There’s a breeze
That gently moves my curtain
Every afternoon.
The day is slower…
Calmer…
I think to myself–
Grateful for this solitude–
These are the experiences of being
That I wish to carry with me.
Being Capable of Love
Child,
Not everyone you meet
Will do you good
Not everyone you meet
Will be sincere
Not everyone you meet
Will love you as perfection.
Your ideas of love
May not easily be fulfilled.
Love has many different faces
From the ugly to the sublime.
Love resists being contained
Within narrow definitions.
And yet it needs boundaries…
Otherwise, it remains doomed as hate.
Love must be understood
Through the instruments of love
Patience, attention, trust and faith.
Sometimes love is received.
At other times, often more challenging,
It needs to be given.
When Fiction is Educated to Become Fact
Without the other
Would ‘I’ ever know myself?
Without sorrow
Would ‘I’ ever grow?
Without disillusionment
Would ‘I’ ever transcend desire?
Without love
Would ‘I’ have the wisdom to endure?
Without experience
Would ‘I’ know what it means to be?
Indviduality is fiction
Educated by longing, suffering and desire to become fact.
The Existing Clock
There’s a clock in my home
That shows a different time.
It seems to have its own pace
It works on a different rhythm.
If I had to consult the other clocks
They’d say it does not work.
They would recommend repair
Or a replacement.
After all the job of a clock
Is to work “round the clock”
And unfailingly show us the right time.
I don’t know why I haven’t done it yet…
Why I haven’t repaired or replaced it…
“There are better clocks out there,” they say.
I know. But my knowing
Doesn’t want to act on its knowledge.
I like it being wrong.
I like that it shows me a different time.
I like that it is out of sync and free.
It makes me smile.
The clock does work
Just not in the way it’s supposed to.
Your Life is Your Gift
It takes time to build
A reputation, a life, an identity
Yet time holds little regard
For your version of reality.
In a single brutal stroke
It can level down to the ground
All your structures and your plans
All gone…nothing to be found.
What do you turn to then?
Repentance, remorse, restitution or prayer?
Or are you grateful that
Though everything is lost, you’re still there.
You’ve done it before
So you know that you can do it again
With grit and determination
You’ll rebuild your life from zero to ten.
But what is loss trying to teach you?
And are you ready to learn?
That no matter what distance you cover
Over time, you will return.
Cling not to your honours and riches
For they delude you and make you forget
That the unreality you celebrate today
Is time lost, that you will regret.
So, what must we do with our time–
How do we rise above its drift?
Make it an offering to an ideal
Remember that your life is your gift.
Sorrow
Sorrow runs deep.
It lies at the bottom of our awareness…
Buried under the many layers
of dress and sparkle that we’ve deemed
imperative to shroud ourselves in…
Just so that we may never
Catch a glimpse of sorrow naked.
But to stand before it
And not run away from its nakedness
is to face a gnawing discomfort and
to question your self-awareness…
It is to finally ask the question:
How can I truly know happiness
If I refuse to learn from my sorrow?
When in sorrow’s grip,
we willingly surrender our ignorance…
that we had childishly dressed up as knowledge.
We know nothing. Our speculations
are not a path to the truth.
They are but a conjuring up
of an alternate reality.
Sorrow is the ultimate portal
To a higher dimension..
It is a call to grow deeper roots…
To stand as we are, where we are…
To be in conversation with God
To seek freedom from desire…
Even from the desire to escape sorrow.
More is Inflation, Not Value
More is manmade
More is artifice
More stems from insecurity
More is insincere
More is egoistic
More is competitive
More is useless
More is a waste
More destroys
We don’t need more for a good life
More things, more wealth
More performance, more people
More fame, more recognition
More ideas, more progress
More work, more effort
More politics, more divisions
More weapons, more war…
We need
The simplicity to be just enough
The greatness to appreciate the small
The faith to surrender to the unknown
The education to become instrumental
Not self-serving
The ambition to transcend desire
Not pursue it
The wisdom to love
What we are blessed with
The courage to be authentic
Not delusory
The humility to receive
The generosity to give…
More is not the way to create value
The creation of value requires judgment
And judgment requires stillness… a pause
An intermission between action and reaction
In that space better sense prevails
In that space value is understood.
The Deep Unknown
The Earth is surface;
Existence is the deep unknown.
Religion is surface;
Truth is the deep unknown.
Society is surface;
Love is the deep unknown.
Smartness is surface;
Intelligence is the deep unknown.
Thought is surface;
Silence is the deep unknown.
Facts are surface;
Knowledge is the deep unknown.
We live on the surface;
But our quest is for the deep unknown.
What is the Heart Afraid of?
Why is the heart afraid
Of darkness?
Why is the heart afraid
Of the unknown?
Why is the heart afraid
To take chances?
What does it stand to lose
By challenging existence?
Will it lose its gratitude?
Wisdom?
Restraint?
Will it lose a grip on life itself?
But what is life?
Is it the freedom to be?
The freedom to make-believe?
Is it suffering?
An entanglement?
Or an illusion?
How strange it is
That life cannot be known.
It’s a mystery.
It can only be lived.
It can only be experienced.
Sometimes in the light; sometimes in darkness.
Sometimes in action;
Sometimes in passivity.
Sometimes in isolation;
Sometimes in longing.
Sometimes desiring an end;
Sometimes an eternal continuity.
The heart is afraid
Because it must after all,
Venture into life alone and bravely.
Without the cleverness of thought.
It must come to see that it doesn’t need architecture;
That it exists in the realm of surrender and possibility.
Guilt
Guilt is dark. It entraps you.
It’s a shadow that engulfs you.
You can ignore it
But it follows you everywhere.
The eternal accompaniment
To expectations pinned on you.
But which you?
The one that thinks, feels, senses…
The jeeva.
Forever tormented into making a choice
And then being doomed
For having made it.
To conquer this induced guilt
One must transcend conditional relationships
That no longer nurture.
Isolation then is not a punishment
But a necessary outcome of growth.
Emotionalism must never pretend to be true emotion.
In a world obsessed with fictions
Persist in your search for the real.
Beyond name and form
Seek truth. Seek light.
Walk out of the cave.
Guilt is dark. It entraps you.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 