life from thought to thought

Thoughts on my plate

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With each passing day, something grows stale.

My body goes through decay in this cosmic game.

My thoughts become ineffective if I sit on it even for a day.

I gain a new perspective as I look through the haze.

Thoughts are like food, they lose their freshness every second.

If I fail to act on them immediately, another one beckons.

Nothing is new but it all feels different.

What changes and what remains constant is the thought that plagues my mind at this very moment.

I was born, I went to school, I grew up, and I became the seeker.

I am ignorant; I think I know, I was unhappy, I am now happy. I will die. I once lived. The questions keep going deeper.

The ‘I’ that went to school is a stranger to the ‘I’ here ruminating.

But something is still the same, witnessing and deliberating.

What is that constant? The one who witnessed the ignorant ‘I’

and now is witnessing the seeking ‘I’.

This witness eludes me, yet is everything to me.

The separation of body/thoughts with the ‘I’ is completely understood. If I am not the constantly changing body and mind than what am I? I have seen the changes. What I have seen and witnessed, cannot be me. The subject cannot be an object of observation. If I am the subject then how can I be objectified?

These thoughts keep plating themselves in front of me.

They conflict, they collaborate, and they create uproar in me.

The food on my plate is appetizing to say the least

But I leave it untouched denying myself the feast.

Gopi

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Dreams are often compared to reality. In life, we enter when the play is on. We take time to make sense of it. Some more than others whereas some cannot figure out what is happening till the curtains fall for them. The play goes on, irrespective of who comes and leaves the stage. For you, the spirit limited in body/mind complex, it’s defined in time, space and causation. Dreams are similar for most of us mortal beings.

I came to a sleepy village, in the midst of a mountain range

Walking the unknown lanes with a blue hue,

I could see the clouds above the huts painting a grey roof.

I was denied the knowledge of who I was,

the slumber of my state was probably the root cause.

Something told me there is no outside help available to me,

Turning back looked foolish, so I decided to go on deep inside.

I entered a hut which was hosting a few souls,

I sat beside them as if that was the place I started to reach all along.

I saw my Guru (Spiritual Teacher) saying something I couldn’t hear

His smiling countenance smoothed my feathers ruffled due to fear.

A young lady sitting with me said she was Gopi,

Her presence made me feel I have finally reached my resting place,

With no desire to go any further, this ought to be my base.

We sat at the hut’s chaukhat (threshold), as the rain poured outside painting a blue and grey abstract on the canvas.

Gopi said there was no need to be gloomy, going further inside is not like walking in some scary movie.

“It’s the only thing”, she said. I heard her, along with the pitter patter of rain. The serenity and beauty of it all calmed my being so strained.

I didn’t want to go any further neither did I want to go back.

But a sudden thought of my worried family put me on the downhill track.

Gopi accompanied me as I came down the Valley’s winding paths,

She took the form of a thin dark man, but the presence was sure to last.

As I reached a stream, I saw my husband coming towards me,

I slipped out of my dream, back to the world that still has a hold on me.

I refused to open my eyes, basking in the bliss,

Holding onto Gopi, praying the feminine aura shall never cease.

Kaleidoscope

A smile flashed across my child’s face,

as the myriad colors came alive

She has learnt to see the world, through the Kaleidoscope held close to the eye

She dances with joy to see the different hues and I wait with wonder to see if she can see a different view?

She marveled at the sparkle, but the excitement dimmed as it became darker

As she became older, other colors spoke through her

Pink remained pretty, blue was always gritty

Orange joined the show, purple got a blow

Yellow was always sunny, I found it all so funny.

I saw the associations being formed, stressing once in a while for her to think beyond the norm.

I feared for black, as white has taken over the stack.

This world is made of colors, but who decides one is better than the other?

I want my little girl to be liberated of the biases, seeing just the dance of innocent colors, when she again gazes through the Kaleidoscopic glasses.

The Web

You have given me the Garden of Eden,

It boasts of your beauty unparalleled.

But now my vision is stuck on the unmistakable web,

A home to all that is visible, crawling in the net.

It is woven so intricately that I feel condemned for all eternity.

It looks beautiful in the light of the Sun,

Its dual nature ensures life continues with a zest so redundant.

Happiness and Pain, Love and Hate keep us engrossed,

This world of perceived Good and Evil shackles us to the core.

We fight for the cause as the One ordained,

But try dispassion if you want the mess to be contained.

I sit in the garden and admire the splendor,

The sight of this web derides my blunder.

Days and nights pass as I idle away time,

A cycle of eternity I am staring at, if I don’t break the rhythmic bind.

Pause

Life flows unhindered, the soul within glows undisturbed

Who are we then in this play?

It’s a question that begs us to Pause the ongoing display.

If soul is a witness and the world outside is just matter, lifeless; then we need to ask who is launching an enquiry in this chatter.

You say, you don’t believe in beyond mortal,

Those who have gone on seeking have found that portal.

It is here, somewhere, within us,

A firefly, in the darkness it surrounds us.

The rush of the day keeps us busy,

At night the buried doubts raise existential queries.

We see yet forget the unassuming light during the day,

Let it darken a bit more, you’ll pause to take note of the firefly’s glow.

Surrender

I used to think I was incapable of surrender,

The reality is so, that I am scared I might blunder.

My being has always longed to give in,

But the fear of disappointment forbids bending of knee.

Putting love in the centered desires has painful consequences,

Transient nature of feelings has made me nauseous.

You Know, I have not learnt the lessons in entirety,

Otherwise my love would have found its abode for eternity.

The tug of war between knowing and known continues,

I am ready to surrender, just come to my rescue.

Battles Within

there is no battle outside its all happening inside.

our demons live within ourselves… our fight should be internal too.

the only eventuality is death and when death is the destination of this body and world, what empires are we trying to build…

what marks are we so desperate to leave… we can only leave abstraction behind for others to delve into, to understand if they enquire… to mull over the existence of beings, the finality and the reality.

and when you know its only one, we come and go…

glow while you are here, your footprints may or may not be looked upon… but living your destiny is the only thing worthy of all.

The Journey towards North

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I don’t like to look back. But sometimes I do. Mostly, when forced by the unwillingness to let go of certain events and people. It’s never pleasant as it always mockingly points at my weakness to still hold on to what has already passed. Yes, the life lived. No, there is nothing wrong in revisiting old times, but there is an inherent sadness in the visits to the past. So I avoid these travels as I am aware of the baggage they’ll bring back for me. But today, I thought of sitting back and jog my memory down the lane. It’s a southward journey. Born to protective parents, I learnt my life lessons fast. I learnt the art of manipulating life by being honest to the unsuspecting people around me. I knew outward honesty is appealing to one and all. After all, we are good, God fearing people who laid great stress on high moral values. I held on to those high moral values dearly putting them even above people around me and people in general. What great disservice I was doing to my own being! I and my morals placed on a pedestal were judging every human, every minute. I was stifling and suffocating my own self by placing those ideas/ideals which knew no reason or logic, on others. Many times I failed myself and the standards I held onto. Guilt ridden, I stuttered through the journey somehow. I know precisely when the day came…the day that I was waiting all along, but I don’t know why it came when it came. Maybe it was my time. Maybe someone was guiding me to this day from the day I was born. Yes, as I look back, this does seem true. I was guided and put on the track I was supposed to take. And with it, something inside settled, calmed and became freer. I am aware of my failings. I see myself shamed in hypocrisy. I see myself judging. I hear myself when I raise my voice. I feel the heat rising when my temper shoots up. The battle that was on with the outside world is now being waged inside. The sword is drawn against the ‘I’ that fails me all the time. It seems I am in my finishing school and this education will go on till some unforeseeable future. The journey towards North has just started. I have finally started.

A Stalemate

I am at the lowest and the worst
I am neither big nor miniscule
I struggle with the basest of desires
and I aim for the highest
I understand the peaks
And I have acquaintance with the ebbs
Knowing the peak is not enough to take me high
Nor seeing the ebbs taking me to the pit.
I refuse to let go of the world,
and the knowledge of beyond refuses to give up on me.
This struggle is ceaseless,
what is now known, cannot be unknown
what I have seen is hard to relinquish
we are at a stalemate.
I beg, give your verdict on my fate.

Time Travel

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Time travel is a fascinating subject. But is it fiction? Actually we do it every day. Our roving mind loves to go back and forth in time. How many times have we heard about mindfulness? And how many of us actually practice it successfully? We work in the present moment but think of either the future or the past. ‘Day dreaming’ is an oft-repeated word, so I’ll give you a little less cringe-worthy replacement for it…Alternate reality! Yes, we dream about what has to happen and often go back in the past to think about the events that has already happened. But do we always keep the reality intact or dive deep into an ‘Altered reality’? Imagining future is said to be foolish as it is not in our hands…but what about imagining an altered past? We often replay our past in our heads. We give it the flavor that was not in it originally. We change the chain of our conversations in some past incident to our liking. We keep playing with it in our heads. Science says time is linear, philosophy tells me past is immaterial, religion opines I have already sowed the seeds for what is to come and can’t change it. I listen to them and as I move in one direction the mind goes the other way. It understands yet indulges in the pleasure and pains of what is known and suffered all along. It reasons out with me beautifully in why I should think of a certain thought or forbid me to do something I need to do. No, it’s not lazy. It’s spoilt! Right now, in this state, we are just a bundle of memories. We act based on our experiences. What bothers me is the fact that we go for the same experiences that have become painful memories. It’s like eating a bitter fruit again and again. So either the altered past fools us into believing that the experience is going to be sweet this time or we are just doomed in this game of life and death. The answer has already been given by the experts. Our job is to put it into practice. But we suffer from Duryodhana’s inertia (The Kaurava prince who denied his cousins Pandava their rightful share of the land). When Lord Krishna went to drill in some sense into his head about doing the right thing, he is supposed to have answered something like this, “I know what is right, I just don’t feel like doing it”. Well, that sums it up for all of us. We also need to do the right thing and stay in the present. Most of our problems are created in our heads and have nothing to do with reality. It’s enough if we deal with what is actually happening rather than double our problems by thinking of what could have happened or could happen. But this monkey of a mind that we have loves to remain in a drunken state.

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