A song by Brahmael
About the origin of the song: It was
after bedtime and I was alone in my
designated bedroom in my brother’s
apartment, and the lamp flickers a
few times, which happens every once
in a while…I know so what? but at
this time I thought, could that
be maharaji-ji signaling me?
And then the doubt of course not,
b/c lights flicker every now and
then, and if maharaji-ji was
signaling me, he’d do something
obvious like make the lamp go out.
And right after that notion, the
lamp quickly dimmed until it went
out, and it did not come back on. I
was curled up there in the dark,
shocked by what had just occurred.
Forgive my memory of whether it was
definitively that same night, or
whether it may have been the
following night, but the words
“light the way” melodically graced
my mind so I began writing them
out. As I wrote, it was almost as
though the song continued to write
itself and the closer the lyrical
summation became, the more ecstatic
I grew…I’d never written anything
feeling so positively grand until
then, and I could sense a real
audience in union. my joy was so
great, I was moved into tears and
rapture over and over again that
night. The night after I wrote open
eye, Neem Karoli Baba appeared to me
in a dream, he said nothing, he only
stood statuesquely about 20 feet in
front of me like a statue, enrobed
in a charcoal colored blanket for a
moment looking towards me with eyes
so wet they appeared silver. then
he vanished and I woke up, and it
was early in the morning. That was
a unique dream encounter. My mind
takes forms and identities and reels
them into my dreams especially at
low points in my life, but He was
obviously not a random fixture of
dreaming.
OPEN EYE
©2002 Brahmael
Light the way, grow high in love
Be here now and again…
Light the way, shine down above
Be here in body of…
Body of the stars and rain and moon
And
every bell that chimes at noon
Let the light array and the truth
begin
in every joy that grows within
Light the way Ally
When I hail my King
A strobe in The Way
For the rays He brings
Striding aside my King each time
I feel I’m riding on a wave of white
Still in static chains, I feel held
tight
See Him pass through my wavered
light
By the way I fall in ascension time
My fears unspoken leave me lost and
blind
Round these walls I stall, leaving
me behind
I hear the calling of divine Allies
So I hold my faith and I hear their
songs
Each leaf on the tree to another
belongs
Hand in hand in a trance of light
We dance in the fields of Jehovah’s
light
Aiding another we all shall rise
To the heart of loving without
disguise
Guardian, nurture, we all can try,
Liberation by opening our eyes.
Confined, to time, we’ve all become
Gathered now, let’s go beyond…
How did I come to associate Neeb
Karori Baba as Guru?
In just one week after I completed
my final requirement for my
bachelor’s degree in July of 2002,
I was bumming around, unemployed, at
my grandma’s house and happened to
see an album review on her footstool
in the Kansas city star newspaper’s
“Arts” section. The album was by Bhagavan Das. I had never heard of
Bhagavan Das before, but after
reading the positive review and the
fact that Mike D. was involved with
the production, I was very
interested in hearing it, b/c I had
acquired a taste for eastern world
music in the prior few years and
Mike D. was pretty cool by me. Less
than one hour after initially seeing
the review, I asked my grandma if
she needed anything and excused
myself to go see if I could find the
album at the store. My motive was
not just a whimsical act of
consumerism; I wasn’t an avid
collector of ethnic music because I
had learned to be frugal about
spending money on cd’s since I
didn’t want to make the mistake I
had done with a lot of metal albums
that ended up just sitting on the
shelf. I was always on the lookout
for new sounds and hybrids but was
critical about what I actually
bought.
I knew of only one store in my
hometown that sported a decent world
music section, and that was Borders
(a large chain book store, here in
the United States). I went, saw the
album, picked it up, and decided to
shop around. I was interested in
taking up Yoga and wanted to see
what sort of yoga instruction books
they had. While looking through the
books on yoga, I came across this
strange square shaped book that had
a chunk of brown pages surrounded in
between white pages. It looked like
it had been untouched for several
months, because the top of the rim
of the pages had a fine layer of
dust on it. I opened it up to the
front, and there was a picture of
this guy in a blanket with his index
finger raised, I had no idea who the
guy was, but I really liked the
picture. It’s a very bright…very
funny photograph. then I flipped
through a couple of the brown pages
showing some very creative images,
and I’m thinking, “man, this is
artsy, I could make these images
into a movie, I’m going to buy
this.”
Well, I spent a good deal of time
that week just pouring over the
book, just the brown pages, at the
time I wasn’t the least bit
interested in the white narrative
pages of it, b/c it was talking
about dosing up on LSD, and that
turned me off at first, b/c I didn’t
care to read about someone’s LSD
experiences. even though I had done
LSD a few times about ten years
prior, and my own experiences were
very good, it was for pure
recreation, and that’s how I
continued to see it. the people I
used to smoke marijuana with and
dose with during my junior year in
high school were not at all
admirable people, and we had our
falling out before I reached even my
senior year of high school.
Essentially, over the 6 years it
took me to obtain my bachelors
degree, I had learned to
disassociate myself from those
experiences altogether.
The book in itself proved a great
remedy for my monotony and
stimulated my imagination, the
reason I buy any kind of published
medium. I didn’t even open the CD
until nearly a week later, but when
I did, I saw the guy there again on
the inside of the CD jacket. I just
stared at the photo for a moment,
trying to understand why he was
there also. Then I went back to
the book, skimmed the white pages,
until I saw a picture of Bhagavan
Dass when he was 23 yrs old. Until
then, it hadn’t occurred to me that
the Bhagwan Dass I’d seen mentioned
in the book (b/c I had barely
glimpsed at anything except the
brown pages thus far) and the
Bhagavan Das I had seen in the album
review were the same person, and the
fact that I had just bought an album
titled “NOW” and a Book titled
“Remember Be Here Now” and made no
association that the two articles
could be related, was a sign of my
extreme ignorance at the time, but
complimented with my aloofness it
was easy for me to mistake it as
innocence.
That
was the gist of my introduction to
maharaji-ji as Guru. In the couple
of years leading up to that, there
had been numerous times I felt I was
in touch with some greater and
benevolent presence, I had told a
few close friends and family members
about my “guardian angel”, but a
“guru” had not been manifested as
someone I could identify and
envision, and I believe this more
direct manifestation impacting me so
strongly was consequential to my own
abandonment of the spiritual
awakening and path that had taken
shape in my junior year of college.
"Stephen Hale"
<brahmael@hotmail.com>
