The True Self Hidden...

Your true substance is concealed in falsehood,

like the taste of butter in buttermilk.

Your falsehood is this perishable body;

your truth is that exalted spirit.

For many years, this buttermilk of the body

is visible and manifest, while the butter, which is the spirit,

is perishing and ignored within it -

until God sends a prophet, a chosen servant,

a shaker of the buttermilk in the churn,

who skillfully shakes it, so that you might know

your true self which was hidden.

~ Rumi ~

This body does conceal the true self and I love this image of the body as buttermilk, the butter as my exalted spirit. What is it that shakes the buttermilk until pure butter emerges? Is it practice, or awakening, or a teacher? Sometimes it's so easy to see those chunks of butter; other times so deep is the truth that even the great one shaking skillfully does not reveal what is hidden.


After many years studying, practicing, meditating, searching, I've come home. Could it be the shaking has done its job? Of course, there will always be unfolding, opening, experiencing, but the taste of this butter is unmistakable.