In God Makes the Rivers to Flow; An Anthology of the World’s Sacred Poetry & Prose, Eknath Easwaran includes a selection from William Law entitled “The Deepest Part of Thy Soul.”  I’ve written the following poem-like reflections inspired by this selection.

God Within

 Thy natural senses cannot possess God
            or unite thee to Him; nay, thy inward faculties
            of understanding, will, and memory can only
            reach after God, but cannot be the place
            of His habitation in thee.
—William Law

 For God is not a thing to be possessed

or a creature that possesses

but a being that is

that loves

that kisses us from within.

 

Seek not they own understanding

to stand under what will overcome us

but seek the understanding of God

that God stands under us

supporting every step we take

supporting the breath in our lungs

the blood in our veins.

 

And God stands over us

and God stands in us

and God stands us in the right stead

in the possibility of a great reveal

in which the True Self

the Divine Self

the Christ Self

will stand true and holy as us

and our small self

will disappear

fading into the darkness.

 

We will ourselves out of bed in the morning.

We will ourselves to work.

We will ourselves to love.

And with our will

we know the power of the One

that is only One,

with our will we know that reality

is ours to make what our True Self desires,

that our hearts’ desire is from our Source

and so is the will to realize it

so is the surrendering of our will

in the face of it,

the surrendering of what we have known

to make way for the child

that is to be born.

 

And if we bring our memory into our heart

we can remember our True Self

we can remember the part of us

that knows we are the image of God

placed in a body of condensed God-substance

that experiences a world of Divinity

but is sometimes blinded

by the illusion of the material.

 

We can remember that we are light;

we can let our light shine.

 

The True Self does not dwell alone

in the understanding of the mind,

the will to know,

the depths of memory.

 

The True Self dwells in the heart of every cell,

in the breath,

in the membrane that feels.

The senses cannot possess God

or unite us to God,

but the senses can remind us

of the presence of God in all, as all.

The senses can kiss the world

and know God as their only lover.

We can hear the voice of God in running water.

We can see the eyes of God in the mirror.

We can taste God in our morning muffin.

We can smell God baking in our kitchen.

We can feel God’s kiss blowing in the wind.

Or we can close our eyes, sit still,

and feel the space of God within.