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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We exist both
In time and
Outside of it.
The Now is both
Tied to a circumstance
And free of it.
We are…
And yet we are not…
We are here and beyond.
It’s not really death
That deprives us of our chances in life…
It is our own desires.
Fulfilment is what we seek
Satisfaction is what we pursue
And gratification is what we settle with.
Our time becomes a commodity
That we trade
To acquire the means to happiness.
Our relationships become transactional
Wherein we foolishly mistake
The means to be our end.
Our lives get entangled in a pointless conflict.
How can our death be a celebration
When our lives are not?
Wait….
because life is disinterested
in outcomes.
Its incorporation of time
is not for determining
gain and loss…
Time is the architect of change.
Nothing within its ambit
remains the same.
We create concepts
To understand reality.
Yet the real can only be found
Through a direct encounter;
Devoid of all prior learning;
With no filter.
While concepts can pre-determine
And inform our observations
They can also keep us from observing.
To know is to know that
What you know is another’s seeing.
That which doesn’t speak to you is not real.
One may be well-versed with concepts
One may have earned degrees of learning
Yet all such knowledge will one day
Disappear like vapour
If it is not something that has found you
While you were on your quest of the truth.
What then is real?
That state prior to all creation…
The nothingness that precedes
Every idea…every speculation…every thought…
That which stands outside every conceptualisation…
Including this one.
Be–
Without trying to be
Or trying to make others become
That is not work…
The true meaning of work
Is to discover within your relationships
With ideas, ideals and people…
That sweet emotion of surrender and devotion…
Such–
That to serve
Becomes more incumbent
Than to be served.
And to ascend
To so high a faith
That you can stop
Your pointless pursuit of outcomes.
Knowing well
That the highest intelligence is spiritual.
And all that needs to be done will–
In spite of your efforts- get done.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 