Greetings and blessings.
Thanks again for joining us,
Continuing on your journey.
This journey we share together.
In this segment,
The Prophet answers a man who asks about houses.
In my own meditation practice,
Along the eight limb path of the Yoga Sutras,
One of the limbs is Pratyahara,
Which is a withdrawal from senses.
The five senses,
In particular sight,
Sound,
Touch,
Taste,
And smell.
And as I drop into my meditation practice,
I'll greet each sense with the metta prayer of loving-kindness,
As though I'm in my own home,
In welcoming each sense as a guest on my terms.
And even as I close my eyes for meditation,
I'll greet that sight,
Even if it's just visions back of my eyelids of the darkness,
With the same prayer,
May you be happy,
May you be healthy,
And may you be at peace.
And I'll continue through all five senses,
Greeting each one individually,
Observing that sense in its own individuality and on my terms.
And on the best of days,
All five senses are at peace in my home,
My physical body.
And then I'm prepared for meditation.
And so consider the Prophet's words on houses,
Maybe in similar fashion.
And a mason came forth and said,
Speak to us of houses.
And he answered and said,
Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness,
Ere you build a house within the city walls.
For even as you have homecomings in your twilight,
So has the wanderer in you,
The ever distant and alone.
Your house is larger body.
It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night.
And it is not dreamless.
It is not your house dream and dreaming,
Leave the city for grove or hilltop.
Would that I could gather your houses into my hand,
And like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.
Would the valleys were your streets and the green paths your alleys,
That you might seek one another through vineyards and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.
But these things are not yet to be.
In their fear,
Your forefathers gathered you too near together.
And that fear shall endure a little longer.
A little longer,
So your city walls separate your hearths from your fields.
And tell me,
People of Orphalese,
What of you in these houses?
And what is it you guard with fastened doors?
Have you peace,
The quiet urge that reveals your power?
Have you remembrances,
The glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?
Have you beauty that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?
Tell me,
Have you these in your houses?
Or have you only comfort and the lust for comfort,
That stealthy thing that enters the house a guest and then becomes a host and then a master?
Aye,
And it becomes a tamer,
And with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.
Though its hands are silk and its heart is of iron,
It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
It makes mock of your sound senses and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.
Barely,
The lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul,
And then walks grinning in the funeral.
But you,
Children of space,
You restless in rest,
You shall not be trapped nor tamed.
Your house shall not an anchor but a mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound but an eyelid that guards the eye.
You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors,
Nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling,
Nor fear to breathe lest the walls should crack and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and splendor,
Your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.
For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky,
Whose door is the morning mist,
And whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.
And so as you withdraw from your senses,
Know the light,
The love,
Those things that are most real in you,
That space of creation is boundless.
It abides in the mansion of the sky.
The door is just a mist.
And the windows to our soul,
Our essence,
Those things that are truth,
These are the songs and the silences of night.
If you would,
Just bring your hands together at heart center and close your eyes.
Notice as you stack your spine,
Begin to feel the heartbeat.
Notice that space between the palms.
Allow the breath of your life to fill that space.
And know the space is filled with truth,
With love,
With peace.
This is our home.
With all my love and with all my gratitude.
Namaste.
