Have you felt that moment of void when you suddenly feel silence around you.
That moment when you dont connect with anyone in the same room,
when you sit back and wonder what the hell you are doing there?
I felt that a lot of times,
when i simply felt i owed nothing to nobody and belonged no where.
When i felt detatched from the things i did every day.
When i asked if there was anything beyond going to school and coming home.
When i felt that i didnt fit into the world i was supposedly part of.
When i felt that my world was else where, a make belief world within my head.
When the world looked like a bunch of vague dead bodies walking around me.
when their worlds didnt seem to have anything to do with mine.
when they had their own problems and didnt want to share them with me.
when i realized all of us had the same problems and didnt handle them too well.
when i wondered what the big deal with all these problems was.
when i didnt understand why people were so overwhelmed with their emotions
when i questioned emotions that sprank up within me
when i wondered why the expression on my face didnt match the feeling within
when i contradicted my own self
when i realized the mechanics of being human
when i looked into the mirror and asked "is that really me"
when i felt i was looking at someone else altogether
when i felt my body was just a mechanical object subjected to functional problems
when i wanted to just be alone and not talk to anyone
when i felt i was just plain wierd
when i couldnt explain the intensity of my being to anybody
when i dug up the past and read all the books
when i wondered why ancients built so many temples and decorated them
when i realized the actual value of ritual that we call superstition
when i realized the trivial things that people call important
when i realized my curiosity to know death, the end
when i realized i will not exist anymore to anyone.
when i realized my mom will go one day and will she ever be my mom again
when i wondered whether the roles i play in life have a lesson to teach.
when i realized i am NOT all that important.
when i felt happy that i AM nobody, nothing.
when i felt i could do without outside attention from other people
when i felt i didnt need appreciation nor did i need approval
when i realized this is ME and you have no choice in the matter
when i wondered if this was all there was to life.
when i know i am just waiting for time to pass and drop me my pearls of wisdom.
while i wait for the final day when i die, to know what death is all about.
15 comments:
WOW!If this isn't poetry, then what do I call it? Wonderful. I have gone through most of this 'journey' too and come out the better. But why this waiting for death? You ought to be celebrating life, with all its contradictions, not already look forward to dousing your fires! I didn't quite enjoy that!
i dont see death as a negative ravati, its infact part of a larger picture, just more thought provoking and in some cases fear provoking because of the uncertainty it brings with it.
so i hope death is not looked at in bad light.
Kavi,
You finally symbolise your name. I loved every bit of what you wrote. I too have wondered on similar lines for a long, long time.
There is a rason for sure why we exist... object for mechanical functions... that was a great line...
But without a reason, we humans can't digest the fact that we are existential in nature. we just happened to be.
The universe was just there. We need a reason. Something incomprehensible. Something beyond us. Something we can call God.
Something we can hope to achieve. I am sure if tomorrow, it is proved (don't know how) that there is no god... it was all a picture perfect concept... and was part of a great conspiracy by ancients passsed on to younger generations... i don't know how we would behave...
For we, as humans, lack courage: We can't take the truth. If the truth is not aligned to our beliefs, we can't take it.
Only a few can look into the mirror and pause to ask themselves "is that really me?"
Some ask it quite late in life. But, I am glad, Kavi has asked the question before it was too late.
Looking into the mirror (maybe somebody showing you the mirror on your face) is just the beginning.
Keep walking and keep writing. Kavi, you are not alone.
Hi Kavitha,
“Man is a social animal” because of necessity. If one had the capacity to read the minds of others, as the Yogis reportedly could, one could directly know how the people who look happy outwardly might, in fact, be suffering inwardly due to some one reason or the other - from time to time…
In the present, relatively speaking, generally because of apparent lack of time, even ‘good’ doctors can’t hear the full complaints of their patients before they prescribe medicines mechanically, and only ‘bad’ doctors or ‘quacks’ appear to have lot of time at their disposal!
It is said, “They also serve who just stand and stare.” Thus poets and philosophers also play an important role by communicating the ‘truths’ for the benefit of the humanity at large… Guru Nanak said a few centuries ago that the whole world is unhappy. And, as I too commented it recently, it is the suffering that helps in expanding apparent time and space, whereas ‘eternal bliss’ resides in zero space & time within each and everyone, maybe in a dormant stage though... One does not need to go anywhere to look for unhappiness, it reaches you anywhere. Whereas, on the other hand, one needs to constantly dig out moments of happiness from within, like potatoes from under the ground - recognized from its over-the-ground leaves, and therefore remaining unseen to the generality due to lack of knowledge!
The wise men of the ancient times said vide the Bhagwad Gita that the relationship between the individual’s soul and the concerned human body is similar to that of the body and the old garments that one sheds for the new ones from time to time! Of course one cannot deny that the separation of the two in the former case is painful because of lack of knowledge about what happens to the soul after it departs. The wise ancients appear to have gone deeper into that subject also. Perhaps therefore one needs to either do so oneself, or surrender into the unknown Divine person as per their recommendation!
Best wishes on Dussehra!
A God that is Yours
Slender beams of sunlight enter
this darkened room as I kneel,
always hopeful, always in prayer,
frozen here, waiting.
Haloed forms wrought in panes of glass loom as
dust dances in the air,
forming an image in my mind,
penetrating my naked soul.
Realization dawning on a deathless face.
I raise my head, now kneeling before this oblivious reality.
Very nice!
The basic thought, “I am the supreme soul” in reality, perhaps is more acceptable to a ‘Hindu’ because of his natural place value - with the background belief bombarded constantly on his consciousness - of Kashi as the abode of Adi Shiva, the zero that in reality is equal to infinity and I as His reflection!
However, when I see reflections of my weak/ ugly (fair and relatively strong one might result in ego) exterior body in plain mirrors, I find it difficult to accept the ‘Truth’...
As a parallel in the ‘lesser animal world’, an example of a mighty elephant in a zoo is cited who, although, is capable of breaking free of its shackles, doesn’t do so, for it had found itself incapable of doing so right from its initial capture as a baby. And, thus it had got used to the mental slavery…
Man is supposed to have unknowingly (though recorded in his soul) passed through a chain of a variety of animal forms (including elephant’s) in his earlier lives – all temporary ones though!
With the above in mind, one could recall seeing one’s own reflections in ‘magical mirrors’ - in place of the plain ones that one gets so used to in day-to-day life. One shows you tall and thin, another small and stout, and so on, depending on the expertise of the creator of those mirrors – failing to show the unseen, the real you … And, only now perhaps you are mentally prepared to accept another human being as a Guru, to act as a mirror, who helps you to see in your mind’s eye, i.e., visualize your prototype, the person whose reflection you really are!
There exist innumerable paths, or media, to reach Him though. The ancient wise men, in Bhagwadgita, suggested direct approach as the best. Thus, generally, one was supposed to do so only after gaining experience in different stages of accepted normal life...
There, however, are exceptions to all laws believably because of the unknown past!
Abhi’s doubt is based on inexperience, and of course because of the expected characteristic property of time, i.e., the present human behaviours exhibiting the typical predictions reportedly made by the ‘wise’ ancients thousands of years ago...
Today even the right hand doubts the intentions of the left!
I would draw his attention to the realized ‘essence’ of the formless Creator in just one word, “OM” and, the one with form, in just three, “Satyam Shivam Sunderam”, in the ‘East’…
Although it is said by some that East can’t meet the West, in so far as the spirit is concerned they do meet in regard to the ‘essence’ – there is an old saying, “Brevity is the soul of life”, and recommendation about ‘reading between the lines’…
Even in the Eighties, Alvin Toffler’s The Third wave condensed its contents in the following words: ‘… Its sweeping synthesis casts fresh light on our new forms of marriage and family, today’s dramatic changes in business and economics. It explains the role of cults, the new definitions of work, play, love, and success. It points toward new forms of twenty-first-century democracy.’
The author, in the Introduction states, “… In attempting so large-scale a synthesis, it has been necessary to simplify, generalize, and compress… As a result, some historians may take issue with the way this book divides civilization into only three parts – a First Wave agricultural phase, a Second Wave industrial phase, and a Third Wave phase now beginning…"
With the rough background knowledge that we in the East have about time cycles in terms of Yugas, indications of advanced Astrology and Palmistry developed in the past, and so on, an average ‘Hindu’ might be doubtful today, still he might not fully agree with his statement, “…Intelligent readers understand that no one – historian or futurist, planner, astrologer, or evangelist – “knows” or can “know” the future…”
HI Kavitha!
In the end I wold like to share the 'essence' a friend has shared with me on the 'social animal':
"Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you."
"Friends are like melons; shall I tell you why? To find one good you must
try one hundred."
"Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and
leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same."
"A friend loves at all times."
"In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures."
"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."
"A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails."
"A faithful friend is the medicine of life."
"Count your age with friends but not with years."
"Plant a seed of friendship; reap a bouquet of happiness." "No man is useless while he has a friend."
"A true friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else."
"Good friends are good for your health."
"A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your success!"
Your comment about death seems deep. For a moment, I tended to agree with it when I looked at death as "my death". But when I thought about it as "death of a loved one". Its not only negative, I felt that its intolerable pain and unacceptable unfairness. If you don't find death as a negative even in that sense, you are truely enlightened!
PS: Sorry, if the comment brings bad taste to the discussion. That was not the intention.
hi badri
you spoke the truth, its surely something that is unthinkable and definitely undigestible in our current state of mind.
the fact remains that none of us can view death like the monk who walked past the bloody war field of Kalinga, indiffrent to the whole picture of bloodshed around him.
if we could do that, surely we would be enlightened.
Talking of ‘enlightened’ souls, with reference to the question discussed on the TV, whether we are learning to deal with disasters or not, I give below my reaction thereto for information, with background belief of one Supreme soul as the sole actor in the drama:
“At the outset, despite knowledge about it, man is unconscious of the fact that he is a passenger of a ‘train of space ships’ - carriage like planets, planetoids, and so on - with sun as its engine or the main driving force. In this train, the planet earth is like the unreserved compartment in which passengers or souls (with their body as its ‘luggage’ at the starting point) enter at various time and space locations and, leaving behind their entire baggage, exit when their destination is reached… Thus, one need to be aware that the journey is likely to be at least as hazardous, if not more, as travel by any other mode we apparently are used to as the multiple reflections of the prototype…
Each ‘disaster on earth’ is time and space related. Therefore, say for example, when some people in Tamil Nadu were learning to deal with the after effects of Tsunami, the others, that formed the majority, were mere spectators of the apparent chaos and therefore need training when it is their turn, like the present calamity in J&K… Thus lesson number one is that ‘democracy’ or travel in an unreserved compartment, ‘the government of the people’, means ‘passengers should take care of their own luggage and the Government or the ‘driver’ is not responsible for any loss or damage thereto!’
PS - Fortunately, this train is not under the control of ‘Lalu’, otherwise it would have fallen into the Arabian Sea or the Bay of Bengal, i.e., the deep space, long ago, instead of the 4.6 billion years of its run till date! The believable driver is 'Kalu' or Krishna instead!”
an interesting metaphorical representation joshi uncle!
Thanks Kavitha!
In Dwaper Yuga, as reported in the Mahabharata, Krishna in human form played the role of Shri Arjuna’s chariot driver, whereas in reality or in Sata Yuga He perhaps is the driving force concentrated at the Centre of our galaxy!
In the Kaliyuga or the present, His models vary from children riding tricycles/ bicycles to Astronauts flying in space ships to, say, Moon, and preparing to go beyond to 'uncharted destinations', perhaps a misconception because of disbelief in the Creator and the ancients who reportedly went from one location to another in space!
In Urdu there is a saying to the effect, "There is no treatment for misunderstanding"!
Exactly the same thoughts i have... much better expressed... thanks for sharing this one... it was really great... hope we can walk the way and find the answers asap...
Post a Comment