A LAMP IN A WINDLESS PLACE
The Mind & Heart of God
Poems
by Raymond Reichman-
A lamp that does not flicker in a windless place,
To such is compared a yogi of subdued thought
Practising Union with the Self
Bhagavad Gita (Maharishi Translation)
The Yoga of Maditation (Dhyana Yoga)
Chapter VI,Verse 19
From Chapter Three | Ineffability
Silence with Words
Success is possible only if the speaker articulates the words so as to radiate a sense of communication transcendently beyond the actual words spoken. And if the listener is receptive at that same level. The truth does not lie in the words themselves nor in the concepts they express. Such words are merely signposts pointing to transcendent reality.
It is important to me to reaffirm the priority that I afford to infinity. During
younger years when I sought God in conventional relative realms of non-
In the absence of such realization, a work such as this cannot be understood and cannot succeed. It is one of the paradoxes that, in order to climb the conventional ladder, Jacob’s Ladder if you like, the aspirant should seek rather to soar beyond the top rung, effortlessly if possible and by meditative levitation. Free of the ladder one may rise, pierce the ultimate, and allow its infinite wisdom to rain down and effuse the seeker’s search and his life. And if it does, the rain falls not only on the seeker but on all who witness him in silence. Modern engineers ponder the mystery of the construction of the pyramids, from base to apex. The answer may lie above the apex in its apotheosis.
The paradox is that if we achieve such an effortless leap in its fullness, the ladder disappears, and so does this work and the necessity for both. However, until each of us achieves enlightenment, we are living in the relative world and continue to need also the ladder and the work of its climb. Our meditative access to the infinite remains an essential holistic guide and subtle encouragement.
Working in the relative, the challenge to articulate the ineffable remains. But we make the meditative attempt at the effortless leap into the Kingdom of God at the beginning, not at the end, of our search. This allows the reality of Divinity to be realized at inception, and the glimpse and feel of infinite Grace to be touched and imbued into our being at origin and carried forward unbroken through life. We were Divine at origin. It is not as if we are not totally Divine while we climb the ladder of life’s effort, while we are incarnate and embodied in the relative world. We do not only achieve Divinity when we eventually reach the summit. We need to remain aware that we are totally Divine at the bottom of the ladder and at every rung on its progress. The paradox is that we must realize the destination at the start. Thus we seek to reconcile the polarity and the paradox. We seek to reconcile the paradox of intellectual and physical work, with the effortless intuitive revelation and mystical creative realization.
Passionate and blessed communication takes the hearer from word to word, across stepping stones. At a walk to begin with and then slowly extending the distance from stone to stone until the seeker finds himself effortlessly and joyfully leaping from stone to stone – touching grace in the expanding leap and not in the stone. The prose transforms to poetry. The prayer elevates to meditation.
And when he rests, the seeker is left without words in the mind, but with memory and wisdom residual in the heart…and ineffably enriched.
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