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.
Indivisible
He is the eternal reality, sing
The scriptures, and the ground of existence.
They who perceive him in every creature
Merge in him and are released from the wheel
Of birth and death.
—The Shvetashvatara Upanishad
I long to see the eternal reality
like I long for a lover when I am lonely.
I long to hear the eternal reality
like I long for silence when it is noisy.
I long to feel the eternal reality
like I long for a child to wrap in my arms.
I long to taste the eternal reality
like I long for water when I am thirsty.
I long to smell the eternal reality
like I long for the scent of lilacs in spring.
This longing for eternal reality
is a longing that transcends longing
for any other thing.
Scripture says, “He is the eternal reality:”
the Lord of Love, the indivisible Whole,
who can only be found like the Christ
in the “least of these.”
I long for the Lord of Love as if
he were something beyond me,
as if I could transcend myself
and experience some other reality.
I long for the Lord of Love while
I consider racists and criminals
as some other thing.
There’s this part of me that wants
to take good and evil and
make them distinct.
There’s this part of me that wants
to stand on the right side of the divide
between wrong and right.
There’s this part of me that believes
there’s a difference between
holy and profane.
There’s this part of me that claims
the others need to be saved.
That’s the part of me that ignores
the Christ in the “least of these.”
I long for the Lord of Love
because I long to be free,
free as a falcon, flying high,
hunting to meet its basic needs,
free as a cheetah racing
across the African plains,
free as a leopard seal
diving deep.
My trouble is this part of me
that separates things,
that seeks to divide
the indivisible.
Then I turn to scripture
and see that if I want to be free
I need to perceive the Lord of Love
in every creature, that means
everybody, everyone, everything.
I ride a merry-go-round
thinking I’ll never be free,
when the trick is believing,
no, more than believing,
KNOWING that all-that-is
is one with me, that
to know the Lord of Love
is to love the “least of these.”
