I know that poetry is off limits, but this is a beautiful spiritual piece that is an excerpt from the Nag Hammadi.  Linda Johnsen used it as her closing for her book, Living Goddess.  Either way,  I think people of different spiritual paths will enjoy reading it.

A more elaborate translation (and minorly different translation) can be found here:  http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/naghamm/thunder.html


I claim no credit for what is shown here.  As much as I would wish I could, this is a translation of one of the pieces of the Nag Hammadi library: Thunder, Perfect Mind. 


Sincerely,
ResplendentSeraphim


**************





Thunder. Perfect Mind

I come from infinite power,
to those who meditate on me,
I am found by those who seek sincerely.
Gaze on me in your meditationl
still your thoughts, and listen to me.
Those of you who wait for me,
stop waiting! Receive me now!
Don't ever turn away from me.
Don't forget me in any moment, in any place.
Stay alert! Remember me always!

I am the first and the last,
the one who is honored and the one who is spit upon,
the priestess and the whore.
I am the wife and the virgin,
the barren woman with numberless sons.
I am the bride and also the groom,
the mother of my father,
my husband;s sister - and his daughter.
I am the incomprehensible silence.
The sound of my silence has produced the universe.
I am the sound of my name.

Don't laugh at me when I am thrown out,
don't mock my fall.
Don't forsake me, though I am weak,
and do not fear all my encompassing power.
I am the one who exists in your fear,
the strength in your quaking limbs.

Why do you hate me, children?
Because I am from a foreign culture?
I am the wisdom of the Egyptians,
and your wisdom too.
My image is worshiped in Egypt
though I exist beyond all images.
Throughout the world, people hate me,
and everywhere my blessings are gracefully accepted.

I am the force the Egyptians call Life,
but whom you call Death.
I am the one the Egyptians call Law
but whom you have rejected as a criminal.
I am the one before whom you were once ashamed to stand,
and now you treat me contemptuously.
I am the one you call ignorance,
though I taught you everything.
You have turned away from me
but wherever you go, I stand before you.

I am the one who seeks
and I am the knowledge I seek.
I am the inner strength of the angels and gods,
and of the men and women who dwell in me.
I am perfect peace
but war erupts because of me.
I am the shape of all things
though I have no shape.
Those who reject me, dwell in ignorance.
Those who have made themselves one with my essence,
know me entirely.
Yet those who are closest to me don't know me at all,
and those who are furthest from me live in me always.

Come to me like little children.

I control the universe
but I am uncontrollable.
I am the changeless, yet I am always changing.
I am the one beneath you
but you must ascend to me.
I am absolute purity
yet evil arises out of me.
My outer expression is raging lust,
my inner expression is perfect self control.
I am the sound everyone hears
but no one understands what I say.

The reality inside you is the reality with which you
surround yourself,
and what you see around yourself
is what you created within you.
You plot against me,
yet I alone exist
and there is no one to judge me,
How delightful sin is, the lies, the passion, the intensity of pleasure.
But when yo utire yourself, come sit quietly,
for I am there inside you.
And when you find me you will live,

...and never die again.