Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other" doesn't make any sense.

- Rumi


Sunday, November 27, 2011

Take Me Home


Take me away,
Away from Conscience,
Away from Judgments,
Away from Conflicts,
Away from Sight,
Away from Perceptions,
Away from Touch,
Away from Me
Away to a Home.

Take me to a Park,
To sit on one of the benches
Force me to ponder ,
Force me to talk,
Force me to confess,
Listen when I talk,
Abuse when I lie,
Hold me when I Cry.


Take me to the Hills,
Let me run,
Push me off the cliffs
Hold me before I fall,
Show me the highest peak
Challenge my own height,
Point out to the foothills
Scare me with their depths.

Take me to the Waterfalls,
Take a handful of the clear water,
Question my own purity,
Look me in the eyes
And tell me they are shallow,
Toss me down the falls
And save me before I drown.

Take me to a Cemetry,
Make me count the tombs,
Confuse me with death,
Make me yearn for life,
Ask me to suicide
And stop me before I attempt.

Help me sort myself,
And confuse me when I find peace,
Weaken my convictions
And give me new ones to believe.
Laugh at my ignorance,
Smile at my innocence,
Take me to Tranquility,
Lead me to truth,
Deafen my ears, 
Strengthen my voice,
Tell me I am Right,
Tell me I am Free,
Take me to You,
And tell me I am Home!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Paradise Lost


Beyond success, beyond convincing the people around, beyond accumulating a fat sum in the bank account, beyond adventure, beyond lust, beyond rage,beyond pressure, beyond betrayal,beyond ego; there lies a placid,unsettlingly calm Serenity. It is the state of wanting nothing but an understanding of the momentary nature of existence- the state called living life in its Real sense! 
All of us are often under the mistaken impression that life is always about earning something or making something out of it. Life of course is an opportunity thrown at each one to make the most of it, but what amounts to making the most is where we have the confused notions.From the perspective of God who is believed to be placed well above us and who can see us all the time, human beings might be looking like such Zombies! We claim to know almost everything about life. We, who dont even stop for a minute to feel the rains falling on the palms, we, who dont feel the seas have secrets deeper that their depths, we, who do not understand that love is not always about being happy, claim to have conqured all aspects of life. We instill the same sense of pride in our young ones and make them ignorant too. The result is that the world has come to the peak of its ruthlesness. We have people who aspire to become millionares, people who are willing to give up their morals and more to get where they want to, people who have no problem with killing someone who stands against them,people who will happily sell off even the soil under their feet to make it big! 

You might be wondering what the connection between all these things is. Well,this post is a result of all the raised voices I hear around me complaining about the lost goodness of the world and my answer and logic is that the small and insignificant things like rain and seas and peace I mentioned above are actually the big things in life. The more we fail to become soft within, the more we refuse to respect the simple decencies of human life, the deeper the trouble and the greater the recklesness. Sitting and looking at the trees around or romanticising nature is not the exclusive job of the writers and other creative people. All of us should learn to wonder at the mysteries of nature and understand the fact that life is too small to waste time being malicious.Maybe the dissapearence of spirituality and the lack of spiritual education at schools is adding fuel to the degeneration of the already destroyed state of our minds. It is understood that for a middle class man who struggles to make his ends meet,it is impractical to sit and think of the philosophy of living life. But again we can all place our hearts at the right place and choose not to be unnecessarily deceptive.All of us complain about the world and its lost sensitivity but none of us realise that it is we who have changed. No government or leader can fix it. No ideology can bring back the lost goodness. The change has to happen within each soul. Its a transformation that needs to take place and noone else can do it for us. We say that the world was a paradise before and that now things are going out of hand. Well, it is we who live in this world and we who have to regain the lost paradise.Living with the heart in the right place is a single and effective panacea to almost all the issues we face, but sadly, nobody wants to do that because whats the fun in being good hearted afterall? All you can get is a lot of enemies, tons of loneliness and a tag titled "boring" stuck onto the forehead!
Being straightforward does lead one to the serenity I mentioned above. It shows one that beyond everything, there is a silence and it is in that silence that life lies! It is a lonely shore as most souls dont reach there, but even in the lonliness of being straightforward, there is a sense of pride. A sense of accomplishment and purity- the experience of having found the divinity within the soul. This might sound absurd to the majority because to reach this shore one has to be beyond mediocrity and beyond the noises of the material world.
*This is not to suggest that ambition and zest are all a fallacy. This is to humbly remind that even ambition should be driven, driven by genuine passion and clarity of the conscience.