The fight, the perennial strife

 

There is a dramatic and pulsating drive to build among the humans. Most of what we build is born of fears. Fear seems to be the predominant element of life on earth. Peace is a dream. We are always either fighting or preparing to fight. Therefore, the global military expenditure is 6.7 billion dollars per day. This huge amount of money is willingly spent, even eulogized under the jingoistic nationalistic banner. It’s taken as a matter of pride. On the other hand, at the climate summit the major countries are fighting to muster up just 300 billion dollars for climate financing. It seems unimportant to us. Little do we realize that climate-induced ocean heating leading to a super-cyclone dents the economy by as much as the entire amount proposed for climate financing.

We are comfortable to kill each other on a dying planet. We are fundamentally inclined to lose our peace and feel restless. We get bored even with love and create disharmony and disputes. We even get bored with our freedoms as well as the mechanisms and institutions meant to ensure our individual and collective freedoms. When we get bored with freedom, we turn cynical and show apathy to the organized degradation of democratic process and institutions. Presently, the world seems to be bored with democracy. Democracy is gradually degrading over the world. Autocratic maneuvering is stealthily taking a firm grasp on the throat of democracy.

On the face value, democracy seems to follow the time-tested process, but behind the screen the indirect, subtle forgeries, lies, manipulations and misuse are eating into its soul. It’s not that people can’t see and feel it. They understand. They know that the spirit of democracy is being compromised like never before. But just like we get bored with love, we are receptive to the processes of democratic degradation. It’s like we are ready for chaos and autocracy; a collectively depressed, anxious society getting addicted to autocracy.

While we smoothened and plastered our walls as the outward measures to cover the gaping holes inside our souls, the sparrows lost chances to build nests in niches, grooves, holes and crevices in walls, roofs and ceilings. The sparrows are now fighting to grab the abandoned wire-tail swallow mud-nest in the verandah. The mud-nest cup has a little space where they can put some grass sinews and lay eggs. The sparrows are cheeky, chirpy, petite, querulous ones. About a dozen couples are fighting to occupy the prime property. The moment a couple lands on the property, the others chase it away with angry, shrill notes. It’s a big fight since morning—a little ounce of the same ghastly battlefields where one country is bombarding another to grab land and resources. They twirl, swirl, dive and shout to discourage each other from occupying the property. Finally, the most stubborn couple will win the rights. One angry couple even chased the poor flycatcher around the yard. They just banged into him the moment it perched anywhere. The sparrows in bad temper and the poor flycatcher has to pay; just like angry world leaders make the common people pay for their bursting tempers.  

The petty neighborhood tyrants

Fight for a kingdom and be a king. That's your 'right' beyond the debate of moralistic right or wrong. But remember kingdoms have their consequences. It's very natural for the kings to be killed by their own sons. Just a natural consequence. You hand over the lust for unrestricted power to your son. He will be a worthy inheritor of your legacy and would dethrone you on the chessboard of power when he comes of age. 

In the same vein, if you have been lucky to have official powers and privileges -- for which you get paid and are expected to do your service strictly as per the contract-- you will sometimes get an itch to set-up a mini-kingdom by going out of your domain and misuse your power and privileges for unjustified gains. That of course is also your right. But remember your son will inherit the same mini-kingdom of misuse of your privileges beyond your official domain. He will dethrone you when his time comes. He will also kill you to occupy the little throne that you have set up by inflicting injustice through the misuse of your powers and capabilities. He may not slit your throat directly but will definitely do it indirectly. He won't respect you, he would be indisciplined and you will see your little kingdom falling apart under his erratic lifestyle. That is as good as a son killing his father. Again it's not about right or wrong. Simply cause and effect. 

The more you 'make' as an angry, arrogant and violent person, the more you expose yourself to be 'broken' by the bigger forces of similar nature. And the rot begins at home, remember this. Again, simple cause and effect. Nature doesn't operate on moralistic principles. It's only about what you are doing at what frequency. Life will give you back a hundredfold of exactly what you are investing in the same currency. If it's arrogance, ego, greed that propels you, the trajectory of your life will be defined by the same factors. Keep fighting. When will you ever stop? And if petty, tyrannical fights of this nature make you feel like a soldier, it's a nice cover for the demons inside to be decorated with honorable military dress.

If you see yourself in this write-up and get angry then I'm sorry. As a writer, I just hold a mirror in front of the reader. What you see in that is your own making, your own labour. If you don't like the image that stares back at you, change it. If not, keep the angry fight till your last breath. You may achieve anything but not peace. 

Levelling

 बहुत सारे महानुभाव मुझसे चीड़े रहते हैं आजकल। ऐसा कुछ खास नुकीले कोने भी नहीं हैं मेरे व्यक्तित्व में। बस थोड़ा सा संतुलन लाने की कोशिश करता हूं। बहुत सारे लोग हैं जिनके ऊपर मान सम्मान की गठरी का बहुत बोझ होता है। थोड़ा बहुत आध्यात्मि रुझान होने के कारण करुणावश उनका थोड़ा सा बोझ कम कर देता हूं। उनसे थोड़ा सा सम्मान का बोझ उतारकर किसी ऐसे आदमी पे डाल देता हूं जिसके होने का किसी को आभाष भी न हो, जैसे कि वो भेड़ बकरी हो। जिसके पास सामाजिक सम्मान नाम की चीज है ही नहीं। उनके ऊपर एक किस्म का वैक्यूम सा होता है। लगता है जैसे कि होना और ना होना बराबर सा ही। जिसको बहुत से लोग सम्मान देते हों आप उस बेचारे को और वजन से बचा सकते हैं। मैं तो जी भिखारी, रिक्शा और फेरी वालों के ऊपर सम्मान का थोड़ा कुछ मिलीग्राम वजन डालता जाता हूं, ताकि वो भी थोड़ा जमीन पे सामान्य ढंग से चल पाएं।

The Croakings of an Old Toad -- 9

 

The huge sense of self-righteousness has its origins in a very little dark space in our egoistic chamber where mammoth ghosts of judgement and opinions burst to their seams. They have been suffocating in a little dark space and that’s why they run wild to assert and claim more territory in other’s mind once the door gets unlocked.

۞

Ma is still around and taking care of us even though she left her body almost two and half years ago. The other day, one of my aunties in our extended family lost her gold earring. Now it’s a catastrophe for a woman to lose her gold ornament. Apart from the economic loss, they take it as a bad omen also. Give her two for her lost gold piece, she but will still be sad and sullen about the lost one. My aunt is a very hardworking woman. She has a set-up routine of household chores like my mother had. Aunty gets up early and her day involves morning walk in the fields around the village, visit to the temple, many rounds to the cattle barn at a distance from the house and the rest of the routine tasks in their sprawling countryside house. Given her large area of movement over the dusty village streets, even to think of pinpointing some specific location where the probability of finding the earring was higher than others seemed a futile exercise. She and the family looked into all nook corners of the house. The temple premises were scanned and so were the streets and paths where she had walked on that day. Much disturbed she tried to sleep at night but sleep was nowhere nearby. She was in tension. Around half past three in the morning, she got a short span of sleep and my mother appeared in her dream. Auntie says my mother was seen brooming the streets on the side of the house and the little square falling on the other side of our house. Mother always cleaned the surroundings after cleaning the house. Young women less than half her age won’t even think of cleaning the neighbourhood streets for others to walk. But that’s how mother was. She lived a life that wasn’t strictly chained by mine or your boundaries. In the dream, cleaning the street in front of the house, mother said to auntie, ‘Don’t take so much of tension. Now go to sleep peacefully. You will find your gold earring. It’s lying near the platform facing the street by our house. There is a splinter of bamboo near it.’ Well, around eight in the morning auntie recalled the dream and went out to the said place. The earring was found exactly at the place mother had indicated. Just imagine dozens of people had been passing the spot and nobody spotted it. But nothing can miss a mother’s eyes. She is still around, keeping a watch over the proceedings of our follies from a higher dimension. 

The Croakings of an Old Toad -- 8

 ‘I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute.’

__ William Cowper

۞

‘Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow.’

___ Henry David Thoreau

۞

‘Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.’

__ Henry David Thoreau

۞

‘I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.’

__ Henry David Thoreau

۞

He was cold fire. She was hot ice. So he got summer cold and she winter fever. This happened after a brief spring.

۞

Keep poking the rays of your efforts through the chinks. It’s fruitful even though Thoreau is cautious, ‘The rays which stream through the shutters will be no longer remembered when the shutter is wholly removed.’ But still I feel those harbinger rays have their special place.

۞

Keep evolving and avoid the hard boundaries of concepts, institutions, cemented dogmas and hardened beliefs define you within an impenetrable stone wall. Be like Thoreau when he says, ‘I love a broad margin to life.’

۞

Our ultramodern intellect pushes us into the corridors of folly. As Thoreau says, ‘Up come the books, but down goes the wit that writes them.’

۞

Most of our perceived shortages are in fact our inability to accomplish the intended wastage. It’s not about the real shortages of basic needs. Those who really lack the basic needs are not haunted by the mental spectre of shortages because they are fully into the game of survival, hardly having any time to get mental suffering about the shortages. Those who really suffer—mentally—the shortages are the ones who feel helpless and feel relatively poor because they can’t splurge money like better off people.

۞

‘Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep your own track, then.’

__ Thoreau

۞

Let’s celebrate the Environment Day! Mother earth is the root cause of all our joys. Go close to nature. She needs your healing touch. If Mother Earth stands any chance at all, it lies there if we treat each day of the year as the Environment Day. Everything less than it falls well short the least redemption.

۞

‘Why should I regret my incapacity for details and worldly affairs, when it leads to such pleasant consequences? I don’t regret it therefore.’

___ Mr. Skimpole in Bleak House

۞

The Croakings of an Old Toad -- 7

When things sound messy around, the messier is the brain. We have to start the cleaning operation from inside; otherwise, it becomes an exercise in futility.

When a storm puts dust in your eyes, ruffles the papers on your table, shakes a few things around you, don’t get afraid or apprehensive. Don’t over-read the situation, fella. It just tries to remind us that we need to clean up the things around. As simple as that.

Minor scratches on the skin should not be allowed to bleed your soul. They are tiny cuts; they just vanish like water bubbles. Just a matter of time, at the most.

When you dump a football on the ground, it doesn’t sit on its ass and cry. It enjoys its freedom to go bouncing. Getting dumped, either by life situations or in relationships, is always exciting man. Release.....free flight.....freedom .....eeeh......one ought to celebrate.

A day too long becomes boring. A night too long turns a torture. A relationship that cannot light your face with smile when the lines of worries try to disturb the real, natural beauty of your face has definitely met its expiry date.

Walk out of the clutch-hold of over-cooked, burnt emotions. Life is good. Go for a new lease. Start new without some old burden.

Laugh when you get dumped. It’s auspicious. It augurs well for a great new start. If you just rub your ass with pain and cry, you are simply digging a hole in your own journey.

It’s good to be dumped. It sounds exciting, chatpata like golgappa. To top it, it gives you a chance to ride the back of another exciting start.

۞

Buddhist Sutra (Vimalakirti Nirdesa):

 

In the time of wars and sufferings,

Nurture in yourself the Mind of Compassion

Help and support the living beings

Abandon the will and craze to fight

Wherever there is a fuming battle

Use all your might and power

To maintain both sides’ strength equal

And then step into the conflict to reconcile and bring peace

 

Well, that clarifies why it’s important to supply arms to Ukraine. Because there has to be a line of defense against the Evil, otherwise it will continue creating new fronts. Peace and negotiation are safe behind the strong lines of defense. It’s basically about the strong and the weak on the practical platform in real existence. The concepts of the good and the bad are mind derivatives. So if you find something conceptually good, you have to strengthen it in practice in order to help it survive.

۞

We are the master tricksters. To keep the hypothesis of abundance and material wealth, we basically groom ‘shortages’ of various kinds. If no ever-existing shortages, how will the river of corporations flow? Does a river flow after reaching the sea? So it’s primarily about keeping the needs, desires and aspirations above the things available. Always. It’s never about fulfilling the needs. The trick is in keeping the needs going high and high, so that the pursuit stays there by default.

۞ 

The Croakings of an Old Toad -- 6

 

All through my life, my weakness, born of my fears, insecurities, apprehensions, unwarranted assumptions and vulnerabilities, was taken to be my ‘goodness’. Weakness is a false gem that passes as a costly jewel of goodness most of the time. Similarly, one’s basic strength of character might get condemned as villainy and badness. It’s a slippery eel. The sense of righteousness has a tendency to accept our weakness and incapability as validation of the kind, mushy, nice, egalitarian spirit in us. So when I put myself on this side or the other on some issue, I try to see whether my decision is based on my incapability to do anything in that regard or I’m able to do something but still stop myself from doing that thing because my conscience is stronger and checks me. If it’s fear that stops me then even a theoretically good thing should not be taken as a validation for being good. Real strength is conscience driven. The fake strength, passing off as our goodness, is fuelled by our fears and infirmities of the mind. So shift gears towards mental toughness. If you feel a bit lacking in willpower then watch Manjhi: The Mountain Man. As Dasrath Manjhi, the toiling fakir says: ‘E sala, pathar todne se bhi muskil hai kya? (Is your problem more difficult than breaking the mountain single-handedly) ... Apna rasta khud banao (make your own path across the stony mountain of life) … Bhagwan ke bharose mat baitho, kya pata Bhagwan tumhare bharose baitha ho (Don’t wait for the God to intervene on your behalf, who knows He might be waiting for you to intervene on His behalf).’

۞

Every tree on the earth is now left with a very short-term lease. Some axe has a bigger right to cut down the lease document. Well, the strong have their strength. The weak have their weakness. These are but both qualities to allow the relevance of their respective opposites. So let them keep cutting the trees. Of course, there will be a time when the last tree on earth will fall with a sigh. But one shouldn’t have any doubts about our willpower. We will have another occupation to mass produce oxygen to meet the demands. Another job. We can’t stay idle. We have to have more of factories, occupations, needs, desires. We are basically a snake chucking out its own tail. And finally both the tail and the mouth in a puzzlement who has eaten whom.

Really expedient beings never meet the dead end. Why? Because they have the wings. They just fly to enjoy a more exciting, challenging course of events. The ever-going expansion of the collective free-will.

۞

The Croakings of an Old Toad -- 5

 Let us mix the following:

A donkey’s uncomplaining, mute load-carrying capacity; A dog’s loyal instinct of barking from the master’s side; An elephant’s majestic magnanimity and sense of ease about its power; A lion’s royal prowess; A peacock’s feathery splendour; A nightingale’s musical outpours on a gloomy night.

What do we get?

Just a message: Nature is nothing and everything at the same time.

But there is something that can hold all these panoramic spans of nature. It’s just a good human heart.

۞

So many things that will attract you and put you on the wrong path; so few, on the other hand, to properly guide you for something substantial. I closed one of my eyes to at least half-filter the misguiding abundance; with just one open eye, I tried to spot the guiding flag-posts. But then this sole visual tool over-zealously took long pan-shots at the misguiding signposts. The things that really mattered got mixed up. Guys, it was worse than getting blind or say a total fool. As semi-sighted and semi-fooled species now, I open both my eyes and try for a full status: either a totally blind fool or a full-sighted wise man.

۞

As the war rages in Ukraine, the multiple hues of Petunia try to cheer me up. They beautifully carry the short-lived North Indian spring on their soft petals. March, a beautiful brief interval in the season’s march to hot summers! Beauty is beyond the parameters of ‘brief’ and ‘prolonged’. The same is with life. Blossom fully during whatever moments you get in your innings.

۞

With a handful of mist, I try to pacify the thirst of this burning sand; with an ounce of sulking sweetness in my heart, I try to comfort millions of teary hearts; with a sad fragrance in my spirit, I try to dispel the stenching fumes circling over some nice persons. God, how difficult is the path of being good. The resources for justifying the good in you so few and the requirements so high.

۞

Feel the whole body presence by being conscious of the entire body. Most of the time, we exist in the head only. Spread this awareness through the entire body. This bringing of mind and body together makes you exist in ‘now and here’. It means you are beyond the psychological noose of time and space. In being perfect consonance with the present moment, you liberate yourself from your karmic imprint, which is nothing but a baggage piled up when you aren’t aware of the present moment. We are free from our karmic load only in the present moment. We are maximum vibrant in our being in the present moment. We are utmost alive when we are in the ‘now and here’ mode by being aware of our entire self, not just feeling ourselves in the head. So the present moment is nothing but a harmonious coexistence of mind and body, or the mind awareness spread throughout the body. This is the moment of liberation. The moment you are in the present moment awareness of the entire self, you feel the living force in you. It removes the multiple layers of psychological resistance within. This surrender, this non-resistance, this acceptance gives you unqualified consciousness. This unqualified consciousness is beyond all mental constructs. It’s infinitely bigger than our mind and thoughts. And then dear readers, you are open to the infinite intelligence that filters through the clean window of the present moment. Try it! Everyone is qualified for this present moment enlightenment. It doesn’t need tapasya of decades in the Himalayas. It is available ‘here and now’.

۞

The Croakings of an Old Toad -- 4

 Another war and the same age-old suffering of the innocent people. The spring is bleeding in Europe. Some people can still laugh in the face of such tragedies because their shamelessly open jaw is safe from the missiles that are falling on innocent people. Imagine just a favourable geography turns people so insensitive to the sufferings of others. Beyond ideologies and geographical distances, our heart should bleed for the suffering of the innocent people.

The bad boys of authoritarianism have started punching now. Now Xi Jinping will definitely feel emboldened to do the same in Taiwan, taking inspiration from Putin. Sad days ahead! All I can do is to pray for the innocent people in Ukraine.

Sharing an ‘abstain from vote’ status with China at the UN, on a resolution involving the grossest violation against democratic principles, where the territorial integrity of a sovereign country has been violated, by the largest democracy in the world is being too cautious and surely brings down our democratic status in the eyes of the world.

India should try its best in not sharing any status, even to the extent of becoming a pal in abstaining from vote at the UN, with the biggest authoritarian state that keeps nibbling at our territory. Who will help us when China will barge into Arunachal Pradesh? If somebody thinks Putin will help us keep our nationalistic hyperbole then it’s a gross miscalculation. Further, no geostrategic need should be allowed to dilute the fundamentals of Indian democracy. Abstention from the UN resolution against the Russian invasion of Ukraine is critically unbecoming of a responsible champion of democracy.

Bloodshed has no justification, neither in the past nor now. Groupism and ideologies are mental constructs of collective fear and greed. Will it ever end? When the civilized and the educated people see things in terms of ‘they did it so I do the same’, there is no hope for humanity. Let’s at least condemn violence against innocent people. Every peace-loving person on earth should say no to war in Ukraine. We are small voices but we can put our views on our social media platforms. Little sinewy tributaries make mighty rivers. Our feeble voices will turn the tide against authoritarianism.

On a positive note, about 600,000 Russian people have signed a petition against the war in Ukraine. That speaks the truth. They are the angels of peace! Despite the routine state propaganda, they don’t see it as a matter of nationalistic pride. They see it as a tragedy. And that’s how it should be taken by the outsiders as well. This is a war for the ambition of the few rather than the Russian people. It’s Putin’s war, not Russian war.

As most of us beat and sharpen our own egos on the anvil of pro or against EU - NATO debate, we forget the smaller tragedies of common lives. Strong opinions are huge ego pacifiers, so much so that even the people in distant lands derive a sense of worth through them.

I am a small-time poet and my truth isn’t shaped by the huge hyperboles of ideologies and geostrategic jargon. I am not bothered about bigger bombs of rhetoric. I feel the pain of ordinary lives like me. I look at the conflict from the tiny, tragic sight of a little kid cycling on the road and then being blown to pieces in an instant. A little life snuffed out amidst wagging tongues, bombardment of ideologies and falling bombs.

My mind also tries to influence me, giving me very strong thoughts about this group and that. But then there is a soft murmur in the heart against wars and bloodshed. Don’t allow this tiny sparkle of humanism to be quelled within your breast. That’s the only hope for the imperilled humanity and your individual salvation. Pray for the common lives and condemn war unequivocally wherever it is.

This isn’t Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s merely Putin’s invasion. An authoritarian ruler can’t represent the will of his people. He grabs power. People haven’t given him power. An overwhelming majority of Russians are against this war. Let’s hope the war doesn’t aggravate further and doesn’t burn even the wild spring flowers after snuffing out the dreams of the millions of Ukrainians.

۞

The Croakings of an Old Toad -- 3

 About the number of breaths per minute, a very prominent spiritual guru says that if one’s breath becomes seven, the person comes to know everything that is worth knowing in the game of mother existence. The body turns very stable. In this stillness, there is no rustle. One simply perceives everything. The body still perceives because if not for this one cannot exist. One might not be aware of it, but one’s body perceives precisely the manner the earth’s spinning, what is going in the sun, how and why happenings are going around. As long as one is alive, one’s body keeps adjusting to all this wonderful phenomena.

I don't know how to put it. My breathing rate at rest is seven breaths per minute. But far from feeling the divinity of it, as the great guru says, I feel as restless and ignorant as ever. I mean I remember my journey from 12 breaths/minute to the present rate. But as far as feeling is concerned, it’s the same. The bliss is missing. I still lack that crucial experiential dimension of knowledge. All the knowledge I possess seems theoretical and worthless. The entire set of stuff crammed in the mind is worthless unless one enters the experiential dimension. Till then all are same, be it a doctorate in philosophy or an illiterate beggar.

۞

Try to be a bird that enjoys perching upon the scarecrow itself. In easy lingo, s(h)it on your fears and bury them with the unwanted extras in you.

۞

Do you know who has got the most benign and captivating smile in the world? It’s an old man...blind. His smile is pure...pious. Why? Because he can’t wear a mask. Or rather, he need not. He doesn’t even know what is wearing a mask all about. He shows his real self. He can’t even see others wearing masks. So that helps a lot because most of our deeds are mere compulsive imitation of others. No wonder, he has a genuine smile on a genuine face!

۞

The Croakings of an Old Toad -- 2

 

As Joe, the simple, but true to himself, countryside blacksmith tells Pip, the gentleman in making due to a sudden arrival of fortune, and hence under the weight of great expectations in Dickens’ masterpiece Great Expectations:

‘...life is made of ever so many partings welded together...’

۞

A little light of truth and one’s soul blooms up like a spring flower! I stare at new blossoms for many minutes. It gives inspiration to stay positive and smile more.

۞

Joe, the true-to-himself countryside blacksmith in Great Expectations ‘did his duty in his way of life, and with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a gentle heart.’

۞

Through the harshest phase of the winters, it was a sickly plant, subdued like an old man having aggravated bronchial problems. Then the healer comes in vibrant colours. Father sun sows the seeds of spring around. The plant feels well and says, ‘I'm ok now!’ This little bud is the title of its wellness. Happy spring, little flower!

۞

Some more weekend gifts to my very own dear self! Some books, what else! Shower yourself with self-love! Rest of the issues are mere offshoots of the same.

۞

It’s the Valentine Day. The full-blossomed rose has mother night still kissing her petals through many dewdrops. Young lass and her dewy jewellery! It seems to say: ‘A bright, happy and joyful Valentine day to everyone! Love you all!’

۞

When we talk of this existence as an infinite entity, there has to be some illusionary element in its pattern. Only something dreamy, illusionary has the probability of spreading its spectrum in infinite ways. A specific entity cannot be explained in terms of infinity. Infinity is possible only when we include some illusionary elements in our estimation of the ultimate.

۞

I have seen many people who are good by instinct. Then there are many who at least try to be good after carefully measuring things on the scale of good and bad. The former are a bit more evolved on the basis of past karmas. The latter are a work in process. Everyone around is simply a work in process, a phenomenon.

۞

A rose in the garden has blossomed almost perfectly. It looks welcoming the entire cosmos, opening its scented petals with a welcoming embrace. This is what we call full flowering. Blossoming so much, opening its petals with such joy that disintegration and decay turns a mere soothing further step in one’s blossoming, in being alive. Once you open up fully, bloom totally and live completely, the scattering and disintegration turn meaningless. To be completely alive is beyond the duality of being and non-being. So blossom fully and live completely to perfection. Painless disintegration is possible only when you have used up all life force in blossoming full. It happens when you welcome life with the widest bear hug. This is expansion. Then a playful tug of the gentle air will aid in further expansion. Like the petals of this perfectly blooming rose fly with majestic ease. A drizzle of ecstasy will occur. The petals will fly away to be a bigger part of a larger dimension. The smile doesn’t die. It acquires a broader plane.

The Croakings of an Old Toad -- 1

 An exciting novel about a count politely moving on his courteous path of inherent dignity in the wake of the Russian revolution, Thoreau’s escapades into the nature and the resultant chronicles in Walden, and Eckhart Tolle’s seminal work on the power of ‘Now’. It’s a little treasure on my table: a self-gift to my very own dear self on a wet, gloomy, cold day. Why depend only on others for beautiful gifts? Start viewing your purchases as the gifts to your own dear self. A warm, exciting feeling pervades my mind and heart. I stare at them like a little hungry puppy ogling at a soft piece of meat. Water-mouthed!

۞

One can’t hope to survive as an all-out truth-speaking guy. Remember Jesus, Socrates and many others. These are hard times. Truth (majorly) needs to be supported by falsehood (minorly). A fraction of falsehood pandering the vanity of a little section will save your truth against the ire of the bigger section whom you rib-tickle with the iron fingers of your truth.

۞

Look out for beautiful people around you. They are great in their simple ways. They are exceptional and unique even while they are part of the rutted routine. But they run this world and touch our lives in constructive ways that we hardly realise. As Charles Dickens says, ‘It's not possible to know how far the influence of an amiable honest-hearted duty-going man flies out into the world; but it’s very possible to know how it has touched one’s self in going by...’

۞

Try to stand proud in front of your own conscience first. The rest will follow. As Thoreau sums it up so beautifully: ‘Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.’

۞

Your time is far more important than you ever imagined. Use it, don’t bruise it. As Thoreau says, ‘As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.’

۞

By the diverse sets of cleverest means, most of us arrive at the same set of follies. We are the masters of copying and repetition, even if they are follies. They give us a sense of ‘doing’ something.

۞

The loving ripple of your lips on my cheek! Softest in silky emotion but sturdiest in ironed strength and steely support!

Postscript: Speaking from objective, theoretical knowledge; not from subjective, personal experience. Well, that shows poetry can come from calculating mind as well, not just from a heart caught in emotional whirlwinds.

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Don’t belittle or glorify your series of relative truths. These are no more than mind-created concepts and no less than the shadow of absolute truth when there is still no clue about the final truth. Watch them as no more or less than what they are and they become the stepping stones to the ultimate reality.

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Just into unexpected fortunes, an adolescent Pip, forced into stylish clothes, muses about a simple rural blacksmith in Dickens’ masterpiece Great Expectations:

‘I am conscious that he carried off his rather old clothes much better than I carried off my new suit.’

Playacted niceties are still soulless and genuine rusticity will still have its class and affable spirit. An open falsehood is still better than the pretended truth. Because as another character says so aptly, ‘No varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.’

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Croakings of a Clumsy Frog -- 27

 

How would you expect it to be a peaceful world when there are billions with limited means and unlimited infirmities of mind?

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There are far more nice people in the world than you ever imagined. Badness is overhyped. All we need is to keep our hearts open and beautiful people walk into your life like warm sunshine after weeks of snowy blizzard. Keep your hope alive for there comes a beautiful soul just round the next corner. Keep smiling and keep going. Accept the past. Crying over it only spoils the present and breeds bitterness. Crying over it only spoils the present and breeds bitterness. Double said, intentionally. If the present isn't sweet, it only means you carry too much bitterness from the past. Forgetting isn't easy till we forgive. And forgiveness isn't feasible till one is caught in your fault Vs my fault. Don't dissect the past. That's like taking nice dreams and horrible nightmares to be more substantial than the reality. It consumes too much energy. This is cadaverous addiction, a nasty post-mortem of things that hardly matter now. The past is also overhyped in terms of giving us lessons. The present is the workshop to learn and unlearn and all else. Here and now. Here and now. Here and now. One's ability to be here and now gives the weapon to cut unnecessary karmic entanglement. Present moment awareness is the knife that cuts the nasty mooring that keeps us stuck up in stinking muds, keeping us away from the bubbly stream of life. Awareness of here and now is your weapon to slay these phantoms of the mind.

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We come across wrong people only because we have to walk further on to meet the right people who will share a part of their journey with us. Then further on, these right people also appear wrong. So whatever was right was just in its present form. Ultimately, we realise that the final frontier is to be crossed by us all alone. Never expect companionship to see you home in any relationship. These are mere occurrences like trees and flowers falling on your soul's eternal path. Give them respect, give them attention, give them time and energy, for they also do the same. But don't expect them to be the vehicle of your journey. They are just fellow travellers like you and me. Why be so utilitarian to view travellers as the means of taking you to the destination where you feel you will find it joyful. They can be beautiful milestones in your journey at the most.

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Usually, our vilification and villanisation of someone is merely a desperate attempt to ignore the ugliness in our own persona. I think, if we give just one-tenth of the critical attention that we give to others to our own selves, we will have immense opportunity to smile unconditionally as we walk on our path.

Croakings of a Clumsy Frog -- 26

 

You feel lonely on your path and a stranger comes your way. You both walk and smile and become familiar. And at some turn both of you drift apart. Who won't like to go smiling all the way till the end? But still people drift apart because destination is rarely the same. Pain is natural. Memories also cast long shadows from behind. All one can do is to commit oneself to come as a better, more evolved person if at some turn on the path, faraway in future, you come to walk by the side of that same person. This is what I would say doing justice to one's past without wasting present and losing a sight of the future.

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As Dickens says at some place in Oliver Twist, ‘It's a world of disappointment: often to the hopes we most cherish, and hopes that do our nature the greatest honour.’

But then the maestro gives us our hope back also by saying, ‘This world may be a sad and sorry place, but it's not a hopeless place for it's a place where truth must be learned and souls must be made.’

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If you want to help yourself against blatant lies, stop asking questions to our politicians. Political answers would come out as lies and falsehoods. Almost naturally. So to avoid the mountains of lies adding to its height, avoid asking questions to the politicians.

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Nobody leaves anyone. We are all simply running away from our own deep personal pains. Never forget, usually when two people meet, they are coming together to beat their loneliness and forget their pain. But the intrinsic restlessness stays and people again try to move away from it. The ego construct will always blame the other. These are but our own scars. We can't be a giver in any relationship until we are at peace within. Till then it's a psychological drama of hurt, pain and blame game among unhappy people bumping into each other as tankers. Sorry takers. Hardly any difference between ‘tankers’ and ‘takers’ by the way. I remember myself as a tanker, firing out the vollies of my frustrations, believing others to be the cause of the outpouring, while all along this, the ammunition lay within. And once you realise this, the live-fire ammunition turns damp. It loses its fiery heat. Only our ego keeps it alive. Then the minor irritants, which serve as tiny triggering sparks at the most, fall on a dead heap that's not inflammable. No burning within and you get sips of succour, self-driven solace and restfulness.

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Most of us terribly under-do most of the things in life that should actually be done and over-do the things that should have been avoided. Plain cowardice. Full of imaginary fears. Fear is the soul of a cowardly, curtailed life. As Dickens says, 'I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.'

Croakings of a Clumsy Frog -- 25

 

Pre-script: Female readers kindly replace ‘She’ by ‘He’.

Gibran: She was fashioned with the gentleness of the dove, the evasiveness of serpents, the vanity of the peacock and the cruelty of the wolf.

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Life can be tricky,

if even about the simplest issues

you are too frisky,

Prudence is to be at ease with situations and time,

Complications then wouldn't chime,

And days would pass like a free rhyme!

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Poetry died a long time ago, the real poetry. Now it's pseudo-poetry just like we abound in so many pseudos. Things stand in letter only now, as we have slaughtered the spirit. We are lesser humane now, so our muscled, hardened, tainted emotions fall short of conveying that unstigmatized purity that found outlet through this great art. Sad but that's true. Change for more complexity is inevitable. May be there were still purer times than the pristine days of classical poetry. Maybe development is inversely proportional to goodness.

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The potted rose has surely given it all it had for Mother Nature. Its branches droop with the sweet flowery bunch-loads of roses. Fullest expansion is painless dissolution. Fullest being is non-being itself. A life harnessed to the full is griefless death. Isn't a tree just mother earth expanding and this air merely further expansion of the tree? Live and blossom so fully that you explode with ecstasy instead of burning to painful oblivion. And what are the fuels of this painful burning? These are the things that hold us back, preventing our fullest expansion. Fear is the primary roadblock. It breeds many other offshoots like anger, hate, jealousy, greed, judgements. Smile, laugh and explode with ecstasy like this rose does!

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It's a wonderful symmetry of spider web among the guava leaves. In the foggy morning, it looks a beatific beady design with the dew-strings drawn to perfection. Homosapiens please don't be too proud of what you create. The littlest of players in the existential game create far more complex designs in their individual capacity. Most of our creations are an offshoot of the mankind's joint imagination and effort. What a spider does is equivalent to one man making Eiffel tower. An ant carrying a huge dead carpenter ant is equal to a man carrying an elephant on his head. So please let out the extra air of pride in the stomach. All this drama around is primarily self-manifesting.  It's a series of self emerging designs and patterns. We just hop around for some time as a tiny part of some design in some corner.

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It's a little story of 6 inches and 7 months in a corner of the existential game. It’s a little sadabahar flower that set out to etch its destiny in a little crack in a plastered wall about 6 feet from the ground. She was born in the killing heat of June in this little crack in the wall. Well, one can't choose where one lands at birth, so no point in complaining. In the killer heat she kept her little self alive, waiting for the rains to come. There is no point in comparing. There are plants of her species who have entire earth to themselves and grow in feet. She but managed the best with her little crack. The rains came. She blossomed to get her sole flower as the trophy of her passion for life. Now the hard winters are buffeting the surroundings. There she stands tall in her smallness, waiting patiently for one fine spring morning when the sunrays will have enough warmth for another smile. Her few inches carrying the worth of many feet in normal circumstances. Her sole flower carrying the gist of fragrance and smile worth hundreds of flowers. Well, that's the hallmark of a meaningful life: Do the best with whatever you have received to begin with.

Croakings of a Clumsy Frog -- 24

 

Most of the time, we are self-charged on the grand mission of aggravating our own miseries. We are suitably helped all along by our ability to hold onto the master illusion that others are responsible for all the shit flying around in our lives.

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Thus spoke a little flake of cloud over a cosy valley in small hills:

A dole out from the infinite unmanifest to the finite manifest, I am just a tiny speck of cloudy phenomenon casting its shadow in a little valley. From the unbound infinity to cosmos to solar system to Earth atmosphere to this little fleeting shadow, I am simply a ripple, a pulsating, throbbing little presence through which the whole feels its own being!

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Democracy needs champions, says President Biden. And who is a champion? It's the one who fights for a cause without much calculations about the possible fallouts. Unfortunately, neither the world’s largest nor the world’s most powerful democracy fit the tag of being a champion for democracy. The biggest threat to democracy right now is the CCP (Communist Party of China) authoritarianism. Little Lithuania is indeed a champion of democracy. It’s the only country that has officially recognised Taiwan at the cost of being cornered by the fuming dragon. My conviction has never wavered that democracy is the best among the worst forms of governance. It has its limitations but still has enough space to allow an individual to nurture decent amount of dignity and independence of spirit. I also believe in one China. But I view mainland China as part of Taiwan, not vice versa. Authoritarianism has to fall inevitably. It’s almost a natural law. It comes with its own undoing. So there will be a day when there will be a unified democratic republic of China. And no wonder, it will then be among the best nations on earth in the real sense of it. Don't feel sceptical about it. This probability is surer than any other reality. It's only about time. Till than we can take inspiration from the little champion of democracy, Lithuania.

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Maybe I was feeling a bit bigger than my skin, the very same human tendency to be proud and vain. And instantly mother existence makes me realise my real status. Standing near a clump of ferns, a few mosquitoes hovered around me and one of them nicely settled for a little feast. I am also a food for some other constituent of existence, I realise. Nearby, a rockchat snaps up a carpenter ant from the ground. Well, it's nice to be reminded that apart from whatever notions I have about my being and significance, I am also a mosquito feed.

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Don't be too serious about anything, as Charles Dickens says, ‘The trifles make the sum of life.’

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The marigold leaves are a bit dull among the bright blossoms. They look dusty and need bathing, I realise. I sprinkle some water over them and they immediately say thanks through a soft, gentle fragrance wafting around me, embracing me, strengthening my solitude, adding to the smiles in my life, further calming down my nerves and say, ‘All is well because we are nothing but your very own smile!’

Croakings of a Clumsy Frog -- 23

 

The beautiful bunch of roses showers its petals on the ground after the heartiest of blooming. Joyful dissolution of the self! A flower blooms up fully. Opens its heart to the elements around. Draws every ounce from its potential to smiles and fragrance. Opens up completely. And then painless dissolve! This dissolution is further expansion only. Now the petals fly around in a broader dimension. Beautiful, self-surrendered parts of its previous existence now lie scattered as pious homage to mother earth. That is the purpose of life. We have to give back something better than what we took. That is evolution, expansion. Like this flower offers fragrance and smiles to mother earth in return for the sunshine, soil and moisture. The sole purpose of our existence is to be a better version of ourselves.

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A hybrid rose can have nice colour and exquisite design but it lacks the basic essence of a flower, which is ‘fragrance’. The beauty is skin deep, a mere cosmetic effort at the surface. It's haughty and arrogant, a kind of constriction within itself, an insecurity, a fear, an aloofness, a separation. The soul is missing. They seem too self-absorbed. Like the apparently classy, well polished gentry. They stand with touch-me-not attitude. And the bees and butterflies stay away. They find it totally unapproachable.

The marigolds, on the other hand, are little humble, down to earth flowers. They aren't showy. They are common looking. But they have a soul, a depth, a delicate fragrance. Most importantly, they have nectar to offer to the butterflies and bees. With their openness and genteel receptivity, they are buzzing with little winged insects. They have broader connection to life and living. I can feel their soul through their soft fragrance as I sit by them. They exist in a dimension where they touch many chords in my heart.

Sadly, the smell-less hybrid roses are as distant and soulless as a mere picture, beautiful without the splendour of life in it, or a well designed set of plastic flowers.

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It happened 12 years back in Delhi. The moment still stands out somehow. Some brief moments carry far more significance than months and sometimes even years. Hazy darkness outside the railway station. A friar approached me with mystical pride and spiritual pomp. He asked for alms (which can be money only, given the times we are living in). I found myself offering him 10 rupees. A Gentleman verbally poked me for my meekness and abetment of begging. The friar shot back, ‘Do you think it's only about money. If you think so, take this!’ He proffered a 100 rupees note. The gentleman had to beat a retreat. The friar smiled at me and melted into the crowd after blessing me.

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If you have time and softness to plant flowers, take some moments to appreciate their beauty once they blossom up. Needless to say, always spare time for your children once you have taken time to produce them.

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If you are hurrying and a tree's branch braces against your head or face, don't get irritated. It's merely a soft greeting asking you to be restful. Accept it. You can run fast and still be at rest within. What else is meditation? It's the ability to be still within even while you are walking or dispensing what life needs you to do in order to survive.

Croakings of a Clumsy Frog -- 22

 

Dear friends, if life isn't making much of a sense then give an ear to the Voice Inside. Forget about the hoot and holler emanating from the world outside. It simply adds to the confusion. Give an ear to the soft and murmurous cooings emanating from the soul. It has a soft and sympathetic message for you only, your most personal message, meant only for you. Listen to these delicate chimes. It’ll help you in finding peace in chaos. In getting a foothold in the stampede. In feeling rest, repose and respite in the face of constant buffeting by the world around. It’ll help you in breaking the hardest of superficial layers, which suffocate and limit your identity. And put you face to face with your true self, your real worth.

Listen to it, close your eyes and pay attention with all your heart. Just for a change, don’t look far, look closest at yourself. It’ll be as uneventful as looking at a dust particle around your feet. But it changes the universe for you. You will have the biggest message in the softest of whispering phrases! It’ll help you in finding yourself. Happy self-seeking! God bless us all!

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Why does truth pinch most of the time? Simple! Because it is no chocolate, sugar candy or mellowable sweetie-pie lump of ice cream. It is a hard, sour, iron ball guys. It has pinching rough stony edges to its surface. Come into contact with them and they will take a few flakes from your skin, leaving a red or purple bruise depending on the intensity of truth contained in it. Now the question arises, 'Why does it almost always leave a grimace on our face instead of a smile?' The simple fact that all of us almost always rub cold shoulders against this ironed ball having thorns for our soft skin, proves one fact: We are not subjectively inclined to accept the objective reality as it stands in abstract. But does not that mean that we have moved poles apart from truth and its manifestations, while going on the path of individual and collective improvisations at the subjective level. May be the reason for our success in emerging at the top of the food chain in the game of 'survival of the fittest' is that we have institutionalized ourselves to negate and defy, and do without, certain basic truths that form the core of creation and nature. Nothing wrong with that. It, however, is paradoxical that most of these scions of truth—against which we have always been taking cudgels—form the core of our moral, humanistic, religious, spiritual and aesthetic vision enshrined in preach books. Strange!

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Look far away into the mists but always watch your next step also. Take a step, take a pause then and look into the distances before the next step. And never forget to go slow. It allows a healthy balance of sight, observation, dreams and imagination. You enjoy the journey and don't bother about destination. Most importantly, moving on from the past is usually a far better journey than you ever imagined!

Croakings of a Clumsy Frog -- 21

 

Guys, individual freedom has always remained a fundamental ideal since the historical times. However, it is not to be achieved by casting off all society and civilization or by going back to a so-called 'natural state'. The perfection of man, his freedom, his liberty, his happiness, and the growing mastery of his own destiny, all are dependent upon a clear understanding of certain laws of nature and society. We have to accept that both nature and society have worked according to these laws to enable us to get the idea of this so called 'freedom'. So the pursuit of the interest of the baby should not turn us blind to the interests of the mother.

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Many a thing changed over the centuries. In fact, almost everything changed to take a completely different shape and connotation. But the religious differences are the same. They seem beyond the pale of time. Blood-shedding and hate in the name of religion is the same. Isn’t it high time that the world community starts dismantling the hold of exclusivist religious principles on people and states?

It is the time for an all-inclusive world religion, the religion of all humanity, humanism. It can have Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Hindu and other major Gods and deities of other sects in its fold. The main issue is how do we convince the beholders of Puritanism in various religions, particularly the fundamentalist Islamists, to see beyond the rigid confines of their unchanging tradition.

Most of the religions are melting under the warm sun of internationalism. But the medieval icy blocks in the stream of fundamentalist Islam are holding their archaic laws and principles solidly crystallized like the polar snows. The question is, will Islam ever be lenient to the non-Muslims? Modern Islamists will have to dismantle the institutionalized psyche among the Muslim masses against the kafirs and welcome non-discriminatory universal brotherhood as His Holiness Prophet Mohammad envisioned.

World peace and harmony depends on this question. If internationalism succeeds to liberate humanism buried under religious fanaticism, we can expect to have a peaceful world following the religion of humanism. In any case, religion has to be systematically dismantled to lay the foundation of a common world. China will attempt to do it with its atheist state policy. But that will turn this world a big jail. Better that it’s done under democratic principles.

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Most of the time, our hate for someone is merely an instrument to undo and hide our own guilt about the incidents and happenings, which took us to a point of unbridgeable differences with that person. Hate is a very convenient tool. It’s fuelled by anger. With the tools of hate and anger, it’s very easy to put all the blame on someone else for the fallouts. In our own court, the hammer of hate and anger sets our conscience free, while holding the other party culpable for all the wrongs that have befallen.

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All of us want to leave a mark on the running water and blowing air. And all of us fail. Only this unquenchable urge wins. But then maybe a bit of laziness is what we need after all this burnout. Slowing down helps in avoiding the explosion, both individual and collective. We have run too blindly and now stare at the edge of a blind drop. Treading carefully will save us. Walk slow and with poise.