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    108 Sonnets for Awakening: and Selected Poems
    108 Sonnets for Awakening: and Selected Poems
    108 Sonnets for Awakening: and Selected Poems
    Ebook281 pages2 hours

    108 Sonnets for Awakening: and Selected Poems

    By Alan Jacobs

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    About this ebook

    Alan Jacobs is a well known Mystical Poet and the subject of this long sonnet sequence is Awakening From The Dream of Life.This beautiful book also contains a selection from his most important poems. He is President of the Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Hunt Publishing
    Release dateApr 16, 2012
    ISBN9781846949487
    108 Sonnets for Awakening: and Selected Poems
    Author

    Alan Jacobs

    Alan Jacobs is professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois. He is the author of several books, including most recently The Narnian, a biography of C. S. Lewis. His literary and cultural criticism has appeared in a wide range of periodicals, including the Boston Globe, The American Scholar, First Things, Books & Culture, and The Oxford American.

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      Book preview

      108 Sonnets for Awakening - Alan Jacobs

      Wordsworth

      1

      ALL BEINGS YEARN TO BE HAPPY A SONNET CORONA

      All beings yearn to be happy, always;

      Happiness without a tinge of sorrow,

      To enjoy a life of carefree days,

      Taking no burden of thought for tomorrow.

      When restless mind's at peace in deep sleep,

      What glimpse of worry, grief or despair?

      So happiness lies within, buried down deep.

      How to find this treasure, awake, aware?

      Ask the question, who am I, and from where?

      That's the essential means of the holy task,

      Ending ego's 'me' and 'my', that's there.

      No pleasure endures in things of this Earth,

      Enquire within, who basks behind our mask?

      To regain that Selfhood we lost at birth.

      2

      TO REGAIN THAT SELFHOOD

      To regain that Selfhood we lost at birth,

      First consider well the cinema screen,

      To understand that, gains merit and worth.

      On the screen there appears a tense drama,

      The film begins and we enjoy the show.

      Fire, flood, sex, death, a vast panorama;

      The screen's unchanging, but the film's a shadow.

      The simile teaches, strange as it may be,

      That both seer and seen make up the mind.

      On Consciousness as screen, all action's based.

      To know that is true, is the clue to be free,

      A guiding beacon that's so rare to find,

      Now and forever for eternity,

      That's the Sage wisdom by which we are graced.

      3

      SAGE WISDOM

      That's the Sage wisdom by which we are graced,

      We're taught the silver screen as a metaphor.

      Seated in theatre stalls, now we are placed,

      To proceed with clarity and enquire some more.

      The bright theatre lamp is the light supreme,

      Illuminating both actors and the scene.

      We see stage and the play only by light,

      Yet when action ends, the lamp remains bright.

      Just as woven cloth and its colour white

      Are never, ever perceived as apart,

      So when mind and light both unite,

      They form ego, knotted and bound in the heart.

      Of all that we've ever learned since birth,

      That's the high wisdom proclaimed on Earth.

      4

      HIGH WISDOM

      That's the high wisdom proclaimed on Earth,

      How to make mind to merge in its source?

      Only by enquiring with all of one's force,

      The central question regarding its birth,

      The ultimate scrutiny of Who Am I?

      As thoughts froth forth like waves on the ocean,

      They'll all be slain by such introspection,

      Unveiling the Self, the lost inward eye.

      Pearls lay buried on the deep ocean floor,

      Attracting divers to search for this goal.

      Holding their breath they plunge to the core

      Of the ocean bed, for the pearl oyster's soul.

      To gain this gem in the heart's sacred place,

      Just seek for the source where mind is based.

      5

      SEEK FOR THE SOURCE

      Just seek for the source where mind is based.

      You travel alone on a mystery train;

      By this metaphor we're comfortably placed,

      To travel by providence free from pain.

      So put all your heavy luggage on the rack,

      Only a fool carries it on his head!

      Be glad, accept the predestined track,

      Rest quietly, safe at home on your bed!

      Surrender in joyful jubilation!

      Surrender utterly to God's almighty will,

      Surrender with total resignation,

      Surrender knowing all will be well,

      Surrender whole heartedly with one accord,

      Take safe refuge in the all loving Lord!

      6

      TAKE SAFE REFUGE

      Take safe refuge in the all loving Lord!

      For life's a dream and sleeping dreams are short,

      The waking dream is long; both stem from thought.

      The Real is beyond both this waking and sleep.

      The sword of enquiry slays dream states deep,

      So reaching their substratum, numinous,

      The state of pure consciousness, Self luminous!

      Blissfully aware, yet awake in sleep.

      As the cockerel crows ready to sup,

      At the roseate dawn of first morning light,

      Awareness pours into the near empty cup,

      Granting a moment's taste of Self insight.

      This light is the eye that forever sees,

      Who can be known by enquiring who frees?

      7

      WHO CAN BE KNOWN BY ENQUIRY

      Who can be known by enquiring who frees?

      The Master who lives in the cave of the heart,

      Not separate from one's Self, being the start,

      Of the final search from bond to release.

      The Sage appears when the soul is ready,

      With strong gaze of grace he says "be aware

      That God and his wisdom are already there!"

      He acts as a brake to make the mind steady,

      While mercy flows freely in sunshine and air,

      Hindered only by our being unready.

      If you come to him, meekly with an empty cup,

      His grace is then bound to fill it up.

      The Master's glance is the grace of the Lord,

      He cuts you free with his mighty sword.

      8

      HE CUTS YOU FREE

      He cuts you free with his mighty sword,

      To guide you surely, on the upward way

      To Self Realisation, your real birthday!

      Consummation of That the Sage's word,

      Is rest in the Self, which is always heard.

      In him, place great trust and affirm, say yea

      As certainty! Our Real Self blazes away,

      Ever surrendered to the almighty Lord,

      Revealing great peace for Realisation's sake,

      Renouncing belief that a rope is a snake.

      The seeker surely becomes the great find,

      His own blissful being, the summit in kind,

      This great Teaching eternally frees,

      One with the Self, as the Absolute sees.

      9

      ONE WITH THE SELF

      One with the Self, as the Absolute sees,

      He answers all our prayers and our pleas;

      We must first enter that dear sacred part,

      Not the fleshy pump that throbs on the left,

      But the sacred core: by being skilful and deft,

      We find that on the right; is the real Heart!

      By harnessing breath, being adept and bright,

      We dive with great skill and all of our might,.

      There dwelling in depths of our true Heart's cave,

      Lives the shining Unity blazing as Self,

      Pulsation of I-I, where all shadows cease.

      So fixing gaze there, finally, off we stave,

      Perverted, wandering, demonic mind elf,

      Returning to Self, our birthright of peace.

      10

      RETURNING TO SELF

      Returning to Self, our birthright of peace,

      Is knowing that

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