The Enlightened Heart

[RiverSnake]

The Enlightened Heart contains poetry from many different spiritual traditions and different authors from: Lao Tzu, Upanishads, Rumi, The Bible, Dogen, Wu-men, William Blake...etc

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Enlightened-Heart-Anthology-Sacred/dp/006092053X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337952164&sr=8-1

 

I just started reading it but am already enjoying it immensely. I highly recommend it. One of my favorite poems so far:

 

THE UPANISHADS (8TH?-5TH? CENTURYB.C.E)

 

The Golden God, the Self, the immortal Swan

leaves the small nest of the body, goes where He wants.

He moves through the realm of dreams; makes numberless

forms;

delights in sex; eats, drinks, laughs with His friends;

frightens Himself with scenes of heart-chilling terror.

But He is not attached to anything that He sees;

and after He has wandered in the realms of dream and

awakeness,

has tasted pleasures and experienced good and evil,

He returns to the blissful state from which He began.

As a fish swims forward to one riverbank then the other,

Self alternates between awakeness and dreaming.

As an eagle, weary from long flight, folds its wings,

gliding down to its nest, Self hurries to the realm

of dreamless sleep, free of desires, fear, pain.

As a man in sexual union with his beloved

is unaware of anything outside or inside,

so a man in union with Self knows nothing, wants nothing,

has found his heart's fulfillment and is free of sorrow.

Father disappears, mother disappears, gods

and scriptures disappear, thief disappears, murderer,

rich man, beggar disappear, world disappears,

good and evil disappear; he has passed beyond sorrow.

Edited May 25, 2012 by OldGreen

[Chang]

Delightful. Thank you for posting this.

[Jeff]

Thank you. It is excellent.