photos from my flower collection 
…
Don’t plant anything but love
Every leaf that grows will tell you, what you sow will bear fruit. So if you have any sense, my friend, don’t plant anything but love, you show your worth by what you seek. – Rumi
Here is the second in the photography series, Say I am you. I don’t know how many of you read Rumi, I find his poems irresistible and this one in particular. Rumi’s poems elegantly and consistently touch our inner being and inspire us to go beyond our limitations towards the Divine. He is expressing once more in this poem how he is in everything, and everything is in him. He ends with these few words, “Jelaluddin, You the one in all, say who I am. Say I am You.”
SAY I AM YOU
I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.
To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.
I am morning mist,
and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove,
and surf on the cliff.
Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.
I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.
The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of a stone, a flickering
in metal. Both candle,
and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale
lost in the fragrance.
I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift,
and the falling away. What is,
and what isn’t. You who know
Jelaluddin, You the one
in all, say who
I am. Say I
am You.
~rumi
The poem “I am You” to soothing but apt music. Heavenly!
The photographs here are from my Indian Collection.
Visits 2012 and 2013. thank you!
Just saying: 
My thoughts for today were about weeding the garden but instead, and after a thorough search on my blogs followers, I am beginning to question the authenticity of my followers. I wish I could WEED some of them from my blog. I have well over a thousand, yet I only hear from a handful of those! Now something is dreadfully wrong here! My blog is over four years old, thus, I suspect, most of the original followers have long since left blogging. ( Makes sense due to the fast pace of today’s lifestyles. ) Then why can’t I delete them? A question I should be asking “The Happiness Word Press Team”, I suppose. Then there are those that follow and “like”, but never comment. How can anyone like a post, almost each and every one, and not comment? Beats me! I would like to suggest that there are fake “likers”, and “speedy likers”, who are hoping you will “like” them back. This is not really blogging is it? I had hoped blogging was about sharing like-minded interests and building a blogging community. Am I wrong?
The idiots Guide To blogging says:
Blogging Rules and Etiquette
Your blog is your own space on the web, and depending on your goals, you can publish the type of content you want and not publish the type of content you don’t want. That’s where blog policies come into the picture. Policies are intended to protect you and your audience as well as set expectations about the type of content that will or will not be published on your blog.
Comment Policy
As your blog grows and your posts receive more and more comments, you’ll undoubtedly receive comments you don’t want to publish on your blog or that require minor editing before you’ll publish them. For example, hateful comments that attack individuals usually aren’t welcome on blogs, and comments that include obscenities could be offensive. Similarly, comments that might be spam can hurt the user experience on your blog and should be deleted.
A comment policy allows you to define what types of comments you will delete or edit using the comment moderation tools in your account. Your comment policy also protects you, so you can refer visitors whose comments are edited or deleted to your established policy to understand why their comments were revised or not published at all.
After reading Maureen McCabe’s post, “ActiveRain – Saying Nothing At all”, I became aware of the discussion revolving around leaving GPTFS (Great Post, Thanks For Sharing) comments on a post. Is there value for anyone in doing it? Personally, I believe there is value, but that is because I think compliments are gifts. However, it did make me think — how can I write better comments myself ? I came across some good, basic advice from Meredith Farkas — 31 Day Comment Challenge. She is “Head of Instructional Initiatives” at Norwich University (VT) and teaches a class on blogging.
http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/
Comments should be as below listed. The point is most people do not receive comments or if they do, they are few and far between.
1) Relevant to the post 2) Thoughtful and insightful 3) Use your unique voice 4) Keep it civil 5) Make it short and readable, but also meaningful.
Her own personal, reflective thoughts and commitment to commenting
1) Commenting is a critical component of community-building in the blogosphere.
2) I feel more connected to others when I comment. ~ (My thoughts exactly)
3) I take commenting very seriously and that’s ok.
4) Never comment when you’re angry or frustrated. (errrr well, my mistake sometimes)
5) I need to be better about responding to comments. (Yes indeed, we all should)
Good thoughts to remember. In the future, I will try to keep her points in mind, but if I should ever slip up and just pay you a simple compliment — don’t deduct points from me. 🙂
Humour is always a great way to end on, so here’s a song and a poem. 🙂 ( I wish you all a happy blogging Sunday. 🙂 )
..
Could Be A Bloggers Lament? Smile. 🙂
…
Sometime when you’re feeling important;
Sometime when your ego’s in bloom
Sometime when you take it for granted
You’re the best qualified in the room,
Sometime when you feel that your going
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these simple instructions
And see how they humble your soul;
Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining
Is a measure of how you will be missed.
You can splash all you wish when you enter,
You may stir up the water galore,
But stop and you’ll find that in no time
It looks quite the same as before.
The moral of this quaint example
Is do just the best that you can,
Be proud of yourself but remember,
There’s no indispensable man. –
— Saxon N. White Kessinger, Copyright 1959
Any thoughts on this topic? Merci –
The post is sticky for now. By making the post sticky, I feel, it gives an opportunity to new bloggers to get acquainted with the ups and downs of the blogoshere. There are also a number of very interesting comments posted by others on this topic. Do read. thank you.
…
Next week, I will be on holiday and far away from the computer. Gosh! I need a break, time away to relax and indulge myself in photography. I leave you with this post on Truth as seen by several ancient women poets whom I admire greatly. Hoping you will all enjoy this post as much as I did writing it. I do enjoy comments, if only a one liner once in a while. They provide me with valuable feedback, without them, I am lost to know what to write and publish here. Here we go with my last post for a while.
I
n every spiritual tradition, the same truth appears: I am sure you have all noticed that at some time or another. Writing on spiritual matters as I do, I honestly can say, there are as many paths to the divine as there are people.
While it is necessary to undertake specific practices in spiritual life – prayer or meditation, the vows of right behaviour and right speech, all the many paths that lead to “being awake and aware at the core of our being” – such practices do not create anything that was not there from the beginning. They only open the door to what is already present within us. We do not pray or meditate or engage in good works in order to reach a goal or to become some way “better,” but because these activities are the fundamental expression of the heart freed of the distortions of ego and dualistic thinking. Nothing we do can bring the Sacred into existence and nothing we do can destroy it: this is the message the mystics have always brought to us.
What follows in this post are several poems from different traditions and different times – all from women, yet each points to this idea of the hidden treasure of Truth that does not change.
…
The first poem is from Lalla Ded, a fourteenth-century Kashmiri poet. she was also a mystic of the Kashmiri Shaivite Sect. She wrote many devotional and mystic poems, expressing her longing for the Divine.
…
I was passionate,
filled with longing,
I searched far and wide.
But the day that the Truthful One
found me,
I was at home.
…
Deep in my looking,
the last words vanished.
Joyous and silent,
the waking that met me there.
– Lalla Ded
…
Sun Bu-er (1124?) was the most famous woman teacher of Chinese Taoism. She began spiritual practice only at the age of fifty-one, when after raising three children to adulthood, she and her husband undertook study of the Way. Each became a fully realized being and teacher, and SunBu-er left behind a number of Taoist treatises and poems.
…
Cut brambles long enough,
Sprout after sprout,
And the lotus will bloom
Of its own accord:
Already waiting in the clearing,
The single image of light.
The day you see this,
That day you will become it.
-Sun Bu-er
Interestingly, the inner sacred is almost never desribed as residing in a temple, but as being at home, kept from public view behind closed doors, in the inmost rooms of the self. Here is one example of such a poem, by the Sufi saint Rabi’a (717-801), a freed salve who lived in the simplest of huts on the outskirts of Basra, in what is now Iraq.
…
O my Lord,
the stars glitter
and the eyes of men are closed.
Kings have locked their doors
and each lover is alone with his love.
Here, I am alone with You.
-Rabia al Adawiyya
…
…
…
From an early age Mirabai felt an irresistible attraction and devotion to Sri Krishna. As a young child she was given a Krisha doll, which she worshipped as if it embodied the living presence of Him. Although people misunderstood her, she considered Krishna to be both her best friend, lover and husband. Swami Sivananda said of Mirabai ‘It is extremely difficult to find a parallel to this wonderful personality – Mira – a saint, a philosopher, a poet and a sage. She was a versatile genius and a magnanimous soul. Her life has a singular charm, with extraordinary beauty and marvel.’
…
That dark Dweller in Braj
Is my only refuge.
O my companion,
Worldly comfort is an illusion,
As soon you get it, it goes.
I have chosen the Indestructible for my refuge,
Him whom the snake of death
Will not devour.
My Beloved dwells in my heart,
I have actually seen that Abode of Joy.
Mira’s Lord is Hari, the Indestructible.
My Lord, I have taken refuge with Thee,
Thy slave.
– Mirabai
Wouldst thou know my meaning?
Lie down in the Fire
See and taste the Flowing
Godhead through thy being;
Feel the Holy Spirit
Moving and compelling
Thee within the Flowing
Fire and Light of God.
—Mechthild of Magdeburg, born 1210? – 1297?
The Flowing Light of the Godhead 6.29
When speaking of Mechthild Of Mechthild, we struggle in vain to compose any image at all. She was only “Mechthild” not “Saint Mechthild” or even “Blessed Mechthild”, and she had no official biographer. We know almost nothing about her except what she tells us in her own book, and that is only enough to let us sketch the roughest outlines of her life. Here are just a few more poems from this delightful soul. She is speaking again of the ‘Lord of the Dance’ who resides in her own soul. This will be my last post on the topic of Christian Mysticism for now.
…
“SOUL: Ah, Lord, love me passionately, love me often, and love me long. For the more passionately you love me, the purer I shall become. The more often you love me, the more beautiful I shall become. The longer you love me, the holier I shall become here on earth.
GOD: That I love you passionately comes from my nature, for I am love itself. That I love you often comes from my desire, for I desire to be loved passionately. That I love you long comes from my being eternal, for I am without end and without a beginning.”
– Mechtild of Magdeburg
…
The sweet dew of the eternal Trinity gushed forth from the fountain of the everlasting Godhead into the flower of the chosen maid [Mary]; and the fruit of the flower is an immortal God and a mortal man and a living hope of eternal life. And our Redeemer became a Bridegroom. The bride became exhilarated at the sight of his noble countenance.
Under this immense force she loses herself.
In this dazzling light she becomes blind in herself.
And in this utter blindness she sees most clearly.
In this pure clarity she is both dead and living.
The longer she is dead, the more blissfully she lives.
The more blissfully she lives, the more she experiences.
The less she becomes, the more flows from her.
The richer she becomes, the poorer she is.
The deeper she dwells, the more she expands.
The deeper her wounds become, the more violently she struggles.
The more loving God is to her, the higher she soars.
The more radiantly she shines in the reflected effulgence of the Godhead, the closer she approaches him.
The more she labours, the more contentedly she rests.
The more quiet her silence, the louder she calls.
The more his desire grows, the more extravagant their wedding celebration becomes.
The narrower the bed of love becomes, the more intense are the embraces.
The sweeter the kisses on the mouth, the more lovingly they gaze at each other.
The greater the distress in which they part, the more he bestows upon her.
The more she consumes, the more she has.
The more humbly she takes her leave, the sooner she returns.
The more ardent she remains, the sooner she bursts into flame.
The more she burns, the more beautifully she glows.
The more God’s praise is spread abroad, the greater her desire becomes.
Tell me where did the Redeemer become the Bridegroom?”
Pretty intense! What an extraordinary visionary she was. If that isn’t making love to God, I don’t know what is! Sexuality and spirituality, body and soul as one. – J.M.
…
Wonderful you tube sharing a short bio
on – Mechtild of Magdeburg.
Delightful website offering Christian Saint Icons.
photo taken during 2007 in the foyer of the Leela Palace Hotel, Bangalore.
…
Marvin Barrett writes ‘Death is the experience of the light. Prayer is the rehearsal for death.’ I like that. It turns things around to a way of thinking that is not usual. I like unusual ideas. They have me thinking more deeply about the meaning of life, light and prayer.
..
Short excerpt from Marvin Barrett’s article ‘Beyond The Curtain’.
“I have had several experiences of the light in my relatively long lifetime. At first, at age five, followed by an accident I had while playing in the snow. I don’t quite remember what happened, but I fractured my skull and was, for a while, given up for dead. When I regained consciousness, there was, directly above me, a circle of heads and beyond them, the light. The doctors stayed by my side, busy, concerned, drawing me in their various ways, back to life. The light faded but not the memory of it.
…
The next occasion was in early twenties when, as a young naval officer, I experienced a religious conversion and was instantly blinded by a light that was inexplicable, consuming, thus confirming the convictions that were falling into place. Again, it flashed out, but it’s sustaining memory was indelible.
…
My last experience with the light, and I expect my penultimate experience of the light, was, as with my first, part of my losing consciousness. That time, as before in my child-hood experience, associated clearly with the proximity of death and for that reason, strangely life-enhancing, illuminating a view of the ever-present future which has lasted me for, so far, two decades..
…Meanwhile, I refresh the memory and preserve the reality of the light by prayer. ”
…
….
ANTHEM OF LIGHT
…
O Light Invisible, we praise Thee!
Too bright for mortal vision.
O Greater Light, we praise Thee for the less;
The eastern light our spires touch at morning,
The light that slants upon our western doors at evening,
The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight,
Moon light and star light, owl and moth light,
Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade.
O Light Invisible, we worship Thee!
~ T S Eliot, ‘Choruses From The Rock’
Children Of Light 