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Fashioning

In the interstices
Of our daily activities
Exists silence.

A just-is-ness
A pause. An emptiness
That is not an end or a limitation
But a dissolution
Of senseless activity…

A soft, but firm reminder
That freedom, potentiality and truth
Lie within the weave
Of thought and action
But are not bound by them.

Fashioning (ourselves)
Is a spiritual action
That understands
The value and potential
Of the states of nothing-ness,
Just-is-ness, being-ness…
And the role they play
In our becoming.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Midlife

What happens
When the heart breaks
Repeatedly?
How does one continue to feel?
When feeling is risky…
So painful…

Pain is an indication
Of unresolved grief
When there has been no
Acknowledgement of hurt caused
No apology. No gesture. No words…
That rushed in to soothe the pain

Pretence, resolution…
Explaining the other’s motives
In a sort of quasi goodness–
Are the defences used
To shield oneself
From the pain.

In inhibiting the pain
One also inhibits feeling
A collateral damage…
Life now is understood as a function.
That must be carried out.
Its difficulties endured.

Feelings get used strategically
At anniversaries, birthday parties, on Instagram.
But emotions are kept at bay.
Keep the heart functioning optimally.
Work on its efficiency.
Keep the pace on the treadmill.

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Mistakes are Milestones

What mistakes am I making?
What mistakes have I made?

Is regret even a reasonable emotion?
…When you know that you’re on a journey

If you didn’t take a path
That you could have
Does it matter?

Destinations are just stops
…Milestones that you arrive to
And then move on.

They’re not permanent
…You’re not permanent

Concern is just a desire for permanency.

Let go of the need
To predetermine outcomes
Make better judgments
After you have made the bad ones.

Live life
The way it’s intended to be lived.

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About Endings

The pain of an ending
Is never so much
As when you know it.

And yet the sobs are silent
Muffled as they are
By the gags of normalcy.

Decency ensures
That the lines on your face
Are drawn into a smile…

That pretends to keep you social
While ensuring
That your façade reveals nothing.

You are close, yet far
In continuation
But discontinued.

Remembered
But not needed
Loved, but relegated.

‘Forever’ is no one’s destiny
It can only be our prayer
…Our hope.

And hope- we forget
-Can only convey us…
It makes no promises.

Separate we must.
All beginnings must end
All journeys must traverse a destiny.

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Art and Design

Our days are ever-developing patterns
Of activity, of attention
Of thought, of belief
Of hope, of feeling
Of organization, of comfort
Of sustenance, of communication
Of staying connected
And of togetherness.

Humanity is the art
That emerges from
Intelligent Design.

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Indescribable

I am most uneasy
With others’ descriptions of me.
I feel limited…constrained…
Flattened to two dimensions;
Defined and imprisoned…
My space to be
Taken away from me.
My gaucheness will now
Become a slip.
Or, take for example, my forgetting things
This will be seen as something uncharacteristic…
-A change of heart?
-A change in the chemical balance of my brain?
-A sign of self-neglect?

Descriptions-
As generous as they are (if they are good),
Diminish your essence
And leave you instead
With a grand idea
That which, can perhaps survive
But never really live.
That which can grip you
But never become as easy
As your breath.
The inability to see oneself
Is the design of freedom.
You’re free to be
The unknowable and the indescribable.

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Work

Your work is an expression
Of your vitality, your sensitivity
And your intelligence.
These are all invested
And then enriched through work.

To see work as enslavement
Is debasing and depressing.
If you see yourself as exploited
You will resist work
It will become distasteful.

If it incites greed and ambition
It becomes corrupted.
You lose perspective
And begin to believe that work is a means
To acquiring place and privilege.

Work is incomplete
If it doesn’t involve inner work-
An understanding of our limitations,
Courageously facing our fears
And conversing with our insecurities.

Work in essence,
Is a means of self-discovery.
Your work itself lays the path
That you must walk on
To experience true fulfilment.

And in and through the journey
Leave behind the illusions
Of need and inadequacy…
And also,
Of eminence and accomplishment.

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The Aesthetics of Education

Ugliness is an hour
In the perception of beauty.
The ugliness of darkness,
Pride, arrogance and dishonesty
Will pass…

All facades will fall
And you will find yourself
Standing exposed…
Your ignorance, you will come to see,
Was faking it as knowledge.

While you were busy learning
How to do, how to act
How to think and how to be
Those lessons were futile and
Meaningless…till you learned how to see.

But learning how to see
Is a becoming…
It is arriving to a point
Where you’re able to tell the difference
Between reality and concept.

It involves a return
To a no-man’s land
Where all the knowledge
That you have acquired
Stands in vain.

When your satisfactions
Have become your discontent
Your truth is now false
And the certainty of your ideas
Have become an ideological noose.

You wish to be liberated
From fashionable ideas
And to look at
What you don’t know
For recourse…

Your ignorance then transforms…
From being the nakedness
That you were ashamed of-
It becomes the very means
By which you will learn.

When false knowledge is dropped
A superficial ignorance too breaks…
You come to see that
True knowledge lies in understanding
What you’re ignorant about.

It’s our ignorance
That teaches us what
We must know.
It introduces us to our human-ness
And thereafter our promise.

A good education
Will free you of conclusion
You will learn how to learn
And therefore, learn how to be
And therein, learn how to see.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

What Did You Do When You Got Upset?

What did you do
When you got upset?
Did you cuss and swear
Complain and fret?

Did those thieves of thought
Your prejudices stack up?
Did you think in frustration
“I should give up!”

Did you take what was
Merely an event in time
And for all eternity-
Did you fix it as a paradigm?

Did you feel attacked
And now with broken cadence
Did you give up on hope
And befriend indifference?

Did you conclude that
For now, it’s best to disconnect
That it’s that someone’s fault
That you are upset.

Or did you learn from it
Something new about you?
Your disappointment made it clear
What you value.

And then did you let
That value steer you ahead?
Or did the event stay on
As a bitter memory in your head?

Awareness doesn’t always
Come to the hour
You arrive to it
When you see things as they are.

So, when you get upset
Don’t remain angry and curt
Gather the feeling
And see where you hurt.

Don’t lose the opportunity
To grow in wisdom
Be grateful for being chiseled
To a form free of your egoism.

Posted on by solangesuri2015

Humility

Appearances are not the Truth
And the Truth is evident, not apparent.

Know the difference.

Courage may not always look grand
It often keeps its distance from the grandiosity of gesture.

Let it remain invisible.

Your real achievements often go unnoticed.
Awards are intended to legitimise the awarder.

Their place is on a shelf; yours, in life.

You’re educated to acquire special skills
Yet all real work happens through surrender and prayer.

Give up all ideas of yourself.