The Beloved is All in All by Francis Brabazon An Avatar Meher Baba Trust eBook May 2016 Copyright © 1988 by Avatar’s Abode Trust SOURCE: This eBook is based on the 1988 edition published by Beloved Books, East Windsor, New Jersey, U.S.A. eBooks at the Avatar Meher Baba Trust Web Site The Avatar Meher Baba Trust’s eBooks aspire to be textually exact though non-facsimile reproductions of published books, journals and articles. With the consent of the copyright holders, these online editions are being made available through the Avatar Meher Baba Trust’s web site, for the research needs of Meher Baba’s lovers and the general public around the world. Again, the eBooks reproduce the text, though not the exact visual likeness, of the original publications. They have been created through a process of scanning the original pages, running these scans through optical character recognition (OCR) software, reflowing the new text, and proofreading it. 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Other works by Francis Brabazon Early Poems Proletarians – Translation Journey With God 7 Stars to Morning Cantos of Wandering Singing Threshold Stay With God Let Us The People Sing The East – West Gathering Silent Word The Word At World’s End In Dust I Sing The Beloved is All in All by Francis Brabazon BELOVED BOOKS Copyright © 1988 by Avatar’s Abode Trust Australia. All rights reserved. Edited by Naosherwan Anzar. Published in the United States by Beloved Books, 599 Edison Drive, East Windsor, New Jersey 08520. Distributed internationally by Beloved Books. Manufactured in the United States of America. You have come all the way from your Beyond-state to call your inspiring Call: “The lover exists only in the Beloved, The Beloved is All in All.” My Gratitude To Avatar Meher Baba for encouraging me to continue sharing His love and message. To the Avatar’s Abode Trust for permitting me to edit and publish Francis Brabazon’s work. All the ghazals written in the sixties were read out to Beloved Meher Baba by Francis. To Jerry & Shirla Edwards for keyboarding and Ken Coleman for page layout. Judy Schoeck and Jacquelyn Evans assisted with proofreading and Marsha Forman helped out with printing on her Linotronic printer. To Charles Mills for the painting of Meher Baba on the cover. To all those lovers of the Beloved, who have come to understand and appreciate the form of writing ghazals. Naosherwan Anzar Contents Thirteen Ghazals (1964) Page 1 to 13 Thirteen Sonnets (1965) Page 14 to 26 Thirteen Ghazals (1965) Page 27 to 39 Thirty Ghazals (1966) Page 40 to 69 Four Ghazals (1967) Page 70 to 73 Twenty eight Ghazals (1968) Page 74 to 101 Eleven Poems (1982) Page 102 to 112 When the lover’s lips have become a rose and his eyes a nightingale’s tongue, The Beloved listens with pride and joy to every note that is sung. The young banana plants are birds with green wings rising from the ground; Such was my spirit when I still thought that Beloved God could be found. Now that I have strained the universe through my heart-sieve without finding a trace Of his Reality, I have ceased from search and await his date of Grace. Out there is nowhere, nothing — Only the Beloved’s shadow Embroidered with star-stiches which the darkness causes to glow. When God first threaded our souls on his breath for a necklace, He gave every one his own beauty And His singing-place. With the first breaking of His Silence there streamed forth the light which became my eyes; When He breaks his Silence this time may I be hurled beyond mere paradise. All works are but attempted corrections Of one initial error. This is the sum of knowledge: Truth is in the dust before the Master’s door. Since hands must work, use them to fashion A cup of wine. Then await his favour, and all other offers decline. 1 How brave were our flags when we marched out in the first dawn! Now we are men bowed in the dust — objects of scorn. Yet you ask us still to be merry and sing for you! Pour wine for us, and we may still muster a verse or two. You would be ill-pleased with the cracked voices of old crows — You who first taught the nightingale to sing to the rose. We started out singing; we have now travelled song’s road — Yet greater than ever is the burden of song’s load. I am old, old. I look at people hurrying by — And my heart aches at the quick smile that covers their cry. I would beseech God-man to lessen the load of the Law; But now, even when I raise my eyes, He points to the door. I remember stories about a pearl on the ocean-floor. I, too, have plunged in. This is my body cast up on the shore. 2 I once strayed away from myself and it took me a million years To find Him again; and to find that I am but a shape of tears. Yet this shape is also a doorway in which the Husband of the Universe (My Beloved) appears, and refills with gold my empty penny-purse. A shape of tears and a doorway, and a parrot that repeats Verses of long ago about love’s favours and deceits. The Beloved is one who promises roses and gives thorns, Promises a palace and makes one a beggar the world scorns. He has reimbursed with coins of gold all my travel expenses — But only because one day again I will be sleeping under fences. I know that the day will come when dogs will sniff at me propped against a tree. That will be the time when I have almost finished my journey. Soon, then, my Beloved will come and lift me up and embrace me — And young lovers will marvel in each other at love’s fine tracery. 3 I will not cease desiring to please that one who has won my heart, Until His Grace shatters the silence held captive in my art. So long as the silence sleeps, its form in love’s mirror Is disturbed by the violence of every labour. My whole journey has been the seeking of various kinds of treasure; Now my delight is to serve my Beloved’s wayward pleasure. Yet it always turns out that when I would serve Him, He serves me; And so each pleasure in service becomes a new misery. I would that my two hands were the wings of my soul ready to fly; There is no honour in spirit wasting itself in a sigh. What with one thing and another my life has become a plain That bears a few wild flowers once a year after the rain. Next time the rain falls I will not let them waste their fragrance on the air; I will weave them into a garland which He may for a moment wear. 4 The ache of separation is permanent. There is no point in moaning post-wise that love and the times are out of joint. Some day there will be a conjunction of these two things. It’s the rubbing together of past and present which stings. There is no remembered past action that does not cause me pain; And every present breath leaves an indelible stain. To love is impossible; to serve the beloved is not allowed. My hands do nothing all day but weave my next death shroud. The Beloved is all in all, the lover is nothing. This is what is meant by ‘grinding’ and ‘crushing.’ Even obedience cannot be given. The snag there Is the root of self-desire — to make one’s black face seem fair.