Blessing and curse

There aren’t any disbelievers amongst us

All trust in a future, exquisite is the planning

To welcome it, in hushed silence, red carpets are rolled out

As the mind cranes out, for a glimpse of what is to come

Holding up the flag of hope, which can be a blessing or a curse

Offering a temporary respite for the forlorn, seeking a better life

Which may only be found in dreams, the future wished for

May never turn up, in its place, more of the same

The prosperous, always fearful of loss, probe the future

With the stick of hope, wishing they are wrong

Hope is real, a blessing for those who seek a better life

And a curse for others chained by fear of a loss

Drop and the ocean

A single drop may be swallowed, and the essence

Of an ocean tasted, it is impossible to be submerged

By a drop unless one dives into the ocean

The drop may live without the ocean, but it’s powerless

Without a purpose, identity matters to the drop

The ocean cares little, left to the mercy of the elements

A drop may easily disappear from sight

But it isn’t easily forgotten by nature, even a tiny drop may be useful

How else would nature bring water from the clouds back to earth?

The mind and the body are tiny drops which hold an ocean

One must be dropped to behold the other, living as a drop

Or an ocean is the same, once both are known

Owner and renter

A pretense of ownership garners no rights

From the market to the mountains, this is a renter’s paradise

Just ask those about to leave, empty handed without wealth

Of any color, from gold to green, the burden of ownership

Was never given, it is assumed, and taken as real, a sure path

Towards misery, the road forked a long time ago, offering a choice

A fleeting one, if one can remember, renters come and go

They never seek to build a path to happiness

Realizing it is already there, nothing is asked for or kept

The mind is on rent, a temporary roof till we find ourselves

Whether owner or renter, one can leave with only one bag

Filled with happiness or misery, that’s left to us

Age and ageless

A tree does not wear its age on its leaves

It reveals the age of its meditative stance

Only after it is felled, through rings that tell a tale

Of times good and bad, it bears silent witness

To the state of air and water, they are ageless

Destined to outlast time, their work never ceases

Running through the veins of a tree or a human, keeping them alive

We touch the ageless through them, the benevolent sun

Maintains a respectable distance, leaving the air moist

We drink the ageless tears of joy shed by the mountains

And breathe eternal air that is freshened by its brood of trees

Why think of age when we live off gifts from the ageless?

Tension and relaxation

The music rendered is beautiful, provided the strings are taut

And the violin finely tuned, fingers eagerly dance up and down

As the bow floats back and forth, those tunes, a product

Of perfect tension, set by the master tuner

Provide great relaxation to the mind, forgetting its chains

It is temporarily set free, soaring to surprising heights

The music cannot play indefinitely, the musician will tire and stop

Not before offering many chances, to taste a life

That lasts forever, the springboard is perfect relaxation

Into the moment, where the music is beautiful, but the tune sours

And tension kicks in, when the strings of the past pull at one’s heart

Life gives when there’s relaxation, and takes when there’s tension

Optimism and pessimism

On the edge of the unknown, optimism speaks

Of an adventure with a great ending, imploring

One to stride confidently, saying wishes are meant to be fulfilled

And pessimism warns, of dangers that may befall

Beating a retreat into the known, unable to stomach

Name calling, some would see its ways as cowardice

But both optimists and pessimists live on the same side

Of the fence, in the mind, two shades, of the same color

Both bound by time, which brings the future, which is agnostic

To the pleadings of both optimists and pessimists, they cannot reach

Beyond the walled city, where forms fade away and there isn’t room

For optimists or pessimists, when one puts both feet into the unknown

Upstream and downstream

A river is the same, but only in name

Upstream and downstream, pure at the source

Salty at the finish, much changes as it swells

To it full grown size, only a few lucky drops

Witness it’s rise upstream and it’s fall downstream

The rest, swallowed up by the sun and the land

The river of thought is unrelenting, one may step in

Easily upstream, at the source, if it can be found

It’s depth increases downstream, in preparation for its meeting

With the world, the body’s too frail to swim to its depths

Perhaps why seekers are to be found high in the mountains

Where the fresh springs are drinkable, unlike the brine downstream

Ego and surrender

Shadows lengthen as light dims, ego casts a long one

Over life, when there is barely a flicker seen

Of the inner light, surrender becomes hard

In that darkness, ego claims to fight for our rights

Which surrender allegedly gives away

A shadow can never light the way, the ego seeks

To hide by the light of the world, which plays to its strength

Everyone else is doing the same, those who surrender are few

They brave the dark, where no one else is seen

Drifting by the strength of a strange current, taking them downstream

Into a cave with a million candles, burning without melting wax

There isn’t a shadow of doubt, ego fights and surrender courts the world

Sound and silence

The soundless void of space, a great gift insulating our little world

From the deafening implosions and explosions

Of the heavens above and below, we’d never know

How hellishly loud they may be, the faint flicker of the stars

Is all we see, the ears are left alone, in silence

So that we may ponder the beyond, but the sound from another universe

The mind, keeps ticking day and night, the senses may be plugged

But the mind cannot be made silent, unless it chooses to sleep

In that great silence, could the sounds of creation be heard?

The silently conscious seek it, they are done with the company of sound

It’s ripples disturb the joy, from which may emanate great works

Only by walking the bridge of silence may the sea of sound be traversed

Action and motivation

Like a castaway, pining for company

Desire cannot live alone, entombed in the mind

It finds an escape by clinging onto deep motivations

Guiding actions the world may see, making them incongruous

Like the sphinx, pretentious actions getting a veneer of altruism

Can barely hide selfish motivations, under the spell of desire

Which is a drop of poison that can fell a mighty being

Life is no more a straight line, actions are hopelessly marooned

In the present, while motivations consult the past and desire’s version

Of the future, the split between action and motivation

Is impossible to bridge until the deepest root has been found

The world hosts our actions for all to see, only we can see their motivation

Force and counterforce

The genius of Newton, first to recognize that ancient law

Of force and counterforce, we live off that balance

Without which excesses of one kind or another

Would keep life at bay, perhaps earth would have become

A dead rock, like billions of others, holding nothing but

Ice or sand, we’re lucky that earth has come alive

With countless witnesses to the play of force and counterforce

Even the mind depends on it, the force of thought

Is kept at bay by the counterforce of no thought

The former an inconsistent provider of happiness

The latter, a consistent performer, it sets us free

When we take a stand, against the force of thought

Straightforward and cunning

As the crow flies, the distance between the heart

And the mind, barely a wingspan, both deep wells

With no bottom to be found, welling up from within

There is much that’s different, between the two

The cunning mind and the straightforward heart

Mind is a swamp, hiding the cunning amongst thoughts

The heart is like a cloud which cannot hide the rain

Road to the inner being is straight, no guile is needed

When one’s heart lights the way, the mind refuses come along

Fearing it’s cunningness will be laid bare, a matter of survival

For the great deceiver, free to fly while it imprisons us

The heart never leaves our side, its brief is straightforward, keeping us alive

Desire and dispassion

A tug of war fought in the mind and heart

Pulling at the rope of happiness, sought by the force

Of desire, but held by the power of dispassion

Desire, the engine of the mind, has many tracks to choose from

Dispassion starts where all those tracks end

Desire thrives on quantity, dispassion on quality

The seeds of misery are sown when desire is indulged

Dispassion is seedless, the fruit can no longer become a tree

Humanity is provided bundles of happiness

Needlessly frayed and broken in this odd matchup

A tussle as old as time, between desire and dispassion

Desire may lay claim to the mind, but dispassion leads one to the rest

Tuition and intuition

Educating the mind, a lifelong task, it is hard to finish

Even as hairs turn grey, the seeking never stops

Hungry for evermore, with a ravenous appetite for books and bytes

The tuition is costly, paid with precious drops of time

None of it can buy even a flash of intuition

That gateway is unknown to most, it isn’t hardwired

It is an inexplicable flood that comes unannounced

There isn’t any coursework that may be teach us the way

The window to the source of intuition lies at the bottom of the mind

Below piles of information, whose tuition has cost us dear

We are the only species with the sixth sense, no one can be denied

It’s potential, realized when seeking ends and receiving begins

Knowledge and wisdom

Knowledge may rise and set, with each passing generation

With a changing yardstick, unlike wisdom

And the light of the sun, burning with the same intensity

Whether seen or ignored, but they cannot be refuted

Knowledge is sourced, and it can be taught

Wisdom dawns within, it cannot be bought or stolen

Knowledge needs validation, widom offers it

Like air, wisdom cannot be hidden, but knowledge can

Wisdom is married to humility, knowledge may cavort with pride

Knowledge in action promotes the material, comforting for the body

When wisdom comes alive, it’s spiritual solace to the mind, and the soil

On which sprouts the tree of knowledge, it’s fruits are meant to be for all

Materialist and spiritualist

They look at the same thing, the materialist and the spiritualist

One accepts and the other denies, everyone can see

Chasing diametrically opposite goals

Not realizing they may meet again, when the circle is complete

Living on common ground, why is their vision so different?

In one, the ego aims to fill, in the other ego tries to empty, the mind

But the scent of arrogance is the same

Each claiming the other is living foolishly

Both are collectors, one collects externally, the other internally

On the day of departure, both leave everything behind

But their pride, gross in the materialist, and subtle in the spiritualist

One who is neither leaves with nothing, joining the source of everything

Flexible and inflexible

The body is held up by the inflexible, at its core

It is just a skeleton, a sight that invokes great fear, but without it

The soft gaze of the eyes cannot peer into those of the beloved

Bones soften with age, but the mind does otherwise

It is a cloud hanging over the body, hiding the vast sky beyond

Those with flexible commitments to desires, may get a glimpse

No matter how dark a cloud, it cannot blot out the light of the sun

Unless the sun chooses otherwise, but why would it?

It’s inflexible schedule makes it an old faithful, shining down and baking

Our hard physical reality, conforming to the laws of life, and not our taste

The mind can be made flexible, whether it showers happiness or sorrow

How we choose to live life is flexible, but the consequences are inflexible   

Conceit and humility

There isn’t a single voice from deep space, proclaiming

Its vastness and grandeur, every heavenly body bows down

To its fundamental laws, that’s the power of silent humility

A portable universe is carried by everybody, on a temporary lease

For us to use and enjoy, but the voice box of the mind

Full of throaty thoughts, proclaims with a conceited tone

Rippling through the mind, a sense of ownership over time

The body isn’t won through a hard fought battle

But a chance gift, a vehicle whose engines we have scuttled

Making it an empty shell, echoing praises and airing dreams

Now a seat of conceit, but the sky laughs, one day our bodies

Will melt into the muddy terrain, restoring the quiet calm, in place of us

Caterpillar and butterfly

A magical metamorphosis, from a methodical crawl

To carefree flight, happens out of sight

The only evidence, a broken cocoon

Once home to a caterpillar, now a butterfly

Beauty of that intelligence is unsurpassed

It can call our mind home, if we let it

The carefree flight of childhood is turned

Into rusty shackles of adulthood, an unconscious happening

Casting wistful looks at tender, paperlike wings of butterflies

Brings back memories, of childhood, chasing speckled flecks of color

When thoughts flitting around are given such beautiful wings

A miraculous transformation happens within the shell of the mind

Death and deathless

We are at one end of a rainbow, cradling the body

Death is just a mirage from the other end

Bridging the divide, between death and deathlessness

Is the mind, when seen from a far distance

May reveal where death ends and deathlessness begins

A red line few seek to cross, the rest are blissful, in ignorance

Forgetting the rain will surely stop, but the sun will continue to shine

It is deathless as far as we are concerned, nourishing bodies

Caught in the slowing tightening vise grip of death

Even as the mind appears deathless, donning the garb of desire

That mimicry of the soul’s nature will find no takers

At the other end of the rainbow, where eternity begins