Moses heard a shepherd on the road praying,
\u201cGod,
where are you? I want to help You, to fix Your shoes
and comb your hair. I want to wash Your clothes
and pick the lice off. I want to bring You milk,
to kiss Your little hands and feet when it\u2019s time
for You to go to bed. I want to sweep Your room
and keep it neat. God, my sheep and my goats
are Yours. All I can say, remembering You,
is ayyyyyyy and ahhhhhhhh.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moses could stand it no longer.
\u201cWho are you talking to?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one who made us,
and made the earth and made the sky.\u201d
\u201cDon\u2019t talk about shoes and socks with God!
And what\u2019s this with Your little hands and feet?
Such blasphemous familiarity sounds like
you\u2019re chatting with your uncles.
Only something that grows needs milk.
Only someone with feet needs shoes. Not God!
Even if you meant God\u2019s human representatives,
as when God said, \u2018I was sick, and you did not visit me,\u2019
even then this tone would be foolish and irreverent.<\/p>\n
Use appropriate terms. Fatima is a fine name
for a woman, but if you call a man Fatima,
it\u2019s an insult. Body-and-birth language
are right for us on this side of the river,
but not for addressing the Origin,
not for Allah.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shepherd repented and tore his clothes and sighed
and wandered out into the desert.<\/p>\n
A sudden revelation
came then to Moses. God\u2019s voice:
You have separated Me
from one of my own. Did you come as a prophet to unite,
or to sever?
I have given each being a separate and unique way
of seeing and knowing and saying that knowledge.
What seems wrong to you is right for him.
What is poison to one is honey to someone else.<\/p>\n
Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship,
these mean nothing to Me.
I am apart from all that.
Ways of worshipping are not to be ranked as better
or worse than one another.
Hindus do Hindu things.
The Dravidian Muslims in India do what they do.
It\u2019s all praise, and it\u2019s all right.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not Me that\u2019s glorified in acts of worship.
It\u2019s the worshippers! I don\u2019t hear the words
They say. I look inside at the humility.
That broken-open lowliness is the Reality,
not the language! Forget phraseology.
I want burning, burning<\/b>.
Be friends<\/u>
with your burning. Burn up your thinking
and your forms of expression!
Moses,
those who pay attention to ways of behaving
and speaking are one sort.
Lovers who burn are another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t impose a property tax
on a burned out village. Don\u2019t scold the Lover.
The \u201cwrong\u201d way he talks is better than a hundred
\u201cright\u201d ways of others.
Inside the Kaaba
it doesn\u2019t matter which direction you point
your prayer rug!
The ocean diver doesn\u2019t need snowshoes!
The Love-Religion has no code or doctrine.
Only God.
So the ruby has nothing engraved on it!
It doesn\u2019t need markings.
God began speaking
deeper mysteries to Moses. Vision and words,
which cannot be recorded here, poured into
and through him. He left himself and came back.
He went to eternity and came back here.
Many times this happened.
It\u2019s foolish of me
to try and say this. If I did say it,
it would uproot our human intelligences.
It would shatter all writing pens.<\/p>\n
Moses ran after the shepherd.
He followed the bewildered footprints,
in one place moving straight like a castle
across a chessboard. In another, sideways,
like a bishop.
Now surging like a wave cresting,
now sliding down like a fish,
with always his feet
making geomancy symbols in the sand,
recording his wandering state.<\/p>\n
Moses finally caught up with him.
\u201cI was wrong. God has revealed to me
that there are no rules for worship.
Say whatever
and however your loving tells you to. Your sweet blasphemy
is the truest devotion.
Through you a whole world is freed.
Loosen your tongue and don\u2019t worry what comes out.
It\u2019s all the light of the Spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shepherd replied,
\u201cMoses, Moses,
I\u2019ve gone beyond even that.
You applied the whip and my horse shied and jumped
out of itself. The Divine Nature and my human nature
came together.
Bless your scolding hand and your arm.
I can\u2019t say what has happened.
What I\u2019m saying now
is not my real condition. It can\u2019t be said.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shepherd grew quiet.<\/p>\n
When you look in a mirror,
you see yourself, not the state of the mirror.
The fluteplayer puts breath into a flute,
and who makes the music? Not the flute.
The Fluteplayer!<\/p>\n
Whenever you speak praise
or thanksgiving to God, it\u2019s always like this
dear shepherd\u2019s simplicity.
When you eventually see
through the veils to how things really are,
you will keep saying again
and again,
\u201cThis is certainly not like
we thought it was!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Moses heard a shepherd on the road praying, \u201cGod,where are you? I want to help You, to fix Your shoesand comb your hair. I want to wash Your clothesand pick the lice off. I want to bring You milk,to kiss … Continue reading