Our purpose is fulfilled in being the eyes through which the Universe knows itself once more.– Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”, Verse I This is the vision the Universe seeks through us. One thread's tension pulls all the way through the tapestry. This sort of seeing and knowing leads to instant "compassionating." In this great vision of the Great Self, no thing is a separate thing. It knows interrelationships and patterns, the indivisibility of things. This Self sees it all at once, as a moving, living whole. It doesn't even isolate or categorize specific experiences.
While so much action and emotion circles about it, what does this Self in its stillness do? It sees. I love the image of this unitary Self where it "bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest." That so perfectly and poetically describes it: There is no tangible or logical support for such ease of the soul, yet this inner self rests nonetheless. It's not that the "pulling and hauling" around us stops, but we are surprised to find ourselves seated in easy majesty in the midst of the maelstrom, yet remaining invulnerable, whole, clear seeing. We can arrive at a point where we no longer feel the gravitational tug of it all. It can be directly experienced as our real nature. This is more than a reassuring idea we can use to mentally regroup. Yet all this is what we experience, not what we are.Īpart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am. We derive our sense of value and well-being according to their ebb and flow. We get caught up in the drama and pageantry, the suffering and the victories. So much surrounds us and swirls about, crying constantly for attention. People, society, busyness, news, work, position, love, health, emotion, terror, elation - the world, the world. from This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World, Edited by Ivan M. I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait. Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,īoth in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.īackward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders, Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, These come to me days and nights and go from me again,Īpart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,īattles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love, My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues, The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new, People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation, Trippers and askers surround me (from Song of Myself) by Walt Whitman
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