Simply being
Appearances are not the Truth
And the Truth is evident, not apparent.
Know the difference.
Courage may not always look grand
It often keeps its distance from the grandiosity of gesture.
Let it remain invisible.
Your real achievements often go unnoticed.
Awards are intended to legitimise the awarder.
Their place is on a shelf; yours, in life.
You’re educated to acquire special skills
Yet all real work happens through surrender and prayer.
Give up all ideas of yourself.
Pornography isn’t confined
To the sexual.
In fact, it has become more pervasive
Than we care to admit.
It’s apparent in the way
We intercourse with life in general.
In man’s world
Everything must be
On a perpetual high-
Growth, profit, success
Romance, attention, appearance-
All must be managed, promised and pursued.
Effect is packaged as impact.
Titillation is now a form of power.
Popularity is an achievement.
Self-gratification is the road to happiness
Seduction is success
And attention is capital.
Pornography in essence
Is a redrawing
Of gaze and glimpse.
It’s a perversion
Of desire and touch.
And a degradation and decimation
Of what makes us human.
In passing time
Observe an occurrence:
A curve…a refraction…
A twist…an aberration…
A connection…a concealment…
Stretch its dimensions
Towards the observer.
Perceive it in pure light
Without an ambience of knowledge.
Learn about it
By learning from it.
Trust it to take you
Where it must now live…
In the form of a new thing;
In the marketplace;
As an idea;
As a suggestion;
As a question;
As a voice
Or, as pure courage.
Pause…
Because a pause creates beauty
And this creation of beauty
Is not designed action
It is a reflection in stillness.
What a paradox it is
That in order
To apprehend life’s complexity
The simplest act of cessation is sufficient
Just as much as it is necessary.
A pause
Is a way to pay respect
To the doer, the doing and the done
It’s a constraint you put
On the excessive and the unnecessary.
A pause
Is a form of acknowledgement
That conveyance
Is an action of many forces
And that intention is one such force.
A pause is power
The ultimate form of self-control
A recognition of
What fails in success
And what succeeds in failure.
How marvellous is poetry
Where words with
Definitive meanings
Begin to explore a world
Beyond them.
Words can rise in wonder
They can descend in love.
They can enter abandoned heart spaces
And breathe life
Into feelings that were left to die.
Words can be more
Than just units of meaning…
They are also the pigments
That give color and visibility
To an existence beyond the one you’re living.
Poetry is an educator
Whose lessons get richer
With the accumulation
Of experience and memory.
They become your constitution.
Over time
Poetry that you lived with
Becomes a fragrance
That emanates from you.
Words are no longer needed.
Play an active role
In your own life:
Make tough choices.
Create joy.
Give love.
Provide space.
Bring intelligence.
Leverage opportunities.
Earn respect.
Work for a cause.
Acquire experiences.
Develop capability.
Dream and then recreate the dream.
Inspire and influence.
Leave. Know when you’re not needed.
Accept your fate with faith.
Rest. Redeem yourself.
Expression without art
Keeps you tied to the emotion.
With art, expression acquires the power
To release you.
It educates, cultivates, sublimates.
The art is in the manner of expression.
The sadhana of the artist
Is not merely to express feelings
But to transform them
Into an experience of beauty.
When something breaks
Destiny takes over its purpose.
What becomes of the part,
Separated from the whole-
Depends on the actions
Of many forces.
Life takes over.
Emotions drive it.
Sustenance becomes essential
For survival.
Separated from the whole,
The part searches for its own identity.
It awaits true love…
Searches for something
And someone to belong to.
Unconscious of the truth
That no one thing can complete it-
As it belongs with All.
Life is a journey
To a destination-
A voyage from no-thing
To no-thing.
Our something-ness is maya
That should be lived…endured…
But not preserved or pursued.
Intoxicated with life
We live in a state of forgetfulness
Of who we essentially are;
Adamant to ‘be’ someone whole…
Someone who will be
Loved, remembered…continued.
The feeling of purposelessness
Haunts the part.
Separated from the whole
It may be re-imagined, re-purposed…cultivated.
But it can never become
What it cannot be.
So much activity, very little action.
So much knowledge, very little understanding.
So many words, very little meaning.
So many functions, very little purpose.
So many pleasures, but very little satisfaction.
Man can only provide
Imagination and variety,
Alternatives, substitutes and evocations
For what evades him in essence.
Originality is good.
The true is good.
The honest is good.
To surrender the material
At the altar of the spiritual
Is good
Self-awareness is good.
To love is good.
Correct knowledge is good.
To overcome weakness is good.
Courage is good.
To adapt to change
But to remain unchanged by it
Is good.
To relate with care is good.
To sustain the good is good.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 