Like The Little Stream

Like the little stream

Making its way

Through the mossy crevices,

I, too, quietly

Turn clear and transparent.

---Ryokan

The Devil's Pool

I'm looking at a lovely natural pool near the village of Babinda in Australia. A young Aborigine comes over to me.

"Be careful you don't slip," he says.

The small pool is surrounded by rocks, apparently quite safe to walk on.

"This place is called the Devil's Pool," the boy goes on. "Many years ago, Oolona, a beautiful Aborigine girl who was married to a warrior from Babinda, fell in love with another man. They fled into these mountains, but the husband found them. The lover escaped, but Oolona was murdered here in these waters. Ever since then, Oolona thinks that every man who comes near is her lost love, and she kills them with her watery embrace."

Later on, I asked the owner of the small hotel about the Devil's Pool.

"It must just be superstition," he says, "but the fact is that eleven tourists have died there in the last ten years, and they were all men."

--- PAULO COELHO

The Oak Tee

Affinity

Man would not be man without affinity. Every animal has affinity to some degree, but man is capable of feeling an especially large amount.

You can have a feeling of affinity for objects: "I love the way the grain stands out in that wood." There is a feeling of oneness with the earth, blue skies, rain, millponds, cartwheels and bullfrogs which is affinity.

Affinity is never identification (becoming one with another in feeling or interest) nor does it go quite far as empathy ( the power or state of imagining oneself to be another person and even share his ideas or feelings). You remain very much yourself when you have affinity for something but you also feel the essence of the thing for which you have affinity. You remain yourself and yet you draw closer to the object for which you have affinity. It is not a binding quality. There are no strings attached when affinity is given. To the receiver it carries no duties and no reponsibilities.

It is pure, easy and natural and flows out from the individual as easily as sunlight flows from the sun. Affinity begets affinity. A person who is filled with the quality will automatically find people anywhere near him also beginning to be filled with affinity. It is a calming, warming, heartening influence on all who are capable of receiving and giving it.

---- L.RON HUBBARD

The Gate

No guest had come to my house for long,
my doors were locked,
my windows were barred;
I thought my night would be lonely.

When I opened my eyes I found the darkness had vanished.
I rose up and ran and saw the bolts of my gates all broken,
and through the open door your wind and light waved their banner.

When I was a prisoner in my own house,
and the doors were shut,
my heart ever planned to escape and to wander.

Now at my broken gate,
I sit still and wait for your coming,

You keep me bound by my freedom..

- Rabindranath Thakur.

The Prophet On Friendship

Your friend is your needs answered.

He is your field which you sow with love
and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger
and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not

the 'nay' in your mind,
nor do you withhold the 'ay'.
And when he is silent
your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship,
all thoughts, all desires, all exceptions are born and shared,
with joy that is unchained.

When you part from your friend,
you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him
may be clearer in his absence,
as the mountain to the climber
is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship
save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught
but the disclosure of its own mystery
is not love but a net cast forth:
and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide,
let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend
that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need,
but not your emptiness.

And in the sweetness of friendship
let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things
the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

--- Kahlil Gibran

Light

I look behind and after

And find that all is right,

In my deepest sorrows,

There is a soul of light.

This poem forms a part of a letter that Swami Vivekananda wrote to Josephine MacLeod from Belur Math on December 26, 1900.

In San Diego Harbour, California

I was talking to a woman from the Tradition of the Moon - a kind of initiation path for women that works in harmony with the forces of nature.

"Would you like to touch a seagull?" she asked, looking at the birds perched along the seawall.

Of course I would. I tried several times, but whenever I get close, they would fly away.

"Try to feel love for the bird, the allow that love to pour out of your breast like a ray of light and touch the bird's breast. Then very quietly go over to it."

I did as she suggested. The first two times I failed, but the third time, as if I had entered a kind of trance, I did touch the seagull. I went into that trance state again with the same positive result.

"Love creates bridges where it would seem they were impossible," said my white witch friend.

I recount this experience here, for anyone who would like to try it.

----Like the Flowing River, Paulo Coelho.

I Ask For

I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing dedication of live in this silent and overflowing leisure.

- GEETANJALI, Rabindranath Thakur.

A Sandpiper To Bring You Joy

She was six years old when I first met her on the beach near my home. I drive to this beach, a distance of three or four miles, whenever the world begins to close in on me. She was building a sand castle or something and looked up, her eyes as blue as the sea.

"Hello," she said. I answered with a nod, not really in mood to be bothered by a small child. ''I'm building," she said. "I see that. What is it?" I asked, not really caring. "Oh, I don't know, I just like the feel of sand." That' sounds good, I thought. I slipped off my shoes. A sandpiper glided by. "That's a joy," the child said. "It's a what?" It's a joy. My mama says Sandpipers come to bring us joy."

The bird went gliding down the beach. Good-bye joy, I muttered to myself, hello pain, and turned to walk on. I was depressed; my life seemed completely out of balance. "What's your name?" She wouldn't give up. "Robert," I answered. "I'm Robert Peterson. " "Mine's Wendy ... I'm six." "Hi, Wendy." She giggled. "You're funny," she said. In spite of my gloom, I laughed too and walked on. Her musical giggle followed me. "Come again, Mr P''' she called. "We'll have another happy day."

After a few days of a group of unruly Boy Scouts, PTA meetings, and an ailing mother, the sun was shining one morning as I finished my chores. I need a sandpiper, I said to myself, gathering up my coat. The ever-changing balm of the seashore awaited me. The breeze was chilly but il I strode along, trying to recapture the serenity I needed.

"Hello, Mr P," she said. "Do you want to play?" "What do you have in mind?" I asked, with a twinge of annoyance. "I don't know, you say." "How about charades?" I asked sarcastically. The tinkling laughter burst forth again. "I don't know what that is." "Then let's just walk." Looking-at her, I noticed the delicate fairness of her face. "Where do you live?" I asked. "Over there." She pointed toward a row of summer cottages. Strange, I thought, in winter. "Where do you go to school?" "I don't go to school. Mommy says we're on vacation." She chattered as we strolled up the beach, but my mind was on other things. When I left for home, Wendy said it had been a happy day. Feeling surprisingly better, I smiled at her and agreed.

Three weeks later, I rushed to the beach in a state of near panic. I was in no mood to even greet Wendy. I thought I saw her mother on the porch and felt like demanding she keep her child at home. "Look, if you don't mind," I said crossly when Wendy caught up with me, ''I'd rather be alone today." She seemed unusually pale and out of breath. "Why?" she asked. I turned to her and shouted, "Because my mother died!" And thought, My God, why was I saying this? To a little child? "Oh," she said quietly, "then this is a bad day." "Yes," I said, "and yesterday and the day before and - oh, go away!" "Did it hurt?" she inquired. "Did what hurt?" I was exasperated with her and with myself. "When she died?" "Of course it hurt!" I snapped, misunderstanding, wrapped up in myself. I strode off.

A month or so after that, when I next went to the beach, she wasn't there. Feeling guilty, ashamed and admitting to myself I missed her, I went up to the cottage after my walk and knocked at the door. A drawn looking young woman opened the door.

"Hello," I said, ''I'm Robert Peterson. I missed your little girl today and wondered where she was." "Oh yes, Mr Peterson, please come in. Wendy spoke of you so much. I'm afraid I allowed her to bother you. If she was a nuisance, please, accept my apologies." "Not at all - she's a delightful child." I said, suddenly realizing that I meant what I had just said. "Wendy died last week, Mr Peterson. She had leukemia. Maybe she didn't tell you."
Struck dumb, I groped for a chair. I had to catch my breath. "She loved this beach so when she asked to com , we couldn't say no. She seemed so mu h better here and had a lot of what she c lied happy days. But the last few weeks she declined rapidly ... " Her voice faltered, 'She left something for you ... if only I ca find it. Could you wait a moment while look?" I nodded stupidly, my mind racing for something to say to this lovely young woman. She I handed me a smeared envelope with 'Mr p" printed tn- boldish letters:-Inside was a drawing in bright crayon huesn a yellow beach, a blue sea, and a brown bir . Underneath was carefully printed:

"A SANDPIPER TO BRING YOU JOY"

Tears welled up in my eyes and a heart that had almost forgotten to love opened wide. I took Wendy's mother's both hands. ''I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," I muttered over and over, and we wept together.

The precious llittle picture is framed now and hangs in m study. Six wbrds - one for each year of her life – that speak to me of harmony, courage, and undemanding love.

A gift from child with sea blue eyes and hair the colour of sand -- who taught me the gift of love.

Note: This is a true story sent out by Robert Peterson. It hap ened over 20 years ago and the incident changed his life forever.

I Have Become

"I have become my own version of an optimist.

If I can't make it through one door,

I'll go through another door -

or I'll make a door.

Something terrific will come

no matter how dark the present."

-Rabindranath Thakur

Beyond The Sea

Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,

My heart is gone, far,far from me;

And ever on its track will flee

My thoughts, my dreams, beyond the sea.

Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,

The swallow wanders fast and free:

Oh, happy bird! were I like thee,

I, too, would fly beyond the sea.

Beyond the sea, beyond the sea,

Are kindly hearts and social glee:

But here for me they may not be;

My heart is gone beyond the sea.

- Thomas Love Peacock

The Hymn of Man

I was,

And I am.

So shall I be to the end of time,

For I am without end.

I have cleft the vast spaces of the infinite,

and taken flight in the world of fantasy,

and drawn nigh to the circle of light on high.

Yet behold me a captive of matter.

I have hearkened to the teachings of Confucius,

and listened to the wisdom of Brahma,

and sat beside the Buddha beneath the tree of knowledge.

Behold me now contending with ignorance and unbelieving.

I was upon Sinai when the Lord showed Himself to Moses.

By the Jordan I beheld the Nazarene's miracles.

In Medina I heard the words of the Apostle of Arabia.
Behold me now a prisoner of doubt.

I have seen Babylon's strength and Egypt's glory and the greatness of Greece.

My eyes cease not upon the smallness and poverty of their works.

I have sat with the witch of Endor and the priests of Assyria and the prophets of Palestine,

and I cease not to chant the truth.

I have learned the wisdom that descended on India,

and gained mastery over poetry that welled from the Arabian's heart,

and hearkened to the music of people from the West.

Yet am I blind and see not; my ears are stopped and I do not hear.

I have borne the harshness of unsatiable conquerors,

and felt the oppression of tyrants and the bondage of the powerful.

Yet am I strong to do battle with the days.

All this have I heard and seen, and I am yet a child.

In truth shall I hear and see the deeds of youth,

and grow old and attain perfection and return to God.

I was,

And I am.

So shall I be to the end of time,

For I am without end.

--- Kahlil Gibran