This Book is written by Arthur Osborne.
Save me, O Lord, from otherness! And yet
There is no other nor no me to save;
Thou only art, in countless forms declared;
Thou wert and nothing else before the worlds,
And Thou art now as then.
All change and pass, only Thy Face endures.
What then is man? Other he cannot be:
There is no other. He who is One, Alone,
Unchangeably, illimitably IS,
Yet, without ceasing from His Changelessness,
Speaks all the tale of laws and flowing lives,
All seeming strife within the womb of Peace.
Thou art His spoken word; yet listen well
And all the universe is spoken through thee;
Thou art the lens through which the rays divine
Pass to spread out in this wide pageantry.
Give up thy self and no self can remain
But That which IS; if thou give up or not
Yet at the end must all return to Him
As dream-forms melt in waking; at the end
He IS and otherness has never been
And all thy strife was needless and the course
Of that which thou calledst thee is before time
And but unrolled as pictures on a screen.
Why wilt thou cling to that which never was?
What refuge is there from the Eternal Now,
The Truth that changes not? In ignorance awhile
A seeming self a seeming refuge finds
From peace in strife, from bliss in famished quest
Of joys still fleeting, in frustrated life
That mocks and swings its still ungathered fruit
Just beyond reach and then, receding far,
Leaves hunger and a memoried regret,
And the few gathered fruits taste sour at last
And all ungathered, fair yet far, still mock
With might-have-been. Yet all that hides
Truth’s Self
And lures, delusive-fair, then breaks and mocks,
Leaving the embittered traveller unappeased
Like one who sought relief in a mirage
And finds the pitiless sun and the wide sand,
All that disguises Truth’s white radiance
Under prismatic myriad-gleaming points,
Gleaming and ending, flashing from the dark,
In phantom forms, then melting into dark,
Dreams insubstantial, form ephemeral,
All is the Face of Truth for who can see,
All is the Word blown forth in waves of song,
All threads in thy life’s tapestry declare
The Truth behind Thee. Men shall not escape
From That which is to that which fancy builds,
Frail as the builder.
Listen! In all things is the Voice of God.
Turn where ye will, there is the Face of God.