Meditative & Spiritual Reflections & Poetry:I love you,gentlest of ways*Your First Word Was Light*God Speaks to Each of Us by Rainer Maria rilke/I am only the house of your beloved by Rumi/Not With Wings by Hafiz

Music:
Wilderness-Adam Hurst

I love you,gentlest of ways
Rainer Maria Rilke

I love you,gentlest of Ways,
who ripened us as we wrestled with you.

You,the great homesickness we could never shake off,
you,the forest that always surrounded us,

you, the song we sang in every silence,
you dark net threading through us,

on the day you made us you created yourself,
and we grew sturdy in your sunlight…

Let your hand rest on the rim of Heaven now and mutely bear the darkness we bring over you.

Your First Word Was Light
Rainer maria Rilke

Your first word of all was light,
and time began. Then for long you were silent.

Your second word was man, and fear began,
which grips us still.

Are you about to speak again?
I don't want your third word.

Sometimes I pray: Please don't talk.
Let all your doing be by gesture only.
Go on writing in faces and in stone
what your silence means.

You be our refuge from the wrath
that drove us out of Paradise.

Be our sheperd, but never call us--
we can't bear to know what's ahead

God Speaks to Each of Us
Rainer Maria Rilke

God speaks to each of us before we are,
Before he's formed us then, in cloudy speech,
But only then, he speaks these words to each
And silently walks with us from the dark:

Driven by your senses,dare
To the edge of longing.Grow
Like a fire's shadowcasting glare
Behind assembled things,so you can spread
Their shapes on me as clothes.
Don't leave me bare.

Let it all happen to you: beauty and dread.
Simply go no feeling is too much
And only this way can we stay in touch.

Near here is the land
That they call Life.
You'll know when you arrive
By how real it is.

Give me your hand.

I am only the house of your beloved
Rumi

I am only the house of your beloved,
not the beloved herself:
true love is for the treasure,
not for the coffer that contains it.

The real beloved is that one who is unique,
who is your beginning and your end.
When you find that one,
you'll no longer expect anything else:

that is both the manifest and the mystery.
That one is the lord of states of feeling,
dependent on none;
month and year are slaves to that moon.
When he bids the "state,"
it does His bidding;
when that one wills,bodies become spirit.

Not With Wings
Hafiz

Here soar
Not with wings,

But with your moving hands and feet
And sweating brows--

Standing by your Beloved's side
Reaching out to comfort this world

With your cup of solace
Drawn from your vast reservoir of Truth.

Here soar
Not with your eyes and senses

That turn their backs
On the earth's sweet stumbling dance
Which needs you.

Here love, O here love,
With your mouth tender and open upon your lover,

And with your heart on duty
To the souls of rivers, children, forest animals,
All the shy feathered ones and laughing, jumping,
Shining fish.

O here, pilgrim, Love
On this holy battleground of life

Where there are bleeding men
Who are calling for a sacred drink,

A gentle word or touch from a man
Or God.

Hafiz, why just serve and play with angels?
They are already content.

Brew your knowledge well for men
With aching minds and guts,

And for those wayfarers who have gained
The rare courageous thirsts
That can never be relinquished
Until Union!

Hafiz,
Leave your recipes in golden drums.

Tie those barrels to the backs of camels
Who will keep circumambulating the worlds,

Giving nourishment
To all our tender wondrous spheres.

O here Love, O love right here.
Find your happiness, dear wayfarer,

With your beautiful lips and body
So sweetly opened,

Yielding their vital gifts upon
This magnificent
Earth.

Only One Permanent Revolution by Leo tolstoy

There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself.And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity,and nobody thinks of changing himself.
Leo tolstoy

The Silence by Anton Chekhov

I reflected how many satisfied,happy people there really are! What a suffocating force it is! You look at life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, incredible poverty all about us, overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lying...

Yet all is calm and stillness in the houses and in the streets; of the fifty thousand living in a town, there is not one who would cry out, who would give vent to his indignation aloud. We see the people going to market for provisions, eating by day, sleeping by night, talking their silly nonsense, getting married, growing old, serenely escorting their dead to the cemetery;

but we do not see and we do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on somewhere behind the scenes...Everything is so quiet and peaceful, and nothing protests but mute statistics: so many people gone out of their minds, so many gallons of vodka drunk, so many children dead from malnutrition...

And this order of things is evidently necessary; evidently the happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness would be impossible.

It's a case of general hypnotism. There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man some one standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, trouble will come for him -- disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer; the happy man lives at his ease, and trivial daily cares faintly agitate him like the wind in the aspen-tree -- and all goes well.
Anton Chekhov,The Wife and other stories

The heart's affections by Khalil Gibran

The heart's affections are divided like the branches of the cedar tree; if the tree loses one strong branch; it will suffer but it does not die; it will pour all its vitality into the next branch so that it will grow and fill the empty place.
Kahlil Gibran

On the human soul & thought by Victor Hugo

The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real.It is by the real that we exist;it is by the ideal that we live.

There are thoughts which are prayers.There are moments when,whatever the posture of the body,the soul is on its knees.

There is one spectacle grander than the sea,that is the sky;there is one spectacle grander than the sky,that is the interior of the soul.

Love is a portion of the soul itself,and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.

Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.

Thought is the labor of the intellect,reverie is its pleasure

Piano by D H Lawrence

Piano
D H Lawrence

Softly,in the dusk,a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years,till I see
A child sitting under the piano,in the boom of the tingling strings And pressing the small,poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself,the insidious mastery of song Betrays me back,till the heart of me weeps to belong To the old Sunday evenings at home,with winter outside And hymns in the cosy parlour,the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me,my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance,I weep like a child for the past.

Inspirational Spirituality & Enlightenment Poems&Quotes:Rumi,Hafez,Osho and Rainer Maria Rilke

Music:
Tum Hi Ho-Aashiqui(Instrumental)

Look at love
Rumi

look at love
how it tangles
with the one fallen in love

look at spirit
how it fuses with earth
giving it new life
why are you so busy
with this or that or good or bad
pay attention to how things blend

why talk about all
the known and the unknown
see how the unknown merges into the known

why think separately
of this life and the next
when one is born from the last

look at your heart and tongue
one feels but deaf and dumb
the other speaks in words and signs

look at water and fire
earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once

the wolf and the lamb
the lion and the deer
far away yet together

look at the unity of this
spring and winter
manifested in the equinox

you too must mingle my friends
since the earth and the sky
are mingled just for you and me

be like sugarcane
sweet yet silent
don't get mixed up with bitter words

my beloved grows right out of my own heart
how much more union can there be

I regard not the outside and the words
Rumi

I regard not the outside and the words,
I regard the inside and the state of the heart.
I look at the heart if it be humble,
Though the words may be the reverse of humble.
Because the heart is substance,and words accidents,
Accidents are only a means,substance is the final cause.
How long will thou dwell on words and superficialities?
A burning heart is what I want; consort with burning!
Kindle in the heart the flame of love,
And burn up utterly thoughts and fine expressions.

There is some kiss we want
Rumi

There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives,
the touch of Spirit on the body.

Seawater begs the pearl
to break its shell.

And the lily,how passionately
it needs some wild Darling!

At night,I open the window
and ask the moon to come
and press its face against mine.
Breathe into me.

Close the language-door,
and open the love-window.

The moon won't use the door,
only the window.

let the spirit speak
Osho

Do not worry if our harp breaks
thousands more will appear.
We have fallen in the arms of love
where all is music.
If all harps in the world
were burned down.
Still inside the heart
there will be hidden
music playing.

Do not worry if all the candles
in the world flicker and die
we have the spark
that starts the fire
the song we sing
are like foam on the surface
on the sea of being.

While the precious gems
lie deep beneath
But the tenderness in our songs
is a reflection of what is hidden
in the depths.
Stop the flow of you words
open the window of your heart
and let the spirit speak.

We Have Not Come to Take Prisoners
Hafiz

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred,tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
"O please, O please,
Come out and play."

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom and
Light!

MY BRILLIANT IMAGE
Hafiz

One day the sun admitted,
I am just a shadow.
I wish I could show you the infinite incandescence
That has cast my brilliant image!
I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The astonishing Light
Of your own Being!

IT FELT LOVE
Hafiz
How did the rose ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its being,
Otherwise, we all remain too frightened.

I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone
Rainer Maria Rilke

I am much too alone in this world,yet not alone
enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world,yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked,bent;
for there I would be dishonest,untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time,one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

Act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness by Maurice Maeterlinck

An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.
Maurice Maeterlinck

Würde der Frauen Von Friedrich Schiller(With the french version)

William-Adolphe Bouguereau Art

Würde der Frauen
Friedrich Schiller
(1759-1807)

Ehret die Frauen! sie flechten und weben
Himmlische Rosen ins irdische Leben,
Flechten der Liebe beglückendes Band,
Und in der Grazie züchtigem Schleier
Nähren sie wachsam das ewige Feuer
Schöner Gefühle mit heiliger Hand.

Ewig aus der Wahrheit Schranken
Schweift des Mannes wilde Kraft;
Unstät treiben die Gedanken
Auf dem Meer der Leidenschaft;
Gierig greift er in die Ferne,
Nimmer wird sein Herz gestillt;
Rastlos durch entlegne Sterne
Jagt er seines Traumes Bild.

Aber mit zauberisch fesselndem Blicke
Winken die Frauen den Flüchtling zurücke,
Warnend zurück in der Gegenwart Spur.
In der Mutter bescheidener Hütte
Sind sie geblieben mit schamhafter Sitte,
Treue Töchter der frommen Natur.

Feindlich ist des Mannes Streben,
Mit zermalmender Gewalt
Geht der wilde durch das Leben,
Ohne Rast und Aufenthalt.
Was er schuf, zerstört er wieder,
Nimmer ruht der Wünsche Streit,
Nimmer, wie das Haupt der Hyder
Ewig fällt und sich erneut.

Aber, zufrieden mit stillerem Ruhme,
Brechen die Frauen des Augenblicks Blume,
Nähren sie sorgsam mit liebendem Fleiß,
Freier in ihrem gebundenen Wirken,
Reicher, als er, in des Wissens Bezirken
Und in der Dichtung unendlichem Kreis.

Streng und stolz, sich selbst genügend,
Kennt des Mannes kalte Brust,
Herzlich an ein Herz sich schmiegend,
Nicht der Liebe Götterlust,
Kennet nicht den Tausch der Seelen,
Nicht in Thränen schmilzt er hin;
Selbst des Lebens Kämpfe stählen
Härter seinen harten Sinn.

Aber, wie leise vom Zephyr erschüttert,
Schnell die äolische Harfe erzittert,
Also die fühlende Seele der Fraun.
Zärtlich geängstet vom Bilde der Qualen,
Wallet der liebende Busen, es strahlen
Perlend die Augen von himmlischem Thau.

In der Männer Herrschgebiete
Gilt der Stärke trotzig Recht;
Mit dem Schwert beweist der Scythe,
Und der Perser wird zum Knecht.
Es befehden sich im Grimme
Die Begierden wild und roh,
Und der Eris rauhe Stimme
Waltet, wo die Charis floh.

Aber mit sanft überredender Bitte
Führen die Frauen den Scepter der Sitte,
Löschen die Zwietracht, die tobend entglüht,
Lehren die Kräfte, die feindlich sich hassen,
Sich in der lieblichen Form zu umfassen,
Und vereinen, was ewig sich flieht.

The French Version

Daniel Gerhartz Art

HONOREZ LES FEMMES.
Friedrich Schiller
Traduction par X. Marmier

Honorez les femmes : elles tressent et mêlent des roses célestes à la vie terrestre ; elles forment l’heureux lien de l’amour et, sous ce voile pudique des grâces, elles entretiennent d’une main pieuse et vigilante le feu éternel des nobles sentiments.

Sans cesse hors des bornes de la vérité s’égare l’ardeur sauvage de l’homme : sans cesse ses pensées l’entraînent sur l’océan des passions. Il étend une main avide vers l’espace, jamais son cœur n’est satisfait, ses rêves inquiets l’emportent jusque dans les sphères éloignées.

Mais avec le charme d’un regard tout-puissant les femmes rappellent le fugitif, et lui font reconnaître les traces du présent. Sous la sainte garde de leur mère, dans leurs habitudes, elles sont restées les filles fidèles de la vraie nature.

Rudes sont les efforts de l’homme ; avec sa force écrasante, il s’en va à travers la vie sans repos et sans relâche. Ce qu’il créa, il le détruit : jamais la lutte de ses désirs ne s’arrête : ils tombent, et renaissent comme les têtes de l’hydre.

Mais satisfaites d’une gloire paisible, les femmes cueillent la fleur du moment et l’entretiennent avec des soins touchants ; plus libres que l’homme dans leur cercle restreint, plus riches que lui dans les domaines de leur savoir, dans les immenses trésors de la poésie.

Fière et superbe, se suffisant à elle-même, l’âme froide de l’homme ne connaît pas le bonheur de l’union des cœurs, les joies célestes de l’amour. Elle ne connaît pas l’échange des âmes, elle ne se fond pas en larmes affectueuses, les combats de la vie ne font qu’endurcir encore sa dureté première.

Mais l’âme sensible de la femme ressemble à la harpe éolienne qui frémit au souffle léger du Zéphire. L’image de la souffrance jette une tendre anxiété dans leurs cœurs généreux, et les larmes mouillent leurs paupières comme une rosée céleste.

Là où s’étend l’impérieuse domination de l’homme, là règne orgueilleusement le droit du plus fort. Le Scythe brandit son épée, et le Perse devient esclave. Les désirs impétueux et sauvages sont en lutte, et la rude voix des sombres puissances commande aux lieux abandonnés par les Grâces.

Mais avec de douces et persuasives prières, les femmes tiennent le sceptre de la vertu : elle éteignent le feu ardent des dissensions, elles apprennent aux forces hostiles et ennemies, à se contenir sous des formes aimables, et réunissent ce qui toujours se fuit.

When love breathes life into words by Osho

Words that come out of the depth and fullness of heart
Echo the infinite,just as a tiny flower
expresses infinite beauty.

When love breathes life into words
What is expressed is not what is said,
but what wants to be said.
Inside each of us there is a poet,there is poetry,
But because we live on the surface
These are never born.

Those who go deep awaken divine love
And this love fills their lives with music,
beauty,peace and poetry.
Their very lives become music
And on this stage truth descends.
Osho

I Know the Only Truth by Marina Tsvetaeva

I Know the Only Truth
Marina Tsvetaeva

I know the only truth! The others – cast aside!
There’s no need for the men of Earth to fight with others!
Look, there’s the evening soon and soon it’ll be the night.
What you about,colonels,poets,lovers?

Now wind is near the soil and dew lay on the grass,
The starry blizzard soon will freeze into the heaven,
And soon under the earth will sleep each one of us–
By whom a sleep on it to others hadn’t been given.

The station of love by Rumi

Ajaton Joki Photography

To the intellectual mind,a child must learn
to grow up and be adult.

In the station of love,
you see old men getting younger and younger.
Rumi

Inspirational Blessings:Beannacht/Blessing* A Blessing for Beauty BY John O'donohue

Music:
The Mission/How Great Thou Art-ThePianoGuys

Beannacht/Blessing
John O'Donohue

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours, indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

A Blessing for Beauty
John O'Donohue
From"Beauty-The Invisible Embrace "

May the beauty of your life become more visible to you,
that you may glimpse your wild divinity.

May the wonders of the earth call you forth from all your small, secret prisons and set your feet free in the pastures of possibilities.

May the light of dawn anoint your eyes that you may
behold what a miracle a day is.

May the liturgy of twilight shelter all your fears
and darkness within the circle of ease.

May the angel of memory surprise you in bleak times with new gifts from the harvest of your vanished days.

May you allow no dark hand to quench the candle
of hope in your heart.

May you discover a new generosity towards yourself, and encourage yourself to engage your life as a great adventure.

May the outside voices of fear and despair
find no echo in you.

May you always trust the urgency and wisdom
of your own spirit.

May the shelter and nourishment of all the good you have done,the love you have shown,the suffering you have carried, awaken around you to bless your life a thousand times.

And when love finds the path to your door may you open like the earth to the dawn,and trust your every hidden color towards its nourishment of light.

May you find enough stillness and silence to savor the kiss
of God on your soul and delight in the eternity that shaped
you, that holds you and calls you.

And may you know that despite confusion,anxiety and emptiness, your name is written in Heaven.

And may you come to see your life as a quiet sacrament
of service, which awakens around you a rhythm where
doubt gives way to the grace of wonder,where what is
awkward and strained can find elegance,and where
crippled hope can find wings,and torment enter at last
unto the grace of serenity.

May Divine Beauty bless you.