This, I’ve discovered, is true knowledge—
Those who scramble to get into a boat
Sink like a stone midstream,
While the shelterless and abandoned
Reach the other shore,
Those who dare to take
The hard, winding, thorny road
Get to town in the end;
Those who stroll the easy highway
Get robbed or even killed
Soon after they set out.
Everyone’s wound in illusion’s web—
The so-called “holy” as much as the worldly,
And those who run for safety
Under the comforting dais
Of form and ritual and dogma—
Well, life’s hurricane lashes them.
Stay out in the open:
You’ll be left safe and dry.
The ones Love never savages
Live in boredom and pain;
Those Love devours like a cannibal
Live in bliss forever.
The ones who lose their own eyes
Come to see the whole Creation
Blazing in their own Light;
Those who hold on to their sight
Remain blind as bats in full noon.
When I began to awake to Truth
I saw how bizarre and crazy the world really is!
Translated by Andrew Harvey and featured in The Diamond Cutters
