Every life-shattering event
Liberates you from the unreal;
From your world of thoughts
And ideas and opinions;
From your pointless plans;
From your trivial pastimes
And your petty anxieties.
We must be grateful
For destruction, for loss.
For they are an opportunity
To access a higher truth
And a greater life…
To leave behind the imagined
So that we can abide in the unknown.
Renovations, when begun
Do not look like renovations.
Things stand displaced, disordered
There’s chaos…
Smoke and dust…
And everything looks like the debris
From destruction and loss.
However, it is the vision
Of what is to come
That allows us to not only
Live through the mess
But to also enjoy it!
A set architecture with walled spaces
Stairways and elevations, and paved pathways
With names and arrows for direction-
May serve as a design for order and ease;
But the human is a dreamer…and a seeker
And conveniences cannot take him to where he needs to be.
His heart soars when he’s inspired.
In the intensity of the present moment
Even time releases him- so that the fire in him
Can set aflame the fuel that lays silent, muted and wasted
All can be re-ignited, all can have their power restored
And the atmosphere can be uplifted from dreariness.
The human creates not because he can trade his creations
But simply because he CAN create…
And to do so Is to discover the divine impulse
By which one can recreate a world
Of possibilities and infinite directions
So that all paths can take you to the self you’re seeking.
I look at my life unable to tell
What is missing…
But a vacancy I can sense.
So, I begin to speculate about
What would make things perfect…
A spotless, stainless, painless existence perhaps?
No… that’s not it.
Recognition? Validation?
No, that’s not it either…
I’ve tasted these before
And know that they can intoxicate
But cannot satiate your thirst.
What is that essential thing
That I can’t seem to find?
Is there something lacking in the world?
Or is there a lack within me?
A lack of understanding and wisdom?
A way of seeing?
A way of being?
An inability perhaps to accept things as they are
To see the perfection of imperfection…
To know that all is
As it is meant to be…
I now know that it is my search
That keep me from finding
What stands before me in plain sight
Waiting to be seen and loved.
The broken arm
The broken leg
The broken heart
The broken dreams
The brutal separation
The unmet expectations
The shattered myth
The unfulfilled desires
The empty hour
The vacant days
The crushing disappointment
The weight of disillusionment
Suffering takes on many forms.
Isn’t it our common condition?
Isn’t it a reminder to us all
That our attachments will yield
Nothing but sorrow?
That we must let go
Of all our clinging
And dwell not in misery
But set foot towards a higher dimension.
That we must walk alone
In pain, but liberated
Fully free to experience our sorrow
So that we are free from suffering it.
The morning breeze caresses me gently. It is nonchalant.
Sometimes you wonder
About all that you’ve accumulated
To your soul
What will happen to it all
After you’ve gone?
Where will it go?
All the stuff?
All that matter…?
All that you think matters…?
What happens to it….?
Isn’t it also a sort of living responsibility
To give it all away?
To empty yourself before you go?
Who will I give my memories to?
…Perhaps those whom I create them with.
And my thoughts?
May they henceforth only be a prayer
And may they live on
In the lives of others
As blessings received, unasked for.
What about my hurt and my pain?
To what will they transform?
Let them remain absorbed in silence
And become the compassion and beauty
That inspires and powers all art.
Sometimes you wonder
To this eventuality of death
What matters? What doesn’t?
Does nothing matter?
Does everything matter?
What promises does time keep?
Fulfilment? Knowledge? Self-discovery?
Perhaps these are never the outcome
Of a living process…
Perhaps fulfilment, knowledge and self-discovery
Exist eternally and are right here, right now.
In time, matter can only appear and disappear.
There are many ways to correct a wrong.
One can speak up against a wrong;
One can seek punishment for a wrongdoer;
One can use scathing words to elicit awareness.
One can use violence and weaponise sentiment.
Or, one can show intolerance
And distance themselves from the wrong;
One may also denounce the rogue
As being morally corrupt.
Or, one can show patience
And understanding and kindness…
Correcting a wrong requires strength.
It’s not something that the weak can do.
And strength comes from endurance,
Restraint, faith and love.
All the qualities that the weak lack.
Putting down is not power;
Lifting up the fallen is.
There is this parable
Of a sincere, duty-bound policeman
Who would diligently scan the town
And arrest and put behind bars
All the scum who were up to no good.
In the same town was a monk
Who would intentionally commit a wrong
Just to be arrested and put behind bars
Where he would teach and enlighten the scum.
There are many ways to correct a wrong.
To wonder is to rise above
The confines of your existence.
Ask yourself:
If your opinions and views
Have remained unchallenged.
If you have resisted the changing seasons
Ushered in by time.
If your knowledge has over time
Become imprisoned by your arrogance or fear
Or conversely,
If the ideas that now energize you
Are a mere flirtation with the new.
And the jargon of the day
Has become your buzz
Or if change is admired not for what it brings
But for its own sake.
The right and the wrong
Are not attributes of who we are
Or of the things and ideas
That make up our world
Right and wrong rest in the relationships we have
With the unrealities of the world
Right is the surrender to dharma in the midst of adharma.
To be right is to be in love
Being expanded beyond narrow self-concern.
To be right is to be in wonder
Free and open to review and to relearn.
To be right is to be in surrender
To that unconditioned consciousness
That can be trusted as your only true counsel.
To be in dharma is to ask ever so often,
“Could I be wrong about this?”
If you are to be a creator
Then you must be a lover
And have it within you
To give attention…
For it is our attention
That first renders
The seen, the heard, the spoken
And the felt as
Worthy and beautiful.
You must be yielding
To chance and adventure
For discovery and unplanned events
Are the encounters
That shape, mould and scar
And emerge as the forms
Of our memory in transition.
Strange and wild and new
They will stand before us in question.
They will want to know their purpose
They seek a place to be…to exist
They will demand your time
And your commitment.
It will be up to you
To provide them with meaning
A reason to be…
They must now live alongside…
They now share your destiny.
Flowers bloom
They express so much joy!
But do they do so
Out of their own doing?
They just are…
Receptive… responsive… changeable…
Expressive of that
Which enlivens them.
One need not do to be
Doing is only needed
To sustain the existence
Of that which is not.
One must never fail to be…
Receptive…responsive…changeable…
For in simply being
All gets done.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 