Don’t go back to sleep
For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
(Jaaludin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks)
I came across this gem on poetseers.org. I like poems like this that lay down the gauntlet and prod you out of any complacency you might be feeling. The mind can make everything seem mundane, even the spiritual life. And the spiritual life is the greatest adventure there is. Living at the limits of the possible, challenging your imperfections at any turn, witnessing little miracles of growth and transformation happen when you least expect them. It’s important to remember that.
(I read another poem on the same theme, if not quite in the same vein, yesterday - it was written by Vikramaditya, an American student of Sri Chinmoy. It was called ‘The Wrath of Vikramaditya’. The wrath was directed at anyone who had been practising meditation and had allowed the notion to creep into their minds that perhaps they can relax and let enlightenment come in the next incarnation or the one after that….there is indeed wrath in this poem, a lot of it, two pages worth to be exact, a big stick to Rumi’s little carrot - but perhaps both are needed, stick and carrot alike. Vikramaditya’s poem is available in the August 2005 edition of Panorama, a compilation of poetry prose and art created by Sri Chinmoy’s students from all around the world. Actually, I believe that is Prabhakar Street, one of the editors of Panorama, in the above photo, which was taken by Jowan Gauthier)
