Here I am Father
Listening for your voice
My inner ears are open
I have no requests
No demands
No hopes
No ambitions
I do not ask you to do anything which you are not already doing
I await thy word of grace
I am a servant of the most high

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think… and think… while you are alive.
What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death.

If you don’t break your ropes while you are alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten—
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life
you will have the face of satisfied desire.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Freedom

No one knows, what its like to be a slave
My heart is so heavy, I’m filled with grief
My family has been torn from me, and I just want to go home

I have shackles on my ankles
My hands are all tied up
As I walk down the dusty street with glass in my feet
I dream about the road ahead and what life is going to throw at me
Freedom, oh Freedom
Is every slaves wish
Freedom, oh Freedom
Is what keeps me going

My face is worn away by the wind
and the rain
My eyes are so blank,
and I never show my pain
I’m lost in life a life of a slave
My master controls me
He digs my early grave which I’m afraid is what’s ahead
My weakness shows from the work I do all day as I plow away
And if I stop to take a breath, I just might never take another

I have shackles on my ankles
My hands are all tied up
As I walk down the dusty street with glass in my feet
I dream about the road ahead, and
what life is going to throw at me

Freedom, oh, Freedom
Is every slaves wish
Freedom, oh, Freedom

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God.

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think

You have a thousand serious moves.