Poetry by Steve Taylor PhD:

Moments Without Thought

A moment without thought
And the background noise ceases
And I can suddenly hear
The silence between sounds
The silence beneath sound
From which all sounds emerge
Like waves from the sea.

A moment without thought
And the fog disperses
And the world is filled
With translucent light
New dimensions of detail
And sharpness and colour and depth.

A moment without thought
And these suburban streets
Are a pristine new world
Like a garden glistening with dew
The morning after creation
As if a husk of familiarity
Has cracked and fallen away
Leaving naked primal isness.

A moment without thought
And I’m no longer standing separate
No longer an island but part of the sea
No longer a static centre
But part of the flowing stream

A moment without thought
And the train has stopped between stations
And there was never any motion, never any track

A moment like a wormhole
Infinitely expanding
Like stepping through a narrow gate
To find an endless open plain
The panorama of the present.

And this new world of no-thought
Is neither alien nor unfamiliar
But a place where benevolence blows through the air
And soft shimmering energy fills every space
And the sunlight is the translucent white light of spirit
The deepest, closest, warmest place
The ground where I am rooted.

Out of the Darkness

There are so many ways to feel dissatisfied
so many different needs to meet
so many goals to keep striving for
so many problems to try to fix
so much of the past you wish you could change
so many fears from the future.

No wonder you feel overwhelmed
like a traveller carrying too many bags
with too many paths to choose from
who has to keep stopping to rest
until he can’t go on, and collapses.
How could you ever be happy?
Life’s too demanding and complicated.

But then – an electric shock, an illness or accident
death creeps behind and swipes you hard across your back
awakening you from your torpor
and suddenly the fog dissolves away
And you can see the narrow ledge you’re walking
– the one you’ve always been walking – between life and death.

And now it’s all so simple and makes perfect sense –
life is temporary and fragile, precious beyond value
and life contains nothing except this present moment
this brilliant beautiful river of experience.

And suddenly those needs stop niggling you
the guilt and fear stop gnawing
the phantoms of the past can’t scare you anymore
there’s nothing to worry about or to be afraid of

Everything obliterated
but the glory of this moment
the grandeur of the world itself

And you know that this is all there is
that this is where fulfilment lies
and everything else is only a shadowplay of the mind.

From the book ‘The Meaning’.