How strange that
Today, I no longer am
What I once was…
The freedom today
Belongs to the confinement
Of yesterday.
If I am not that
Then neither am I this.
What Makes Me Angry
When justice is what I want
Injustice makes me angry.
When truth is what I want
Lies make me angry.
When perfection is what I want
Imperfection makes me angry.
When agreement is what I want
Disagreement makes me angry.
When respect is what I want
Disrespect makes me angry.
When strength is what I want
Weakness makes me angry.
When ‘one way’ is what I want
‘Many possibilities’ make me angry.
When power is what I want
Disobedience makes me angry.
When morality is what I want
Immorality makes me angry.
A burning desire for one thing
Burns down everything that comes in its way.
It’s not imperfection, injustice or disrespect
That’s the cause of my anger.
It’s the desire of that thing
That stands outside of me…
Unreachable. Unattainable. Evasive.
That makes me angry.
Disgust
Disgust, I feel you
But find you difficult to understand
How strange
That you are the face
Hiding under the mask of pleasure
Why, I wonder
Is pleasure your grace;
And your disgrace?
What do you want me to see
Now that you and I
Stand face to face?
…That things are
Not what they seem
That their charm is fleeting
And that a lie
Needs ingenuity
To seem like the truth.
Things are what they are.
Their correct proportion
Is a sense cultivated
Through dispassion and distance
Knowing fully well
That pleasure is a gift
Of the imagination
And disgust-
An ironical reminder of that.
Breathe Deeply
The well of wisdom
Lies deep below the surface
Of appearances
Which can only show
Our scars and our smiles.
We must come to see
That wounds run deep
And that resilience is a counterforce
That becomes a tree
Which grows upside down
Rooted in experiences
But flowering in deep reflection.
Happiness can never be
An attribute of the superficial
Its source is a fount
That bursts from a force within
A deeply intuitive one
That has learned to assert itself
In the face of misleading appearances.
When you breathe
Breathe deeply.
Look Ahead. March On.
How do I look beyond
What I see at present?
Is that seeing a matter
Of imagination, or faith?
What must I presuppose?
What must I know?
The present will cease
To overwhelm you
If you understand that it is
Only an event
In the expanse of a larger destiny
That awaits you.
Don’t cling to it
Don’t linger on it
For too long…
If the moment is over
Leave it behind
Knowing fully well
That you are on your way forward
And that if time hasn’t stopped
You have to continue walking…
You have other promises to keep.
The Only Truth
Remember
The only truth
The only thing for certain
Is your own existence
Even through changing seasons
And changing scenarios
Also, intermittently
through darkness and light.
Your laughter, your tears
May be prompted
By circumstances
You may whisper sweet nothings
To an apparent other
But while they come and go
You remain… with yourself, always.
In an ever-changing life story
What do promises mean?
How truthful
Can truth claim to be
When all is a lie?
Where does fact reside
In the architecture of our imagination?
It’s clear to me
That change is the law
But my heart’s desires
Seek permanence and ever-replenishing joy
I believe if only I could
Hold on dearly, with more heart
Nothing would betray me.
Yet broken promises and tears
Are not a curse
And a crowd and some company
May not be your blessing
With objectivity
Subjectivity regains its bliss
And all opposites collude
Lies, I’ve come to see
Is the creativity of truth
A disgruntled friend
Expands my notion of friendship
And an incommunicative lover
Is now enjoying my silence
He no longer feels the need for words.
Now I know
When all that appeared to be true
Becomes a lie
When all that had promised
To remain the same, changes
I must remember
That I am the truth
That needs to be restored.
Irony
Life is a mystery…
And that is the cliché
I use to describe
My confounding experience of it.
That’s the irony
Of life
That I depend on the dead
To help me understand the living…
What if I gave up this strife…?
Would my not-knowing
Be any less
Than it is now?
I’m beginning to see
How acceptance
Is moral and complete
And how it immediately harmonizes…
Perhaps there’s wisdom and beauty
In dwelling in the silence
And not soliciting the overused
To speak about it.
When things can be said
How much more eloquent
Would it be
To not say them.
Unavailable
What if you are unavailable to yourself?
The mind occupied
With thoughts that are not about you
The heart beating silently
Your talents offered
Without a care for reward
You stand detached from action
The act of waiting for your turn to come-
For the time when you will be available
To attend to yourself
-has an incredible power…
It sustains you without
All the things you thought were necessary…
Worry…Self-concern…Validation…
…the time to exist just for yourself…
Without them as your cause to be
You stand in effect
Freed from all the limitations
That define your littleness.
Do You Want To Know What Love Is?
That we feel love- is a unanimous fact. But how it prompts us to act and react seems to be individually determined. My state of mind determines whether I perceive love as a need, as an attachment or as pleasurable affection. Does everything good, pleasing and gratifying indicate the presence of love and all that is painful, difficult and demanding- its absence? Why do we forge relationships out of love’s will and end them on ours? And then, why is every love story- with fiery, passionate beginnings- fated for an eventual separation, either physically or emotionally? Does a long-standing relationship indicate love’s blessing and a short-lived one its curse? And when our ‘affairs’ end, what changes mark our new beginnings?
How disintegrated and complex is the adult human heart! And in true inverse proportion how simple and effortless are the ways of children! Why is it so easy to love a child and so difficult to love an adult?
Children make no ‘conditions’ by which they shall ‘trade’ love. They don’t set out to make its laws; neither do they contemplate them; they simply follow them. Adults, on the other hand, have developed a mind and the mind as such, is characterized by memories, ideas, needs, desires and attachments. To love another adult requires a constant examination and purification of one’s emotions. As adults, we feel loved when we are understood, respected, trusted, attended to, wanted and desired. Love- if we allow it to have its way- will eventually re-acquaint and align us with our own hearts.
Love’s fulfillment lies in two becoming one whole and then eventually, one whole realizing that it always was, is and will always be- All. For the individual, love fulfils the needs- not of the ego, but of the soul. Love, in the adult human mind, begins as a furtherance, an extending out of your self; and is experienced as a fuller presence. In wanting to repeat and recall the experience of that fuller presence, we embark on a journey marked with rejections, trials and antagonisms. In and through those experiences, through every changing emotion, through every triumph of the spirit, we stand re-acquainted and fully aware of our essence. Love extracts out of you your full worth.
Which is why, sometimes even after a relationship has ended, your new beginning is marked- not with a sense of loss, but with a sense of gain. You sense a growth, re-discover your self-esteem, develop greater self-reliance, become more responsible, realize your faith and cultivate the ability to endure, tolerate and be patient. You plumb your depths and find within you unbelievable strength and courage. Love’s path is an upward path. Falling in love is a weakness of the human heart and rising in it- its strength. Love begins as affection and is fulfilled with realization of the Self. When you discover and realize within you- self-confidence, courage, faith, independence, tolerance and patience- then only do you gain a full awareness of love within you. Love then, ceases to be a thirst and becomes the fountainhead of every action that flows out of you. Simply put, it transforms from being the problem to now being the solution.
What Remains When All Ends
Each experience
Is like a short film
A fixed-duration sound and light show.
My life is an illusory line
Composed of short-lived segments
Everything with a beginning is fated for an end.
All that I know
At some point fades into the darkness of what I don’t
Every day ends in a dark night.
In and through short-lived experiences
The experience of experiencing has persisted
With all that changed, this alone has remained.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 