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

The Bridegroom

 My Lord is living in each human being;
There is no bridal bed without the Bridegroom.
But blessed is the body
In which He reveals Himself.
—Kabir

 There is no bridal bed without the Bridegroom, Kabir says.

And so the truth was true, at that time.

And if we allow the metaphor to speak, without digressing into modern possibilities,

we see there is no body without holiness, no breath without spirit,

no beat without a drummer.

The Lord, the Lady, Holy Father, Holy Mother, God, Goddess, the Absolute.

Some people say there is no God.

I say, there’s no God that I can understand, but there is a deeper reality,

a truth so true that we would be dazzled if it were told.

There is a secret so simple it can’t be seen.

There is an emergence from a being that continually emerges and unfolds.

To think that we are that emergence, that unfoldment, the dream of a being

that dreams itself.

Holy Father.  Holy Mother.  Holy Child.  Holy Spirit.  Holy Self.

Kabir says there is no bridal bed without the Bridegroom.

Speak to me, Kabir, and tell me how to wake the Bridegroom.

Speak to me, Kabir, and introduce me to the Bride.

I long so, to see into secrets.

I long so, to know that which can be known.

I long so, to unfold.

I dreamt last night of ascension, of realms that rise from one another, realms that one

must climb to.

I dreamt that I was climbing with a host of others, and we were trying to help each other.

We were trying to reach the highest heights, to unfold, to grow.

And there were others above us and others below us.

And the climb was dangerous.  We had to take risks.

We could fall.

But we were climbing—the other ladies and me—with our heels and our lipstick

and our lovely chiffon.

Grabbing on to ropes and ladders like the strong men.

And sometimes there was nothing to stand on, our bodies swinging from our hands.

Our desire was unquenchable, undeniable.

We would go up, even if it seemed impossible.

This journey to higher consciousness, I called it when I woke.

There was this sense that the lower realms were dark places

and the higher realms were realms of light.

There was no Bridegroom, that I could see, only a longing for the light.

But now I say, the Bridegroom was there all along,

waiting for the wild reveal.