life from thought to thought

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.

Life so far…

I have lived in ignorance for far too long. I have argued over silly things, just to get the final word. I have wrestled in the darkness of ignorance to live in denial and hypocrisy. I have denied myself the light of knowledge. I guess it happens with almost most of us. I am a part of that ‘most’. With age we do get perspective. But our ego is too big to accept faults and come out of denial that we have been living. Seeking higher knowledge helps but that doesn’t mean the end of all the troubles. It is not like one day you get up and realize that you are ‘It’. You do realize that Shakespeare was telling you the highest truth when he said “this world is a play”. Yes, indeed this world is nothing but a play and we are here to fulfill our parts to our best potential. What is real is the consciousness. It is believable but hard to live. So I know the truth but don’t know how to get over my petty existence. I still wrestle in the darkness of my desires, greed, anger and ego. I crave and suffer. I attach to certain things and people and suffer. I bow down to my ego and suffer. I let my anger take over my senses and I suffer. I let this ‘I’ get its way…way too often. And all that I end up with is suffering. I know, yet I suffer. And I suffer because I know. Would it have been easier had I not known? If ignorance is bliss…has knowing brought suffering? There is no easy answer to these ramblings in my head. But I persist with my search. I can see a glimmer of that bliss sometimes…only to fade away, too soon. If it’s real, it’s the only truth worth seeking. If it’s not there, than what good is the world?!

Fickle eyes

The eyes that saw beauty, now sneer in contempt

In a blink those that adored, find it difficult even to pretend

It was hard enough to separate lust from love in this game

Now the challenge has doubled with a dash of irrational to tame

The skin and the shape that made you swell with happiness

Can now repulse in ways no one could fathom

You thought you knew, but that’s a mistake made by quite a few

Knowing was never your strength,

Understanding ignorance can take you to lengths

You saw through me, I saw through you

What we saw was never hidden from our view

This body-mind complex is a changeling

The challenge is to see the real which is unwavering

A Non-player’s game

We experience life as it happens. But we forget to ask questions. These questions are for us to answer. Sometimes I wonder, by asking so many questions, am I underplaying life? Do I do injustice to myself by thinking too much and living a little less? Are we not supposed to wonder why, how and marvel at the irrationality of it all. I mostly understand people I come across or read about and I understand relations but I still feel disappointed and I still make the mistake of expecting. I am not saying that expectations always meet with disappointments. I am just pointing out at the futility of it all. Why do we make ourselves vulnerable? Is it our destiny as humans to be vulnerable? Bracing ourselves for heartbreaks and disappointments…using words as weapons to harm each other. At the surface of it, I guess it’s beyond our control to act rationally. So why bother, throw caution in the air! Let’s be the end of each other. I will bring you pain and someone will be the carrier of my death. We are here to nurture, protect and destroy each other. So we will do what we are designed to do and move away/on. Oh, don’t be morose! I am not saying all this as something bad, something that is not desirable. On the contrary, this feeling of hurt can do wonders to our personality. It can change us for the better. It gives us such insight and depth in relations that nothing remains incomprehensible after that. Eventually you come to a stage when you can foresee what a potential relationship holds for you. The same cycle of love, attachment, heartache, disappointment and then moving away! Once you have seen it all, why on earth would you go for it again, and again? The only sensible thing to do is to watch the movie, since the tickets have already been bought. So go through the movie, soar unattached in the vastness of its imagination and come out of it as taintless as possible.

Singularity

There has to be a plan

Something must explain the lay of the land

The question of One and plenty has plagued our minds

Search for Singularity has intrigued the science and spiritual giants

What others have seen does not satisfy my quest

I’ll have to see it myself if I want to quench the thirst

I want to believe in the One, but the problem of plenty remain

All I see is faces and misery, but oddly in one frame.

Waves in the sea or bees in the hive

Sunlight pervading the earth or darkness engulfing the space

The plenty submerges…and what remains is the One.

Isn’t it funny how we take pride in the faces and forms?!

Separate identity is just an illusion, being One is the only norm.

The Game

It’s not my aim to belittle any emotion

I too have felt the entire range with naïve perception.

Nothing felt simple even when I was a child

What I wanted & what others felt I needed,

created a schism so wide.

This schism has defined most of the stories I lived

Love, desire, disappointments…all I have grieved.

I have played this game back and forth

Same stupid emotions always land in my court.

Now I crave to be a bystander in this battle

Neither seeking anything, nor having the need to shun the undesirable.

Even words sound unnecessary when all is done and dusted

This myth called Life will soon be busted.

Love: The word and its dilemmas

From the time I started understanding relationships…I was forced to think of a name for each one of them. Adore, like, love?? I kept circling around the word love but never really used it till the time I was sure that I am going to marry this guy and I was to love him forever. I was confident of the usage for once in life. After holy matrimony I faced the problem of naming my affections towards people I met. The attraction was not sexual, but it was bonding on an emotional level. Yes, I liked them, adored them, and loved them. But I was too conscious of the term ‘Love’. It felt blasphemous to use it for anybody else apart from the man I married and later the kids I produced. As the number of grey hair increased on my head, I realized there is no need to be so choosy about the people for whom we use the term ‘love’. Love is a feeling we have in certain moments towards certain people…for some it lasts longer and for some it fizzles out sooner than we expect. But the duration aside, love is love. It’s a fleeting feeling like all other feelings. We choose some people to live our lives with…some just meet us at crossroads and carry on their paths. Love, however, is felt and lived. The moment passes and with it the feeling also becomes dormant till we come across a moment when it rears its head again. So enjoy while you can… don’t make it bigger or smaller in your head than what it really is. That’ll be a step further, towards understanding ourselves.

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