POEM_: Does God Exist?

Asked the disciple:
“Does God exist?
What is His name?”

Said the Faqir:
“Does it matter?

“For if He exists
He needs no assistance
from me,
nor,
will He want it,
being Omnipotent
and Omniscient.

“And if He does not
I can assist
Him not;
All that I need to know
is the path
that brings peace
within me.
And without me”.

- owais

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POEM_: To Know

Upset
at his inability to know
the nature of God,
the disciple asked
if the Faqir did not lament
his own ignorance.

Asked the Faqir,
“What am I
not ignorant of?
I am limited
and can never gain
infinity.

“Thus any knowledge
of the infinite, absolute truth,
must remain, for me,
a dream, unattainable.

“For even if I were
to know everything,
how would I know
that there was nothing more
to know?”

- owais

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POEM_: Desires

“Does not
the prospect
of fulfilling a passionate desire
fill your heart
with joy?”
asked the disciple.

The Faqir smiled,
“It does.
But just as
everything that goes up
must come down,
my heart knows
that suffering must follow
every pleasure.

“And,
with the fulfillment
of every passionate desire,
just as I am born anew;
with every suffering,
I die a new death.

“This unending cycle
of rebirth, recurring death
and the futility of it all,
leaves me
with one abiding desire:
to be free.

“To be free of it all.
And the prospect
of this ultimate ecstasy of freedom
leaves all other joys
dwarfed, undesirable”.

- owais

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POEM_: Let Her Be

As she came and sat
on his exposed foot
ready to suck a dropful
of his sacred blood,
the disciple approached
to swat the hungry little mosquito.

The Faqir
with a little wave
shooed her away
and addressed the disciple thus:
“she comes
not to kill me
in order to avoid
a little discomfort,
but merely
to give me a little discomfort,
in order to live
beyond her life.
Let her be.

"We will see
when the stakes are lower
for her, and higher
for me”.

- owais

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This is first being published on this page.