Healing Gardens

Body:

Its hard to write a spoken word piece down and have the flow of the way its recited remain intact, but I'll try my best. At the end, I will offer some interpretation.

here's the words:

On the tough turbelent turf of the mind,

The terrain is yet to be tilled.

We find the four directions:

East is the frontal lobe,

You know you're home by the rising sun reflected on the five point star that God seeded and built.

West is the medulla,

North and south the respective hemispheres,

Careful your fields aren't watered with tears,

You won't bring forth good fruit but a sour taste,

That brings more tears in an endless cycle of many days.

If I'm looking for perfect ripeness,

In a desert filled with desire's vipers,

All I will find is poisonous venom and no serum or medicine to be ingested.

Unprotected harvest eaten by locusts,

Spinal column,

That's the taproot,

The taproot that we focus to bring up nutrients from the depths,

The nutrients that create a perfect potent mix that spreads,

Projected evenly,

Purposefully perfected for every season and every reason conceivebly known to want to grow the soul.

If I produced my produce for money,

All my bountiful rewards would be taken from me and replaced with emptiness.

But if I toil to end delusion,

Confusion is taken from me and replaced with endless bliss.

Its obvious what we want but how will we get it?

We can't feed the soul on moldy spinach, forget it,

But the love and light and joy is good for the mind blossom.

Uncover the gold by removing the muddy thoughts in which we get caught when the ego is in control.

The plot of land that's internal,

That's the plot of land that's eternal,

It can't be destroyed,

But it can be turned into paradise so don't roll the dice with the blind sense mind and continue to sacrifice.

Final message:

When the body decomposes,

The flower of the soul will continue to show,

And continue unfolding,

And one day our little wave will join the ocean.

Bless yourself with the determination to bloom your lotus in the mud of the present day's configuration.

No matter how twisted or perfect,

Enjoy the nectar that lies under the surface.

 

Interpretation:

Most of the poem is based on Indian philosophy, particularly the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda. I will give a line by line interpretation because some of the concepts are foreign to many.

"On the tough turbelent turf of the mind, the terrain is yet to be tilled."- The mind is a pretty tough place to grow spiritually in its present state, but the potential is there, it just needs to be "tilled" or brought up and stirred up in a positive sense.

"We find the four directions: East is the frontal lobe, You know you're home by the rising sun reflected on the five point star that God seeded and built. West is the medulla, North and south the respective hemispheres,"- This is just setting the stage of the mind. In eastern philospophy the body has directions, east in front, west in back, etc. The five point star is the spiritual eye, or third eye, when seen in deep meditation, inside a blue circle rimmed with gold. Hence the reference to the rising sun. It is this that is referred to in the bible as "the star in the east" that the wisemen follow to Jesus. It is the seat of intuition, and it was deep intuition that led these wisemen to Jesus, as they knew a great soul was being incarnated. Jesus also refers to this when he said "When thine eye is single, thy body will be filled with light". Ezekial also refers to this, but I forget the passage, something about a whell within a wheel. It is refered to in most mystical traditions. This is the energy that nutures our "field" and allows us to grow. The medulla, or the west, is a reflection of this eye, and is also an energy source. Hence the path or the sun, east to west. Sorry this is so long-winded but I want to try to explain this, as it is not just random words.

"Careful your fields aren't watered with tears, You won't bring forth good fruit but a sour taste, That brings more tears in an endless cycle of many days."- The energy we put into an action is reflected in the fruit or outcome of that action. So if we focus on negative things, we will be consuming negative mental fruit and this cycle will continue until we break it with will power. The longer it goes on the harder it is to break!

"If I'm looking for perfect ripeness, In a desert filled with desire's vipers, All I will find is poisonous venom and no serum or medicine to be ingested."- If we look for "ripe fruit" , or something that is spiritually nuturing, in anything that is based on sense desire we will only be contaminated with more desire and find no antidote to this problem.

"Unprotected harvest eaten by locusts,"- Even if we begin to grow spiritually, we still have to be watchful or we will find ourselves consumed by the same base desires we thought we conquered when our growth developed. Until the crop is strong, we have to be ever watchful of our own thoughts.

"Spinal column, That's the taproot, The taproot that we focus to bring up nutrients from the depths, The nutrients that create a perfect potent mix that spreads,"- The spine is the main higway of energy in the body. At the base of the spine a concentrated energy lies known as kundalini. It is the raising of this intense energy that develops higher consiousness. By travelling up the spine it spreads to all the body's energy centers.

"Projected evenly, Purposefully perfected for every season and every reason conceivebly known to want to grow the soul."- The reason I said projected evenly is that if this kundalini energy is not raised in a balanced way it can be destructive. Just as if we give a plant too much of something it needs, such as water or light, it will die, so we must know how much energy our body and mind can handle. The second part of this line, "perfected for every season and every reason", refers to the nature of this energy. It is invloved at all times, and no matter the reasons, that one wants to grow spiritually.

"If I produced my produce for money, All my bountiful rewards would be taken from me and replaced with emptiness. But if I toil to end delusion, Confusion is taken from me and replaced with endless bliss. Its obvious what we want but how will we get it?"- If we do anything with the desire to profit materially, even if we suceed, we only gain more materialistic objects. These things are empty because they do not bring us any closer to God, or spiritual upliftment. But if we work to understand these cosmic realities, we surpass the need for anything, and so are always satisfied. This obviously better but how do we get to this point? I based this also on something the sage Swami Sri Yukteswar interpretated from the Vedas. "Avidya (Ignorance), is the perception of the nonexistent as real, and the nonperception of the only true reality, Sat (God with no form)" (The Holy Science, Yukteswar)

"We can't feed the soul on moldy spinach, forget it, But the love and light and joy is good for the mind blossom."- We can't grow if we feed on things of low quality, but love, light, and joy will cause us to expand and unfold.

"Uncover the gold by removing the muddy thoughts in which we get caught when the ego is in control."- Paramhansa Yogananda used this concept frequently. He said that the soul is like gold that is submerged in mud. No matter how many negative actions and thoughts we cover it with, it remains the same, it just creates more mud for us to have to go through to find it. These negative and limiting thoughts and actions are usually caused by indentification with the ego.

"The plot of land that's internal, That's the plot of land that's eternal,"- The soul is indestructable.

"It can't be destroyed, But it can be turned into paradise so don't roll the dice with the blind sense mind and continue to sacrifice."- The soul can't be destroyed but it can be turned into paradise but we continue to risk playing with our ego and sense desires which pull us away from this realization. This is also a reference to the Indian epic the Mahabharata, in which the Pandava brothers (warriors fighting for the spiritual unfoldment of the soul) lose their kingdom in a loaded dice game with the Kauravas (representing the warriors of the ego). The key to this is that the dice were loaded, there is no way to win when playing with the ego.

"Final message: When the body decomposes, The flower of the soul will continue to show, And continue unfolding"- After the death of the body, our spiritual journey continues.

"And one day our little wave will join the ocean."- Another metaphor Yogananda used frequently. We are like a wave that feels seperate from the ocean of God, but we will recede back into Him. Our pereception of being seperate is just that, a perception, but not a truth.

"Bless yourself with the determination to bloom your lotus in the mud of the present day's configuration."- The lotus is a metaphor used by many cutlures because it is a beautiful flower that blooms from the mud. Much like our development in an inperfect world. Another interesting thing about the lotus that I learned recently is that many flowers share the same roots and are the same plant. Once again a metaphor for our misperception of seperation.

"No matter how twisted or perfect, Enjoy the nectar that lies under the surface"- The crazy thing about reality is that no matter what is seemingly happening, we are never out of touch with the bliss of God. May we all be able to remember this.

Thanks and credit go to God, and the sages that reflect Him perfectly. For anyone interested in Paramhansa Yogananda, his autobiography can be read online for free here: http://www.ananda.org/inspiration/books/ay/index.html

Peace