Don’t Run Back to the World

The gift arrives in the middle of the night.
The icy wind of emptiness
bangs open your front door
and chills you to the bone.

When this happens to anyone,
they run to the warm bed of the world
and are lullabyed back to sleep
for the rest of their lives.

Don’t run back to the world.
Fall … into the arms of loneliness.
Embrace this bittersweet longing,
this horrid homesickness.
Become a sacred wound
raging with the pain of exile.

For in the unseen world of spirit,
this loneliness is a drop of heaven
that fell into your heart on earth.

This longing is a breeze from home,
wafting the fragrance
of your Beloved to you.

This pain is the last hour of darkness
before the garden of your being
blossoms into springtime at dawn.

Don’t run back to the world.
Close your eyes.
Peer into the window within you
that opens on to the secret sky.
Listen to your Beloved calling to you
in the night.

Look!
There in the darkness -
his voice is the sound of light,
a path of luminous music 
streaming through the stars.
Follow where it leads you. Follow.
Your dazzling future is about to unfold.

***

Come friends, let us sing a song
  to welcome to this world the primal Lord,
  our friend of ages past.
Like flowers in the spring
  our hearts blossom when he arrives.
He has assumed the name ‘Radha Soami’
  to reveal the secrets of Alakh and Agam.
He has set in motion the train of Surat Shabd
  to carry souls to the inaccessible region of Agam Alok.
He has started the ever-flowing stream of satsang
  and he sings without cease
  the praises of Radha Soami.
Let us offer our hearts to him with all our love
  and end the agony of Kal’s web.
_{Sar Bachan Poetry, Bachan 1, Shabd 1}