Fear may be undone
When the tussle with ignorance is won
Not through battle hardened grit
But by a free thinker’s spirit
Now there’s little threat of heresy
As more are indifferent to prophesy
Enmeshed in the mundane
Making this adventure very plain
Dousing any excitement that could be had
Thoughts are difficult to change when they’re ironclad
In their pursuit of virtue and fear of sin
For mankind, both have always been
Going back to any ancient riverine tribe
Historians may thus describe
As bereft of advances in science
Sticking to superstitions in defiance
Lives were mated to nature
Even if it never foretold the future
With fear as an unwitting whip
Free thinking never had a grip
Clad in the garb of memory
Fear’s necessary accessory
Tentacles of attachment
Make it impossible for guilt to be absent
The mind’s shopping cart is always packed
In anticipation of peace, but it will retract
Wanting instead to spend time with free thinkers
Who have long ceased pointing fingers
Busy pondering questions that seem deep
Before the call comes making others weep
Slicing through the cake with a sharp knife
Not giving into temptations, the current way of life
The frosting on the top
Is nothing more than a prop
But when it is relished without care
How can the mind be laid bare?
Branches of learning serve the world
Till flags of doubt are unfurled
Books age as they change hands
New ones arrive to appease unceasing demands
None offer an easy formula
Serving to excite the brain’s insula
And turning trees into memorable debris
When lodged within, one is never free
The library of free thinkers is devoid of shelves
Preferring to educate themselves
In the art of enquiry
That’s incisive and not airy
Comaraderie may be lost
They see it as an opportunity cost
To know what’s real
This takes unrelenting zeal
Leaving the city lights far behind
And to find what’s behind the mind
The trail may eventually run cold
After all that land is lonely and old
Not for the fainthearted
Who are more comfortable having their destiny charted
By the vagaries of the mind
Which may set them on a path that’s blind
Free thinkers relish the freedom of the recluse
After all, what they are after is so abstruse
For them, dance of the mirage and the sand
Has gotten out of hand
An enormous gulf between the seer and the seen
Covered by a deceitful sheen
Free thinkers have bridged that gap
Avoiding it like a death trap
Conflict becomes nonexistent
That doesn’t mean the world becomes distant
Creating room for enormous responsibility
To love unconditionally despite hostility
Aligning fragments of duality
Creates a telescope that may peer into reality
Opposing forces no more
But held in each hand like an oar
Free thinkers seek harmony
Not just as a way to end agony
As they see everything’s in tune
Except thoughts that are strewn
With wistful eyes have long been shut
Their mind resembles a simple hut
Every creature becomes as close a next of kin
Held on a string within
With no more scores to settle, they’re free to soar
Into rarefied reaches spoken off in lore
An empty glass jar is all they hold
And they patiently wait to behold
As eager as two lovers waiting to be reunited
With no fear of their love being unrequited
When thinker and the thought become one
There is the dawn of the inner sun
- N. Seshadri
