Work

Your work is an expression
Of your vitality, your sensitivity
And your intelligence.
These are all invested
And then enriched through work.

To see work as enslavement
Is debasing and depressing.
If you see yourself as exploited
You will resist work
It will become distasteful.

If it incites greed and ambition
It becomes corrupted.
You lose perspective
And begin to believe that work is a means
To acquiring place and privilege.

Work is incomplete
If it doesn’t involve inner work-
An understanding of our limitations,
Courageously facing our fears
And conversing with our insecurities.

Work in essence,
Is a means of self-discovery.
Your work itself lays the path
That you must walk on
To experience true fulfilment.

And in and through the journey
Leave behind the illusions
Of need and inadequacy…
And also,
Of eminence and accomplishment.

A Man is Not Easily Made

Men of free will

They think they know

But true intelligence

Stands on the fine edge

Between light and shadow.

 

A man is not easily made.

 

To sink in pleasures

To be drunk with excess

Is like standing

In the midst of sobriety

In a vulgar dress.

 

A man is not easily made.

 

His possessions may give him

An air so select

But value is not

A measure of expenditure

It’s the arc of a discerning intellect.

 

A man is not easily made.

 

Has he learnt the art

Of keeping centred his private mind?

Towards his friends

And towards his foes

Is he equally kind?

 

A man is not easily made.

 

For a man to become

He must know how to be

Measured in appearance

But immeasurable

In depth and potentiality.

 

A man is not easily made.

.

On Its Own Terms

Why is it that

my thoughts don’t

converse with my silence…

They assume it’s a void

that must be filled

with ideas that

seem intelligent.

But silence is a completeness

that deserves the respect

one would accord

to the highest intelligence

Silence must be observed…

It must be met

on its own terms.