Posted on by solangesuri2015

Culture

I’ve often wondered about nakedness
Not just of the body
But also of the mind…
And how we’ve constructed
The meaning of virtue with so much nuance.

The human is a creature of meaning;
Of perception enhanced by learning.
We understand the extent of a day
By learning to ‘see’ the night.
Differences perceived make clear the definition.

The dressed body is intentional
It is a desire to be seen on one’s own terms
Not simply as a naked truth
But as a presence that is simultaneously
Human and divine; here and beyond.

We must dress up, not because we are vain
But because we are seeking who we are–
Not just naked bodies, but in our nakedness,
We are a vast cosmos of possibilities.
Through dress, we come to see newer versions of ourselves.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

To Sustain Life, Allow for Change

Time is the playground of life.
Do something daily, consistently
And it becomes a habit.
But a habit can, over time, become a prison.

Break the habit;
And you’ll create the new.
When you create the new
The old and the familiar starts slipping away.

The new must now be fixed.
To replace the old and the familiar
It must achieve a new rhythm
It must become ingrained as a habit.

But a habit can, over time, become a prison.
It can make you numb to experience
Keep playing then. Be the destroyer,
The sustainer and creator on the playground of time.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

What Do You Know?

Knowledge is a gain
That comes to those
Who sincerely seek it.

Books hold stories, theories
And philosophies.
On their own
They’re not knowledge.

Experiences too,
Are granted to all
But on their own
They don’t yield knowledge.

Knowledge is an invocation.
For knowledge to enlighten
There must first be
An awareness of darkness.
There must be acceptance
That one does not know.
There must be a question…
There must be wonder…

There must be the recognition
That Existence is the greatest teacher
But to Existence one must go.
She will not come to you
At a scheduled hour.

Have you ever wondered
What the trees know?
Or the wind?
Or waters that travel
Fearlessly across lands
To reach the vastness of the ocean?

What knowledge do they hold?
What knowledge holds them?
And do they ‘know’ about it?
Or is their knowledge of a different type?

Must knowledge be about mastery?
Does its value lie in its saleability?
What value does understanding have?
Must we know how to survive above all?
Or, must we know what it means to give
And how to sacrifice, and how to die
For the sake of something greater?

That is what is worthy of seeking
How the ordinary is so rich
With promise; seemingly simple
Yet so phenomenal.
So self-contained and yet so giving.
So weak, yet so strong.
Knowledge is important
So that you don’t waste your life becoming
That which you never were.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

When Will Wisdom Come?

When will wisdom come?
When you have lived a life
Of many detours…and many turns?
Or when unimpressed
With the map of the world
You reach for the stars?
Or when reality makes demands on you
But you leave to live your dream?

When will wisdom come?
When you walk the tried and tested path
Laid down by those who walked before?
Or when you seek recourse in religion
To be saved from a pervasive evil?
Or, as a pledge to the highest in humanity
You stay non-violent…
And hurt no one.

But is wisdom the child of intent?
Or the joy of escape?
Or the reward for resolve?
Or the unleashing of wild passions?
Or, is it a light that beams through you
When you have discovered
Along the way
How to be happy.

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

Sorrow

Sorrow runs deep.
It lies at the bottom of our awareness…
Buried under the many layers
of dress and sparkle that we’ve deemed
imperative to shroud ourselves in…
Just so that we may never
Catch a glimpse of sorrow naked.

But to stand before it
And not run away from its nakedness
is to face a gnawing discomfort and
to question your self-awareness…
It is to finally ask the question:
How can I truly know happiness
If I refuse to learn from my sorrow?

When in sorrow’s grip,
we willingly surrender our ignorance…
that we had childishly dressed up as knowledge.
We know nothing. Our speculations
are not a path to the truth.
They are but a conjuring up
of an alternate reality.

Sorrow is the ultimate portal
To a higher dimension..
It is a call to grow deeper roots…
To stand as we are, where we are…
To be in conversation with God
To seek freedom from desire…
Even from the desire to escape sorrow.

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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 University of Life and Death

Go from darkness into light
From chronic entanglement and bondage
Into a temporary freedom.
From chasing delusions
To seeing the truth.
Transition. Move on.
And then return.

For death is not the place for the living
And life has no use for the dead.
Return with the light
Learn to see the divine in the human.
Live once more, if need be
Bound within a web of relationships
But now exist in eternal freedom.

We are here because
We are yet to learn the lessons
That we had neither the intelligence
Nor the maturity to understand
In this university, experiences teach you
Imperfection was never the problem
Perfection was never the need.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Liberate Yourself

Liberate yourself
From the patterns of the mind
From self-doubt, worry and circuitous thought.
The mind is a self-enclosed space
It won’t take you anywhere
Beyond the illusions and stories it creates.

Liberate yourself
From a false education
That makes you believe the myth
Of The Powerful, The Successful,
The Great and the Best
And tells you that you must serve
These false Gods.

Liberate yourself
From petty desires…from hunger
Free of desire and greed,
you will commit no wrong.
The search for validation
Is the most regressive thing
For the spiritually awakened.

Liberate yourself
For no God, no Guru,
No rock concert, no art
No currency, no stock market
No institution, no government…
Nothing created by the mind of man
Can liberate you.