Posted on by solangesuri2015

What is Beyond is Here

There is both- a continuous
And a discontinuous, ever- present aspect
To our lived experience.
That which is subject to change
Must live in the realm of continuity.
It must abide by time’s tenses.
It holds memories of the past
And hopes for the future.
It dreams of favourable change
And growth and prosperity
And a fulfilment that evades it.
It forges ahead (sometimes meekly)
Doing, thinking and sacrificing consciously
To bring into being a better tomorrow.
In a trajectory marked by impermanence and chance
It seeks certainty and permanence.

However, that about us which is ever-present
Is free of the past and the future.
As pure awareness, it enables us to see
What we think, how we feel, what we do
And why we do what we do.
This awareness is not subject to change.
It does not need continuity to exist.
It is what is ever-real and ever-new.
Time cannot change or destroy it.
It is what remains
In and through changing times…
Even when new values replace the old…
Even as things seem to worsen rather than improve…
Even when ideologies are destroyed
And grand institutions and empires collapse.

This realm of awareness
Needs no new hopes
It does not need a “new” year
It does not need any effort
Or any luck; it requires no strategy.
For it’s not a built castle
And it’s not a tale that needs telling
Or a story that needs a new plot.
It has lived through the ages
It carries with it the wisdom of a life
That has seen much.
Trust it. It is the silence and the temple
That receives your prayers.
It holds your tears as they fall
And is the light that by which you can see
That you are engulfed in darkness.

May that which is continuous in you
And is travelling through the days, weeks and years
And is hoping for the better to arrive
Before it is destined to end…
Be blessed by that which holds that possibility
That heaven…that power of the true self
That is real, sovereign and ever-fulfilled.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

From the Imagined to the Unknown

Every life-shattering event
Liberates you from the unreal;
From your world of thoughts
And ideas and opinions;
From your pointless plans;
From your trivial pastimes
And your petty anxieties.

We must be grateful
For destruction, for loss.
For they are an opportunity
To access a higher truth
And a greater life…
To leave behind the imagined
So that we can abide in the unknown.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

To Gain Knowledge

To gain knowledge
One must seek it
Beyond the known.

To gain knowledge
One must learn to wait
Rather than rush to arrive.

To gain knowledge
One must learn how to be
Free of the striving to become.

To gain knowledge
One must be willing
To let go of their assumptions.

To gain knowledge
One must be prepared to get rid of
That which thinks it knows.

To gain knowledge
One must create the space
For the new…for transformation.

To gain knowledge
One must learn to remain silent
When feeling compelled to speak.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Where Have You Reached?

I see around me a desperation
A rush to reach somewhere…
To arrive…
Where? Anywhere…
Something, somewhere may hold the key
To guaranteed ecstasy…
And then some peace and happiness…
I see people scrambling like paupers
For a taste of life…
Not knowing what a great life should taste like…
Whiskey? Butter chicken?
What should a great life smell like?
Chanel no 9? Cigarettes? Sex?
No one knows…
But we all desire…

I hear it often said
That it’s wise to live it up
That we have but one life.
But think about how absurd it is
To have life but to know nothing of it
To educate yourself over hours, days and years
To learn about a world
That is essentially all myth.
For all its attractions, it is
At the end of it all, a black mirror.
Ready to be whatever you conceive of it.
To know life, it’s enough to simply live
Neither chasing nor being chased
By ideas, by demons, by desire…
To come to see that a life well-lived
Has required nothing more
Than simple presence.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Life is a Gift From Eternity

Life is not a burden
to be borne
But a gift to be cherished…
To be appreciated…
To be fathomed.

It’s not a maze of dead-ends
But a heartscape of possibilities.
Live not small and afraid
Thinking of life as your destiny written
For then, having barely lived, you die in vain.

Live not in cemented sorrow
Or merely, in intervals of hope
between perpetual disappointments.
Know the truth- your life is not permanent;
But as ever-transforming existence, you’re eternal.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Staying in Touch

My best friend questioned me
About my preferred mode
For staying in touch…
“Is it Facebook? Is it Instagram?”
“No… not really,” I replied
“Those are great for sharing your views
Or snippets from your day
Or some creative work that you’re doing…
I still like meeting one-on-one,” I replied
Well aware that it had been years
Since we had met and sat down and spoken.

I was suddenly acutely aware of the difference.
When you meet in person with someone
It’s about showing an interest in them.
When you’re on social media
The spotlight is only on you.
It’s about self-promotion, not connection.

It’s quite a travesty
How the design of modern life
With its work-for-survival culture
And its flawed rationale
That connectivity will strengthen connection
And its love for speed
(which it has renamed as ‘efficiency’)
Has robbed us of slowness and leisure
And has instead handed to us varnish and gloss
-Cosmeticised appearances of joy, beauty and success.

I miss the simplicity of the everyday
(Before it was conceived as a function
In the production of an ‘even better’ tomorrow)
It used to be content and self-fulfilled.
I’ve lost the ability to do nothing
I can’t recall the last time I allowed myself to daydream
Without feeling guilty for doing so.
In trying to be connected to everyone everywhere
I’m never truly with anyone, anywhere.
However, few things keep me grounded
Such as the memory of a slower time
When we stopped by or got together
For a one-on-one conversation
About nothing in particular.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Do It Your Way

A set architecture with walled spaces
Stairways and elevations, and paved pathways
With names and arrows for direction-
May serve as a design for order and ease;
But the human is a dreamer…and a seeker
And conveniences cannot take him to where he needs to be.

His heart soars when he’s inspired.
In the intensity of the present moment
Even time releases him- so that the fire in him
Can set aflame the fuel that lays silent, muted and wasted
All can be re-ignited, all can have their power restored
And the atmosphere can be uplifted from dreariness.

The human creates not because he can trade his creations
But simply because he CAN create…
And to do so Is to discover the divine impulse
By which one can recreate a world
Of possibilities and infinite directions
So that all paths can take you to the self you’re seeking.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Boredom

Wanting to do something…
A search for meaning
And purpose and fulfilment
Or simply the desire for thrill and excitement
– Can all be traced to boredom.

Our being seeks purpose in doing.

When all of our doing
Progressively reveals to us
The utter futility of all our endeavours
Where things remain… not better, not worse…
We begin to look at life more inquiringly.

Life is the fount of eternal youth.

Each moment is a fresh possibility
In between your memory and desire
There is a silent and divine space
You’ve often sought this space
Like you do a shrine…

For quiet and peaceful reflection.

Your boredom was blindness
You could not see the necessity of nothingness.
Your boredom was ignorance
As your awareness was in a state of deep sleep
Your boredom was also the inertia

By which you moved towards your north star

Your boredom is your home
The sanctuary that you return to
When you’re exhausted chasing your dreams
Your boredom is what allows you
To keep things real.

What you were escaping from, is what you’ll end up escaping to.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

The True End

When do our lives end?
Never.
They continue.
Death is not an end to life.
Death is the end of a form…
An entity… an identity…
Life is eternal.
It does not cease to be.
It ever renews.

An end only marks a new beginning
A new cycle of angst and small escapisms
Death is not a freedom
From sorrow… from misery… from conflict.
Freedom belongs to the realm of life.
It must be sought here and now
Not merely by way of vote, revolt or a bloody war
But through a life of surrender and devotion
To the altar of a higher realization.

This realization is an internal independence
From all that is external to us.
And is a firm awareness
Of what is intrinsic to ourselves.
The intrinsic is life.
The extrinsic is manifestation.
Freedom is not the end of undesirable circumstances.
Freedom is liberation from the very desire to be free.
The true end is that which is free of a new beginning.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

What it Means to Grow

To grow one must courageously set foot
In ‘the higher’… ‘the freer’… ‘the truer’…
But these need not be assumed
To be ‘more than’
Or ‘greater than’
Our present state.

‘Higher’ could be ‘smaller’.
‘Freer’ could be ‘lesser’.
‘Truer’ could be ‘wiser’.
In other words, growth is not merely
In the mindless annexure of more.
It’s in the understanding of intrinsic worth.

To grow is to question the assumption of inadequacy
It is to reconcile the conflict
Between who we are and
Who we imagine ourselves to be;
Between what we don’t know
And what we refuse to learn.