(this blog is recorded on the full page: quick time player needed)
Part 2—The Interior Castle
We want the same things:
to be loved, understood, valued
it’s only a question of degree—
are we spiritually/psychologically healthy
satisfied in sadhana and who we are,
or needy from a dysfunctional past
meeting intense cravings unhealthily
unable to uncover the soul’s joy in service?
Desiring to share our inner life
to be accepted for our dreams, even darkness
but prevented by mutual walls and ramparts
(this blog is recorded on the full page: quick time player needed)
Part 2—The Interior Castle
We want the same things:
to be loved, understood, valued
it’s only a question of degree—
are we spiritually/psychologically healthy
satisfied in sadhana and who we are,
or needy from a dysfunctional past
meeting intense cravings unhealthily
unable to uncover the soul’s joy in service?
Desiring to share our inner life
to be accepted for our dreams, even darkness
but prevented by mutual walls and ramparts
separating the castles of personalities
protecting all from pain and hurt
giving only limited accessibility
holding court with a scripted façade
allowing none into our inner chambers.
Feelings want to be conveyed
though few have the desire to hear
and yet, we religiously pursue relationships,
or retreat into inaccessible, locked, towers—
punished for honesty, being labeling as crazy,
as everyone has their own secret rules for love,
who gets to enter which wall, and how far
or who is cast into their moat, forever.
Part 3—Saved From Quicksand
Taking inventory of our conditioned identity
seeing our darkness and shadowy constructs
and our highest material potential—
what pulls us down, or lifts us up,
with the help of spiritual practice we see clearly
how our desires only reflect our soul nature
yet fail to satisfy the mind and heart
unless used to uncover our love for God.
Material distress and dissatisfaction have meaning
pointing to the transcendental direction
or pulling us down into further ignorance,
spiritual wisdom reveals true solutions
laying bare worldly infatuation and illusion
the plane of temporal delusion—repeatedly
thinking pleasure is stroking the spacesuit
rather than living as an eternal soul.
Convinced of our life’s work and solution:
the holy name, divine service, bhakti scriptures
illuminate life, saintly company give wise advise,
learning to look for Krishna’s hand, or direction,
doing the needful now, keeping the goal in mind,
“the way out is through” for desires/attachments,
changing from struggling against conditions
to joyfully seeing the world as favorable for bhakti.
