one thinks one comes to truth
to understanding and wisdom
through revelations and Holy Texts
and attendance at great congregations;
and all are victims of pleasure-pain
and one seeks Heaven and seeks to avoid Hell
and all are possessed by the selfish desire
to Paradise;
and to come to the infinite, to the silence,
to the beautiful
one thinks
all one needs to do
is to repeat dictums and study theology
and to study and quote scriptures
and to kneel and to confess
and to seek blessings and grace
and seek miracles;
and to rely on chants and mystery
and complete surrender:
but there is nothing without one’s own insight;
there is nothing that is higher or lower;
there is nothing that is not within;
there is nothing in the things we hold true and sacred;
there is nothing in words, images,
and ideology and theology and tenets of faith
and all we may hold sacred:
there is nothing that is not within
and that may not be seen by oneself
Raj Arumugam
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/there-is-nothing-that-is-not-within/
