Learn to Live

The problem with inertia
Is that there is no recourse
Life moves on…
Undeterred by your paralysis
You move with it-
A lifeless being.

It makes everything redundant
Relationships, emotions,
Celebrations, plans and projects
Life continues
It’s very hard to deal with
The fact that you don’t matter.

And yet here you are
In the grand scheme of things
Partial, but essential to the whole
To flow with life then
Must mean being
In a ‘whole’ new way.

Without contest,
Without ambition,
Without separation
Free of machinations
Reclaim your individuality
And fear not the future.

Don’t avoid the end
But embrace it
Keep your mind lean,
Attentive, responsive
Not loaded with
The unnecessary.

Travel lightly
There’s nothing to arrive to
Apart from the moment
Take away important lessons
From your state of inertia
Things will happen as they should.

Align yourself to life
Step away from ideas
Wake up
After enjoying your sleep
Know the difference
Between perception and reality.

From wherever you go to
Return…
Abide in a space
Where all life abides
In that space
Make your home.

Perception

The seen is meaning

That superimposes itself

On the unseen.

 

Look carefully.

Look beyond the edges

And the boundaries of meaning…

 

See how it extends itself

How it negotiates

Its freedom from finitude.

 

Positivity is illusion.

Possibility is promise.

All forms transform.

 

After you’ve understood

The meaning of a thing

Perceive its meaningfulness.

Creativity

The truth

does not conform

to clichés

It cannot

be apprehended in

fixed forms

To create

is to render

a challenge

To ideas

that masqueraded as

the truth.

Watching

I look at the darkness without

From a lit room within

Reflections appear before me

Creating interesting collages…

The world isn’t reality

It’s yet another layer…

 

Outside, the wind seduces the trees

The rain quenches their thirst

And the trees dance in ecstasy.

I’m riveted to my window.

I’m the spectator, the enjoyer

I’m the one watching.

Contained

There is a perpetual war within…

A war between

Hopes and circumstances

Between confinement

And the beckoning of freedom

Between the lower

And the higher

Between what is

And what could be.

 

I saunter into the kitchen

Look at all the jars lined up

Standing as if under a command.

Inanimate, still ready to serve

Like soldiers in a rank

Also in a war?

Contained, silent, closed…

Human civility demands

That we fight our battles in silence.

The Biggest Failing

The biggest failing

Is the inability

To see things as they are

To understand them

For how they are

To accept them

The way they are

And to appreciate them

For what they are.

Do You Have Any Idea?

Can you see that ideas

Make up our world?

Can you see that you have

The power to reject ideas…

To give them no attention?

Can you see that you can

Offer your own for every idea

That feels wrong, unjust and diminishing?

Give your ideas a voice,

Give them a shape, a form…

Give them expression.

 

Prepare them for the stage

That is life…

Create your own setting

Tell your own story…

But first live life well

Live fully. Expose yourself to

The world’s ideas

But neither borrow nor steal

You are the sovereign of your world

The centre around which

Your world revolves.

Education

To educate is to open up

The expanse of the mind

So that for all our assumptions

The right questions we may find.

 

An education must make you

A seeker not a knower

You must be able to

Over your ignorance cross over.

 

Pride and foolishness

Often walk hand-in-hand

A true seeker knows

The grounds on which he stands.

 

That we know nothing

A good education must show

That what needs to be known

Lies beyond what we know.

 

Not just a fast-track

To worldly success

In the worst of times

It prepares you to be your best.

 

Education is design

Education is art

It’s the architecture of the mind

Built with inroads to the heart

The Solution

A solution is that

Which dissolves a problem.

Replacing, changing, overthrowing,

Cancelling, shaming, avenging…

Are not solutions.

Appearances are a sign of the false,

Not the truth.

 

When we see the false as false

We abide in the Truth.

That in all its simplicity

Is a profound solution

To all the inconsistencies that

Continue to float like debris

In the stream of our consciousness.

The Big Things Are Small

We are the earth-

72% water

28% mineral

Fire and wind

And ether too, we are.

Which is why we have the power

To make, to move, to listen

And to digest.

 

Why then

Is there hopelessness…

Why are there mental breakdowns?

Why does the mind

Turn against the being?

Why must man be in

A relationship of torment

With his own mind?

 

To be conscious is to think.

To think is to supply

The energy to make real.

The mind makes real

What it is conscious of

Be aware…listen

The wind moves and

In and through hollow steel tubes it chimes.