'We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows,' Robert Frost wrote, looking in from the outside. Looking out from the inside, Chuang-tzu wrote, 'When we understand, we are at the center of the circle, and there we sit while Yes and No chase each other around the circumference.' This anonymous center -- which is called God in Jewish, Christian, and Moslem cultures, and Tao, Self, or Buddha in the great Eastern traditions -- is the realest of realities.Self is everywhere, shining forth from all beings, vaster than the vast, subtler than the most subtle, unreachable, yet nearer than breath, than heartbeat. Eye cannot see it, ear cannot hear it nor tongue utter it; only in deep absorption can the mind, grown pure and silent, merge with the formless truth. As soon as you find it, you are free; you have found yourself; you have solved the great riddle; your heart forever is at peace. Whole, you enter the Whole. Your personal self returns to its radiant, intimate, deathless source. --Mundaka UpanishadMost of what we call religious poetry is the poetry of longing: for God, for the mother's face. But the poems in The Enlightened Heart are poems of fulfillment. They were written by the Secret, who has many aliases. Sitting or dancing, all these poets have found themselves inside the circle -- some of them a step within the circumference, some far in, some at dead center. Looking out from the center, you can talk about the circumference. But really, there is no circumference. Everyone, everything, is joyfully included.