Posted on by solangesuri2015

Life’s True Calling

Life, that is ever free

Becomes imprisoned within

The walls of the human mind.

Ego, attachment, desire and fear

Do not allow it to move freely…

To come and go-

Without being subject to

Ownership, design, desire…

And moral confusion.

We trap life.

We want it to serve

Our limited sense of self.

But life that is creative and ever new

Will have nothing to do with our staleness.

Itself, free of the past

And open to the future;

Without memory and desire,

It uses time and the illusion of persistence

To create the conditions

By which we come to desire

Our own end.

Can we learn

To meet life with pure presence?

Can we come to see

That the treadmill of the mind

Is not life?

That it has no name,

No designation, no agenda

No attachments, no conditions

That your wish

May be its command,

But not its true calling.

 

Posted on by solangesuri2015

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.

 

Posted on by solangesuri2015

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.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

The Right Effort

Effort is conscious action. It is however important to understand where and at what point must one start making an effort. For example, if I try making an effort to be a ‘good’ human being, I may begin my search with the question: What are the qualities of a good human being? How do we spot or identify a good human being? How does a ‘good’ human being act? How does he meet life’s challenges? And yet, despite gathering ‘data’ that answers these questions, all my efforts at being good somehow seem superficial. I feel the need for a truer transformation. I somehow feel certain that what is called for is a single change, that will by inherent virtue, change all that is a misconception; like how darkness disappears in the presence of light. The primary effort that one therefore needs to make is to come to know that which is flawed, that which is untrue. It’s in coming to know the untrue, that truth asserts itself.

Knowledge alone can support effort. The effort is right when it’s objective is the removal of ignorance. We must bear in mind what we’re seeking is not a prosthetic gain, but a restoration.

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Understanding Change

Change is not only a fact of life, but also a power and privilege bestowed upon intelligent life. We can change according to our will- this we intuitively know. However, what invariably baffles us is our own inadequate understanding of what exactly is that thing called ‘will.’ By what actions is it characterized? Generally, ‘human free will’ is loosely understood as being a conscious, determined and individual effort. If that were so, then why do almost all our individual resolutions to change end up being so short-lived and prone to failure? How often, even our most sincere attempts to ‘reform’ our selves, or others, or our circumstances are met with difficulty, frustration and failure. If we agree that change is a natural fact of life, why then, must our ‘will to change’ be such a challenge?

We can look back into our lives and clearly see that none of us have remained the same- unchanged; neither have we really resisted change. What then about introducing our will to the process of change, complicates it? Perhaps, the problem lies in our poor understanding of both the process of change and our will. Change occurs in our life-that is certain. But what are the mechanics of change? How does it work? It’s important that we know; for when a deep change is required, we hope to be able to distinguish between a superficial reformation and a fundamental transformation.

On careful examination, one can see that change is a process and not a planned event. And what exactly is the action of such a process?Even as we- a group of friends- discussed ‘change’, I noticed that the conversation progressed in a slow, lingering mood. We ‘saw’ our ideas of change; we ‘listened’ to what the others had to say, we ‘watched ‘ our own individual experience of ‘change’; we ‘defended’ some ideas, we ‘adopted’ new ones and we ‘shed’ or ‘let go’ of others.

Whenever we have witnessed our selves changing, we have seen our selves surrendering, trusting and moving with faith. Also, when we have, in our relationships with others been expected to change, to step out of old patterns and comfort zones, we have successfully done so only after we have carefully ‘examined’ and ‘watched’ our own cherished ideas vis-à-vis their point of view. And it is then that we have realized that we cannot truly allow in change by merely posturing a charitable stance towards another. We must first understand and be forgiving and charitable towards our selves. Analyzing another’s motives and reasons is futile if it is not accompanied with a careful analysis of ones self.

Our will i.e. our freedom to change- on close scrutiny- is most weak when handled and provoked by our thought, but most powerful and potent in our subtlest capacity to wait, to watch, to surrender, to trust and to believe. It is by way of these subtle actions that change, in its proper scale and proportion, effortlessly weaves itself into our lives. These, in fact, are nothing but the many aspects of that privilege we call our will- our capacity to bring in true reform by allowing in the actions of transformation.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Long After You Left

Long after you left…

 

Your pointed words stayed with me

Often acting as effective antidotes

To the excesses of my own mind

 

All of my wild leaps of imagination

Swiftly cut down to size

By your pre-emptive acts of concern

 

Had it not been for you

I may’ve been lying fallen somewhere

Ditched by default of my own design

 

Yes, the credit for my salvation

Must be rightly accorded to you

And to the corrective power of sarcasm

 

For what could’ve otherwise been brutal

And left me hurt and wounded

Is now only a persistent dull ache…

 

I continue to exist- corrected, but wronged

Alive, but dead; breathing in a coffin

Shrouded in a symbolic spotless white.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Unpacking

It’s not about you

There is no ‘you’

There are only circumstances

So that desires may act

And through action

Be liberated from binding thought

 

But who do these desires belong to?

…They belong to me

‘Me’ is only a thought

A rather persistent one

It’s actually a misnomer…

There is no ‘me;’ but there is ‘am-ness.’

 

Sound, space and light

In their tireless play create

A world of forms, words and meanings

And become the experiences

That ‘am-ness’

Describes as ‘mine’

 

In repeatedly describing experiences as ‘mine’

It condenses into an identity

A limited being

Perpetually longing

For an abundance

That pretentious language has hidden away.

 

You and I

Can trace our ancestry to thought

The remnants of an inaccurate language

That didn’t have the words

To describe

The indescribable.