Carefully, I deadhead the pink Kalanchoe
in the flamboyant red and yellow
Mexican ***
and move it to a spot where it can get
more sun

gratefully the shrubby cultivar
gazes skyward

Beloved
prune the dead zones
in my heart too
transport me to a sacred place
on the patio of Your magnificent Love

A rainbow arching towards Your dazzling light

The doctor rubbed my sore shoulder
spraying copious amounts of analgesic compound
to freeze the area
from the side of my eye I caught the
silver glint of a 6 inch needle poised
to penetrate my quivering shoulder
with cortisone
intense pain exploded through my consciousness
as the syringe fracked into the deeper regions of
my shoulder

Afterwards, while reflecting on this incident
I thought about polarities and Newton’s Law:
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”
The pain I had just experienced did not occur in a vacuum
Somewhere along the time continuum I’d set up that opposite
swing of the pendulum

I recollected all the intense moments of extreme and dizzying
sense enjoyment, lust and gratification
my mind has sought and indulged in with rabid satisfaction
always wanting more, restless, never content or at peace

When we examine this world, and its quintessential duality
we are confronted with extremes at every angle
Hot, cold, up, down, win, lose
We can’t have birth without death and so on
hmm…. I thought as the enlightenment bulb
went off in my head
This is why many great sages and saints
fostered a way of life that
transcended duality

Lord Buddha extolled the “Middle Path”
He described the middle way as moderation
between the excesses of carnal indulgence
and self mortification

Aristotle gave us the “Golden Mean”
“every virtue is a mean between two extremes, each of which is a vice.”

Sathya Sai Baba states:
“The object of meditation is equanimity,
the object of equanimity is samadhi (enlightenment or self realization)"

This beautiful quote by Bhagavan Baba is redolent with wisdom
and sublime beauty:

“Surrender to God and to life means the absence of duality
and being of the same nature as God.
But such a state is beyond man’s will.
Surrender is when doer, deed and object are all God.
It comes naturally to a heart filled with love for God.
God is as a spring of fresh and sweet water in the heart.
The best tool to dig a well to that inexhaustible source and
savor its sweetness, is Japa (Chanting God’s Name)

It’s a warm evening on the sahara
camel washed sand dunes
rise up like sacred mountains in the
red distance
I unzip the flap of my
nomad tent
dry desert winds
plait golden grains of sand
through my nubian hair

Sai Krishna
my heart is a parched fig
monsoon tears flood the nile
and my mind plays ***** tricks on me
mirages robed in ochre
waver across the striped horizon

Peacock Lord
Your Radha has prepared a basin of
fragrant myrrh
to anoint your lotus feet
flowers gathered from the gardens of
Isis
are eager to adorn Your divine neck

Prema Swaroopa!
Answer the ardent prayer of Your devotee
before the moon rises a silver swan
in the heavens

Before the dew evaporates

on rose petals misty with tears

and birds seated on lofty branches

sweeten the air with rapturous song



Before the scorching Saturn Sun

at high noon

holding his granite karmic slate

burns us to a crisp

for our sad and loveless deeds



We must awaken early

shake off sloth and slumber



Close to the amber footsteps of dawn

Brahmamuhurtam

Love's breath kindling bright

the embers of Sat Chit Ananda

Eternal Being, Awareness and Bliss



"The function of the Scriptures is to guide people toward living a perfected life on Earth and repeatedly remind them of the goal, which should be nothing short of achieving Divinity itself. But those who spurn the teachings and guidance of the Scriptures and act only on the impulses of their desires will not achieve perfection and divinity, only misery.

" Let the Scriptures tell you what you should and should not do, Arjuna. Know what the right choices are and live up to them. It is simpler than you think. When you or anyone is firmly on the road to enlightenment there is no conflict at all between what you do and what the Scriptures advise." Bhagavan Gita,  interpreted by Jack Hawley, Chapter, 16, Vs. 23, 24

the jhoola is damp from
evening rains
still I enjoy swinging under
misty twilight skies
the moon beaming a toothless grin

Funny how it all feels so real
solid, permanent
I’ll always be Sonya ki
in this familiar body,
surroundings and place

I gaze at puddles
of silvery water glistening
over the garden beds
visions from the past float to the
surface
not too long ago I was living in
Arkansas, and before that the big apple
childhood memories of my mother’s
comforting voice and soft lap
eclipses the other images morphing
into a cascade of ever changing
ephemeral moments in time

If nothing stays the same then
what is it that resounds through
the hills and valleys of my being
like an eternal echo

That fixed point where the sun never rises nor sets
Splendor enthroned within
Immortal witness
Beloved

“Consciousness is neither inward turned nor outward turned nor both
It is not undifferentiated, it is beyond cognition and non cognition.
Not experienced by the senses nor known by comparison or inference,
incomprehensible, unthinkable and indescribable,
pure consciousness, the real Self, the cessation of all phenomena,
tranquil, all-blissful, one without a second,
this fourth state (Turiya ), the Atma (Real Self)
(Eternal Witness)
is to be realized”
~Mandukya Upanishad

labor pangs in
my heart
contractions getting closer together…
O Sai Krishna
I have forsaken
the world’s
gloomy, cold, starless womb
the restless octopus mind,
out of control sense desires
that swim endlessly
in goldfish circles

Beautiful raven blue Lord
in throes of eternal love
luminous expansion
hold my hand
as we gush breathless through
the celestial threshold
golden portal

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I am fully known.”

1 Corinthians 13:12

dark ways are falling
fallen angels
and the smoking embers
of unwritten samskaras
Your Luminous eye
pressed hot, searing against my soul
staring deep down
always
reading between my breaths
beloved
the pain of separation
unbearable cross
may nothing come
between
our
flaming violet lips