Will a Miracle

Will a Miracle

Imagination is unconscious discipline; presence is conscious discipline. ─ The Teacher

The Work is paradoxically about making something out of nothing: taking an earthly organism, a human, and revealing its unworldly, timeless, eternal nature. Artists do a similar miracle all the time because a creative act is also about making something out of nothing.

So rather than sharing an essay this week, I would like to borrow from my friend and fellow student, John Craig, whose poetry bridges this mystical dichotomous journey from no-will to will. The following three poetry selections from his book, The Divan of Divine Presence, provide glimpses on the subject of conscious “will” in resplendent, self-reflective ways.

Practice

When you surrender to God and dissolve the false borders,

the illusion of I relaxes its grip on your throat,

and the Eye and the Crown are lifted on the flood of light

that had been hoarded below. If this is death let me die.

You see, your illusion has built an electrified fence

around its imaginary lands. You call it worry.

You think that fence keeps out the marauders, but its real job

is to keep you unreal, an exile from the mind of God.

But as God is all being, you're included anyway.

Heaven and hell are both in God, but Heaven is conscious

of God's presence and hell is self-absorbed and locked away.

Whatever you want death to be, you must practice it now.

Doing the Work

After a rigorous beginning, it is best to take

a slow, sure pace. Too bright a revelation could kill you.

Rather than the sun all at once, the darkness must be stripped

like putrid bandages that have come to hold back healing.

Your own personality will disgust you more and more.

You will come to see it as one layer on another

of thick varnish devised to hide the cracks and warpages

in your essence, to deflect the terrible attention.

Far better the life of the child still in simple commerce

with the country before time, the noose of pleasing others not yet pulled tight. Better the ready insight not yet thought.

Better the unrestricted pulse of pure feeling, the love.

But it's not enough to let the buried child breathe again.

It is the incarnation, not the real you, not the soul,

and though the realm of innocent delight is dear, there's more

to be undone. Onward to nothing! The real you is God.

The Present Nothing

A promise fulfilled, the opening of a ripe melon –

such is the instant of elevation after the prayer

has come to be loved for itself and is no more a means.

You see, the state arrives when you no longer desire it

because only then is there empty space for it to fill.

Desiring to be close to God is only the first spark

of becoming the purified now, the present nothing.

Be nothing want nothing, nothing: in no time God is here

Join the discussion

(The Divan of Divine Presence is available on Amazon, https://a.co/d/a18XVXa .)

The Birth of Buddha, Freer Gallery, Washington, DC