Impulsive Sin

On a mid-February afternoon

I sat beside the Bangpakong

as it flowed in style

like a model on the ramp

The breeze was nice and cool

But towards which direction the river flowed?

That was hard to tell

I was trying to figure that out

While my eyes caught a yellow flower

that wind brought near my feet

It was dry but still bright

With its cheek on the warm concrete

i looked up towards the sky

The moon was there

dull yet visible

Like a half bitten cookie

Yet beautiful

And then the wind got rebellious

As it caressed my face and ruffled my hair

I didn’t mind that excesses though

But with the next swirl

It tore apart that little yellow flower

And blew its petals in the air

Hither thither

A beauty reduced to pieces

And bright yellow dust

It made me sad – not only for the flower

and I knew I can’t but I wished I could ask the wind

What did you do to the flower?

Why did you do that to the flower?

Babysit yourself

Sometimes you come to bed physically and emotionally bruised. Your muscles ache from the exercise and your heart is kind of numb to expect anything from anyone. That’s the time when you have no doubts – you clearly see that every one is busy in their own life. Your friends, relatives and colleagues only share a certain part of your life and for the rest of the time you have to babysit yourself. You have to take the responsibility to make yourself happy because others are busy in doing the same for themselves. Just remember that your attempt to create happiness should not be a trouble for anyone else. I might be wrong or i might have had bad experiences but that’s what i believe before closing my eyes to sleep tonight.

Void

The void is there

eyes haven’t seen it

yet i can feel it

senses have fathomed it

and it has to exist

it can’t be filled

as the mortals have pushed their souls

back to the wall

and now their emotions

are not their’s anymore

they follow what they are fed by the feeds

and they only feel touched

when they are given teddy bears

Ride your bike

To the eyes that shine

Even when there isn’t any hope ahead

To the eyes that smile

When there isn’t something amusing

A never ending childhood

Is locked in those eyes

 

Kudos to those who dare to rejoice

In the times of despair

Kudos to those who are stronger than sadness

Whatever the odds

They ride their bikes against the wind

And their hair dance behind their back

The One – Which one?

I am standing on the crossroads of a thought process that i’ll try to share below in a generic way so that you may relate to it. I’ll be glad if it can be of any help in your pursuit towards enlightenment.

Ancient wisdom describes this world as “A wonderland” because when a baby comes to this world he is welcomed by the plethora of surprises and the world doesn’t cease to surprise this baby even when he turns into a grey-haired old man. We start our lives with a blank mind, record some information and events in it during the course of life and cease to exist when our heart stops pumping blood into our veins. To summarize it in a poetical way we can say that from dust we rise and to dust shall we return.

On the stage of this uncertain world, where we don’t choose our entrance and exit everyone tries to create some certainty because it helps a human being in easing his restlessness. To do so one has to interact with the universe. All we seek is scattered around us or lying within us. If we diligently pursue, we get what we truly seek. However if someone is doubtful; their restlessness will not go away even when they’ll get what they seek.

People try to connect with universe in various ways. These connections are highly governed by their needs. In the eyes of a hungry man, a serving of food would be the utmost connection he seeks until his hunger is pacified. However there is another interesting thing to ponder – sometimes it is difficult for us to identify what we need the most.

Apart from food, abode and other such basic necessities we seek something that is special. Something for our soul.

While basic necessities connect our body to the world around us, our soul needs a connection to acquire true peace. People follow various rituals, rules and procedures to connect their soul with the divine power of universe but nothing can truly help until they are ready to let go of the worldly desires or at least start preferring the happiness of soul over the happiness of body.

We all need to work on our souls and try to go forth in the journey towards peace without doubts. Everyone does so according to their level. We can’t force people to change their ways – we can’t force them let go of their doubts. However we can be kind and merciful to them by understanding their difficulty in overcoming a hurdle. We can help them too. Just as a tortoise would take a minute to traverse a speed breaker on the road; a hare would cross it in a single leap on the other hand – some of us need more time to deal with certain situations. What will happen if we start pressurizing a tortoise to start acting like a hare? A better option can be training the tortoise and putting our feet in the boots of poor tortoise to understand how much improvement can be achieved in reality.

Sometimes fixing a toy ends up breaking it for ever. Human soul is much more delicate than toys – it deserves more care and patience. Be kind and merciful to the restless souls around you and help them find their path towards eternal peace and happiness. If you can’t help – at least don’t harm anybody.

River Story

Back to wilderness

The traffic starts diminishing as i start walking away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Gradually shops and homes start looking less lavish and i see more children playing in the streets.

Then the mesh of roads and streets vanishes and i find myself walking beside the weather beaten rail-track that reminds me of the British rule in the subcontinent. This track was laid by the British to connect far flung parts of “The Golden Sparrow” to ensure constant supply of food in the times of peace and the soldiers to fight for the crown in the times of war.

The decades old track swirls around the rocks and hills – bridges upon the chasms and tunnels through the mountains where the options to route it through an alternate path are limited or don’t exist altogether.

I try to walk upon this track like an acrobat with my arms wide open and my legs trying to balance my wait on the narrow carbon steel until the track takes me to the other side of a small river and from here i take a right turn to loose myself in the wilderness.

The yellow blossoms on the acacias, the white blooms on the shrubs and wild flowers welcome me here.

The wild red berries have started to ripen – i collect some of the fruit and fill it in my side pockets to eat them after giving them a cold water wash at the nearby stream. As i move ahead i see a proud dandelion – with its bright yellow petals – all set to say hello in an awesome demeanor. A worthwhile prize for anyone who leaves back a soft couch or a bed to visit him in the wild.

I go near him and bow my head down to pay homage to the little beauty. I am glad that the meeting with him was so deep that i didn’t even think of taking his picture. I was lost in his charms.

 

After that encounter I walk forth and come across some more plants and flowers that are still nameless in the book of my vocabulary. Still, i feel a connection with them. Being unfamiliar with their worldly names don’t disconnect me from them. For somehow i have got a connection with all the particles and atoms of this universe.

As bedil says,

na ba sahra sarey daaram, na ba gulzaar sodaye

be her ja mee ravam, az khesh me balid tamashaye

Neither i seek the solitude of deserts nor i am greedy for the colors of the world – however when i go to wilderness or visit a garden i see my reflection in the things that comprise that place.  

I come across the doves which make a whistling sound when they suddenly flap their wings against their bodies to fly away. Every now and then they do so to perch upon another tree which appears relatively safer to them. The little bees are busy in collecting nectar and the beautiful butterflies are kind to the visitors for letting them look at their colorful wings from as near as any one can get to them.

These are a few things that i see and there are many things that i think about and feel while across this stretch of land. Sometimes when i get heavy with the loads of thoughts, i want to be a buffalo with a calm mind, walking behind the others of my kind with very few things to worry or care about.

 

I’ll conclude with a verse where Rumi writes a beautiful wish in one of his ghazals:

dar do chashme man nasheen – Ae Aan ke az man mantari 

Come and stay in my eyes – You! who are more me than myself

Nature soothes and cures me. I feel myself ready to visit any place where i can have a profound conversation with the nature. As for some of us nature is the remedy for all our pains and problems.

Light and shadows are the dance of love

Sunset and sunrise are two marvelous exhibits of nature that recur after every twenty four hours. Light fills the earth with power and then it vanishes to give it time for rest. To watch these amazing events, reminds us to be like the sun that burns itself to render life and light to the earth. It also tells us that great success cannot be achieved without enduring pain.

In the beginning of Masnavi, Rumi explores the essential connection between pain and art. He draws our attention towards the flute and presents a case that the tunes emanating from the flute catch our heart because they carry the grief and yearning  of the wooden stick that was turned into a flute.

A part of a tree is separated and put under the mercy of sharp tools that make it hollow and carve holes into it to give it a form that is known to us as a musical instrument. When an artist blows air into it and moves his fingers on its holes, the separation from its source, the stress and mutilation that it has endured and the elegance that it has achieved by going through all these hardships resonates in the form of a melody.

The key is to endure with elegance.

Courage to face the changing winds and reading the signs of the time helps us in understanding the dance of love. We start seeing that universe is intoxicated with the wine of love and once we free ourselves from unnecessary burdens, all that is left in us is love and kindness.

 

 

Staying up until wee hours

When it starts getting dark outside and mortals get tired of trying to justify their existence in this world, most of them come back to their abodes to  refill their bodies with the food and get ready for the next day.

Once done with the dinner, they pick up their gadgets or watch the broadcasts and media streams until their eyes start twitching and they fall asleep.

However there are some people who cannot sleep even if their eyes are twitching and their bodies yearning for rest.

Either they are insomniacs or the ones who are lucky enough to encounter deep moments that are worth staying awake for.

Our bodies are designed to sleep after staying active for some hours. If we work at night, our bodies need rest during the day and vice versa however sometimes our mind is so active that it prevents us from unconsciousness.

Here are some results of my consciousness, scattered in the sentences written below:

Probably its in the nature of human beings to get bored. We get bored of TV channels, our phones, weather, places and people. And still there are some entities which stay interesting for us and we never get tired of them. These entities can be good or bad for us. For instance a smoker never gets tired of cigarettes even when he knows that every next smoke drags him closer to his death. We can stay awake with some people every night and on the contrary we might find ourselves looking for reasons to sleep or do something on our phone instead of expressing our views and ideas to some people. In short our choices and amount of control on ourselves influences our life.

Life is an interesting stage and we ought to play our roles well. We can’t rely on the scripts provided by the director as life requires us to be spontaneous. Whether its day or night, we should thank those streams of thoughts and moments that light up the lanterns of wisdom in our mind. Wisdom gives us the courage to detach our soul from selfishness and all such diseases which make it heavy. Once the soul is unburdened it rises up like a cloud. After all, it’s easy to run a marathon if you are light on your heels. During such times our soul steps up on the ladder of realization and we start seeing the things in their true form. Our grievances start melting, our grudges start vanishing and all we are left in our heart is love. The love for all the humanity. The love for all the living and non living things with the knowledge that all the things that exist in this world are a part of us.

At these late hours of the night i have no doubt in the fact that I have a connection with the trees, the mud, the people belonging to any color and race and everything that exists. And to honor that connection I should always do good and think good for others without expecting anything in return.

It might happen that you’ll be misunderstood – your good thoughts and best possible arrangements might not bring the desired results for you and others because you are only one of the billions of human beings living on this earth and everyone acts and feels according to the level of their mind and soul.  However if your intentions are good and selfless, peace will be your reward.

The pencils would be lying in the shoe box

Where are my pencils?

Probably they would be in that shoe box where i gathered all the the paint brushes in a plastic bottle before moving to new room.

Why am i thinking about them today?

It’s happening so because once again the world has baffled me and i feel the urge to seek refuge in art.

I want to let the strokes of pencil spread some of my thoughts on the paper. I want to compare the stories told by color soaked brushes with the ones that i paint on the vast canvas of my mind.

What’s reliable? This night? No. Nay Nay.

The morning that is about to take birth? Neither.

How true a truth can be and how false a lie is? We can only imagine as it’s all relative.

Our likes and dislikes – our assumptions and expectations – they are relative to our set of experiences and the cobwebs of uncertainty tie our heart so bad. Hence sometimes we are so bewildered to differentiate between right and wrong.

In such situations only our soul can serve as a mediator – if it is in peace then everything is alright.

If it is not in peace, we need to take some steps to get peace.

After all we so dearly wish that peace for everyone who passes away – without realizing that it is equally important to live with a peaceful soul.