Mom

Mom

Dedicated to my Mother


Jenny

I’d like you all to think of me
Like roses in a bunch
And remember what fun we had
Playing bridge and eating lunch

We lived in heroic times
And gave the world our best
I proudly wear my wings of gold
As I go to rest

There too were trials of many kinds
But we bore them well
And in the end they were no worse
Than a windy Catalina swell

Happy years and great times
With you merry band
And best of all seventy-one years
Holding Ernie’s hand

It’s been the best of lives I’ve lived
But now I’m joyously free
To send you all, All My Love
For Eternity


I gave my mother these poems in a book a few years ago, I don't think she knew I'd ever written a poem, but it seemed like she ought to know.

She recently passed away, the photo and poem above were offered as a memory for her friends.

Two hours after she passed, after the paramedics and police were gone, around 11:30 am, I was standing in the living room gazing aimlessly out the window for about a minute when an owl swooped down between the house and the tree on the front lawn. He landed in the driveway and stayed paying his respects for about 5 minutes, in spite of people honking horns, talking, gawking at him and walking close by. Finally he left as our neighbor moved in for a close up photo. I wanted to show the photo of the owl. I've never seen or heard an owl around here before. There is hardly any undeveloped land anywhere nearby. Later in the afternoon a very light shower started, the drops were fat and falling about 3 feet apart, it was more like tears than rain. It virtually never rains in July in Corona Del Mar, California, the average for the month is 2/100 of an inch. So the drops seemed like quite a personal message from nature.

In India owls are associated with death usually as harbingers. The owl stood just where my mother's body was loaded into the mortuary van 2 hours later. The owl is also the conveyance of Lakshmi. Of all the aspects of Mother Divine, Mom seems most like Lakshmi, perhaps the owl carried her to heaven. Or perhaps the owl was just a messenger to me, a mathematician. What is the probability that an owl would fly thru the 5 foot space between the roof and the tree in front of the living room window during the 1 minute time I was gazing out of it. Or that it would land and sit for minutes while the neighbor took photos, kids honked their horn in the street and shouted to each other about the owl, and a lady walked by 17 feet away walking her dog. All of this at 11:30 am on a sunny day. Slim. The probability of the rain drops which I only noticed as I walked thru the family room and saw ripples in the pool. I thought it was an earthquake, but it was just big sad drops of rain. I asked my Father, "who was this person, that nature honors so?"

I received emails from friends living in the midwest over the next few days that I'll share. Mom died on Sunday.

Monday

"I did a Puja last night and before I did it, when I was walking home from the hospital, I had an idea to do it for your Mom.

When I got home I was so tired from a rough day at the hospital that I sat down in front of the TV and watched a movie for a little while. Then I got up and started to slowly assemble the ingredients - the fruit and flowers and handkerchief. etc, - for the puja but slowly as if I intended to do it tomorrow morning. I was pretty dull and tired and discouraged.

Then all of a sudden my mind just sort of lighted up - really filled up - with energy and light. I had the feeling, the concrete and distinct feeling, your Mom knew I was doing a puja for her. It was as if she were there. I can't explain it. It was a very sudden and powerful feeling. It was so utterly unexpected. I completely changed - just spontaneously. I was no longer tired but very alert and eager and energetic and I quickly got ready for puja and did it. It seemed to be powerful, very powerful - sattwic - very enlivening during the puja and afterwards when I was done. "

The next day she added: "The puja story is - well -extraordinary. It was so vivid. Your Mom. I was very startled. It wasn't a feeling, it wasn't a presence. It was like infinite correlation but it was very definitely your Mom. I was very startled. And I quickly rushed to do the puja - a very nice puja with beautiful red carnations - that she seemed to know I intended for her."

On Tuesday another person wrote me:

"I wanted to relate an experience I had early this morning in the dome to you. I hope this is ok.

When I went to the dome this morning, before I started to meditate I offered a prayer for your family, especially for your Dad, that his grief may give way to the peace of your Mother's love for him and his for her. And that the bliss she is experiencing begin to flow to him, as he sees her in all their familiar surroundings.

At that moment, I was transported to a very high heaven, of indescribable pristine beauty. It was an exquisite rarified environment. The vibrational quality of this realm was radiant, soft, silent, pure, peaceful bliss. Here your Mother resides, flowing in the bliss and love of God. Centered in peace, as the highly refined conscious being that she is.

Her beautiful soul is at home in God. I know you all have to be missing such a wondrous soul, but find peace in knowing she resides in such an equally wondrous and beautiful place of bliss eternal.

I hope this helps in some small way. I always question, whether or not I am given these experiences to share, but I trust that you will understand. I feel humbly honored that I was allowed this glimpse to share with you."


And again on Thursday:

" I had a few experiences today, one of which I will relate to you, as you previously stated that they were a help to you.

I saw an angel with your Mom. The words angel of mercy came to mind. Don't know why, or who the angel of mercy is. The angelic being was enveloped in an exquisite unusual looking pure white garb. As I was allowed closer inspection, she was wearing billions of white flowers.

Golden radiant light streamed from your Mom. I assume she was in her light body, as I suspect that is the body you enter into the heavenly realms in.

Your Mom was serene, joyous, bliss flowing.

It was her time to go and she sends all of you all her love. She especially is with your Dad, as she loves him so.

As Mike so eloquently said it," Grandma was just about love". And in love she lives now, just not here, but with God.

Now she is imersed and flowing in the ocean of pure bliss and love, sending it to all of you, especially her one true love."

While all of the above is beautiful and profound, I wanted to comment on the phrase "It was her time to go". My son, Mike, felt her presence at the viewing on Thursday evening, but Friday morning at the funeral, he said, "She was gone". I presume that means to a more rarefied region, beyond the reach of the embodied.

It has taken me a year and a half to post this, it seems too personal, delicate, and beautiful to share, but then it is also profound and inspiring, beyond any poem. Please enjoy my Mother's blessing.




Jenny's Owl

Jenny's Owl

Friday, July 20, 2007

Shiva's eyes



The bliss face
is not my everyday face.
they would lock me up
electrocute my brain
if I wore it everyday

It comes in the meditation hall
when I think of you
or don't think of you
It comes when I aknowledge you
in any form

A cat, a dog, a person
can start the chills, the truth bumps
that preceed the bliss face
as I connect with you

Sometimes tears of love and gratitude
come with the bliss face,
and laughter and joy
but in flying
it comes as lightning
as power, as a wave of divinity

it comes with no thought
the things and strings
of tangled life
all that, all that, all gone.
I am insulated from all that
by beatitude

The bliss face is innocent
like a child at play
but it is no child's face,
for behind the eyes
is a dome of silent light
brilliant light.

And when the eyes open
radiant benevolent grace
pours through these eyes
they are Shiva's eyes.

Not Shiva in the sense
of a separate God invoked
but Shiva as the Self
Unveiled, revealed

Shiva's eyes are only half open
For he only sees himself
and the infinite compassion and love
he radiates, if eyes were full open
would sear the shadow world
melding all in Unity
and stop Shakti's dance. 1

1. The Self that shines as the infinite Eye
Can never see phenomenal triads.
Its gaze, the blazing flame of pure
Awareness, burns all other things
To its own fiery brightness.
Stanza 879
The Garland of Guru's Sayings, Sri Muruganar

A related poem on Shiva's eyes

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Kurtz? He dead!
As I lay dying
whispered
"The Glory"
"The Glory"

Kurtz, he dead 1
Papa Purush, he dead 2
Ego, he dead. 3
The Glory
The Glory

Shiva's eyes are blind,
They see no thing,
no differentiation
only Totality 4

Only the Glory
Only the Glory
Only the Glory


1 Kurtz was the character in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" who
acting as an agent in the Belgium Congo, immersed in the worst
that human greed has to offer, where King Leopold's agents killed
10,000,000, half the indigenous population, whispered
his last words "the horror, the horror" on his death bed.

2 Papa Purush or dark person refers to a vision Ramakrishna had
in which a black person came out of him and was then killed by a
shining person. Papa Purush was his bad karma,
and any darkness left within, from then on he was completely pure.

3. Larry Shine spoke of evolving beyond the ego, which he equated
with Satan. He used the expression "putting Satan under your foot".
This was the death of the ego. With a glimpse of "the glory", the ego,
Kurtz, papa purush lies dying. When Papa Purush is dead, the Self
sees with only Shiva's eyes.

4. True Awareness is the infinite Eye
Which sees no other, no duality,
No good and evil, subject, object,
Time, space, seed and fruit of seed.
stanza 880
The Garland of Guru's Sayings Sri Muruganar with
approval by Ramana Maharshi

And:  "Bhuma is the Supreme yatra naanyat pasyati yatra naanyat srunoti sa bhuma (one does not see any other, hears nothing, it is Perfection).  It is indefinable and indescribable.  It is as it is." Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi -  talk 68 Hence Shiva's eyes are blind.

8/20/2013 I find this in "Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi" 

"Again Sri Bhagavan said that in the whole Thayumanavar literature one stanza which says : "Ego disappearing another "I" - "I" spontaneously manifests in full glory"" Since this poem was about as the Ego lay dying something beyond the ego whispered "the glory, the glory", the parallel is striking. 
Easter Ravings 2011

I dropped chocolate yesterday
so the mind
could soar free;
buzzing nerves
kept sleep away

in the post midnight silence
when other minds dream
I’m free, not bound
by consensus reality *

then in reverie
I searched for the cosmic egg
and found it,
not here or there,
nor here and now
but everywhere
and every when

that edgeless place
the beginning end
of time and space

at every point
a shimmering aurora
of all possibility
infinite correlation
the quantum wave
uncollapsed

unobserved, so
unmanifest
omnipresent
omniscient
tasting Brahman
Goswami’s quantum monad
Buddha’s Bodhisattva
there I Am always

each thought cracks the egg
collapses the immortal wave
creates spacetime,
duality
ego reigns,
hearts mourn
with the indignity

I chose resurrection
crucified the doubting mind
felt the heart
and soared free
once again non-local
ripe with possibility
the Christ light

And as that light
shimmering in ecstasy
I dance with you
and bless you
and heal you
and love you

*  " That which is the night of all beings, for the disciplined man is the time of waking, when other beings are waking, then is the night for the sage who seeth"  Bhagavad Gita 11.69
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