darkness
In the core of what I be
And she holds me in my weakness
In my blindness let’s me see
That it’s mainly through my darkness
That She finds her way to me.
So Mother will You hold me
When I call into the night
Yes, I know, I know You’ll hold me
When I need to be held tight
For Your breath comes as a sweet free gift
And never as a right.
Ben Le wrote @ 1, 18 September 2007 at 9:03 am
*Red is not only the colour of blood.*
You say you have never been to Africa,
But Africa knows you.
You are in her heart
And she, in yours.
As the Light shines
without obstructions,
it nurtures the seeds
of Africa in our hearts.
You will see the sunset,
Bathing the highveldt
The colour of your robes,
As red as blood,
But bolder, giving life,
Not as life seeping away.
He is always present,
In every blade of grass
And stump of every tree
*And* in every gun,
And in every Rand
Over which we fight.
We bathe in His Light,
Whenever we say His name.
So whenever you say His name,
And I say His name,
And my Master says His name,
We are saying it together.
And He is there,
He is here.
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