The Great Mystery

Around one question, my life orbits,
It's gravity pulls me against life's inertia,
Always near, however far I wander,
For the mundane questions of my daily life,
Only Dance like melodies upon this Chord…

“What is this, to be Alive?”

My Soul spoke it when I emerged,
From the womb's darkness and warmth,
Into the cold light of manifest existence,
And I shuddered in shock and awe,
As space, time, and objects appeared…

What happened?
Where am I?
What is this?
What is this feeling,
Of existing as “something”?

There was no time… and then there was.
There was no space… and then there was.
I existed, unaware of myself and other,
But then, suddenly, found “myself” a thing alive,
An object, among countless others…

What happened?
Where am I?
What is this?
What is this feeling,
Of existing in a Dream of dualities?

Whence I began, I do not remember,
When This will end, I cannot foresee,
What I am, is beyond my mind's grasp,
As I am carried along, overwhelmed,
In the River of manifest experience.

What happened?
Where am I?
What is this?
What is this feeling,
Of Fathomless Mystery?

Most who give thought to The Question,
Accept what they are told by others,
Building walls of “knowledge” and “belief”,
Taking refuge in articles of faith, unprovable,
To keep The Wilderness of Unknowing at bay…

What happened?
Where am I?
What is this?
What is this feeling,
Of existing, isolated and alone.

But The Question haunted me,
Ever present, as I enjoyed the pleasures,
Of embodiment in space and time,
And lost myself in the dream of selfhood,
It whispered, during my agonies and ecstasies…

What happened?
Where am I?
What is this?
What is this feeling,
Of existing as “someone”.

At thirty-one The Question drove me fiercely,
In search of the Experience I had Known,
Before the swinging of duality's pendulum,
Before I tasted that BitterSweet Apple,
And wandered from The Garden, gasping…

What happened?
Where am I?
What is this?
What is this feeling of existing,
As a stranger in a strange land?

Journeying Within, I found Eden once more,
In the Absolute Vanishing of All dualities,
In the Perfection of Nonexistent Existence,
As That which Exists before the “I” in “I Am”,
An Ecstasy, a Rapture, beyond expression.

But returning to the experience of duality,
The mind returned, more confounded than ever,
For I had no knowledge, still, of “truth” or “reality”,
But only a second Question, heaped upon the first,
Possessing me from that day forward…

What happened?
What was that Experience of Existing,
In which I, the experiencer, did not exist,
Whose Nature was, as the master said,
The Kingdom of Heaven, Within?

And when I discovered that The Beloved,
Had Returned with me from Heaven,
And taken up Residence in my Heart of Hearts,
I had no knowledge, still, of “what” She was,
But gained only a third Question…

What has happened?
What is this Love, Absolute, without opposite,
This Fullness, Completion, and Ecstasy,
This touch of Heaven's Incomprehensible Rapture,
Here, in this Dream of manifest experience?

Now, at seventy, I remain a Simple man,
Without “knowledge” or “understanding”,
Of the Mystery that I Am, before “I” am,
Of the what, when, where, why, and how,
But hear… in each moment… the Call to Prayer…

What was that Nonexistent Existence,
That Fulfillment of the Heart's Desire?
What is this enduring Experience of Grace,
This Radiant Presence, Within?
What… is… This?

In all these many years of questioning,
The Beautiful One has never responded,
With “knowledge” and “understanding”,
But each time, instead, Wells Up, Overflowing,
Flooding my Heart, Drowning the questioner.

“Shhh, my Love,” She whispers to my Soul,
And as I, the world, and Beloved Vanish, I see,
That there are no words in Heaven,
No names for the Mystery We Are,
And in that Vanishing of all dualities…

No Mystery at all.