Hay-Ku of The Day (OOMM, Appendix B, “Related Poetry, As Certain Poets of Yours Once Said”)

Poetic Glimpses 

Into the Divine Nature

Of Being Aware.

“To Be or Not Be...”

Consciously Aware I Am

“...That is the Question.”

The Dawning Light of

The Pure Awareness I Am

Redeems the Lost Years.

BE STILL

Free of self-will, 

Be quiet and still.

Empty and open, 

Be whole and unbroken. 

Settle and center, 

Be silent and enter.

SILENT MIND

An Empty Mind, 

Is also Clear; 

Without thought, 

There is no Fear. 

A Quiet Mind, 

Lives in Peace; 

Makes the most, 

Of even Least. 

A Silent Mind, 

Has no Bound; 

Open and Still, 

Itself is Found

ARE YOU REALLY?

Are you really flesh and bone,

Always here, but never home; 

Are you really earthly bound, 

Mostly lost and seldom found? 

Are you really future’s dust,

Are your treasures bound to rust;

Are you really going to die, 

Born of ground and not of sky? 

Are you really nature’s toy, 

Born for tears and not for joy; 

Are you really born a pawn, 

Here a while, but longer gone?

RESURRECTION 

Who ask why, 

And wonders how; 

When you are here, 

And life is now. 

Never mind,

And never worry; 

Take no thought,

Thy self unbury.

Christ unbind, 

Thy shroud unwind; 

Arise in thought, 

All death is naught.

LIFE IS LIKE

Life is like an open book,

Who sees it not, just doesn’t look;

For like the air, it’s all around,

Seldom seen and nowhere found. 

Life is like a lovely rose,

By night it sleeps, by day it grows;

Here today, gone tomorrow,

Never knowing pain or sorrow. 

Life is like a tragic play,

So full of things that cannot stay;

Things that rise and so must fall,

Without a bow or curtain call. 

Life is like a race to run,

Not to win, but just for fun; 

It rolls along from day to day,

Comes again, but not this way. 

Life is like a burning star, 

Ever close, but, oh, so far; 

Shining brightest in the night,

Though by day still burns its light. 

Life is like an endless stream, 

A babbling brook, a living dream;

Never sleeping, ever waking,

Always giving, never taking. 

Life is like the empty sky,

Far away, but also nigh;

Up and down can it be found,

High above and on the ground.

Life is like a lovely rose,

By night it sleeps, by day it grows;

Here today, gone tomorrow,

Never knowing pain or sorrow.

Life is like a newborn child,

Soft and gentle, sweet and mild;

Full of wonder, free of doubt,

It gives itself to all about.

Life is like a mustard seed,

For it to flower, rain it needs;

Tended and feed, if it’s to grow,

Cast off bounds and beauty know. 

Life is like the silver moon,

Its borrowed light is gone so soon; 

Hide and seek its favorite game, 

It seems to change, yet stays the same. 

Life is like a central sun, 

It sheds its light on everyone; 

Light and warmth it so bequeaths,

To all above and all beneath.

Life is like a timeless sea,

Whose unmoved depths shall ever be; 

Though surface winds its waves do blow,

They never touch the deep below.

ANOTHER

Another time, another place,

Another smile, another face; 

Another year, another day, 

Another path, another way. 

Another eye, another stare, 

Another here, another there; 

Another where, another when, 

Another love, another friend. 

Another step, another mile, 

Another look, another style; 

Another wish, another dream, 

Another plan, another scheme. 

Another mount,  another peak,

Another hide, another seek;

Another low, another high,

Another touch, another sigh.

Another hope, another fear, 

Another kiss, another tear; 

Another laugh, another cry, 

Another girl, another guy.

Another heart, another head, 

Another room, another bed; 

Another song, another dance, 

Another roll, another chance.

Another sun, another moon, 

Another poem, another tune;

Another day, another night, 

Another depth, another height. 

Another up, another down,

Another thorn, another crown; 

Another grin, another bear, 

Another pull, another tear. 

Another hunt, another chase, 

Another game, another race;

Another smell, another taste, 

Another build, another waste. 

Another lost, another found,

Another sky, another ground; 

Another form, another space, 

Another time, another place.  

ONE MOMENT

On again, off again, round and around, 

One moment lost, the next moment found; 

Movement and stillness, silence and sound, 

One moment free, the next moment bound. 

Living and dying, doing and being, 

One moment blind, the next moment seeing;

Darkness and light, solid and space, 

One moment law, the next moment grace. 

Dove and eagle, lion and bull, 

One moment empty, the next moment full; 

Passion and purpose, diamonds and dust, 

One moment steel, the next moment rust.

Here and now, now and then,

One moment start, the next moment end; 

Something and nothing, nothing and all, 

One moment stand, the next moment fall. 

Thought and sense, mind and heart, 

One moment science, the next moment art;

Thunder and lightening, sunshine and rain, 

One moment pleasure, the next moment pain.

Flesh and spirit, body and soul, 

One moment part, the next moment whole; 

Mary and Joseph, manger and stall, 

One moment Nothing, the next moment All.

WHO AM I?

Who is this I that I seem to be, 

That I feel I am, yet cannot see; 

The one in me I’ve yet to know, 

Though ever present wherever I go. . 

Who can it be, this I in me,

The I that I am, yet never see;

The one in me that still goes on,

When all about has come and gone. 

The one in me that always knows, 

That never comes and never goes;

That’s always here and never there,

Ever present and so nowhere.

The one in me, the one in you, 

The I in us and all else too; 

The root and core of all that lives,

The essence and soul of all that is.

The I in all which cannot fall, 

Alive in the hearts of great and small;

That’s never apart and always near,

Knows no hunger and has no fear.

The one in all, the one in each,

The one all seek, but never reach;

The I that I am, that you are too,

The I that answers the question who.

CONCEIVED IN TRUTH

I

As in Thy Oneness first conceived, 

Though by sense of self deceived; 

Again to Oneness must I grow, 

And therein finally come to know. 

For conceived in Truth, we two are One,

Thou art Father and I am Son; 

You are Thinker and I am Thought, 

You’re the Seeker and I that Sought. 

You are Dreamer and I am Dream, 

You’re the River and I the Stream; 

You are Sea and I am Wave, 

You’re the Savior and I am Saved.

II

So must I come to see us as One,

You as the Father and I as the Son;

You as the Whole of which I am Part,

You as my Finish and I as your Start. 

See you as the Ocean and I as the Drop, 

You as the Bottom of which I am Top; 

You as the Doer and I as your Done, 

You as the Victor and I as the Won. 

For in our Oneness can the only Truth lie, 

Your one clear answer to my question why;

My faith in self the source of all fright, 

My denial of Truth the cause of my blight.

III

So do I pray Thee, Oh Father of Life, 

Awaken Thy Son and end all His strife; 

Make One my Consciousness, Thinker Divine, 

And so bless my soul with Thy Perfect Mind.

So lift the veil of my thought’s false division,

And open mine eyes to Thy Perfect Vision;

Thus end the reign of my partial sight,

The shadows I cast and my blockage of Light. 

That empty my heart of its selfish love,

May I so ascend to Your Kingdom above; 

So scale Life’s Mountain and know its height,

Behold the One and see the Light.

IV

So sever the root of self-conscious being,

That thought of self no longer blocks seeing;

For a slave no longer to relative mind,

Will I so stop seeking and finally find.

So stop becoming and wholly become,

One in the Many whose birthright is Son;

A rebirth in Spirit within present days, 

Born with the death of my imperfect ways. 

A reunion in Consciousness, Cause with Effect,

A rejoining of Subject with parted Object; 

A wedding of Self with that seen as Other, 

A coming to Peace between me and my Brother.

V

Original Consciousness, Essence Divine,

So filleth my heart and make whole my mind; 

Come to me now and complete this Thy Word,

That I may now hear and you may be heard. 

That once again Whole my divide heart, 

Never again may I think you apart; 

That I may know Oneness and so cease to fight,

May put up my sword and reliance on might. 

May realize Thy Presence within every other,

And so know myself to be One with my Brother; 

So awakened to Oneness and evermore free,

Will I no longer bound by selfishness be.

VI

So ended my bondage to relative reason,

No longer to know Life as only a season; 

Never more bound by future and past, 

In Thee ever resting long after the last. 

Forever gone my incomplete thought,

Free its bounds and no longer caught;

Free in Spirit, my Soul lifted up,

To drink not the dregs, but the Wine of Life’s Cup.

In Thy Boundless Image made totally Whole,

A Timeless Union of Spirit and Soul; 

My coming to Oneness, an end to all crying,

Gone partial being and with it my dying.

VII 

So more of Thee and less of me, 

That I may finally come to see; 

That I may finally come to know, 

From whence I came and where I go.

That One at last may I so come to be, 

Born of a Consciousness only of Thee; 

My Wholeness made know through a coming of Thine,

And with it a bringing of Thy Word to rhyme. 

Thy Infinite Wholeness, the Ground of my Being,

A promise of Hope to my once again seeing;

A return to Oneness, of Partial to Whole, 

The Saving Grace of my prodigal Soul.

1980

[Rich Note: Appendix B, “Related Poetry, As Certain Poets of Yours Once Said,” in a “section by section” sampling of “Out of My Mind and Back to My Senses.” For those whose interest might be piqued or experience a heartfelt resonance with what is shared, I would highly recommend downloading the Amazon Kindle sample of OOMM, as it effectively constitutes both a synoptic and seminal, 59 page “mini-book .”]

http://rfhay333.blogspot.com/?m=1

Hay-Ku of The Day [OOMM, Appendix A, “A Preface of Grace, (Mini-Autobiography), “Awake Thou That Sleepeth Arise from the Dead”]

To “Reach for a Rose

And be pierced by a Thorn”

Is Being Human.

Intellectual

Honesty with Respect to

Truth is Essential.

The One Thing that is

Never subject to doubt is

The Knowledge I Am.

WHY I BELIEVE 

Background/Resume: Retired US Air Force Major (1987) and Airline Pilot (Pan American/1991 and United/2004) with a BS in Marketing (1967) and an MBA (1976) from Penn State. 

1. As a youth I was a rather angry young man who kept it bottled up inside. A loner in those days, I was painfully introverted, reclusive, over-weight and bordered on anti-social. In retrospect, I was, quite literally, at war with life as I had been taught to know, live and understand it. “Life sucked, so dying wasn’t such a bad deal?” was a recurring thought that often came to mind in those days. “Rebel Without a Cause,” the title of a 1950’s movie, was a perfect characterization of my frame of mind as a teenager. 

2. In this regard, Dad, probably quite accurately, said that it was either the military or my wife Sandy that had saved me from myself. For he really did believe I was only one step removed from heading to San Francisco and becoming, horror of horrors, a hippy; a concern I took great pleasure in not discouraging. It was really a crazy time with Vietnam, the counter-culture, free love (which I somehow managed to miss), etc., but I was too much a child of the 50’s to do anything but be a “straight arrow.” Although I had been brought up as a Christian, God had been placed on the “back burner” as not particularly relevant unless my struggles with life reached crisis proportions. I did, however, manage to take God to Vietnam with me in the form of Psalms 91:7 (re: “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.”)— a verse that became a prayer God answered more times than I care to remember . 

3. Also worth mentioning is that prior to Vietnam service in 1970, I was rather proud of having survived four near-death experiences (NDE). Some kind of an unconscious death wish, I suppose. But laying down a motorcycle front of a car, attempting to roll clear and then looking up to see the car’s bumper over my head and its right front wheel six inches away was the most “moving” of those early experiences. In retrospect, I have little doubt that those mini- NDEs were actually divine wake-up calls; wake-up calls I was a little slow “getting the message” on. Today, I see those experiences as progressively harder “love taps” in which God was saying, “Awake thou that sleepeth, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5:14). Anyway, I got the “mother of all wake-up calls” (I’d like to say final, but I’ve had several lesser ones since) during an emergency bailout from an AC-119K Gunship in Vietnam in June of 1970. A wide-awake NDE I have often refer to as a “divine wake-up call” or, perhaps more aptly, getting hit smack between the eyes with a cosmic two by four (something God sometimes is forced to use to get His more stubborn human mule’s full and undivided attention). Take my word for it, based on personal experience, if God can’t get your attention with a “carrot,” He will use a “stick” (or a “super-sized” club). 

4. The bailout itself involved four rather classic manifestations of an NDE, although I was completely conscious—super conscious/rational actually—during the whole process. I won’t go into specific details here, but the altered states of awareness and/or perception that I experienced were: (1) time standing still; (2) me watching me (an in body out-of-body); (3) total life recall; and (4) a conscious choice to live or die. All of which involved states of mind and consciousness that were (by a quantum degree) more vital, real and alive than anything I had ever experienced in more worldly frames of reference. 

5. I should have died five times that night. From that, genius that I am, I concluded I had used up at least nine lives already and better use my remaining days to figure out who I was and why I was here. “What on earth am I here for?”,  the subtitle of “The Purpose Driven Life,” catches the spirit of my subsequent inquiry very well. The premise I started my search with was rather simple: life either had some ultimate meaning beyond my understanding or, as Shakespeare so eloquently put it, “life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I readily concluded the former, for concluding the latter would itself be part of the nonsense so concluded. Besides, I had pretty much been liv- ing according to the second assumption and only had an in- creasing number of near death experiences to show for it. 

6. The result of all this was a very long search which, to a certain extent, still goes on today; not as a search for Truth Itself, but a fuller understanding of the Truth I had been blessed to find. In this regard, I proceeded under the hypothesis that the Truth I sought must be the “Common Thread” expressed, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on their racial, psychological, cultural or social perspective, in world philosophies, psychologies, theologies and ideologies that had stood the test of time. More poetically, I sought the Truth as the Light of Wisdom and Understanding embedded in any and all such conceptual expressions and, therefore, reflected, with varying degrees of fidelity (some dimmer and some brighter) in, as and through all created existence. Seen in retrospect, and put Biblically, I was actually seeking the Truth of Christ as “ . . . all, and in all.” (Col. 3:11). 

7. Well, 10 years or so into my long search for Truth, I was reading the Bible one day and inspired to ask God (Mt. 7:8) to show me the Truth that I had sought for so long, that I might share it with others. Almost immediately, I had what may be described as an “epiphany.” Others have called it a mystical experience, a change of heart, or a sense of at-one-ment with all. In any event, it was a state of conscious union in which I was lifted high (or stepped back far) enough to see the full length and breadth of my own Being. Quite literally, the intellectual light I had been seeking dawned, the mental veil of carnal mind was momentarily rent asunder, and I saw the Truth directly; not in part, as in a glass darkly or self-reflectively, but face to face, even as I am known (2 Co. 13:12). I, quite literally, saw the Truth of God I had prayed for; the Truth that exists beyond the mental screen of words and thoughts that normally veil our eyes to its all-glorious Light. Since that day, more than twenty-seven (now 47) years ago, I have been in the process of “growing up” (Eph. 4:15) into that Truth, that Light; the Truth that I asked God for and was graced and blessed to receive that day. For that revelation was not the end, but rather the beginning of a very intellectual walk home. For, as I soon discovered, seeing the Truth and being true are not the same thing—that seeing is one thing and being another. 

8. Put in it’s most precise Christian form, the Truth I experienced as a direct revelation in 1978 was “ . . . the mystery which hath been hid from ages . . . which is Christ in You, the Hope of Glory” (Co. 1:26,27). More specifically, the Truth is Christ, as the Son of God, as the Anointed One, as the Light of the World, as the One I AM that spoke to Moses from the Burning Bush, as the Word or Logos of God made flesh; as a “Pilot Light” (Jn. 1:4) in the heart of man, which can burst into full flame, become a Light unto the world and a Lamp unto the feet of all those around him (Ps. 119:105); a Light that can come fully to life in, as and through man and, ultimately, become his primary sense of being, and identity (or self), if and when he will simply “Let It Be!” 

9. More theologically speaking, all this means is that all men, by virtue of the Spirit God breathed into them through Adam in the Garden (Gen. 2:7), have a “Divine Seed, Spark or Pilot Light” that gives them the potential to “grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” (Eph. 4:15), if they will simply realize this in their heads, know it in their hearts, and do the things that Jesus advised would set us free. That is, if they will love God with all their hearts, minds and souls, and their neighbors as themselves (Mt. 22: 37–40); if they will deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Him. (Mt.16:24); if they will die daily (1 Co. 15:31) to themselves as they presently think they are—as a thought and sense of being separate and apart from God and others—as Paul did; if they will die to self-thought and follow the Light of God in their own hearts, follow Christ, they will some day be able to declare with overwhelming joy, as Paul did, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). 

10. As for me, I am, always have been, and probably always will be a lover of Truth with a capital “T.” Ultimately, this Truth, which I so love and that I still seek to know (more than 3000 books and counting in the last 40 years) more perfectly, is nothing more than an intellectual’s name for God. And it is that Ultimate Truth of Being that fully Manifest, Personified, or Incarnated—you pick the word—more than 2000 years ago, in, of, as and through the Man known today as Jesus Christ. The same Truth of God that is now directly accessible to all men as a “face to face” experience; as a direct, heartfelt apprehension of Christ as Holy One I AM, the Truth of All Being, the Lord God of All who declared in the Old Testament,” . . . I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee . . .”(Hos. 11:9) and in the New Testament, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (Jn. 14:6). Amen!  

Yours I Am/We Are All One In Christ. 

Postscript: “Thy words were found and I did eat them and Thy Word was unto me the joy and the rejoicing of mine heart, for I Am called by Thy Name O Lord God of Hosts” (Jer. 15:16). 2005 (2018)

[Rich Note: Appendix A, “A Preface of Grace” (which is both a mini-autobiography and declaration of what and why I believe) in a “section by section” sampling of “Out of My Mind and Back to My Senses.” For those whose interest might be piqued or experience a heartfelt resonance with what is shared, I would highly recommend downloading the Amazon Kindle sample of OOMM, as it effectively constitutes both a synoptic and seminal, 59 page “mini-book .”]

http://rfhay333.blogspot.com/?m=1

Hay-Ku of The Day (A Selection from OOMM, Chapter 9, “But Whom Say Ye That I Am”)

Being Mentally

Still and Silent reveals the

One I Am in All.

When I Attend to

Being Consciously Aware

I serve One and All.

Identified with

The Foreground, I forget the

Underlying Field.

Subject to mental

Myopia, I lose Sight

Of the Big Picture.

Awareness narrowed

To the level of objects

Loses consciousness.

My mental flashlight

Presently produces a 

Very narrow beam.

Until I can reign

Over my own mental space

I will rule in hell.

Relative thought is

The mental bondage that binds

Our spiritual wings.

Waves and particles

Appear as a function of

How I look at things.

Self-reflection leads

To a partial sense of being

And worship of same.

A mental screen of

Words and thoughts now blinds us to

The Truth of Being.

Human judgment

Is based on a relative

Lack of Awareness.

Jesus died to save

Us all from our delusion

Of self-existence.

The Truth speaks for

Itself and needs no defense

From lower quarters.

Peace is a State of

Pure Consciousness in which all

Mental motion stops.

Fear is a function

Of thinking myself to be

Other than I Am.

Believing myself

To be something I am not 

Is why I suffer.

Not any smarter 

Just a little bit further

Out of my own way.

Isn’t Everything you

Presently see a State of

Your own Awareness?

Laser-like the Mind 

Brought to the “Single-Eyed” state

Of Pure Awareness.

The instant I think

I am separate from God 

A lie becomes true.

Rich Note: The ninth in a “chapter by chapter” sampling of “Out of My Mind and Back to My Senses.” I would further encourage anyone, whose interest might be piqued or has a heartfelt resonance with what is offered, to download the Amazon Kindle sample of OOMM, as it effectively constitutes a synoptic, 59 page “mini-book .”]

http://rfhay333.blogspot.com/?m=1