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The Real Value

A value is that which enriches your existence
Like good health and strength…
Like grace and simplicity…
Like inspiration…
Like creativity…
Like kindness…
Like silence…
Like understanding…
Like clarity…
Like forgiveness…
Like harmony…
All the multifarious aspects of love.

A value is not a number.
It’s also not a thing of degree.
Being rich (in values)
Has nothing to do
With how much you have
It’s about what you’re able to bring.
A value is not a commodity
That you can trade.
Values cannot be purchased;
They can only be realized.
And once realized,
They fulfil your life.

How do you realize ‘real’ values?
Begin by understanding
That life is not an externality.
Life is what goes on inside of you.
Your inner restlessness
Is seeking rest and repose.
Your fear and insecurity
Is in need of assurance and strength.
Your emotional knots
Need release and expression.
Your hatred is unable to see love.
And your lack of trust is a poverty of faith.

Your desire to own
And be known, recognized and validated
Is a search for fulfilment.
None of these values
Can be mined from the world.
They cannot be purchased in a market.
They cannot be acquired via accomplishment.
They must be self-generated.
The fount of life is within you
It is you who creates
And sustains your life.
You are the real value.

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A Vision

At the heart of a vision
Is a good that is great.
It’s universal in its hope…
Large and all-encompassing in its fold…
Needed for the times to come.

However, achieving a vision
Is not as simple as wishing for it.
It requires work.
Its work is of inspiring change,
Enlightening… illuminating…
Fighting lazy assumptions,
Defeating doubt, breaking down barriers…
Challenging the status quo…
Questioning, learning, educating…
Fighting battles- some small, some big
But never losing sight
Of that which is worth fighting for.

A vision must be so great
It absorbs all that is small in us…
Our anxieties, our insecurities, our differences…
It must yield capability,
Competence and resilience.
It must ride on its own promise
While knowing well that
Life is inherently a kaleidoscope of contradictions
And that sometimes,
In order to move on
One must accept a temporary compromise.

A vision is corrective.
By design, it will guide you
It will clarify your understanding
And uplift your experiences to wisdom.
It will ensure that you too,
Are transformed
By the power of your own vision.

As you progress in its light
You will leave behind
Your self-interest, your ego, your pride…
Your darkness…
You will be protected in your solitude
(Even if you find yourself devoid of company)
And be freed of the shackles
Your times had bound you to.

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The Art of Simplicity

Organize. Arrange.
Declutter. Reduce.
Focus. Pay attention.
Respond as expected
Say what you mean
Mean what you say
Weed out the unnecessary
(So that you may know what you truly need).
Remove assumptions
Seek clarity
Decide quickly
Act in a timely way
Be patient with results
Know that the credit for any achievement
Must be shared
Express gratitude.
Contribute where you can
Perform where you must.
When you come to realize
That the world is but a stage
And it’s all just an act
And you’re just an actor
Pay attention to your pauses.
Bring intentionality to your silence
Prepare to exit.

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Truth is Not a Smooth-Talker

Words have become slippery
They’re no longer able to
Firmly hold on to their meanings

Truth has no language…
No construction…
Words with their promiscuous meanings
Can no longer convey the truth.

The understanding
That one therefore needs
Is a non-verbal kind.

One that observes in silence
And can therefore see (but can no longer convey)
How our words
Have become an aberration of truth.

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Connected

We’re all connected
Prior to our being
Organized by society
As family…as friends…
As lovers… as ex-es…
As enemies…. as rivals.

We’re not just connected to each other
But to all forms of life…
The mineral… the liquid…
the air… the space…
We’re in them
They’re in us

We’re a composite
Of so many existences
And a residue of so many lives
Yet our thought stands as a wall
Leaving us unable to see, hear and feel
Anything other than itself.

My separation is a delusion;
My individuality is a scam.
I contain nothing
Other than another
I am no one
If I’m not all of you.

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Forever

Forever, I’ve come to see…
Is not just the mush
Of teenage love letters

Forever is a promise
A passionate romance…
It’s a commitment…
An ideal…
It’s devotion…
It’s surrender…

It’s not a light word
But it’s sweet
Not a sugar-coated type of sweetness
But one that sweetens with
The passage of time.

‘Forever’ is not staid,
One-dimensional or unchanging
On the contrary,
It is allowing that which is changeable
To change; and allowing all
Change to be absorbed in its promise

It is a faith…
That we realize when we stop clinging
To the changing and let it go
And in the process, come to see
What is unchangeable and
Forever.

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Technology

We live in a world
Constructed by technology.
Technology is our genie.
For every “How do we do this?”
It stands as an answer
Always at our command.

Man has now got
What he always wanted
Comfort, ease, convenience,
Control…
And yet something feels amiss…
He hasn’t got it all…

Does having it easy mean being in control?
Does having choices mean greater freedom?
Does having the answers mean you know?
Does the erasure of labour mean accomplishment?
Technology has lived up to its promise of a new world
But whose idea of an ideal world is it?

Our assumptions now stand before us
As questions… questions that we still
Do not have the answers to
We think our technology will give us these answers…
But it only echoes
What we already know.

Technology stands before us like a mirror
Reflecting our limitations
Suggesting to us that there exist
Higher frontiers for humanity
That this cannot be it.
Progress is internal enlightenment, not external augmentation.

Digressions and entertainment
Are not a solution to the problem of sorrow
And while speed may bring efficiency
It also bulldozes experience
That amazing human capacity to rise to a higher state
By grappling with difficulty, challenge and conflict.

Technology in giving us what we want
Has taken away from us our need for fulfilment.
Engineered to give us what we search for
We’ve come to misconceive information as knowledge
We now live in limbo
Wondering what it means to be human.

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What We’re Seeking is Not Outside

When we question our intentions
Our fears,
Our conformity,
Our compromised individuality-
All stand exposed by our reason.

Whatever project of woke-ness
We may wax eloquent about
And claim our commitment to
Deep down, all we want
Is to belong (to something).

We think our need to belong
Can be met by attachment
To a group, an ideology or a cause
To belong somewhere
Becomes our purpose.

And yet all our efforts–
In all futility–
Only leave us more with ourselves
The world can only utilize you
It cannot embrace you.

One can only
Add to the many
One cannot be absorbed
By anything other than
A larger one-ness.

So when you find yourself
Being strategically invested in your relationships
Question your intentions
Redirect your attention inwards
The largeness your seeking is not outside.

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The Ultimate Experience

The ultimate experience cannot be expressed
It cannot be shared.
It does not belong to our field of action.
For the field
Is a shared common experience…
One in which we must
Fight our battles…
Or wage a war against
What is known…
So that what we are left with
Is an experience… a revelation
That cannot be shared.

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Experience

To know one must experience.
To experience one must know.

To experience anything fully
One must be present…
Observant… Attentive…
Open to feeling…
One must be able to contact life
Deeply; not tangentially.

You must experience abrasion
To know your strength and power.

Only when you feel pain
Will you understand meaning.

You must meet the unfamiliar
Before you get familiar with who you are.

You must experience difficulty
In order to know what is accomplishment.

You must experience differences
Before you come to know love.

Experience is first-hand knowledge.
In and through it you discover
Your profound qualities

All your experiences
Must lead you to a deeper knowledge.
And then…
To superior experiences.