The fifth heaven mastered the first aspect of the Mind - Thoughts. The sixth heaven develops the second aspect of Mind, Feeling. Through Love and Longing, the Mind soars towards complete self-mastery and the brink of its own extinction. It is that deepest devotional and self-surrendering intelligence we mean when we say - the Heart.
The picture is a painting of Mehera, Meher Baba's utterly devoted 'female counterpart'. It is her we imagine speaking the ghazal "Seeing Is Believing" and hers is the purest expression of such love. This is the love realm of Rama and Sita, Krishna and Radhu, Jesus and Mary (the latter at a time when it was more acceptable for that pure love to be embodied in a Madonna rather than a Magdalene, though that resurrection-recognising Magdalene - and the intuitive female in general - is finally gaining her due recognition).
In "Shadows Prevail", we evoke the near-divine romance of Leila and Majnun and the 'courtly love' of Lancelot and Guinevere, courtly love being the romantic love ideal of our own time experienced as it were too early, in a time when 'fidelity' was applied more to a knight's service to his king or liege lord.
Apparently each Messiah (though they are all beyond all planes of consciousness with God in the Seventh Heaven) has a special area to work on because of the specific conditions of His advent. Jesus apparently spent a lot of time clearing out the chaos human minds had made of the Almighty Powerhouse of the fourth heaven during the Roman era - hence those miracles and the mountaintop stand offs with Lucifer.
Meher Baba's particular station of operations in an era (roughly since Shakespeare) where the love between male and female* as potential equals and counterparts rather than say the love between liegeman and lord, or between mother and son, or the love of brother or kin, seems to be the most instinctive spiritual tendency for most of the Earth, at least in the West. The perilous and romantic sixth heaven, with all its heart aches and heart breaks, its odysseys from possessiveness and self-love to a larger self that embraces and serves the other, while working to establish who we are in the world, is perhaps the 'monastery' or spiritual pathway of our time, at least for the mass of humanity. This search for the perfect marriage seems to be the global currency of so many novels, films, plays, pop songs (including this one). Hence our lingering here longer than on any other heaven track.
• (however these genders are experienced)
lyrics
(spoken)
This Face that burns upon my Eye in searing fiery gale:
More clear than any seen on Earth or heavenward trail.
The Lancelot shot down in flames, the highest craft of all:
Conception deconstructed lifting Guinevere’s veil.
‘I see your face in everything, but cannot leap the gulf
Between belief in what I see and being what I fail.’
It’s Leila’s never-ending I-consuming parted love
For Majnu, her sole bleeding where his sole trod upon a nail.
He feels his wreck in her, a bliss that pierces his heart
And bleeds from hers like wounds of Passion’s holiest nail.
The agony of longing long, the ecstasy of pain
In hearts that See their grail through golden bars of a gaol!
Your Sun is Everything and there is nothing that is not the Sun:
My black hole All-consumed in one whole - yet shadows prevail.
In sainted flames of love, with nothing else it can see
It burns away in grief, this Eye that can’t have the Grail.
O Heart of Hearts, her Absent Heart is All to you now.
She’s in the Seventh Sun, where Lovers leap and visions...fail
Ma darpiyalih ak-i rukh-i yar didih im
Ay bikhabar zi lazzat-i shurb-i mudam-i ma (Hafiz.)
translated as-
'We have seen the face of the Beloved reflected in the (heart's) cup
O ignorant one, no notion have you of the bliss we imbibe therefrom.'
(sung)
Seeing is believing : glimpsed in youth my Love-sick Mazdah
Seen now dancing slim and strong at dawn in shining sadra.
Everywhere in everything and endlessly I see Him
Face to childlike mirrored face who calls me now his Radha.
No desire or energy or thought or trial exists now.
Only His in whom I feel and breathe and am my Master.
Archangelic heart to hearts, His hands as quick as feeling
Close my eyes to slower worlds: His larks lift spirit’s purdah.
Manhood wrecked with fasts and burdens, sacrifice, and service,
Pangs of separation – borrowed – God could work no harder.
Skyward-staring, fractured-limbed, in agony, He’s waving,
“Help my darling first,” – the purest feeling, mind’s un-masker.
Eye to Eye now, reading “One not we”, his feet I’m pressing.
Cuttings, curls, His silenced seed of withered joys I garner.
Heart of hearts, this lonely grief, these flames of lover’s longing
Finely veil you, and your opened Eye’s the All-Outsider.
(sung)
This Face that burns upon my Eye in searing fiery gale:
More clear than any seen on Earth or heavenward trail.
The Lancelot shot down in flames, the highest craft of all:
Conception deconstructed lifting Guinevere’s veil.
‘I see your Face in everything, but cannot leap the gulf
Between belief in what I see and being what I fail.’
It’s Leila’s I-consuming, never-ending, parted love
For Majnu, her sole bleeding where his sole trod upon a nail.
He feels his wreck in her, a bliss that pierces his heart
And bleeds from hers like wounds of Passion’s holiest nail.
The agony of longing long, the ecstasy of pain
In hearts that See their grail through golden bars of a gaol!
Your Sun is Everything and there is nothing that is not the Sun:
My black hole All-consumed in one whole - yet shadows prevail.
In sainted flames of love, with nothing else it can see
It burns away in grief, this Eye that can’t have the Grail.
O Heart of Hearts, her Absent Heart is All to you now.
She’s in the Seventh Sun, where Lovers leap and visions...fail
Through unfathomable ways, I lead you to liberation. Accept my rhythm. Come into tune with it without reservation. It will open your heart. It will give you new love. (Meher Baba)
Published in the Sheriar volume 6 Degrees of Separation; 7 Degrees of Love - http://garethcalway.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/6-degrees-of-separation-7-degrees-of.html
The Baba Lovers are an Atlantic-transcending duo: English poet Gareth Calway and American singer-songwriter Gabriella Tal.
The Beloved is Avatar Meher Baba, whose favourite poet was Hafiz and whose favourite poetic form the ghazal (a Persian love lyric). We met in India at the Meher Pilgrim Centre in Ahmednagar in 1994 and wrote a couple of songs. We reconnected online in 2016 and wrote an album....more
The second EP from Northern Irish singer-songwriter Bea Stewart runs from gentle folk to pillowy pop ballads, all perfectly executed. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 15, 2024
Michelle Stodart’s folk music captures hope in melancholy, addressing the transformational aspects of the most challenging times. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 3, 2023
Folk artist Josienne Clarke revisits music from her back catalog, infusing these lonesome songs with a new luminosity and drive. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 18, 2023
