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

The Curse of our Creativity

We were living in a virtual reality
Long before we conceptualized it
As technology; and began to create
‘New uses’ for what was essentially
A flaw; and a limited self-awareness.

It takes us a lifetime (or many)
To seek and apprehend the truth.
It can also take a lifetime
(Or the equivalent of many)
To consume insatiably; just to fill in
The void of our ‘not knowing’.

We stand at the fork
Of two paths today:
One- the way of promises, things and feel-good distractions
On that path, we reconstruct our reality
And in doing so, make perceptible the contrast
Between the real and the created.
We applaud ourselves on this accomplishment.

The other path is devoid of a void.
It is what it is; you are what you are
It feels no need to respond and reciprocate
It makes no promises.

Postmodernism is a mirror
That will show you whatever you anticipate seeing.
It will sing for you the songs you wish to hear
It will set the stage and the actors
For the angst you believe you ought to be feeling
And create for you the struggles
You romanticize yourself battling with.

Our need today, is a freedom
From our own wants
Our need today, is a freedom from the cycle
Of creating solutions for self-created problems.
Our need today, is a freedom
From our own creativity.

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.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

The Marriage of Thought and Action

Thought, it thinks that it knows
And that it is clever…
And creative and intelligent…
And two steps ahead of action
And can easily hoodwink it.

And so, it has become ordinary
To say one thing
And do quite the opposite.
Our thoughts and actions
Have come to live separate lives.

Our thoughts are no longer
Loving or respectful…
Because they no longer feel the need
To descend to action
And foster a real relationship with life.

While thought is energy that inspires action
It can only do so when it has the heart
To be subsumed by the action of surrender;
Its claim to authority being true
On the condition it is willing to surrender it.

After all, one can’t think one’s way
Out of the morass of existence
It must be walked through
Its difficulties must be experienced
At all dimensions of our being.

If not committed to taking a form through action
Thought quickly becomes a shroud
Covering all that has died within us
Our truth, Our Morality, Our agency
Our awareness of who we truly are.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

What’s Missing?

I look at my life unable to tell
What is missing…

But a vacancy I can sense.

So, I begin to speculate about
What would make things perfect…
A spotless, stainless, painless existence perhaps?

No… that’s not it.

Recognition? Validation?
No, that’s not it either…
I’ve tasted these before
And know that they can intoxicate
But cannot satiate your thirst.

What is that essential thing
That I can’t seem to find?

Is there something lacking in the world?
Or is there a lack within me?
A lack of understanding and wisdom?
A way of seeing?
A way of being?

An inability perhaps to accept things as they are
To see the perfection of imperfection…
To know that all is
As it is meant to be…

I now know that it is my search
That keep me from finding
What stands before me in plain sight
Waiting to be seen and loved.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

The Wrong Questions

There is a problem
With asking the wrong questions-
You are given the wrong answers.

To what may have been the answer
To the question of how to live this life
The world stands before us-
Our mistaken understanding of life as a pursuit.

With poisoned air and drying lakes
And rivers that no longer flow with joy
Our dysfunctional societies (but our functional apps)-
Our intelligence has foolishly destroyed the intelligent.

Our satanic violence and our violent ambitions
Our greed, and our theft of that which sustains life
Our escapes now dependent on our simulated realities-
We decimate providence to establish our supremacy….

We’re now asking the (wrong) question
Of what’s next… of what we should become
But we’re still clueless about
What understanding…. what faith it takes
To simply be.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

To Be is not To Be

I have no expectations
From my relationships
Other than integrity
–An integrity that needs no justification.

I distrust tall claims
Of love and support
Of intensity and eternity
I find them unnecessary and performative.

To be there for another
Requires no art, no utterance
If you are in a relationship
You are–for better or for worse–already there.

So many relationships disintegrate
Because promises made were unkept.
Over the course of weeks, months and years
Love once proclaimed, now remains a faint echo.

Intimacy, a deepening, an anchoring…
These are the fruits of a simple tree
That weathers all weathers
And lives through many a changing season.

To be is to stand apart
From all imagination and all make-believe
To freely exist in between the lines
To slip out of the captivity of a script.

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Suffering

The broken arm
The broken leg
The broken heart
The broken dreams

The brutal separation
The unmet expectations
The shattered myth
The unfulfilled desires

The empty hour
The vacant days
The crushing disappointment
The weight of disillusionment

Suffering takes on many forms.

Isn’t it our common condition?
Isn’t it a reminder to us all
That our attachments will yield
Nothing but sorrow?

That we must let go
Of all our clinging
And dwell not in misery
But set foot towards a higher dimension.

That we must walk alone
In pain, but liberated
Fully free to experience our sorrow
So that we are free from suffering it.

The morning breeze caresses me gently. It is nonchalant.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Sometimes You Wonder…

Sometimes you wonder
About all that you’ve accumulated
To your soul
What will happen to it all
After you’ve gone?
Where will it go?
All the stuff?
All that matter…?
All that you think matters…?
What happens to it….?
Isn’t it also a sort of living responsibility
To give it all away?
To empty yourself before you go?

Who will I give my memories to?
…Perhaps those whom I create them with.
And my thoughts?
May they henceforth only be a prayer
And may they live on
In the lives of others
As blessings received, unasked for.
What about my hurt and my pain?
To what will they transform?
Let them remain absorbed in silence
And become the compassion and beauty
That inspires and powers all art.

Sometimes you wonder
To this eventuality of death
What matters? What doesn’t?
Does nothing matter?
Does everything matter?
What promises does time keep?
Fulfilment? Knowledge? Self-discovery?
Perhaps these are never the outcome
Of a living process…
Perhaps fulfilment, knowledge and self-discovery
Exist eternally and are right here, right now.
In time, matter can only appear and disappear.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Understanding

True achievement lies
In dissolving all achievements
So that you are left
With a beginner’s mind…

I’m coming to see
That the most valuable
Part of my life
Are moments of silence and solitude.

There was a time
I saw them as empty…
Something that I must fill up
With something meaningful.

Today, I realize
Nothing apart from
My sheer existence
Has any meaning.