oh Sadhu....

oh sadhu,
have you been to the ganges today and left your coverings on the bank
to bathe bare and naked like first born?
oh sadhu,
have you taken the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to your heart
and brought them to fall like rain in the soul
so sweet flowers can grow for humanity?
oh sadhu,
have you lived your days within grace and blessed the earth with
your bright words and silent presence?
oh sadhu,
when the devotee comes by to touch your feet have you looked at him as
the same SELF and graced him with beauty that lives?
oh sadhu,
have you meditated on the hard earth with the creatures of God
and sat not in the temples to hide away from the world?
oh sadhu,
have you let Shiva take away your suffering thoughts that come about
by mistaken knowledge?
oh sadhu,
have you lived to make your life to merge with the divine
and forgotten the world with it's shadow?
oh sadhu,
have you placed the rudraksha beads on your form and thought not
of the body again?
oh sadhu,
are you abiding in kevala or absolute aloneness in the vastness that is not
to go away?
oh sadhu,
do you know yourself as one and undivided and never to die
no matter the changing world?
oh sadhu,
has the dream vanished in your mind leaving clarity to shine like the sun?
oh sadhu,
have you sat on the many petaled lotus in the heart,
gazing in emptiness, breathing pure life in the lungs?
oh sadhu,
have you walked in the fire of kali and let the division within burn to ash?
oh sadhu,
have you laid all that is known in the sacred waters to be washed clean
by the mother of all?
oh sadhu,
have you died to the truth to find that death is only a shadow that cannot touch
the pure soul?
oh sadhu,
blessed one that is to be a light for all that come near...
are you free eternally?