I Am That

I have felt a longing for a long time. The closer I get to the Divine the stronger, and often more painful, that longing gets. I often get restless, fed up and even look down upon the endless “worldly” things I have to do, say and be, to go through an uninvited adulthood.

And what hit me as a strong realization recently was something that my teacher lovingly to me as I sat at her feet and sobbed at how I couldn’t bear the longing to God for a second more. She said “You have always been with the Divine, once you realize that, there will be no suffering”.

All my mind could do with that is think. And thinking often doesn’t work. It took me many hard lessons to realize that my adoring eyes that falling upon saints, teachers and spiritual heroes should have also fallen upon me. The teachings that came through them also can come through me. The love they radiate so brightly also lives within me. Not my body, or mind, or story, or idea of who “I Am” but the “I Am” that lives in me and you and trees and birds alike.

And like all spiritual experiences trying to put this realization into words fails to deliver the profound peace that comes with understanding the Divine essence of who we are and so this poem that came through, as I became more silent, attempts to do that.

I rest in my mother's womb
With my eyes closed, fixated on You

A lightening, a chill and boom!

I no longer knew

Felt that hallow in my belly

Thought it was hunger 

I cried

And though mother's breast arrived 

Her love didn't suffice

I had a mother, I remembered 

I just didn't know who

My heart was longing for You

I couldn't bear the separation

Always chased new destinations

Begged to be reunited with that nectar

I didn't know I didn't have to go far

All you asked me is to rest on your palm

All I had to do was trust and stay calm

You'll carry me the rest of the way

And yet I long till this day

For I have not yet realized in a head so wrong

That you had been within me all along
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.
Metta Always,

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