Posted on by solangesuri2015

Space in the City

Silence is a magnetic field
Created by a repulsion
To noise.

I have lived in city spaces
Where noisy roads
Are neighbours to islands of calm
Found in temples or parks…
Or in the little lane
That makes a quick exit
From a busy street.
Or in the silences held in homes
Where the sound of utensils in the kitchen
Or a pressure cooker whistling
Are the only sounds that tell you
That a family resides there.

The city with its speed and noise
Is ironically the providence you need
To cultivate your own field of silence.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Life Experiences

There’s a breeze
That gently moves my curtain
Every afternoon.
The day is slower…
Calmer…
I think to myself–
Grateful for this solitude–
These are the experiences of being
That I wish to carry with me.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Being Capable of Love

Child,
Not everyone you meet
Will do you good
Not everyone you meet
Will be sincere
Not everyone you meet
Will love you as perfection.
Your ideas of love
May not easily be fulfilled.

Love has many different faces
From the ugly to the sublime.
Love resists being contained
Within narrow definitions.
And yet it needs boundaries…
Otherwise, it remains doomed as hate.
Love must be understood
Through the instruments of love
Patience, attention, trust and faith.

Sometimes love is received.
At other times, often more challenging,
It needs to be given.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

When Fiction is Educated to Become Fact

Without the other

Would ‘I’ ever know myself?

Without sorrow

Would ‘I’ ever grow?

Without disillusionment

Would ‘I’ ever transcend desire?

Without love

Would ‘I’ have the wisdom to endure?

Without experience

Would ‘I’ know what it means to be?

Indviduality is fiction

Educated by longing, suffering and desire to become fact.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

The Existing Clock

There’s a clock in my home

That shows a different time.

It seems to have its own pace

It works on a different rhythm.

If I had to consult the other clocks

They’d say it does not work.

They would recommend repair

Or a replacement.

After all the job of a clock 

Is to work “round the clock”

And unfailingly show us the right time.

I don’t know why I haven’t done it yet…

Why I haven’t repaired or replaced it…

“There are better clocks out there,” they say.

I know. But my knowing 

Doesn’t want to act on its knowledge.

I like it being wrong.

I like that it shows me a different time.

I like that it is out of sync and free.

It makes me smile.

The clock does work

Just not in the way it’s supposed to.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Your Life is Your Gift

It takes time to build

A reputation, a life, an identity

Yet time holds little regard

For your version of reality.

 

In a single brutal stroke

It can level down to the ground

All your structures and your plans

All gone…nothing to be found.

 

What do you turn to then?

Repentance, remorse, restitution or prayer?

Or are you grateful that

Though everything is lost, you’re still there.

 

You’ve done it before

So you know that you can do it again

With grit and determination

You’ll rebuild your life from zero to ten.

 

But what is loss trying to teach you?

And are you ready to learn?

That no matter what distance you cover

Over time, you will return.

 

Cling not to your honours and riches

For they delude you and make you forget

That the unreality you celebrate today

Is time lost, that you will regret.

 

So, what must we do with our time–

How do we rise above its drift?

Make it an offering to an ideal

Remember that your life is your gift.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

More is Inflation, Not Value

More is manmade
More is artifice
More stems from insecurity
More is insincere
More is egoistic
More is competitive
More is useless
More is a waste
More destroys

We don’t need more for a good life
More things, more wealth
More performance, more people
More fame, more recognition
More ideas, more progress
More work, more effort
More politics, more divisions
More weapons, more war…

We need
The simplicity to be just enough
The greatness to appreciate the small
The faith to surrender to the unknown
The education to become instrumental
Not self-serving
The ambition to transcend desire
Not pursue it
The wisdom to love
What we are blessed with
The courage to be authentic
Not delusory
The humility to receive
The generosity to give…

More is not the way to create value
The creation of value requires judgment
And judgment requires stillness… a pause
An intermission between action and reaction
In that space better sense prevails
In that space value is understood.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

What is the Heart Afraid of?

Why is the heart afraid
Of darkness?
Why is the heart afraid
Of the unknown?
Why is the heart afraid
To take chances?

What does it stand to lose
By challenging existence?
Will it lose its gratitude?
Wisdom?
Restraint?
Will it lose a grip on life itself?

But what is life?
Is it the freedom to be?
The freedom to make-believe?
Is it suffering?
An entanglement?
Or an illusion?

How strange it is
That life cannot be known.
It’s a mystery.
It can only be lived.
It can only be experienced.
Sometimes in the light; sometimes in darkness.

Sometimes in action;
Sometimes in passivity.
Sometimes in isolation;
Sometimes in longing.
Sometimes desiring an end;
Sometimes an eternal continuity.

The heart is afraid
Because it must after all,
Venture into life alone and bravely.
Without the cleverness of thought.
It must come to see that it doesn’t need architecture;
That it exists in the realm of surrender and possibility.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Guilt

Guilt is dark. It entraps you.
It’s a shadow that engulfs you.
You can ignore it
But it follows you everywhere.
The eternal accompaniment
To expectations pinned on you.

But which you?
The one that thinks, feels, senses…
The jeeva.
Forever tormented into making a choice
And then being doomed
For having made it.

To conquer this induced guilt
One must transcend conditional relationships
That no longer nurture.
Isolation then is not a punishment
But a necessary outcome of growth.
Emotionalism must never pretend to be true emotion.

In a world obsessed with fictions
Persist in your search for the real.
Beyond name and form
Seek truth. Seek light.
Walk out of the cave.
Guilt is dark. It entraps you.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

The Cross “I” Bear

The weight of an “I”
is too much
to bear for a lifetime.
An aberration of the self,
the “I” wishes to become everything
it is ignorant of being.

“I” is the first violation
of the principle of the self,
which is that: it is the self
only when it is not for the self.
Yet we live our lives
in perpetual want.

With every purchase
we invest in our poverty.
With every relationship
we extend the misery of our longing.
With every prayer for protection
we chip away our faith.

The “I” is a myth
for what it means
to be human.
A being in search of
what it means to simply be-
Alive. Existing. Discovering.