Related quotes: The test is constancy

0006 The Constant Heart

The test is constancy –
the proof, the constant heart.

See that pair who walk across the park -
from the back, it’s difficult to see their age –
they walk as if there’s nowhere now to go;
for they’re so still, inside themselves; they’re joined
by that shared stillness. Now and then they glance
deep into each other’s eyes – seeing there,
a constancy. Their hearts – you see it – are at rest.

They can remember with an inner smile
how when they met, they put on every charm
to seek to catch each other for themselves;
now they dive, swim, laugh, at rest
within each other's still, warm constancy.
See them walk and laugh their way
across the park; across their life.

* * *

See now over there, the man who stands,
talking quietly, with observant eye;
a group of boys around him who
can think of nothing else but listening:
he’s still, he’s standing sure within himself.
He’s just too far away for you to hear the words he says;
and yet you know – he’s constant in himself,
he’s constant in all that he gives to them.
They’ve found a wise man, and they’re listening.

* * *

The test is constancy –
The proof, the constant heart.

(with acknowledgements to Shantananda Saraswati)

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Related quotes

In the Spirit of Rumi-16

I said to My Beloved

How, my dearest one,
do you know those who truly love You?

My Beloved said

Not by their smiling face,
nor by their eagerness;
nor by the quickness of their response,
nor by the force and wealth of their response
pleasing though these are –

but by their stillness: as
a rose is still; or as a fine-proportioned vase is still;
or as a sunlit golden dome is still;
or as the bluest vault of heaven is still;

they have a stillness all about them; for
their hearts are ever at rest; there is no need
for their still heart to move; they are
always the same; they rest in love;
they meet you with all love,
they greet you with all love;
you cannot add to their true love,
you cannot take away from their true love;

and if you wish to test their love,
the test is constancy; there is no change in them;
they speak, they feel, they act, from constancy;
what is their substance? It is constancy;
I stand with them in constancy,
they stand with Me in constancy..

if that is not what you would ask of them in love,
then they are not for you; but they,
they are My true lovers, lovers of the truth in Me

-said My Beloved.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Saint Augustine cries from his heart

Brothers – sisters – do our years last?
Day by day, they slip away…
those which were, no longer are;
those to come are not yet here.
The former days are past;
the future days are yet to come…
but only to pass away in their turn..

Today exists.. but only in this moment
in which we speak, this moment now…
already, its first hours have passed;
the hours that remain do not yet exist;
they will come, only to fall away
into nothingness…Nothing contains
constancy in itself.

The body does not possess being,
it has no permanence; it changes with age,
it changes with time and place,
it changes with illness and accident..

The bright stars
have as little constancy;
they change in hidden ways,
they go whirling through space…
they are not steady, being is not theirs..

Nor is the human heart any more as constant:
how many thoughts disturb it?
how many ambitions now besiege it!
How many pleasures pull it
this way and that, tearing it apart!

The human spirit itself, although
endowed with reason, changes..
it does not possess being:
it wills and does not will;
it knows and does not know;
it remembers and forgets.

No one has in themselves, the unity of being…
so, after so many sufferings, diseases,
troubles and pains, let us return
to seeking that One Being;
seek out, join, those who dwell
in that city where Being itself is shared..

for a life without the sense, the sensing,
the living-out of eternal Being, is unworthy
of the name of life; only the changeless
gives us meaning in and for our change…

only the boundless frees our minds of bonds.

[paraphrased from his Commentary on Psalm 121
and his Sermon 346]

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Constancy.....

no matter what
it remains standing there
when tired
it sits sometimes when we are not watching
it deceives
and lies and mocks us when we are not looking
but what we must admire
and give credit
to this kind of thing
is its constancy
so that
when it rains or shines
it is always there
nothing moves it
and nothing defeats it
it is always there
and we applaud it
we put the boundaries
and mark the monument
of this
constancy
a sculpture of a body
with a face
like ours.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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What is your substance...?

What’s your ‘substance’, Aristotle, pray? -
that in your book On Metaphysics, you
should feel the need to look at ‘being’ more
than Plato said of soul? How ‘know thyself’?

You focus your so glorious mind, O sage,
on what confronts us in our human state;
hoping that from there, all will disclose
itself; and so you seek to formulate:

in Book Four, Chapter Two, acutely list
four ways, four meanings, of the Greek as used;
to us, they’re more apparent grammar-wise:
‘being’ as noun, verb, adverb, adjective…

you ultimately choose the languaged thing:
nouned as existence, substance - ‘ousia’;

no wonder Shakespeare took you up on that;
asking as he did, God’s self in human form
what were the essence of that insubstantial
substance that the world’s whole being holds:

and out from all these cloudy worlds of thought -
it’s ‘constancy’ in godly human heart..

I wonder, Aristotle, if Will’s search
to see the One that’s constant in the All
would satisfy your subtle Grecian mind?

or, in Creation’s grammar as it lives,
do active verbs precede substantive nouns?
And do we know our godly self more true,
as constant in ourselves, in Being Now?

[For Pete, who asked]

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Why...Has My Angel Forsaken Me?

Why, I ask, has my Angel forsaken me?
Where has my charmed life now taken me?
I was the most fortuitous man in all the land,
Simply because I was allowed to hold your hand!

Like a flash, my life turned tragically, upside down-
Where once, with constancy, I smiled-now, I am constant, with a frown!
Justice has let me down, in a myriad of ways;
Lo, injustice fades with time, though love stays!

That which you felt to be so very real
Can not be so, runs it does, contrary, to all you feel!
My love for thee stays strong, guarded, in my heart,
Built has it, from that November day, when it did start!

All of my life, I have awaited your presence,
For the rest of my life I shall honor your true essence!

Maurice Harris,26 March 2008

poem by Maurice Harris
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In the spirit of Rumi - 24

‘O My Beloved,

Only when I am close to You
is the world in perfect order, and
contentment enfolds me in warm arms;
only then am I at peace;
only then is my heart at rest
and I am still within myself
and know that heart to be true constancy…’

O My Beloved,

You heard me speak this
from my heart, to You; and then
You smiled.

And in that smile I knew
all that I had written, to be but
the faintest, pale reflection
of Your love for me;
for me whose heart You made,
to be there as a mirror of Your love.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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