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

If a Coffee Cup Could Speak

 
Conscious spirit and unconscious matter
Both have existed since the dawn of time,
With maya appearing to connect them,
Misrepresenting joy as outside us.
When all these three are seen as one, the Self
Reveals its universal form and serves
As an instrument of the divine will.
—The Shvetashvatara Upanishad

If a coffee cup could speak, what do you think it would say?

What do you hear when you listen for the voice of a coffee cup?

I love you, says the coffee cup, and I want to be loved.

Tell me you love me too, says the coffee cup.

I delight in the touch of your hands, your lips, says the coffee cup.

I love the coffee within me, its heat, its desire to be held and devoured.

I love the way you savor your coffee, the tenderness of your thirst.

I take joy in serving your need for comfort, for warmth.

If you listen to the coffee cup, you will find it has a lot to say.

It’s just a coffee cup, matter, a thing, an object, inanimate, you say.

The coffee is the source of my joy, you say.

O ye of little faith!

As long as you see the coffee cup as something other than yourself,

you will look outside yourself for happiness,

and never be completely satisfied.

But if you listen to the coffee cup, the coffee, the table, the chair,

the rug, the floor, the walls, the room,

all of them will say something that means: I love you.

“I love you” is the universal voice of God, Goddess, All-That-Is.

“I am you,” is the same voice.

Try to conceive of the oneness beyond the illusion of separation.

Everything that the eye can see is God stuff.

Every sound you hear is the voice of God.

Everything you touch is the presence of God.

Everything you taste is the nourishment of God.

Everything you smell is God tickling your nose.

Everything you sense you created out of the one God with your own God-mind.

It is your mind that dreams the dream that seems to be a coffee cup.

It is your mind that creates the taste of coffee.

It is your mind that connects you to the uncreated consciousness

out of which all is created.

So many of us make the mistake of believing

the coffee cup is outside of us, rather than an extension of us.

Try to remember as you go through your day that All-That-Is is one,

that we are one with All-That-Is.

And as you connect with your coffee cup, listen to its voice,

the voice of All-That-Is saying, I love you.