The Voice

I thought I knew this for certain: I thought I was awake. I was not asleep, at least as far as my senses are concerned. But why do you watch me like a goatherd who watches his restless goats? You watch over me days and nights. Mornings and evenings. I feel your eyes in my skin. Your stares rip into my bone and deep down my heart and I feel and get embarrassed. Then when I know it was you, I get intoxicated and my mind dissolves. You seem to know what I am feeling. Don’t you? You seem to be knowing everything. I feel your presence at my work place when I deal with my customers. You come to my bedroom in the form of a white cloud when I think it was sleep. But it was not sleep. It was you. You touch me with your silk hand like my mother touched me thousands of years ago before and after I was born.

I hear a voice that seems to be saying, “My companion, don’t resist life and her fragrance. Relax and be here, in my room. Stay alert and feel my hands in your heart.” I feel you in the seat of my aging vehicle, in the middle of Minnesotan highways, surrounded with 100 other crazy motorists. There are moments when I feel your hands on the steering wheel and your foot on the accelerator and your cautious eyes watching the traffic flow. At times I walk in the dark when I cannot wait for the moon to rise, especially when daily rounds control my life.

In the middle of this vast, empty shadow of darkness, I feel the touch of your gentle light bathing through my heart and my whole person. I confess, I have been on trips for years looking for some space and beauty and light until I realize, now, that you’re this space and beauty and light. In the name of this who is immortal, who’s never born and who never dies, Who are you and why are you watching me like a goatherd who watches over his goats?

I thought I have finished this poem or I thought the poem has completed herself for her own beauty, but a voice within me spoke, “Beloved friend, to be honest with you, I am not following you. Following individuals is not my primary goal. I have been deep within you since the time I cannot remember. I have occurred to you in different places and different times. Just to touch base with you.

Yes indeed, I have bumped into you a million times in different ways. Yet, you did not seem to notice me because you were deep asleep or just slightly awake or just caught by your daily routines. This time when I realized that you are fully awake and ready for me, I emerged within you in full swing. I call this the readiness of human consciousness. You can call me anything. You can call me light or aliveness or stillness or God or anything that suits you.”