The sage

 

He was not friendly with alphabets and numbers. But the free-flowing shapes and colors of life seemed very friendly and familiar to him.

He was in love with the book of life, an avid scholar of it. Enormously elaborate was his understanding of life. Like a curious child he pursued and played with the invisible, trackless toys of mother existence.

No fallacious intercession by the razor-sharp logic and reasoning honed by books.

The spellbinding balance in his approach!

Friendly with the brisk gaiety of free-flowing laws of nature.

Magnificent profusion of wisdom naturally downloading into his system.

And he absorbing all of it like a teen in the healthy throes of lustrous adolescence.

Soft, pliable self untouched by the fiery glint and fierce possessiveness of borrowed knowledge. A solidly sculpted self. A new-risen tapestry in the infinite fabric of cosmos. A softly sparkling interlude rhythmically gleaming in the dark ignorance of customized knowledge. A richly mellowed self. A soft bloom looking at everything with an enigmatic clarity.

Although unlettered he looked a natural scholar, a very wise man who knew and understood things human and natural which most of the educated people would miss.

He proved in his little capacity—that one can learn the fundamentals of life and living in the open rolling vineyards of nature. And that there are always less known colors of life which are beyond the reach of even the wildest guesswork churned out by an educated mind.

A romantic balladeer he bucked the trend that only books and degrees show you truth, make you wise, prepare you for the survival fight on earth.

The cunning paradox

 

In the lonely courtyard of being, where plain paper’s desolation listens for the first breath of meaning.

A purling, gnawing restlessness. A haunting mysteriousness. Insistent. Persistent. Rock solid with its uncompromising illusions.

The love-lotus in the life-lake trembles. Beatific, pampering, unfading. Claiming authentic affiliation with divinity, purity, piousness.

It sways, titillated by the waves of wicked, wild lust, as if desire itself were a dark mantra whispered by time. Seeking divinity in rag dolls. The curly headed cherub, carrying his train of lusty entreaties, striving to put life and excitement in her rag-dolled, impassive self.

From its quivering stem rise fruitless fantasies—visions so fragile they appear next to miraculous, vanishing even as they are born. These futuristic amalgamations of flesh and foresight drift like omens, silently heralding a controversy between instinct and illumination.

Notwithstanding humanely institutional interludes—schools, scriptures, ceremonies—man remains basically a beast, evil’s epitome disguised in scriptural eloquence. Mud and filth slinging from lusty skin hidden under striped jersey and quilted jacket. The pock-marked face hidden under a fleecing, lisping mask. Vapid smell doused under clouds of stabbing absurdity of deodorant and perfumes.

Beneath the polished rituals of virtue, there is a gruesome mushrooming of appetite, ancient and insatiable.

Even the aquiline educationist, hawk-eyed and ascetic, senses the unhealed rift: the goldsmith’s preciously precise way, coaxing perfection from fire and patience, and the ironsmith’s grossly wholesome way with metal, striking truth into shape through sweat and thunder.

Between these two rites, the human spirit is forged—half prayer, half wound—forever oscillating between what it dreams itself to be and what it cannot cease becoming.

The auspicious art of acceptance

 

I give a big bear hug to all that is, was or will be—a holistic acceptance. The gentle courage of approving all dimensions of my existence—past, present and future.

Carrying an emotional hospitality; enjoying life in the pulsing pause between memories and desires. Because that’s how my body and mind’s biological apparatus—brain—operates to give me a concoction of emotions from the saddest to the happiest.

I take little sips of mammoth wholeness by being in touch with existential totality without the erasure of what happened to me in the past, what constitutes me now and what will become of me in future.

A graceful allowance for vulnerabilities, flaws and fragilities because that’s the scaffolding for strength, power and success. The making of most of my time—by holding it without any grievance, through unresisted presence, by a gentle witnessing of the self. And in the process, making peace with my own becoming. Accepting the dignity of what has happened to me in the past; carrying soft consent to impermanence in the present; holding my dreams for future alive, vibrant and fresh.  

I’m in acceptance of this leela that pulls the individual cart of my existence. I won’t judge my past or future at the cost of the present. A silent reconciliation with time and embracing the unfinished. That’s what pulls my creativity, my urge to be, become something more, something extra, something unique. To be a creator—a radical as well as gentle assent to being.

I carry the steak of this marvelous expansion of mother existence from my end. I just give a huge bear hug to all that was, is and will be on my path. That defines my life. That gives one more little line of cosmic expansion from my end.

Let’s celebrate our body and one of its states of being—mind. Let’s accept the body’s ways of survival through reflections about the past, present and future. Why belittle one at the cost of the other?

This is a lovely leela. Colorful. And it happens because there is this beautiful quality of the human brain to enable our body to be shoved in multiple dimensions. That gives poetry, art, science, and all that we witness around us. It is the driver of all this thoroughfare. Enjoy it. Let all this happen. In total acceptance is liberation from all this, not in negation.

That’s how I enjoy the sweet tension of being in the present moment as an admirer of life, letting it arrive as it is; stable with a feeling of being at home in all this apparent flux.

The pilgrim paying homage to the past, reverent attention to the present and graceful allowance and compassionate continuity for the future.

A musing monkey and a meditating monk

 

A musing monkey and a meditating monk are simply two of the aspects of ‘being’ among the infinite ways of ‘being’ in mother existence.

I celebrate life and its varied colors. I enjoy the musing monkey tricks of my own self (which I take as the mind, an all-pervading entity coursing through my psychosomatic system). I feel the joy of its calmer version as well—the meditating self.

To me mother existence is like a rose plant—lovely fragrant flowers, leaves, thorns, hard stem, roots, earth. Will the flower exist without the thorns?

There is a unity of being. One aspect supports the other. A musing and gleeful monkey is, somewhere and somehow, the cause (as well as the effect) of a meditating monk and vice-versa. The main thing is the celebration of life.

I enjoy the spectacle of musing and jumping monkeys. Watching their antics is a funny game. I deeply respect meditating monks—stable, peaceful people, carried by a cosmic frequency to bloom as flowers in their lovingly isolated (but subtly united) selves. But at a deeper level, these flowers are also the gist of the pain of many thorns. A thing of beauty is joy forever and for all. So let’s pay our respects to the meditating monks. But let us also take time to enjoy (and be) musing monkeys also. Because in the endless fabric of interconnected existence, musing monkeys and meditating monks are two faces of the same coin.

Basically, I feel like a bee musing over varied flowers (even thorns) taking sips of the nectar that I need both for physical necessity as well as the need born of the aesthetic hunger. It feels good to be able to appreciate something in everything. It gets you a kind of fluidity and flow in life.

Somehow, I don’t feel like getting cast in the strict mould of a particular ideology, belief system or sect. In my opinion, being cast in a particular belief system sets up a kind of rigidity around one’s existence. But it’s obviously one’s sovereign choice and rightly so.

We should never judge and compare. Every ounce of this existence is unique and that’s what makes it marvelous and miraculous, yet so simple and innocent at the same moment.

There should be absolutely no problem if you feel comfortable in a solitudinal space, which you work out for yourself with single-minded focus, ironclad determination and steely willpower. So my dear monks, hats off to you!

I really appreciate and bow down to those who show marvelous perseverance in setting up an oasis in their life while walking through a harsh desert. It’s like striving for the full flowering of the self. It’s as good for the others as it’s for the self. Isn’t a flower meaningful and helpful to so many lives—to the artist, to the bees, to a child? Isn’t an oasis a source of joy and life to many weary travelers who take rest in it after struggling the sandstorms in the desert?

So let’s celebrate this life, this marvelous interplay of forms, shapes, emotions and thoughts born of the same sea of energy, the ripples in the same sea. Let’s enjoy this innocent skirmish between two ripples—a mediating monk and a musing monkey.

There are no lessons to be drawn from this innocent interaction, no philosophy to be churned out, no morals to be spun out. Because these are mere slightly different paths of two seekers on their own journeys. Two waves crashing into each other playfully before moving on to take many other forms in the lap of Father Sea.  

The perennial learner

 

Life is only about learning and continuous improvement. It’s just an ever-going journey. There is no final frontier. It’s just a little journey starting from nowhere and ending the same way. But in the meantime we get an opportunity to manifest more dimensions, colors and shapes of mother existence by leading a purposeful life.

As you present yourself to learn the chapters of life, you automatically take a turn to be a better version of yourself. That’s what the evolutionary forces of mother nature expect from you.

The game of learning and evolving is open for both lettered and unlettered enthusiasts of life. The book of mother nature has infinite lessons subtly expressed in the form of lovely seasons, trees, flowers, plants, animals, birds, clouds and scores of mundane happenings in the daily life of common people on a perfectly normal day.

Just smile and accept what life has to offer even while you are facing the testy atmospherics of fate. Don’t be touchy and sour with nerves taut on the verge of breaking with a twang. Be wholly there, fittingly orchestrating new avatars of your previous version. Be freshly awakened at each new dawn. Go diligently reading the script of life scene-by-scene.

Be someone who is replete with a sense of humor and most of the frowning wrinkles of life vanish of their own. Flow with the fairly cozy flow of the scented spring air and the bad odor of tough circumstances loses its effect on you. Feel the warmth of summers and the pinching rigidities of pain melt automatically. Feel the cool brace of winters and the hot lava of suffering loses its singe on your skin. 

I read, write, travel and observe small-small things with the curiosity of a small boy. I basically read books to learn and understand writing, which makes it ‘studying’. That makes me a student for life, an avid reader of the book of life. There is so much to read and learn each day and in each line of daily occurrences taking place around me.

As an Indie author, I have always strived to learn more and more about writing, editing, composition of pages, designing, making cover pages and marketing. I own my self-published books in totality. When I hold them, it gives me a feeling as if I’m holding my baby.

And now for some time I’ve been trying my hand at making my website of my own. It’s a tentative effort, pretty amateur but believe me it’s real fun.

So dear readers keep trying, keep learning. And very soon you will find yourself standing in your lovely self-created garden.

All (is/was/will be) well

 

Life is beautiful. Life is beautiful because we can remember the ‘past’, which brings sometimes a smile, sometimes a tear, sometimes anger, sometimes empathy, sometimes hope and gloom sometimes.

Life is also beautiful because we can imagine a future. It may create insecurities and fears sometimes, but it also gives dreams, hopes, the drive, the urge to move ahead.

Life is beautiful because I’m present ‘now’. From ‘here’ I can look back to the past and then to the future. The ‘now’ bracketed within these undervalued entities—past and future—is what drives and pulls this marvelous, challenging, exciting expansion of mother existence around us.

Our ‘now’ gets stretched in two directions. And that moves things. That means life is going on in all the ways that are there for it to flow and acquire multiple dimensions. Great art, great creations, great innovations, everything is driven by this tantalizing, teasing pull of the ‘now’ by the ‘past’ and the ‘future’.

I’m no sage but I know the value of ‘now’. I also know the value of the past and the future. All these are lovely dimensions of my being. I feel that I can’t exist without the lovely interplay among these three elements.

My brain, my body (which is just the envelop of my mind) have this feeling of existence in a condensed form, my identity, only because I can exist in three layers—past, present and future. I don’t judge any one of them at the cost of others. I’m in acceptance of all three—all that was, all that is, all that will be. A wholesome bear hug to my existence.

Why should I fight with my past? Why should I try to turn away from future? Why should I deliberately try to be just ‘present’ in the ‘now’? My brain, my mind (that’s my entire body) are a product of many biological processes taking place within me. My consciousness has evolved on earth, this tiny speck of dust in the universe.

This exciting, exacting, joyful, painful churning between these three dimensions of my existence defines my life. I give them all a big bear hug. All are great in their own ways. I don’t compartmentalize them. Why should I? They are part of what I think and feel myself to be. They are what that stretches a tiny line of my existence, to allow me to be, become and be still more. They give me these beautiful emotions varying across the spectrum drawn between sadness and happiness. They drive my creativity. They define me. They are me. I let them be. And try myself just to be.

When I’m in the past, I just am. When I’m in the future, I just am. O what lovely elements! They give me poems, articles, novels and stories. They give me my life. They fuel me. I keep my tank full of them. My fuel. And my fuel is a lovely cocktail of past, present and future.

There I move on my own unique path with my exquisite formula, unique philosophy—past, present and future are equally great in their own ways. We just have to give them a big bear hug.

Thoughts are things

 

With every thought you make a new mind, and as a direct consequence, almost parallel with it, a new body. It’s a new you with each thought. So learn to think in linearity with personal growth and evolution; in spontaneity with life-sustaining natural functions taking place within you, with their own intrinsic trait of minding their own business.

For example, the second brain, the gut brain (having 50 million nerve cells and its enteric nervous system) is capable of minding its business almost independently of the brain’s central nervous system. The latter has to provide emergency push through its system of nerves when we put extra pressure on ourselves through anxiety, fear and nervousness.

Just feel the harmony, rhythm and sovereignty of life force within.

It’s rather unfortunate that you, with this feeling of being the over-concerned owner of all these automatic processes, put unnecessary pressure on so many biological processes minding their own business. We disturb myriads of natural functions going smoothly within us through over-thinking and random thoughts and emotions. The latter switching on the emergency measures available through the central nervous system.

The entire system works the best when there is no bombardment of unnecessary thoughts or overbearing emotions. The less they are, the smoother the flow of life within. That’s where all meditation techniques point to. An eased-up, relaxed state of being like a tranquil pond where one’s anxious self, with its overbearing thoughts and emotions, isn’t throwing pebbles in the water.

Just sit down and feel yourself present in the entire body, not just in the head. When we are feeling ourselves just in the head, we are concentrating a weight of clogged energies, which unleash various hormones that switch on the emergency mode for their corresponding organisms. It’s like an angry person himself hastening his own destruction.

So dilute your feeling of being in the head only; sit, walk, work, drive while feeling your entire body doing the same. It’s a lovely process of melting the ego; a tender technique to facilitate a gentle flow of energy in the system. You harness the art of an awareness and acknowledgment of the entire processes within you. An acceptance of their unacknowledged, selfless service for your (the you in the head) cause. The heavy-headed, pointed, weighty existence spreads to acquire a broader area. Of course you feel light, eased-up and relaxed.

It’s a habit basically. The more one goes into it, the more he gets rid of the unmaking, disturbing thoughts and emotions which disturb the autonomic functioning of the biological processes in the human system.

Hone the art of just being present in the entire body. It sends a soothing wave of awareness. A gentle spread of just being. It naturally happens when all the biological processes in the body are functioning at their optimum level. One grooms prodigious patience. It stalls the process of one’s hopes getting devoured by despair. Accidental living and conflicting providences slowly leave their grip on your fate.  

A little step to be a big creator

 

I exert myself to actualize my potential not for acceptance, applauds, rewards or recognition. I write and create basically to free myself from the rolling convulsions of my own fears, illusions, warring thoughts, assumptions and limiting conditioning. My endeavor to create something fresh, or for that matter all art, is primarily a process. It’s not a destination. It’s a path to liberate myself from what limits me. It’s a small pathway leading from a stern, haggard look to a healthy smile.

It’s also not something abstract, limited to my own self. I’m part of the collective as well. Every creation in this world will have at least one genuine appreciator to whom the creation would feel like her own, who will feel she is absolutely in harmony with the meaning coming out of that creation. This is as much her creation as the creator’s.

After my smaller self’s integration with the larger self within—which sows the seeds of creativity—the crop (art) blooms and harvesting is sharing it with the world outside. It’s never about money and numbers. It’s only about sharing. Creation itself is sharing. One feels overjoyed and rejuvenated. The heart that once shuddered and contracted now opens up.

A piece of art is a decorous and dignified outreach to the forces of cosmic creation. A joyous convulsion by mother creation. Its potential was always there in you but the moment you actualize it, give it a specific shape, you directly share it with the world.

As a creator you gracefully add to the lazily cantering cavalcade of life. So as a creator be not cumbered either with praise or condemnation from yawning, fuming critics or fawning fans. If you allow yourself to be affected by either positive or negative comments on your work, the stream of creativity meets a dead-end. The colors, scent and elegiac vision get diluted from your creation. The work stands shorn of its inherent purity. A piece of lost purity it becomes.  

The tiny escape route

 

A herd of sheep running away from imagined wolves. But then it gets bored with its fear as well and then the driver of the run takes another shape. It becomes imagined pastures. The latter again changes to some other imagined predator, which again shifts to become imagined water pool.

As a herd we are mostly running away, maniacally assailed by unbreakable predicaments, from our imagined fears towards imagined security. Very rarely we are resting balanced between fears and security.

It’s a meaningless stampede. Our impulses rampantly pushing us like rocket fuel in the mad rush. Logic, sanity, reasoning all clouded by panic hormones. So difficult to see beyond the cloud of dust.

The horde unconsciously christened for meek, blind followership. The large brood forever ignorant of the hitherto inaccessible pools of views, thoughts, emotions and creativity. Little brats stuck up in the much studied and much hyped syllabus of stupidity, the tools of hatching a stilling insularity from the bubbling potential of human evolution.

But the solution is just a step away. We can step out on a quite by-lane. It’s always round the corner, an individual by-lane, always there for you. It pursues you. It’s quite loyal. All you have to do is to accept the invitation. And step in. Everything changes. Just being aware of this by-lane is as good as expiating the voluntary, involuntary sins. It saves you from unquestioning servitude to impulses and reactions.

The clouds of collective phobias and mass dose of opium of illusionary elements of security are too big to pursue you and enter this quiet, narrow by-lane. Here you have to deal with little entities of individual fears and illusions. You are too big for them. You easily overpower them because you are well poised and not running away from hallucinatory hounds.

Once you see the light of your own little truth, you pass the test. Then you can easily come out to the main boulevard of life. Then you will be walking even in a stampede without getting pushed or crushed.

Well, that’s a miracle. Isn’t it? And be sure that it happens that way. You become a stable walker even in this worldly stampede. The snorts, grunts and confounding rigors of life hardly leave you shaking with fear like a rabbit.

Be aware of the patterns that control your life

 

We need to be careful of patterns in our life. They draw us into comfort zones; into easy choices. Yes, it begins with our response to certain situations in life. But most of our apparent responses are mere repetitive reactions basically born of our fears and insecurities. They are just escape mechanisms. Under their spell we start screeching with the searing passion of parakeets on their favorite tree.

A pattern thus consolidated over a period of time becomes the mainstream of our life in which all the tributaries—our assortment of attributes, talent and skills—flow into and lose their significance. Believe me, it’s disservice to life. It’s falling into a hypnotic claustrophobia with a foolish smugness and taking it to be the proof of our realistic, logical hold on life. It’s heretical to one’s true self and real, almost infinite potential. 

Under the influence of a powerful pattern in life, we feel there is stabilization, but in reality it’s our acceptance and surrender to one pattern, one push. It has popular appeal and cherished theme. As a wide-eyed, shy and introvert boy, lanced by an entire array of pre-teen fantasies, the solidly patterned person stops evolving towards maturity, wisdom and creativity.

The masterful masquerade of mediocrity. The paying propositions by the pauperizing king of misers, the hypnotic pattern. No wonder, life becomes one-dimensional under the rule of populist potentate.

So we need to routinely analyze the predominant patterns of our individual life. Test them. Critically evaluate them. Dissect them. Once we do that, we open ourselves to multifold choices and opportunities on a broader plain of existence.

Most of the time, a pattern well analyzed and remedied accordingly leads us to a still more superior pattern. That’s inevitable. It’s as per the cosmic law of evolution. So start asking yourself about the major patterns in your life. Study your patterns of thoughts, reactions, fears, insecurities, anxieties, comfort zones, greed, lust and relationships.   

The little seed of sin

 

The seed has the potential to blossom into an entire forest. Similarly, little-little ticks and mites of tiny lies, small tricks, miniscule cheatings and puny short-cuts are the seeds of big forgeries and criminalities.

They look harmless in their tiny grainy avatar. But they germinate, grow and evolve drawing sustenance and nutrition from our ill-advised ego, the dark shade of survival through any means. The little mischievous opportunists get clandestinely cosseted in our moral fabric to eat it like termites over a period of time.

Spurred by an exorbitant spree of insecurities, the wild growth develops and takes possession of our persona. With the passage of time, small saplings grow into big ones. Bigger lies become tolerable. Larger illegalities don’t strike as vulgar and bad. They seem natural steps that one has to take in the name of practicality and convenience.

The seed hands over its potential to the tree. Becomes a tree. A natural evolution. The small saplings of immorality grow and cover the conscience.

So it’s essential to be mindful of the tiny seeds. Watch your little steps of short-cuts and tiny, selfish facilitations. It comes as an innocent child, but grows into a big bully and changes the course of your entire journey.

Among all your amiably performed squabbles take the pill of this humble advice on an empty stomach and go through the day conscientiously.

The entangled mirages of the mind

 

We always have a highly exaggerated sense of problems, tough situations and challenges. Our primal fears and insecurities stretch the minor possibilities of negatives to make them babbling pools of consternation and imaginary worst-case scenarios.

Highly exaggerated assumption of problems acquires the shape of a wall between us and the people over there. Testily we lose trust in people. In the throes of approbation, we glutter and stutter and become so insecure that we feel ourselves to be at everyone’s target around us.

This is plain paranoia. A causeless encumbrance. The journey quavering and the path trackless. Smothered by impulses the journeyman gasps for the air of truth (reality).

Just look into the past experiences of your life, you will find that mostly we acted on the impulse of being defensive or offensive imagining the worst-case scenario. But our ego will take credit that by acting in that manner we nullified the chances of that common threat from acquiring a nasty shape.

The simple fact is—we imagine a disproportionately big problem or situation and then we take credit for that thing not happening.

It’s all in the mind. Balance is the way out, as Buddha says. Balance will tell us to be cautious to what extent. It helps in having a realistic and logical threat assessment. Then our system doesn’t go into an overdrive due to the panic-button’s trigger.

I know it’s very difficult to beat these impulses. But we can practice to remember that most of the time our fears are overblown; that things are pretty normal most of the time after the brief sandstorms. Situational sandstorms are the moments that need a pause and composure with eyes closed. Haggard, impulsive and stifled look doesn’t help. There is no need to eat dust and getting blinded by the sand. The sandstorms surely die. Just remember this.     

Things aren’t tangled generally. They are just slightly out of order. Like the cord or chain of the necklace or amulet worn around one’s neck. Just a tiny incongruity. Meagerly abashed. It’s our chaotic effort that turns a slightly tricky loop into an irresolvable knot by randomly, indignantly pulling from chance directions. Chaos and disorder born of just pulling by chance. If we just hold it and allow it to untangle itself, it falls into place by itself.

Similarly, most of the time, the seemingly tough situations are simply slightly tricky loops. It’s we who pull at them randomly and discordantly, driven by impulses and reactions, and turn them into tight knots which are very difficult to undo.

An apparently tangled cord has very small wrong turns. But our reactionary effort, plentitudes of vexations, assortment of anxieties, faculties prostrating to the imagined fears, fearful fancies and silly suppositions put it into very tight knots and mess it up.     

Undirected freedom: the agent of atrophy

 

If you can’t balance the internal push to assert your almost absolute sense of freedom with the outer restraining pulls of laws, rules and regulations—and can’t prepare yourself to be tamed by the prevalent customs, norms and traditions (the overall collective acceptables) which put duties, responsibilities, laws, injunctions that seem binding and suffocating to you—then you have to abandon the certainties and safeties born of such a customized mould.

If you have the courage to spare your sense of identity from being comprehensively stamped with collective safeties, you have your entire energy to pursue your own path. But one has to be very careful with this untamed spirit or un-caged energy. It’s a storm basically and unless you have a specific path leading to a clear meaning of an alternate reality, the spating fury of this untamed river will consume you. You then become a self-predator—eating your own self.

The whirlpool of random energies is nothing short of a demon. It will manifest in random, accidental, chancy, impulsive bursts—which give the illusion of being the expression of freedom—that will shake, ruffle, push and pull you as per its own weird sense of randomness.

This is as good as—or as bad—going mad. You end up being a king or queen waging a war against your own self, taking it to be a fight of freedom against others. Even the slaves to norms are better than such kings and queens.

So if you believe in absolute individual freedom and take yourself to be free from the cast of social conditioning, you should have an idea about what to do with your un-caged, un-customized energies. You should have a roadmap to create your own version of alternate realities. Moreover, you have to be prepared for reactions, ridicules and judgments. The latter won’t affect you if you have been honest about your path of individual freedom. But these will lance you if you have been dishonest and taken your pleasure dives as expression of inherent freedom because in that case it’s mere escapism—escaping from duties and responsibilities and unjustifiably wallowing in your rights only.

We have to pay, in the form of commitments to the larger collective or to the solitary self, something in the form of duties to allow ourselves the set of rights including the right to the so-called ‘almost absolute sense of freedom’.  

The tiny subsets within the cosmic set

 

We are connected to the larger dimensions of super-consciousness through the shadows in our subconscious. The latter mostly serves as the soil of manifestation, our consciousness, the platform of our conscious being, the awareness of our individual awareness, the sense of our identity.

The super-conscious is nothing yet everything at the same time. It is just pure potential, a probability for infinite manifestations. Our individual subconscious is just a tiny ripple in the super-conscious cosmic sea. With our conscious being we can perceive its vague shadows. These unresolved shadows flippantly drive our impulses, habits, fears, insecurities, desires, dreams, imagination. The acrid substratum smell casting its invisible layers over the fragrance of lovely spring around us. Life then seems just a random series of confronting coincidences.

There is a significant part of negative forces in the subconscious that works as a check-dam on the life-stream of manifestation at the conscious level. These shadows acquire the shape of invisible ghostly army that keeps ambushing the troops of our conscious effort to create and manifest a really meaningful life in broad daylight.

The shadows in our being. The antagonistic vituperations. A weird exasperation flaring up. Life becomes dreadfully wearied and perpetually harassed. Instead of becoming a nice storyteller, one is flung into the miserable, tattered corners of life in survival mode only. Self-tarnished. Turmoil and dissention within. Enthusiasm peters out.              

I think writing or journaling—or for that matter any form of art involving creation—is a very constructive means of allowing those unmanifested shadows to acquire shape and be present before us. The hidden impulses, fears, cravings and insecurities get embodied and stand there in front of us. We can then see them with clarity and analyze the pattern of our negativities.

Creative expression through art is a mirror in which the creator can have a specific outline of the haunting shadows that have tormented his soul and manipulated behavior. Because once you face something, it becomes very easy to deal with it. The fault lines within are put into light. The friction, the conflict, the restlessness all of them acquire a tangible shape that is clearly readable. The whirlpool of random energies that has been meaninglessly churning pain within gets an outlet. There is a release of the pent-up energies of pain like lava seeping out of a vent, avoiding an explosion.

Art is basically a vent on the existential surface of the artist. It slowly spews out the lava of discontent, unorthodox ideas, unique dreams, offbeat desires, alternative realities and exquisite imagination. That’s why art is so cherished and condemned simultaneously. It’s worshipped by the few for being a fresh manifestation, a goddess of originality. But it’s condemned as a rebel also for not yielding to the collective mass reality. But the artist still takes risks because outer condemnation is nothing in comparison to the inner damnation if it isn’t allowed to be manifested.  

 

Walking in the lane of solitude

 

The sense of freedom is the sum total of all the elements of self-interest in the domain of life. Mostly, this is counterbalanced by customs, social norms, rules, responsibilities and duties. The rampant horse of freedom is reined-in and runs, trots, walks or gently jogs on the path of life. As a result, life has a conformist, sweet-sour, lukewarm meaning: not all good; not all bad—a conventional cocktail of survival.

Here, in the main lane, one acts, thinks or behaves almost like what all others are doing. But there are individuals whose sense of freedom overlaps the collective mould. They find it too confining. The little rebels they are.

It’s a blizzard of a peculiar type of energies that pushes one into unorthodox lanes promising walks on fresh pastures further on. But these little lanes, by-lanes and back alleys have a puzzling network.

Walking in such abandoned lane, one needs to have a very strong sense of the meaning of his/her unorthodox sense of self-interest; otherwise, it turns out to be a disorderly ramble into the unknown leading to isolation, loneliness and depression.

One ought to have a clear idea where it might lead to in the absence of conventional cushion supports of relationships, routine jobs, occupations, social networks, peer groups and the rest of collective cushion support naturally born of conforming to the sense of collectivism.

It’s a walk in isolation and only a sense of definite meaning serves as an inner compass to help one navigate the unchartered territory. But even when you are successful in crossing over to the lovely pasture across the maze, you realize that it’s never about severing all links and exist as an abstracted entity. You will find that connection is unavoidable on earth. To be a human is to share and connect in one form or the other.

We carry too much collective Homo sapiens-ness in our genes. So the best way out, in my opinion, is to maintain a healthy balance between individuality and collective identity. A well-honed sense of equilibrium is the way out. You have to set-up your own sense of individuality and meaning of life in the collective pool of human existence in a well-poised, harmonized manner.

The best path is the middle path between extreme individualism and callous collectivism.; between absolute freedom and sweetly binding responsibilities; between giving and taking; between free run and protocol-led walk. A juicily well-occasioned existence in the form of a reasonably independent part of a defining whole.   

Enhancing one's individual cause

 

It’s human to be self-centered. Bristling denizens and opaque stalwarts as we humans are. That’s how we have evolved. That defines our approach and attitude to life.

This narrow linearity of our dreams, desires and ambitions is comforting and assuring on the surface. But like all comfort zones it sets up big limitations on what one can accomplish because one erects very strong and high walls between his particular life and the rest of existence. It will be just a peripheral photograph of the lovely broad panorama out there.

If we dilute the boundary by linking our interest with some larger cause—however small that may be—beyond ourselves, we open ourselves to the grace of positive factors that in fact boost our individual ambitions instead of limiting them.

For example, suppose you are fighting for success in business, politics or elite jobs. If you link your fate—the success that you want to achieve—with someone needy, let’s say some bright student from a poor family, or a special child from a needy family and decide to support that child—however small the monthly amount might be—you broaden the horizon of your personal endeavor.

Now you are not walking on a razor-sharp individualistic line. A unique credence blooms in the orchard of your private project. It’s as good as walking on the sacred sands of the cross-cultural path of humanity. You are walking on a nice broader path involving love, ambition, kindness and altruism.

By linking your hard work with the fate of some disadvantaged child, you become a greater creator than what you would have been if you had just thought about yourself only and thus limited the input-out equation strictly to your fate.

So pursue your ambitions as much as you can o thou tactical genius. That’s your right. But you have a duty to your true version—your larger self. And that duty is to walk on a broader path instead of the knife-edge of strictly personalized interest.

So slog hard, earn money, set-up empires, become a big shot. Go for paramount search in disused quarries with your own self-created striking nuances. No problem. But as you invest your soul in your project (input), link the process to some poor fate (by promising to yourself that you will be giving this much money or support to help that disadvantaged fate).

It’s my word that the output will be so much that even after deducting the charity amount you will still make big profits.

Favors federated to those more near to ground than ourselves fetch many direct-indirect benefits. This is no sterile lesson by a traditionalist. It’s herbal soup prepared by a conscience-stricken chef for the nourishment of soul.

The empowered self

 

The real power is the power and control over one’s own self. Seeking power outside—through authority, influence, wealth, networks and relationships—is simply avoiding the reality through a pseudo-reality.

Real power lies in facing one’s own dark side.

Real power means the capability to control our impulses, fears and insecurities. It’s the power to dispel the shadows of the worst in us.

What lies in us is the pure potential. It’s beyond the categorization of good and bad. It can go either way. It can turn into a thorn; it can blossom into a flower.

Real power means to checkmate the ‘wrong’ inside and allow the ‘right’ to germinate, sprout, blossom and ripen. Once that happens, the reflection of that power within will be a lovely manifestation on the outside. It will be a sweet fruit for others to cherish. Then you share and care.

Once the source of darkness inside vanishes, you spread light outside.

What does god want to convey through this unflinching periodicity of light and dark? In eloquent intimacy with light, darkness is just a background shade and this existence just a combinatorial cosmic saga.

To become really powerful we just need to be aware of the possibilities of good and bad within our own self. Like a farmer trying to control the weeds and nourishing his crops. A harvesting of the potential within. To raise a crop, a fruitful one. Fruitful for one’s own self and helpful for others as well. The latter occurs of its own once life becomes meaningful.  

Stepping into the zone of freedom

 

The heady scent of wild flowers, shrubs and grasses under the open sky. Peace pouring from every chink of sky. Silence coded in the lullabies sung by a soft breeze. Free, frank and honest; nothing to hide. Ultimately esoteric. Primarily unselfconscious. An openness to life.

Freedom layered over the scented air. The unqualified, artistic oeuvre of mother nature, the paragon of ultimate virtue.

Brushstrokes of an esoteric poetic protest against cutting-edge modernism. A soft singsong opposition to the radicalizing, egocentric onslaught of the same age-old, decadent thoughts and ideologies masquerading as new-age panacea and illustrious propaganda. The new-age repackaged piousness peppering the same evil of the old, sidestepping love, beauty and truth.

One can just be aware of it—freedom—and inhale as much as one wants. Aware with the lucidity of the full moon in the heart of night. And with it will arrive, naturally, softness and acceptance of what one is; and respect and belief in what one can become.

O ye all those who carry heavy air around you (the ego itching with lice, nits, ticks and fleas of rampant desires and untamed fears), invigoration and lightness lie just a step away. It’s not in the ego-dog’s pursuit of meat pasties. It’s there lying on the tender blades of grass jeweled with free diamonds of dew.

Take a step and claim your bonus. For a change, turn your head away from the wobbly scramble, flimsy and wispy shine of futile fragilities, drop that contentious gaze and look into the delicate mist of the truth. Loose and vague abstractions get straightened to achieve an almost equal felicity with the ultimate truth.