Welcome Your Guests

Published October 23, 2018 | By shirleytwofeathers

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi

Clouds of Love

Published January 20, 2017 | By shirleytwofeathers

Says Kabir:
the clouds of love have gathered,
raining over me,
my soul soaked within,
green woods around.

Says Kabir:
do not be proud,
seeing your mansion.
tomorrow you will lie beneath the earth,
tufts of grass over you.

Says Kabir:
those who do not love God
know no joy –
like a guest in an empty house,
they come and depart.

Your God dwells within you
like fragrance in the flower,
musk lies within the deer,
yet seeks it afar.

Worlds pass away reading scriptures,
none the wiser.
he who understands the word `Love’
is the wise one.

The Hindu says Ram is supreme
the Muslim, Rahim.
both die fighting each other,
neither knowing the Truth.

Remembering You ever
egoless, I have merged with You.
no more the cycle of births and deaths,
wherever the eye goes I see You.

Brimming with devotion to God I am.
this world tires me no more.
a pitcher once baked, says Kabir,
needs no potter’s wheel again.

– Kabir