Lockdown Nights in Oxford - Rupert Spira

[Larry Robinson]

Lockdown Nights in Oxford



Last night, I walked the streets of Oxford with Kabir.

The night before, it was Jesus.
 
And the night before, Rumi visited uninvited.

Every night a different companion, but always the same friend. 

Why go anywhere when the Beloved always comes to you?

I pointed out the smiling houses to Kabir. “Have you ever noticed that houses have a face?”  

“It is I who am smiling,” he said.

“I'm happy to see you,” I said to Atmananda the next night.

“You are happiness itself,” he replied 

I stood outside the chapel and listened to a choir with brother Lawrence.

“Our love for God is God's love for us,” he said. 

And the next night Meister Eckhart.

“There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself.”

“Know nothing,” Socrates said the following night. “Be everything,” added Parmenides.

I showed Plotinus the gardens, but he said, “I see only one thing.”

I talked with the Buddha, but he remained silent.

I was silent with Moses, but he started to sing.

I uttered the word “I” but Balyani held his hand to my mouth.

I asked Huángbò if he could hear the stream.
“There is only the hearing,” he said. 

I found William Blake naked in the park.

“Do you see how through perception the infinite gives birth to itself?” he asked. 

“He’s right,” Ramana said, “the universe appears every moment through the portal, “’I am.’” 

And later, when I suggested we rest: “I am always at rest,” he smiled.

“Dying this universal frame thus wondrous fair, thy Self how wondrous then,” Milton asked, ecstatically, as we looked at the night sky.

“Everything shines with being,” Wordsworth said. 

I offered a drink to Jesus.  “I Am the Water of Life,” he said.

I walked in silence with Francis.

“My silence is my question,” I said.  “My silence is my answer,” he replied.

I walked alone one night with the World for my friend.

The next night, I found Hafiz drunk on a bench. “Come taste this wine,” he called.

Shams came to join us.  “I'm looking for the friend,” he sighed.

I love these nighttime walks,” I said to Anandamayi Ma.  “Love, only love,” she said. 

I listened to barking dogs with Abhinavagupta.  “No, only knowing,” he said. 

“I am …”  “Shhhh… don’t add anything to it,” Sri Nisargadatta exclaimed. 

I danced down the street with Mozart.

I prayed in every step with Bach.

I listened with Beethoven and he showed me everything as the crystallized form of a great Cosmic Pulsation.

I leaned with Primo Levi against the wall watching friends and lovers and strangers.

“Each of us,” he said, “bears the imprint of a friend met along the way – in each the trace of each.”

Yeats joined us.  “There are no strangers here,” he said, “only friends we haven't yet met.”

And Rembrandt agreed. “If you look at anyone for long enough,” he said, “they will eventually become your friend.”

I watched the sunset with Shelley one night. “The One remains. The Many change and pass,” he said.

And then, as the moon arose… “Heaven’s light forever shines. Earth shadows fly. Life, like a dome of many colored glass, stains the white Radiance of Eternity, until Death tramples it to fragments. Die if thou wouldst be with That which Thou dost seek.” 

And last night Rumi followed me home. “Kiss the ground with every step,” he said.

“Goodnight,” I said, without words.

“We part without parting,” he smiled.


	- Rupert Spira


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DybzmWASPkE&t=9s <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DybzmWASPkE&t=9s>


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