Adam Speak

Come pilgrims now upon The Path
And heed these words, this hollow laugh;
If you should seek the Living Truth
Then shun the cursed temple’s roof
And should you meet the Buddha on your way
Cut him down and to him say:

“For Spirit seek instead the tavern
The mountain bare, the lonely cavern.
The vaulted spires of the wildwood green
The music of the crystal stream
The laughter of the nymphs and fawns
Innocent, playful as naked newborns
Offering honey and mystic wine
As sacraments to the Flesh Divine”

I’ve circled the globe from East to West
In search of a Truth that passes this test:
Does it bring friendship?
Does it bring freedom?
Does it bring joy with no need for a reason?
Does it bring wholeness
And does it breed strength?
Does it dispose with dispassion
All ideas of non-sense?

From north to south, from Pole to Pole
I quested in vain for the seat of my soul
Kneeling in temples and prostrate in stupas
Praying in churches and poring through sutras
Yet everywhere I’ve been the folk
Still toil beneath oppression’s yoke;
Beasts of burden for the cunning few
For whom all is permitted, yet nothing is true.

From the tooth of the Buddha, rotting in Kandy
To the Dome of the Rock and the loincloth of Gandhi
Fools worship the finger and miss the moon
Praying to prophets and begging for boons
While their black shirted masters preach sermons of war
About the spiritual value of being hungry and poor.

From their ivory towers the old, cold and sour
Wail the refrains of their paeans to power;
Dividing to rule - within, without -
Casting a pall of darkness and doubt
As they lay all their curses on life’s greatest treasures
An invisible worm that corrupts all love’s pleasures.

Dividing the spirit against the flesh
Damming the stream and stifling the breath
Dividing the Christian against the Jew
Hindu and Moslem and Buddhist too.
Dividing the left against the right
Condemning the dark and exalting the light;
Dividing the people to cling onto power
Tarmaccing Eden and crushing love’s flower.

But I say that these devils shall never prevail
If we quest without rest and refuse to fail
So wake up you dreamers and heed the call
From the All-in-One to the One-in-All:
Knowledge is power - so know your Self
That Knowledge is nothing without love’s wealth.
Knowledge must lead to the bliss of Unknowing;
Knowledge needs Wisdom to keep it’s blood flowing
And growing in knowing we know more and more
How little we know: we can never be sure.

Sure belief is a means towards a great end
Yet belief is a curse we at last must transcend.
Belief is a bubble just waiting to burst
A lover’s delusion, a rabid man’s thirst
The shell of the egg we must constantly crack
Hatching anew to find our way back
To the source of the spring on the mountain’s peak
Too blissful to think and too awestruck to speak.

Eternal, infernal unquenchable flame!
Silence Supernal! Love With No Name!
I am that I am - Sovereign, Sole -
A star in the heart of the heavenly Whole
Existing alone by the grace of The Void
Through whom all form is born
In whom all is destroyed.

All-Father! All-Mother!
Thou Two-in-None!
You are my Source and I am your Son!
ShaktiShiva in Union:
I
Am You

And that
Is the one thing
That I know
That is True.