Introvert and extrovert

Fun loving extroverts, playing mischief

In our minds, are thoughts, and will never lead us

To the shy introvert, called by many names

Any pseudonym will do, after all they are just sounds

Even when softly whispered, wrong words

Cause great damage, extroverted thoughts rarely forgive

We live and walk this great divide, the choice is ours

Who to follow? The introvert within or thoughts which promise

The world, the followers of the mind fall into a darker abyss

Than the one that hides the inner introvert

The choice isn’t hard, but is rarely made, disparate as fire and ice

Words can define, but can never reach, where a true introvert resides

Crowds and solitude

There is solitude only in the moment, not on mountain tops

Barren deserts, deserted beaches or lonesome forests

Crowds of thought quickly swarm those places, even if there is

No one around, like the sky they are always there, the whispering

Cannot be turned off, unless one learns, to listen, amidst the busy crowd

For elusive silence, everyone is gifted solitude, daily in the depths of sleep

If one can escape the charm of dreams, which provide a contrast

To the happenings of the day, even those crowds must be parted

It can only happen, there is solitude everywhere, just as there are crowds

Those moments of solitude must be prised open, not through effort

But by effortless patience, the crowds will thin and die out

Leaving solitude in its wake, which was always there

Color and colorless

Color represents who we are, infinite variations

Made from the same human mold, imagine a world without it

The tiny speck of color standing out in the backdrop of black

Would disappear, but for light, the source of it all

Chasing darkness is its hobby, the two can never meet

Where one is the other cannot live, the monotony

Of light is broken up, into colors, for our enjoyment

It slips even into dreams, the mind holds the pallette

While an inner light brings it out, the journey can be colorful

All the way to the end, beyond the reach of even light

It isn’t death, which is colorless, it cannot be seen or painted

Life is color, its shades are uncertain, but a picture may be painted

Seeker and the sought

A perennial chase, seeking the elusive, everyone’s in it

There’s always something more, as long as the mind

Has a say, traveling to the far ends of the world and back

Always in a flash, there are many things that are sought

Each weighed on a scale and discarded in time, never satisfied

The search lights are always on, hoping to strike gold

A sought after standard, cuts across language and culture

There are crowds of such seekers, forgetting even gold outlives all

Few like to journey alone, for those who do, there is only one road

Not many, leading to where the sought after has found refuge

If eyes can turn around, the search would end, when the seeker

Behind the gaze has left, it becomes apparent, the sought is the seeker

Thick and thin

As our civilization ages, thick forests give way to a balding landscape

Whose shifting sands are as fickle as the thin clouds above, we call

A permanent home, sandwiched between rock and dirt

Miles deep, a thick wall, impenetrable to the eye, its secrets

Can only be imagined, and air, that covers even the tallest mountains

Transparent as glass, and thin enough for our eyes to see the heavens

In every direction, life dances, its delicate threads pulled by our needs

And wants, which fray with time, our friend through thick and thin

Weaving an eventful life, for the grandest and the most insignificant

Amongst thoughts, they create a thick foundation, on which the thin

And delicate ego rests, unable to dig through the depths

Or see beyond the thick walls of the universe of its own making

Superficial and deep

A swamp that comes alive, each day

Living off a never ending procession, of thoughts

That come and go, neatly packed and thrown

Into the depths, we only see the buoyant ones

That make it to a wafer thin, superficial layer, of the mind

That has become our world, the road to heaven or hell

Starts and ends there, how many are brave enough to dive?

Into the depths of the mind, where exotic thoughts swim

Dangerously, and without knowing one’s mind

There will not be any stepping stone found, that can hold our weight

As we peer into the distance, hidden behind a wall, of silence

Everything comes into reach, and there are no unknowns

Success and failure

Attuned to the notion of success, leaping ahead

Of stepping stones, failure isn’t something the mind considers

As worthwhile, while the underpinning of evolution

Is failure first and success next, genes are let loose

The only loss is time, of which there is plenty

If one isn’t trapped in a human frame, the clock ticks

Differently for nature, as it tries various bloodlines until the right mix

Is achieved, more the failure, sweeter is the eventual success

Change is inevitable, success doesn’t last forever, and failure

Is also transitory, both ever more fleeting in the mind, why cling?

To one or the other, both are tiny pieces in a larger puzzle

That may be solved, when the focus is the effort, not success or failure

Peaks and valleys

The mind is no desert, its lush peaks and valleys

Make it a playground no one wants to leave

There are clouds and rain, bright sunshine and dark skies

The ever changing canopy keeps the senses sharp and honed

Inequality rules, in the mind, crowds of thought

Live in its valleys, the privileged amongst them rule the peaks

There is no level ground, for them to meet

Blustering winds and storms of discontent don’t follow

An almanac’s predictions, life’s unpredictable, only in the mind

There is no escape for those on the peaks, the valleys will claim them

It’s inevitable, the view from the top may be nice, but there isn’t freedom

When rivers can leave the peaks and valleys behind, why can’t we?

Sea and land

Worlds apart, life on sea and land, the balance kept in check

By nature, through its emissaries, big and small, except mankind

Seeking to rule over laws, nature has evolved, not just for us

But all life, what have we gained by tilting scales, in our favor?

Greed remains unsated, unpredictable skies open up

Without warning, parched lips are made to suffer, another season

Nature’s natural barriers are hard to transcend, without the aid

Of our inventions, those are of little use, in parting the waters

Keeping our mind afloat, the boundaries are distinct

Like that between sea and land, the inner waters will remain untouched

As long as we cling on to our creations, they help us rule on land,

Not in the sea that matters, where only those naked as fish can swim

Spiritual and material

The mind is the seed for the material, and the body

The seed for the spiritual, the stem of individuality

Common to both, growing out of these, life comes alive

The material takes the formless into the form

And the spiritual takes the form into the formless

The meeting point, as one melts into the other

Is humanity, without that sea, there would be no one to see

Miracles unfolding in front of our eyes, the dance of the atoms

Hidden in an unmoving tree, a serious mountain or a carefree wave

We are both spiritual and material, the spiritual fosters freedom

From the ego, turning all into one, the material needs

Freedom of the ego to build and create, making one stand tall amongst many

Belief and disbelief

Disbelievers are not heretics, they are questioners

Beliefs as answers cannot quench their thirst

Both believers and disbelievers are seekers, of flavors

They may not agree, living on the same plate

Their fights have stood the test of time, the baton passed

From one to another, their food is hardly shared

Yet they grow on the same sun baked soil

Their bodies clamor togetherness like the herds in the wild

Minds have long parted ways, there is little time to journey back

To the time of dawn, when thoughts were as soft as dew

When life was an experience, missed by both believers and disbelievers

Lost in an endless struggle, they fail to see the way, even a child can see

Science and miracles

Science explains and extends, boundaries of the knowable

Insights gleaned can come only from the depths

It isn’t printed on water, rocks or clouds

They may seem ordinary, they are miracles, that sustain us

Coming into existence through rearrangement, of atoms

Which are named, but cannot be seen, all we see are reflections

Call it science or miracles, one takes the road of logic

The other, of faith, but the source begins where roads end

The miracle of existence can not be explained

But it can be lived, a better life is what science seeks

That life isn’t meant for one but for all, if every mind concurs

It would be the miracle that science would not need to explain

Conscious and unconscious

The journey is long, or short, it depends

Whether one treads consciously or unconsciously

The body needs a box full of clothes and the mind

Cannot do without this bag of bones, comforts are few

Otherwise the travellers would permanently rest

Moments are just moments when one isn’t conscious of them

Each one of them can last an eternity for those who aren’t unconscious

It isn’t enough to empty one’s wardrobe putting the body through more pain

One would not go very far, in this world, what to speak of the beyond

Living consciously, there are no lines drawn, nothing is emptied

Or filled, what’s taken is what’s needed, the rest is shared

Only the unconscious carry a heavy load, enveloped by greed and not need

East and west

There are no directions in space, east or west

Created by an interstellar dance, the gulf is enormous

Between humans, welcoming the morning sun

At different times, minds wake sequentially

There is beauty in that non uniformity, if all get up and go

Instantaneously without warning, there will be no one left

To pack up and throw away what’s left behind, a universe

With billions of suns, each with the power to create

What we are seeking to destroy, nature could shift its focus

In a heartbeat, to those distant specks, seen by telescopes

With radios for eyes, it is time to unite, this cycle of waking

And sleeping will go on, east or west, it does not exist on the inner map

Form and formless

The curtain has closed, virtually impossible to part

Between the form and the formless, one’s like the cloud

The other the sky, intimately related like canvas and ink

Form expresses beauty that the formless is

Before our form came into being, were we the formless?

We’re headed back, but to where? That secret will never be shared

By the formless, lest we stop enjoying the form, craving the other

The revealed must be cherished while searching for the hidden

They may end up being part of the same, like the front and back

Of one’s hand, both cannot be seen, at the same time

The form has hands which can help, more useful

Than seeking, from an invisible hand of the formless

God and devil

Tender human eyes cannot see them, they would be no match

Perhaps blinded, by dazzling brightness or dizzying darkness

Comfortable with softer shades of light, imagination is set free

Distilled over centuries, condensed dogmas have coalesced

Debates continue, those irked pick up fights, threatening the ones

Whose minds are fed something else, why can’t we get along?

Leaving God and Devil aside, forces of good and evil are part of our lot

Setting fire to our thoughts, caught in that inferno, where else would one turn?

With the mind ablaze, the bartering starts, giving one up to gain the other

Good and evil, are our making, but they are personified and sent away

Making us forget, divisiveness lives in the mind, and unity beyond it

That must be considered, not names, forms or paths, the source of our breakups

Head and heart

Sustainer of life, the bed of emotions, heart carries

A heavy load, braving the waterfall of thoughts gushing forth

From the relentless mind, making itself home, in the head

We are somewhere in between, holding the peace

The head needs training, the heart comes ready

From the first gasp of air to the last, respecting time

Working like a clock, every drop of the river of life accounted for

The heart’s position is fixed, the mind’s everywhere

Reining it in appears to wreck the peace

Running to the ends of the world, seeking the unattainable

To stay in place and give itself up, it doesn’t need to go far

For inspiration, the heart is near, always giving more than it takes

Lithe and stodgy

Thoughts cannot be wished away, they are enticing

Lithe as a dancer, never tiring, whose moves melt

Into one another, there is a smooth waltz before our eyes

It should be a confusing picture, that overlay of thoughts

Where to look? We struggle to see, beauty is sadly missed

The scenery passes by at the speed of time

Changeless feining change, has easily succeeded

Our stodgy will, unable to chose, settles on the lesser

Between enchanting thoughts and the real beauty

Surrounding the mind, both have no physical boundaries

When the eyes are given a long rest, whether lithe or stodgy

Thoughts leave the stage, the room opens, we are no more fooled

Water and air

Boundaries cannot be drawn, on either water or air

Surrounded on all sides by these lifelines

Free to play, sing or dance, but we’ve chosen

Walls where none can be built, these two friends

For life, water and air, will never give up their freedom

Of movement, the riches we crave cannot enter our being

Like these two, the elixirs of life, we rarely watch them

As they silently press on, enlivening islands of flesh

That come alive, if only we could share, like the fish do

Living and dying, common to all who are raised on water and air

Taking it for granted, the focus has become the mind, where neither may enter

Water and air, support for all, sides aren’t taken, that is real nature

Attention and inattention

The game’s easily lost, when attention to every detail

Is owned, and committed to memory, without realizing  

It may return as sadness, one day, when the mind’s bread

Goes missing, it cannot live off air, the mind seeks wholesome happiness

Which has been spirited away to the depths of one’s heart

Hidden in that abode of serenity, it is glossed over through inattention

Every heart beat churns up flowing magic

If one could keep step with the pulse of that music

Through complete attention, relaxed and unafraid

It’s doors would open, and everything would spill out

Secrets will be bared, free to study the lost caverns, to one’s heart's content

Only through attention can that examination be complete