Simply being
Words have become slippery
They’re no longer able to
Firmly hold on to their meanings
Truth has no language…
No construction…
Words with their promiscuous meanings
Can no longer convey the truth.
The understanding
That one therefore needs
Is a non-verbal kind.
One that observes in silence
And can therefore see (but can no longer convey)
How our words
Have become an aberration of truth.
Forever, I’ve come to see…
Is not just the mush
Of teenage love letters
Forever is a promise
A passionate romance…
It’s a commitment…
An ideal…
It’s devotion…
It’s surrender…
It’s not a light word
But it’s sweet
Not a sugar-coated type of sweetness
But one that sweetens with
The passage of time.
‘Forever’ is not staid,
One-dimensional or unchanging
On the contrary,
It is allowing that which is changeable
To change; and allowing all
Change to be absorbed in its promise
It is a faith…
That we realize when we stop clinging
To the changing and let it go
And in the process, come to see
What is unchangeable and
Forever.
We live in a world
Constructed by technology.
Technology is our genie.
For every “How do we do this?”
It stands as an answer
Always at our command.
Man has now got
What he always wanted
Comfort, ease, convenience,
Control…
And yet something feels amiss…
He hasn’t got it all…
Does having it easy mean being in control?
Does having choices mean greater freedom?
Does having the answers mean you know?
Does the erasure of labour mean accomplishment?
Technology has lived up to its promise of a new world
But whose idea of an ideal world is it?
Our assumptions now stand before us
As questions… questions that we still
Do not have the answers to
We think our technology will give us these answers…
But it only echoes
What we already know.
Technology stands before us like a mirror
Reflecting our limitations
Suggesting to us that there exist
Higher frontiers for humanity
That this cannot be it.
Progress is internal enlightenment, not external augmentation.
Digressions and entertainment
Are not a solution to the problem of sorrow
And while speed may bring efficiency
It also bulldozes experience
That amazing human capacity to rise to a higher state
By grappling with difficulty, challenge and conflict.
Technology in giving us what we want
Has taken away from us our need for fulfilment.
Engineered to give us what we search for
We’ve come to misconceive information as knowledge
We now live in limbo
Wondering what it means to be human.
When we question our intentions
Our fears,
Our conformity,
Our compromised individuality-
All stand exposed by our reason.
Whatever project of woke-ness
We may wax eloquent about
And claim our commitment to
Deep down, all we want
Is to belong (to something).
We think our need to belong
Can be met by attachment
To a group, an ideology or a cause
To belong somewhere
Becomes our purpose.
And yet all our efforts–
In all futility–
Only leave us more with ourselves
The world can only utilize you
It cannot embrace you.
One can only
Add to the many
One cannot be absorbed
By anything other than
A larger one-ness.
So when you find yourself
Being strategically invested in your relationships
Question your intentions
Redirect your attention inwards
The largeness your seeking is not outside.
The ultimate experience cannot be expressed
It cannot be shared.
It does not belong to our field of action.
For the field
Is a shared common experience…
One in which we must
Fight our battles…
Or wage a war against
What is known…
So that what we are left with
Is an experience… a revelation
That cannot be shared.
To know one must experience.
To experience one must know.
To experience anything fully
One must be present…
Observant… Attentive…
Open to feeling…
One must be able to contact life
Deeply; not tangentially.
You must experience abrasion
To know your strength and power.
Only when you feel pain
Will you understand meaning.
You must meet the unfamiliar
Before you get familiar with who you are.
You must experience difficulty
In order to know what is accomplishment.
You must experience differences
Before you come to know love.
Experience is first-hand knowledge.
In and through it you discover
Your profound qualities
All your experiences
Must lead you to a deeper knowledge.
And then…
To superior experiences.
We exist both
In time and
Outside of it.
The Now is both
Tied to a circumstance
And free of it.
We are…
And yet we are not…
We are here and beyond.
It’s not really death
That deprives us of our chances in life…
It is our own desires.
Fulfilment is what we seek
Satisfaction is what we pursue
And gratification is what we settle with.
Our time becomes a commodity
That we trade
To acquire the means to happiness.
Our relationships become transactional
Wherein we foolishly mistake
The means to be our end.
Our lives get entangled in a pointless conflict.
How can our death be a celebration
When our lives are not?
Happy does not always mean ‘not sad’
Silence does not naturally mean ‘peace and harmony’.
Disagreement does not mean ‘disrespect’.
Struggle need not mean ‘suffering’.
Anger doesn’t necessarily mean ‘hatred’.
Interpretation is the limitation of understanding.
Antonyms are not always
The opposite condition
Synonyms are not always
The same thing.
Wait….
because life is disinterested
in outcomes.
Its incorporation of time
is not for determining
gain and loss…
Time is the architect of change.
Nothing within its ambit
remains the same.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 