f you don't break your ropes while you're alive, do you think ghosts will do it after? What is found now is found then. If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the city of death."

"What had death and a thick body dances before what has no thick body and no death. The trumpet says: 'I am you.' The spiritual master arrives and bows down to the beginning student. Try to live to see this!"

-- Songs of Kabir

hus revering the soul, and learning, as the ancient said, that "its beauty is immense," man will come to see that the world is the perennial miracle which the soul worketh, and be less astonished at particular wonders; he will learn that there is no profane history; that all history is sacred, that the universe is represented in an atom, in a moment of time. He will weave no longer a spotted life of shreds and patches, but he will live with a divine unity. He will cease from what is base and frivolous in his life and be content with all places and with any service he can render. He will calmly front the morrow in the negligency of that trust which carries God with it and so hath already the whole future in the bottom of the heart.

-- The Oversoul

Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.

Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.

I felt a cleaving in my mind
As if my brain had split;
I tried to match it, seam by seam,
But could not make them fit.

The thought behind I strove to join
Unto the thought before,
But sequence ravelled out of reach
Like balls upon a floor.

                           --The Complete Works
                               of Emily Dickenson

When you see yourself
and someone else
as one being,
when you know the most joyful day
and the most terrible night as one moment,
then awareness is alone with it's Lord.

Fearful, always-moving mind,
the One who has no beginning
is thinking of how hunger
may fall away from you.
No ritual, no religion, is needed.
Just cry out one unobstructed cry.

I wearied myself searching for the Friend
with efforts beyond my strength.
I came to the door and saw how powerfully the locks were bolted.
And the longing in me became that strong,
and then I saw I was gazing from within the presence.
With that waiting, and in giving up all trying,
only then did Lalla flow out from where I knelt.

Everything is new now for me.
My mind is new, the moon, the sun.
The whole world looks rinsed with water,
washed in the rain of I AM THAT.
Lalla leaps and dances inside the energy
that created and sustains the universe.


                                                   --Naked Song
                                      14th century Kashmir

Be still, O Soul, and know. Look unto the One and be illumined.
Rejoice and be glad, for thy Spirit lights the way.
Life up thine eyes and behold Him, for He is fair to look upon.

Listen for His voice, for He will tell thee of marvelous things.
Receive Him, for in His presence there is peace.
Embrace Him, for He is thy Lover.

Let Him tarry with thee, that thou mayest not be lonely.
Take council from Him, for He is wise.
Learn from Him, for He knows.

Be still in His presence and rejoice in His Love forevermore.