Discovery

Back in my youth, while pursuing the truth –
I enrolled in a program designed
to remove life’s mystique through a formal critique
of the body, the soul and the mind.

Attendees would dwell at a local hotel,
in a function of fifty or more
comprised of a blend of both women and men
who were seeking a path to explore.

The place of affair was constructed with care,
not a detail was left unaddressed –
the chairs were arranged to promote an exchange
as our personal fears were confessed.

From where I would sit, I was captured a bit
by the man who devised the event,
the teacher – a Dane with a funny first name
and distinctively foreign accent.

He said at the eve, that we shouldn’t “believe”,
what he’d tell us, we already knew –
that belief was a route to confusion and doubt
and our souls would confirm what was true.

A critical part that I heard at the start
was the fact that we all had a choice –
that the soul and the mind often fail to align
and the mind had a much louder voice.

The mind, as a rule, is a powerful tool,
but it’s also the source of despair –
a prison with bars and a keeper of scars
from events we’re not even aware.

It’s prone to contain every moment of pain,
that it stores like a mental PC
and is quick to dispense an emotional fence
to protect us from all we can be.

Arguments posed by the minds that were closed,
gave our teacher a chance to explain
that the pain we disclosed was in fact, self-imposed –
there was nobody else we could blame.

The lives that we had, whether blissful or sad,
were the fruit of internal design –
the fears and the pains that would share our domains
were the ones only we could consign.

The words that he said would go straight to my head,
where my mind would proclaim them a lie,
but somehow I knew that his message was true –
there were facts I just couldn’t deny.

The soul’s not the source of disdain or remorse,
and it harbors no penchant to judge –
it won’t store a thought for a future, distraught
or give reason for holding a grudge.

It doesn’t despise and won’t rationalize
how the wrong that we do is okay –
like the chances we take and agreements we break,
or the debts we’re unwilling to pay.

That’s all in your gourd – where your ego is stored
with your temper, impatience and doubt –
where being in sync with what others might think
is a need that you can’t live without.

With that being said – if you dwell in your head,
it’s like being a rat in a maze,
a perpetual trend with no cheese at the end –
where you’ll stay if you don’t change your ways.

You won’t hear your soul if you choose as your role
to be ‘victim’ to all you survey –
‘cause it’s hard to connect if you’re at the effect
of emotions that others display.

I know it’s a fact that the way I react
to what others may say or may do
is only defined by what’s stored in my mind –
with assumptions that might not be true.

‘Cause and effect’ make me pause and reflect
on the lessons I learned long ago –
now I’m not quite as blind to the tricks of the mind
when it tells me the way I should go.

Was amazing how fast all the shadows once cast
had become so abundantly clear –
what my mind had to say was what stood in the way
of the voice that I needed to hear.