The loss of soulful connection

 

You don’t need to have just ears to listen. You can do it far better with your soul. If not this, why would one listen to the beautiful songs of silence in solitudional woods? The voice, whisper and songs of silence that come embracing you to console, to befriend, to comfort, to reassure, to rejuvenate. You need to ‘have’ a soul to listen. Of course everyone and everything has a soul. By ‘having’ a soul I mean one is aware of its presence, its lively throbbing, its guiding light, its essence, its imperishable nature beyond the bodily encasing. Its real feel, its vibrant awareness is what I mean to ‘have’ a soul. The trees, plants, grass, flowers, birds, snakes, earth, sky, stars and all and sundry have a soul. And they listen. I sometimes say a few gentle, appreciating words to the flowers and they smile better. Yes, they do! But you need to have a soul-to-soul connection to feel that. I tried it with a snake but it scampered away and so did I after that brief period of calling it a ceasefire along the human-snake line of fear-fire, the very same primal fear blocking soul-to-soul contact. The next time I intend to use the voice of silence and words of gentility through the eyes instead of oral words. It might work. You never know.

But sadly we are losing soul-to-soul contact. The once beautiful relationships are falling apart. Words of love are replaced by hard rhetoric and arguments. And looks have changed. The eyes are more used to stare these days. A stare speaks for thousands of hateful words. There is distrust and insecurity. There is a sinister willingness to get fitted in the angry stereotypes being cast by those who would benefit from a divided society. In Delhi a young man stabs another. The trigger was that they happened to stare at each other. The crime acquires more serious proportions because the stabber happens to be a Muslim. Someone stabbing a coreligionist stands a chance of being defined as one-to-one illegality. But in case of the two parties belonging to different religions it becomes something far bigger than a crime. Communal haggling, shoving and pushing followed the incident.

Somewhere in the capital, a man pounces on a woman and takes away her gold earrings. But gold is very dear to our ladies. She desperately clung to the snatcher. Her two daughter-in-laws ran and all three of them clubbed him down. But maybe he loved gold even more than all three of them combined. He swallowed the earrings. Now the police have the added task of admitting him to a hospital and ensure that the precious items are retrieved safely at the exit point. They will come out provided the bearer hasn’t the appetite to digest it and make it a part of his anatomy forever. And if the gold comes out it will still retain its value irrespective of its latest exit point, just like heroin and illicit drugs capsules retain their market value after they are successfully retrieved from bellies, anus and vaginas of the bearer by the client.

Turmoil, turmoil everywhere born of the loss of soul-to-soul connection. In Nainital there is a gross abuse of animal rights. A Muslim youth is caught violating the modesty of a cow. A severe breach of conduct even punishable under the laws concerning animal rights. But from the religious point of view it’s a sin. So riots follow. The more we lose contact with our own and others’ souls, the less we pardon. We turn intolerant and unforgiving. We then just need reasons to get angry and hateful.

The social sediments settling after long last

 

The gypsies seem to be settling down after centuries of whirlwind roaming. This is the time to settle history for once and all. Forget the past and begin a new chapter. But they start from a very disadvantaged position. They don’t possess anything apart from a few items they travel with. It’s a world fighting for inches of land. Common people fight for a few yards and the countries fight over few square kilometers. They too seem looking to drop the anchor finally. They have boarded the sides of their tents along a road in the town. They know municipality guys and the police will push and prod them to keep moving like they have been doing for centuries. So they add some weight to the anchor in the troubled waters. The national flag carries a lot of weight. So they have the tricolor flying full mast. Holy cow also carries a big load of faith and reverence. There are cows tethered in front of their sacks. The children of course may have some milk from the dried udders of the famished cows. They expect the patriotic guys to come to their rescue in case a municipal operation is launched to evict them from the premises.

Dissolution, expansion, evolution

 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.

Kiss the storms

 Storms are storms. Just storms! Nothing else. They do not have much to offer both to nature and humans. They swirl, shriek, shake and prance occupied by an illogical spirit. It is just like nature throwing tantrums. But tantrums are never substantial man; they are just a fragile symbol of something going out of loop for some moments. Look at nature, storms are just temporary, tiny speed-breakers on its peacefully laid out benevolent road of survival, sustenance and evolution. It applies to our lives as well. So when the ship of our being gets jolted by the angry winds just remember this is not the substance of your life. It lies in miles of peaceful, dreamy and majestic waters waiting to kiss the hull of your ship. Coming back to the poor storm. It is just a puny piece of funny quirkiness possessed with suicidal and self-consuming dispirited and rampant self. It dances in pain. While it fizzes and fumes, it burns in its own fire. It dies. While its cremation takes place just be a good pyre-keeper and fulfill all the rights diligently. But keep a safe distance from the fire. It is sure to die. And, more importantly, you are sure to survive to see the flowers blossoming in that very dead ash. So please believe in peace, in tranquility, in harmony, in noiseless distances waiting for you while you feel the heat of the burning aberration. Be a spectator. Be a valiant survivor. Do it for the sake of normal, undisturbed nautical miles lined up to allow the passage of your ship to a lush green island of your destination, where you can drop anchor and enjoy the stillness of life for sometime. It has to be done. Because the course of normalcy is self-sustaining, kind, beneficent, forgiving and parental. The storm just burns in its fury. Allow it to do it. Harmony, orderliness and tranquility draw life-giving sips from their own substance, from the core of their own essence. So be a good businessman. Join the latter's bandwagon. For you own gain.

Being in the womb of non-being

 And everything, dear readers of life, turns out to be just moon-lit fog! Just a sea of shadows, non-being, rippling against its shiny beads of being!

A fleeting grey cast on a still fleetier darker cast, the latter itself a cast on further casting. Endless spools of impressions jumping from being to non-being and vice versa.

Dancing particles in murky haze on the dark stage. The eternal darkness, meanwhile, now and then flashing a smile to show the matter, her teeth, to bite a fleeting morsel of being from the primordial bread of non-being.

When she craves in self-love to embrace herself, she entwines her milky white, lightful, slender fingers around her dark breasts and grip her own dark curves with her white arms. And the shapes zoom in and zoom out in teasing, self-orgasmic delight.

Like waves, shapes merge in the shapeless fluidity. Being and non-being merge in matrimonial delight on the conjugal bed of holy union in the bedchamber of creation. Being mating with non-being to sire shapes and appearances. Shapes merely the stamp of 'being' by the 'non-being'. A canvas both within and without.

Shapes, sounds, appearances and disappearances, all that we perceive certainly exist, but with equal claim by my non-existence. It's just a microcosm between Is and Isn't. A little pulse. A beat.