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

The Beginning of Enlightenment

Forget not the central truth that God is seated

            in your own heart.

—Swami Ramdas

The heart is a mystery that bears unfolding.

God is a mystery that bears examining.

What are we but temples of the most high?

What are we but lanterns with a candle in the center?

God is the flame.

He burns and burns.

He never goes out.

He flickers eternally.

The divine in us is the only truth.

Who we are is hard to say.

But God is the only reality.

We are instruments.

We are waves in the ocean of God.

We are caught up in the illusion of separation.

We think we are not God.

We are not the whole of God.

But we are God in miniature.

We are consciousness within consciousness.

We are the flickers of the flame.

We are small minds flowing with the universal mind.

We are connected.

We cannot be separated from the one truth, the one reality.

We are God swimming in God.

And God swims in us.

We are completely submerged, completely saturated.

We are guided. We are loved.

There is a voice within that will tell us how to grow.

There is a voice within that will help us choose which way to go.

There is a voice within that knows which steps

will take us toward our goals.

If only we would listen.

But we forget that God’s will is our will.

And our will is God’s will.

Our deepest desires are God’s desires for us.

We long for meaning.

We long for truth.

We long for connection.

That longing is answered by knowing our heart.

And knowing the one within our heart.

To know God is to be whole.

To know God is to be connected to the whole.

To know God is the end of all being.

To love God is the deepest knowing.

To love ourselves as God pierces the illusion.

To enter into the throne room of our hearts

and seek the King of Kings

and find we are alone in the All One.

That is the end of our desire and the beginning of our enlightenment.