I am a vessel
When Grace comes,
she often comes as an overwhelming cascade.
She enters vertically from above
through the aperture of my central canal.
My sushumna widens to allow her passage.
Yet it can feel as though that opening
is not wide enough
for a flow that creates and upholds worlds,
keeps the planets circling,
and knows the call
of my highest good.
It comes like an elephant entering a tent,
I feel the intensity
of being stretched beyond limit.
I have come to know this intimately.
Over time, I have learned
to soften the flow
into a steady widening.
For years, I tried many ways
to open the aperture
and allow the full light of Awareness to enter.
But my body seems to have limits.
Make no mistake.
The flow is unbelievably blissful.
I want to open completely.
I want to die to it
and into it.
But the body can receive only so much.
So I let go.
II
Forty years ago in India, I met a guru
and asked for enlightenment.
Immediately, I was taken upward.
I lost my body.
I lost space and time.
I was rising so quickly
that I could not hold on.
I fell back
into the awareness
of sitting among others.
I told no one.
It became my secret.
But it has never stopped.
It has never abated.
Grace comes.
And, like a cobra lifting its hood,
I widen to receive.
