The Psychic Being
SASP Retreat Program
February 17, 2001

The theme for this retreat was the Psychic Being (or soul). Participants were asked to bring any poem (or two) of their choice that they found to be expressive of the psychic being to be read out for group discussion in the evening session. As usual there were the regular retreat activities of karma yoga, collective chanting, meditation, potluck meals and children's activities.

In the morning session, there were readings from the Mother's Prayers and Meditations. Participants each were given one prayer to read out to the group that were especially expressive of the psychic nature. Near the end of the session, particpants were asked to write a short poem, using several stylistic guidelines, that was expressive of the psychic. These were later assembled into a longer poem and read out in the evening session. This poem is reproduced below.

My Soul's Song

I waited, parched and full of dust
Of ages searching for your love,
And found you just behind earth's veil;
In leaves touched by the morning sun
In wind and rain and softest night
Or water, rich and deep and still,
You are my refuge and delight.

Life blossoms when you're open,
Sunlight enters at the right moment;
Seek to be in your center
When the joy of God has descended.

I long to be gathered and guided,
To be swallowed whole,
To wander with purpose - free -
Wrapped and caressed in a down quilt;
To feel my heart broken open in pain,
Flowing and flooding into the joy of your arms.

Boiling and hissing my nature churns,
As deafening roar of bubbling kettle,
Absorbing intense heat, it turns
Cold vital into thy clear mettle.

Peace and silence grow more deep
As heat turns up to boiling point.
Calm, intense, luminous, out of sleep
Awakes my inner self anoint.

Will it be tea or instant coffee?
Or slithery "a dente" spaghetti?
Dining table's mundane gourmet spree!
Is life but a cup of jolly English tea?

I am aspiration ready to pour,
Just tell me Lord, what's it for?

With eyes new lit by faith
I see long days of God summer
Beneath branches bent with buds of promise;
The path is suddenly short.

Eye blinks - this brightness stays and grows.
Pierces through what made world's pulse,
What throbs escape their human breast
And all that could be turns to you.

Sweet Mother, help me to learn
From things you created on this earth,
Learn about aspiring from the flowers,
They do so till they wither, from birth,
Towards the sun's rays of showers.

Mother, help me learn from a dog,
To be faithful to thee,
Even though the conscience tells me
This worldly maya is like a fog.
My mind overcomes my conscience to see.

Mother, help me learn to surrender
Like how an infant depends on his mother;
Help me close my eyes, my mind,
Just put my hands in yours,
And follow you, as you are my mentor.

Mother, help me learn from this nature
Like how seasons come and go
Like how day and night come one after other,
It should be your will that is my will,
And none of my own, no.

Your beauty greets me in trees,
And flowers sing your color's name,
Breezes carry your mystic charm,
The sky shimmers with your light.
When you came, massed like poppies on the Mountain,
I lost my voice, my heart raced,
The Mother song swelled my chest
For a few moments I remembered home.

Eyes of flickering fire, be my desire!
Tsuname of unbroken power, make this the hour!
Beauty veiled in petal and stone, be thou my home!
Potent silence 'tween mountain and breath, transfigure death.

Deep in the cave, no light but my lamp
I wander rooms that never see day,
Slip through sharp narrows on my knees
Patient and impatient, I watch for your ray,
I am haunted by light.

When all the surface movement stills,
And racing mind, conflicting wills
Subside and in remembrance listen
For your sweet voice deep within,
I feel your flame within me grow
Enlightening all that I know.

Oh let me think and be and do
The thought, the will, the truth of you.
I turn to you within my heart
Away from the clamor of the world,
Your golden light, a flame of love
Burns there, eternal, rising to you.

I pray for the strength I lack,
For the fire, the burning will
That melts every obstacle,
And mounts, irresistibly, to you.

In realms beyond reflection,
Known in hours of tribulation
A brilliant flash strikes asunder
Casting from the eternal fire within
The hush of a pervading silence
Felt in the dawning of the soul.

In the forest's silhouette,
Nature's secret Unmeasureable,
Divine creation beyond woe,
Nature's timelessness is felt
In the depths of the Seeker.

Rapturous in rays of light
Infinite beyond mortal deed,
Radiating like the heavens
At night in the gaze of being,
Held delicately as a child
By its Mother, it steps forth
From the soul's eternal fire.