Give me the Flute

Give me the flute and let me sing,
And through my Soul let music ring;
For music is the heart's great bliss,
From heaven a joy, from God a kiss.
                                                             From 'The Procession' by Kahlil Gibran

Paradise

Photograph (of roses and poker-work picture) by M.M.B

Once in a dream I saw the flowers

That bud and bloom in Paradise;

More fair they are than waking eyes

Have seen in all this world of ours.

And faint the perfume-bearing rose,

And faint the lily on it's stem,

And faint the perfect violet

Compared with them.

I heard the songs of Paradise:

Each bird sat singing in his place;

A tender song so full of grace

It soared like incense to the skies.

Each bird sat singing to his mate

Soft cooing notes among the trees:

The nightingale herself were cold

To such as these.

I saw the fourfold River flow,

And deep it was, with golden sand;

It flowed between a mossy land

With murmured music grave and low.

It hath refreshment for all thirst,

For fainting spirits strength and rest;

Earth holds not such a draught as this 

From east to west.

The Tree of Life stood budding there,

Abundant with its twelvefold fruits;

Eternal sap sustains its roots,

Its shadowing branches fill the air.

Its leaves are healing for the world,

Its fruit the hungry world can feed, 

Sweeter than honey to the taste

And balm indeed.

I saw the gate called Beautiful;

And looked, but scarce could look within;

I saw the golden streets begin,

And outskirts of the glossy pool.

Oh harps, oh crowns of plenteous stars,

Oh green palm branches many-leaved,

Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,

Nor heart conceived.

I hope to see these things again,

But not as once in dreams by night;

To see them with my very sight,

And touch and handle and attain;

To have all Heaven beneath my feet

For narrow way that once they trod;

To have my part with all the saints.

And with my God.

                                                 by Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

                                                                      sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, artist and poet

Ganesha - Om

Even as a mirror of gold, covered by dust, when cleaned well shines again in full splendour, when a man has seen the Truth of the Spirit he is one with him, the aim of his life is fulfilled and he is ever beyond sorrow.
Then the soul of man becomes a lamp by which he finds the Truth of Brahman.  Then he sees God, pure, never born, everlasting; and when he sees God he is free from all bondage.
This is the God whose light illumines all creation, the Creator of all from the beginning.  He was, he is and for ever he shall be.  He is in all and he sees all.
Glory be to that God who is in the fire, who is in the waters, who is in plants and in trees, who is in all things in this vast creation.
Unto that Spirit be glory and glory.

Extract from the Svetasvatara Upanishad, part two.

Heaven - Paradise

" It's a place of peace and quiet where earthly care and struggle, earthly suffering and misery, have no meaning.  It is a land of lovely hills and valleys, of splendid golden cities and smiling faces.
 The light there is not the glaring sunlight that we know.  Rather, it seems to come from everywhere.  It's more like a kind of glow or radiance emanating from everyone and everything.
The air is filled with curious sounds - with music unlike anything ever composed by a human being.  It is the music of nature, speaking in a voice intelligible to all.
We have heard, of course, of the basic 'harmony of nature.'  Now, there you can actually apprehend it, as a glorious music.  Laughter and warmth radiate everywhere.  There is no envy and no struggle for existence, since everyone has what he, or she, had been striving for.  Time does not obtain there in our conception of it, only the everlasting and eternal witness of the power of love.
An essential part of the human substance is imperishable..  We call it the soul.  Death separates the immortal soul from the body to bring it to the higher spheres where it really belongs.
If these higher spheres really exist, I cannot see why dying should be the only way of reaching them.  All that is needed is a tremendous desire and intensity of spirit.  And the power of the spirit is unimaginable.
In the world of peace, which lies in wait for all of us, we have the possibility of creating a state of being susceptible, to a certain extent, to being fashioned by our own wishes.  There we receive guidance and help in reaching the spiritual goals for which we long.  A composer may create a kind of music in the hereafter beyond his scope on earth.  A painter may be able to paint in a way beyond his previous reach.
In time all souls are progressively perfected.  They become able to recognize truths inaccessible to them on a lower level of consciousness.
A person whose life has been directed toward advancing the welfare of his fellow men, rather than solely toward egotistic goals, on the other side will have a better point of departure on the road to ful-fillment.  He will have a head start, so to speak, on a person who has confined himself to cheating, betraying, or perhaps destroying others.
The supernatural world, exactly like the one on earth, is the way we make it.  There no negative influences are found, of course.  Encouragement, inspiration, and wisdom can be absolutely counted on.  In other words, there's nothing to lose, everything to gain."

The three scraps of paper pasted into my scrapbook, contents reproduced above, have no title, no author, no source, no date. I probably snipped them out of a magazine,sometime in the late 1970's, and failed to record the information. 

My Law - Tieme Ranapiri

The sun may be clouded, but ever the sun
Will sweep on it's course till the cycle is run.
And when into chaos the system is hurled
Again shall the Builder reshape a new world.

Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal;
Move on - for your orbit is fixed to your soul
And though it may lead into darkness of night
The torch of the Builder will give it new light.

You were.  You shall be.  Know this while you are;
Your spirit has travelled both long and afar.
It came from the Source, to the Source it returns;
The spark which was lighted eternally burns.

It slept in a jewel.  It leapt in a wave.
It roamed in the forest.  It rose from the grave.
It took on strange garbs for long aeons of years
And now in the soul of yourself It appears.

From body to body your spirit speeds on
It seeks a new form when the old one has gone,
And the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought
On the loom of the Mind from the fibre of Thought.

As dew is drawn upwards, in rain to descend.
Your thoughts drift away and in Destiny blend.
You cannot escape them, for petty or great,
Or evil or noble, they fashion your Fate.

Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow,
Your life will reflect your thoughts of your Now.
My Law is unerring, no blood can atone -
The structure you built you will live in - alone.

From cycle to cycle, through time and through space
Your lives with your longings will eve keep pace,
And all that you ask for, and all you desire
Must come out of bidding, as flame out of fire.

Once list' to that Voice and all tumult is done -
Your life is the life of the Infinite One.
In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause
With love for the purpose and love for the Cause.

You are your own Devil, you are your own God,
You fashioned the paths your footsteps have trod.
And no one can save you from Error or Sin
Until you have harked to the Spirit within.
                                                                                             Anon Maori.

A note in my scrapbook indicates that this was given to me in 1980 by Albert Best after he read it out at a service at Bon Accord SNU Church, Aberdeen.

You Ask Me

You ask me why!
And who!
Do you want to know
The weft and warp of me?
The inside, outside of me?
I tell you now
Of the generations that have spawned me,
Of the centuries that have formed me,
And of the life that has moulded me.

I'm me and you
And him and her,
The whole, the lame,
The innocent,
And those you blame
For all your weals and woes.

I'm black,brown, white, yellow and red,
The rainbow centre of the universe,
The centre and circumference band,
The centre of a grain of sand.
                                                                     R.E.B

Candle Prayer

Lord of Love and Light,
This candle is my acknowledgement of your love and light in me,
In this brief moment I ask for thankfulness the gifts I have received.
Give strength to those for whom I pray.
With the love, light and prayers of your people,
Shed your light in my heart that my prayers may deepen my love for others.
I ask this in the Love and Light of Spirit.
Amen

Paraphrased from a prayer seen in St.Wulfram's Church, Grantham, Lincs.

Where is Heaven ?

Heaven is not a place, but a conciousness of God.  God cannot be thought of as a personality, since God is all and in all.  The Absolute is above and beyond the conception of the finite mind, yet infinitely meek and lowly, filling all space.
 As you emerge into this all-pervading love, the true life becomes manifest and is always the answer to the deepest and highest aspirations of the soul.  It is love fulfilling itself.
 Thank God for now.  Learn first and thoroughly that you have been, and will be, forever.  Your present condition is an opportunity for spiritual advancement.  Make the most and best of your life now.
Begin by obedience to the dictates of the spirit within yourself; it will lead you into truth.  Hold fast to the All-good, the only real.
Every created being must work up and through every necessary phase, evolving from the lowest point of created life.  Often in the deepest darkness of experience, illumination arises, changing the whole aspect and environment.  The soul at once recognises that only through this period of apparent degradation and ignorance can it evolve.
Make the best and the most of every experience, you will thank God for them all.
Every true unselfish life lifts the race nearer the Godhead.
                                                                                                                                                    Anon.

Angel of Power

 

Watercolour by Margaret M. Brownlow

_______________________________

Only when I think the light my soul begins to shine,

Only when my soul does shine, the earth becomes a star,

And when the earth becomes a star,

I am truly man.

Prayer said before group meetings at Camphill.