Posted on by solangesuri2015 · 2 Comments

The Real Value

A value is that which enriches your existence
Like good health and strength…
Like grace and simplicity…
Like inspiration…
Like creativity…
Like kindness…
Like silence…
Like understanding…
Like clarity…
Like forgiveness…
Like harmony…
All the multifarious aspects of love.

A value is not a number.
It’s also not a thing of degree.
Being rich (in values)
Has nothing to do
With how much you have
It’s about what you’re able to bring.
A value is not a commodity
That you can trade.
Values cannot be purchased;
They can only be realized.
And once realized,
They fulfil your life.

How do you realize ‘real’ values?
Begin by understanding
That life is not an externality.
Life is what goes on inside of you.
Your inner restlessness
Is seeking rest and repose.
Your fear and insecurity
Is in need of assurance and strength.
Your emotional knots
Need release and expression.
Your hatred is unable to see love.
And your lack of trust is a poverty of faith.

Your desire to own
And be known, recognized and validated
Is a search for fulfilment.
None of these values
Can be mined from the world.
They cannot be purchased in a market.
They cannot be acquired via accomplishment.
They must be self-generated.
The fount of life is within you
It is you who creates
And sustains your life.
You are the real value.

Posted on by solangesuri2015 · 1 Comment

A Vision

At the heart of a vision
Is a good that is great.
It’s universal in its hope…
Large and all-encompassing in its fold…
Needed for the times to come.

However, achieving a vision
Is not as simple as wishing for it.
It requires work.
Its work is of inspiring change,
Enlightening… illuminating…
Fighting lazy assumptions,
Defeating doubt, breaking down barriers…
Challenging the status quo…
Questioning, learning, educating…
Fighting battles- some small, some big
But never losing sight
Of that which is worth fighting for.

A vision must be so great
It absorbs all that is small in us…
Our anxieties, our insecurities, our differences…
It must yield capability,
Competence and resilience.
It must ride on its own promise
While knowing well that
Life is inherently a kaleidoscope of contradictions
And that sometimes,
In order to move on
One must accept a temporary compromise.

A vision is corrective.
By design, it will guide you
It will clarify your understanding
And uplift your experiences to wisdom.
It will ensure that you too,
Are transformed
By the power of your own vision.

As you progress in its light
You will leave behind
Your self-interest, your ego, your pride…
Your darkness…
You will be protected in your solitude
(Even if you find yourself devoid of company)
And be freed of the shackles
Your times had bound you to.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

The Art of Simplicity

Organize. Arrange.
Declutter. Reduce.
Focus. Pay attention.
Respond as expected
Say what you mean
Mean what you say
Weed out the unnecessary
(So that you may know what you truly need).
Remove assumptions
Seek clarity
Decide quickly
Act in a timely way
Be patient with results
Know that the credit for any achievement
Must be shared
Express gratitude.
Contribute where you can
Perform where you must.
When you come to realize
That the world is but a stage
And it’s all just an act
And you’re just an actor
Pay attention to your pauses.
Bring intentionality to your silence
Prepare to exit.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Forever

Forever, I’ve come to see…
Is not just the mush
Of teenage love letters

Forever is a promise
A passionate romance…
It’s a commitment…
An ideal…
It’s devotion…
It’s surrender…

It’s not a light word
But it’s sweet
Not a sugar-coated type of sweetness
But one that sweetens with
The passage of time.

‘Forever’ is not staid,
One-dimensional or unchanging
On the contrary,
It is allowing that which is changeable
To change; and allowing all
Change to be absorbed in its promise

It is a faith…
That we realize when we stop clinging
To the changing and let it go
And in the process, come to see
What is unchangeable and
Forever.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Technology

We live in a world
Constructed by technology.
Technology is our genie.
For every “How do we do this?”
It stands as an answer
Always at our command.

Man has now got
What he always wanted
Comfort, ease, convenience,
Control…
And yet something feels amiss…
He hasn’t got it all…

Does having it easy mean being in control?
Does having choices mean greater freedom?
Does having the answers mean you know?
Does the erasure of labour mean accomplishment?
Technology has lived up to its promise of a new world
But whose idea of an ideal world is it?

Our assumptions now stand before us
As questions… questions that we still
Do not have the answers to
We think our technology will give us these answers…
But it only echoes
What we already know.

Technology stands before us like a mirror
Reflecting our limitations
Suggesting to us that there exist
Higher frontiers for humanity
That this cannot be it.
Progress is internal enlightenment, not external augmentation.

Digressions and entertainment
Are not a solution to the problem of sorrow
And while speed may bring efficiency
It also bulldozes experience
That amazing human capacity to rise to a higher state
By grappling with difficulty, challenge and conflict.

Technology in giving us what we want
Has taken away from us our need for fulfilment.
Engineered to give us what we search for
We’ve come to misconceive information as knowledge
We now live in limbo
Wondering what it means to be human.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

What We’re Seeking is Not Outside

When we question our intentions
Our fears,
Our conformity,
Our compromised individuality-
All stand exposed by our reason.

Whatever project of woke-ness
We may wax eloquent about
And claim our commitment to
Deep down, all we want
Is to belong (to something).

We think our need to belong
Can be met by attachment
To a group, an ideology or a cause
To belong somewhere
Becomes our purpose.

And yet all our efforts–
In all futility–
Only leave us more with ourselves
The world can only utilize you
It cannot embrace you.

One can only
Add to the many
One cannot be absorbed
By anything other than
A larger one-ness.

So when you find yourself
Being strategically invested in your relationships
Question your intentions
Redirect your attention inwards
The largeness your seeking is not outside.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

The Ultimate Experience

The ultimate experience cannot be expressed
It cannot be shared.
It does not belong to our field of action.
For the field
Is a shared common experience…
One in which we must
Fight our battles…
Or wage a war against
What is known…
So that what we are left with
Is an experience… a revelation
That cannot be shared.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Not Always. Not Necessarily.

Happy does not always mean ‘not sad’
Silence does not naturally mean ‘peace and harmony’.
Disagreement does not mean ‘disrespect’.
Struggle need not mean ‘suffering’.
Anger doesn’t necessarily mean ‘hatred’.

Interpretation is the limitation of understanding.
Antonyms are not always
The opposite condition
Synonyms are not always
The same thing.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Art is a Conversation

Art is not the created object;
Art is Creativity that is
In the process of searching
The beautiful, the meaningful,
The melancholy, the strange,
The wondrous, the banal,
The ugly…
The right and the wrong.

These qualities cannot be created
By will…by intention…by mastery of technique.
They can only be expressed as
An understanding-in-process.
The artist therefore, is not the creator
But the perceiver, the feeler and the thinker
Whose work it is to converse with life
Authentically; and therefore artistically.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Fashioning Time

Time is a fabric
That we’ve all been given.
Fashioning it is our art.
Some of us proportion it
To the pleasures our bodies seek;
Some to the moods of the mind…
Some to the imagination of the intellect…
Some purpose it to be
An offering of love.

The art of fashion
Is an ancient art
Its actions and office
Pre-dating runways, designers and brands…
How we pattern, cut and stitch together
Our fabric of time…
And how we imprint our sentiments on it…
Or how we embellish it with our hopes…
Is a fashioning action that is imbued with intention.

The way we style our time
How we weave together
Our experiences and our memories
Or crochet together our prayers and dreams…
Or knit into a warmth
Our relationships…
Or layer into a look our old and new–
Is ultimately an expression of who we are
And also, what we are hoping to be.