The hard slog is done
Somewhere within there’s a memory of that run
The many twists and turns our forefathers have borne
Have bettered current lives, but we continue to mourn
Happiness isn’t a gift of the stars
Or like gold bought in bazaars
Synonymous with truth
Unmoved whether life is rough or smooth
Truth isn’t waiting to be excavated
It’s everywhere once thoughts are sated
It is a pathless land
That was a philosopher’s final stand*
The moon stands witness to every age with a name
In ours, truth is relinquished for fame
Bought and sold like grapes off a vine
Forgetting the body is a shrine of the divine
Truth does not attract or repel
Unlike thoughts that swell
Longing to preserve the beauty of the body
Which seekers of truth consider gaudy
Space between thoughts is rarely noticed
A void where one cannot protest
Like sunlight seeking to reach a forest floor
Truth waits for us at that door
A great debate ensues, where thoughts implore
Enticing us with newer experiences to explore
Even if the boat is full, space is made for more
Keeping course in turbulent waters, longing for the shore
When a heavy anchor is dropped below
How may one go with the flow?
Fathoming truth as a sea without a bottom
Is possible when mind’s a thoughtless blossom
Deep down it may hurt
To the point and curt
Truth may be bitter and bold
But it’s soul will never be sold
Mankind’s long running feud
Will always be renewed
As long as mind sees more than one
Truth is the first thing it will shun
Many names and faces claim to hold
Truth’s authentic mould
There is no escaping it anywhere
Except in an ignorant mind’s glare
Where the castles built will be powdered one day
No matter, everyone throws a hat in that fray
But the mind’s foundation can never be shaken
Even if what’s built on top is taken
Like a cake eaten in haste
By a tongue greedily chasing taste
Senses globble pleasure
Not knowing truth offers it in greater measure
Lurking where our telescopes cannot reach
It cannot be fully described through speech
The map of the inner cosmos is available to every mind
Leading to the treasure of truth if one is inclined
The offer has long been declined
When contract for life in a bottle has already been signed
A homeopathic dose of truth may be insufficient
To fully understand something that is omniscient
When fighting to get away
One cannot escape the pendulum’s sway
Life is frittered traveling from
Sorrow to happiness, which amount to zero sum
The blueprint of truth isn’t what we can touch
After all the hands can only hold so much
The power behind the scenes
Doesn’t easily reveal its means
Grateful platitudes paid to art and nature
Corralled by ego attempting to bolster its stature
In truth, there is very little that may be said
When the mind and the world break bread
Seeking the truth becomes a distraction
When one is attracted to any man made contraption
The worst offender isn’t made of solid, liquid or gas
It is money, which has no real mass
To the dead it is nothing
To the living it is everything
Truth cares for neither, lurking where
Where only the tough would dare
In creeks and crevices of inhospital highrises
Nature offers truth infinite disguises
The ascent up the ladder
May throw up scenes that will bewilder
The true test will not end in a rest
For the senses may revolt in unexpected unrest
Their scabbards rarely see the sword of wisdom
Busy scything through sloth and boredom
Wisdom isn’t unreachable like a star’s distant glow
And isn’t a gift that one may bestow
A vital bridge back to truth itself
Gathers dust in the undiscovered inner self
Far beyond the center of an atom’s nucleus
Unknown to those under the spell of Morpheus**
To some, obvious as the blinding glow of our sun
The truth isn’t a tale that is spun
By recluses seeking higher states in caves
But experienced by those whose mind behaves
Whether in a city or a forest
We are tourists who have forgotten how to be modest
A tree lives true to its design
Roots and fruits don’t physically align
One digs for precious drops in the dark
The other swings freely protected by rough bark
Mankind cries the mind is unkind
And its roots are hard to find
As it greedily reaches for fruit outside it’s windows
Unable to recognize it’s own face in the shadows
Truth smiles without a face
Seeing only one race
Which privileged members of humanity
Cannot see, a great pity
The wheel of time is slow to turn
But truth is something one can quickly learn
Not in palaces of pleasure or schools of learning
Where the goal may be another kind of yearning
A pauper’s dwelling could be its place
As much as a mansion where money has sent its grace
Truth sees through what the mind is blind to
Pretentiousness taken for real, one must eschew
The boat’s lurching, for want of lightweights
With little hope of making it through the narrow straits
When the anchor is dropped how would one get to that land?
If there’s no confidence in one’s own hand
Fellow sailors will have to be left behind
One day those bonds must unwind
Truth doesn’t recognize time
A serious message that comes in a cuckoo's cheerful chime
Behind the veil, there isn’t much to mislead
To savor independence, one must secede
Giving up titles held in escrow
This ordeal one must undergo
If the truth is the goal
Leaving behind the notion of an individual soul
Tracing light back to the beginning of time
Isn’t necessarily a hard climb
Rappelling down generations
What we have to show are divided nations
The sun must laugh
At humankind’s gaffe
Like a benevolent parent
Truth tolerates the errant
Limited sight comes through light
Infallibility of truth is infinitely more bright
In our memories, if laid bare
Nothing to fear, it’s something we share
The road map thus far
Is not what’s bizarre
But it is all those failed schemes
Born out of unrealistic dreams
That give the high road a bad name
But truth is untouched by that blame
Truth and the eyes share a trait
They carry no weight
Of the past or future
For there isn’t anything to nurture
Only the pursuit of the real
May finally reverse the wheel
From the only direction merchants know
Taking the rest in tow
It does not take anymore
Than what’s been brought through the door
Everything else is a distraction
That does not offer inner traction
There are many farmers toiling in the fields
The ones who don’t expect see the greatest yields
Any tried and tested technique
Will surely offer a peek
Into truth’s mysterious face
That will finally end the chase
Amongst the current competitors
Who will one day turn into forgotten ancestors
Whose collective thought
May continue to better the lot
Of generations to come
But truth doesn’t live off that income
Marching to its own drum beat
That will forever repeat
Holding true amidst relentless disharmony
That is the unrealized mind’s final testimony
- N. Seshadri
* J. Krishnamurti (Truth is a pathless land)
** God of sleep
