The Temple That Was Never Built

There is a place within you
that no hands have ever built.

No stone remembers its beginning.
No wind can wear away its walls.
It waits beneath your laughter,
beneath your grief,
beneath the thousand names
you have borrowed for yourself.

When the world grows too loud,
it does not call you back.

It simply remains...
Like a mountain
where yesterday and tomorrow
never arrive.

Sit there for a while.

Not to become holy.
Not to become better.
Only to remember.

For what you seek
has never once been absent.

The mind
collects names.

The heart
simply bows.

Sometimes it arrives
as an unexpected tear,
sometimes as the hush
between two thoughts,
sometimes as a kindness
you offered another
before remembering
it was also meant for you.

Sweep this inner temple
not with judgment,
but with forgiveness.

Wash its doorway
with gratitude.

Leave no incense there
except the quiet fragrance
of compassion.

Then even sorrow
will enter barefoot.

Even death
will bow its head
before crossing the threshold.

Slowly, the old story of I
begins to loosen its grip,
until you and I
fall away like autumn leaves,
and only the wind remains—
breathing itself
through every face,
every river,
every bird at dawn,
every stranger
whose eyes somehow
feel like home.

At last,
there is no one left
trying to find the Divine.

Only the Divine,
awakening
to itself.

And the silence
that once seemed empty
is discovered
to have been singing
all along.