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Pain Can Release You From Suffering

Emotional pain is a shapeshifter
It can take on endless forms
The more you try to escape it
The more persistently it stays with you.
Suffering is the price you pay
For being a fugitive in life.

An ache-less heart is no solution
It is the most ignoble form of suffering.
It reeks of weakness…cowardice…denial.
A habitual dulling of pain
Through a vapid indulgence in the pits of pleasure
Cannot really be an indication of wellbeing.

To be free from pain
One must climb its walls
Refusing to be imprisoned by it.
One must see
The want it points to;
As that is the need of your soul.

Wisdom is coming to know
The unreality of dichotomies.
Our pain is not the problem;
It points to the problem.
Our pain is not a signal of things dying
But is the harbinger of a new possibility.

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Adapting

Adapting
I’m coming to see
Is not as benign a process
As it is made out to be…
Generally suggesting a soft compromise…

New conditions
Can appear before you
As a real threat
To your values, your hopes, your orientations
…all that defines you.

You stand disoriented; destabilised
By the disappearance of foundational principles;
A humiliating reminder
That all that you considered to be real
Was the false at its deceptive best.

Continuity, in the world
Operates differently.
It means continuous change
Brought about by osmosis
Truth and singularity are not its virtues
And yet dishonesty and susceptibility cannot be yours…

Is the world nothing but an illusion?
Is your individuality an illusion?
To adapt means to let go
(Sometimes with great spirit)–
Of your definitions… your ideas… your certainties.
Because those are the real illusions.

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Beauty’s Designation

The Beautiful is the teacher
Of the Philosophical.

Apprehending beauty
Is the dawn of understanding.

Expressing beauty
Is the awakening of knowledge

Living as its instrument
Is our pilgrimage to wisdom.

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What is Love?

Love is indefinable
But it needs to be explained
Lest we begin to define it
In terms of our bittersweet experiences;
In terms of what it never was–
An artefact of our desires.

Love,
Even if it were a thing
Would not be the thing in itself
But the spirit that lends itself
To a constitution and
Makes perceptible a harmony.

It’s the melody in a song
It’s the fragrance that emanates
From a flower and then
Fills up the air that surrounds it.
It is the intensity within emotion
That is distinct from the emotion itself.

Our very being is love.
And to the extent we are free
From the hunger and thirst of the heart;
From the endless wanting of the mind–
To that extent we are able
To express our love.

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Who Are You?

In a sea of people
You are a wave.

In a country of hopes
You are an expectation.

In a family with needs
You are a sustainer

In an institution of faith
You are belief.

In a group of equals
You are a voice.

Amongst ‘forever friends’
You are comfort and company.

In an industry and the economy
You are a resource.

In passing time
You are a memory.

In changing reality
You are a constant.

In being and becoming
You are but a witness.

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Not in the Resumé

For every hour
That one has lived…
Enjoyed… endured…
There has been
The eventual triumph
Of reason, relationships and resolve.

What greater proof of one’s abilities
Than their having lived
Without losing love and hope…
And having sustained their families
Their passions, their disciplines…
Their faith.

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Reconciliation

How do we reconcile
The dichotomies of our lives?

–Faith and cynicism
–Hope and despair
–Love and disgust
–Pure being and conditioned thinking…

Doomed as we are
To be vulgar in choosing…
Irrespective
Of what choices we make.

…Or should we just live in limbo?
Eternally unfulfilled…

Except in the art we create
The stories we tell
The poetry we write
And the philosophies we propose.

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Grace

That which allows
For both, ecstasy and sorrow
With a steady breath…

That which upholds dignity
And yet endures disgrace
Without bemoaning the loss of face
And without the haste to change…

That which has known both-
Deep affection and bitter estrangement
And knows that both
Are light and shadow
Co-existing in love’s eternal light.

“That” is not an imposition of will
It’s not an austerity
Nor a firm resolve…

“That” is an all-encompassing
All embracing
Grace.

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Home

What you return to is home.
It’s not just the familiarity
Of things and routines…
It is their specific melody.
It’s not just the people
Who fill it with warmth and cheer,
It’s the belongingness
Within relationships.
Home is where you feel most at rest.

A home is made
Little by little,
Moment by moment,
Prayer by prayer…
With silent resolve
But more than that,
With faith–
That our home is our temple…
It’s where our devotion lives.

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The Real Tragedy

You’re out of sync…
In disharmony with life
When you begin
To see it as ‘yours’.

Your expectations grow
Ambition takes over
Your hopes and prayers
Get oriented towards control…

Life and its circumstances
Must favour you.

Accomplishment becomes your purpose
Love becomes an acquisition
You feel entitled to privilege
And wealth becomes the hub
Around which these revolve.

That which is abundant-
Life- forever giving
Becomes something you perversely
Try to steal for yourself.

When you fail to see the truth
You cling to law, ethics and codes of conduct.

Your education too
Gets appropriated.
It becomes subservient to mediocrity
It remains satisfied in meeting
Systemic objectives.

You graduate in degrees of ignorance
Forever in pursuit
Of the illusory.
Racing through your days
To the finish line.

But then comes a dawn
When accomplishment feels like failure
All acquisitions become soul-destroying
You’re unceremoniously stripped off
Your sense of entitlement.

The notions around which
Your life was anchored
Get swept away
By the currents of time.

Nothing lasts…
Except life.

The tragedy is not death
The tragedy is life not understood.