Love the Poet in You

 James E. Faust: “A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness. It is an expression of humility. It is a foundation for the development of such virtues as prayer, faith, courage, contentment, happiness, love, and well-being.”

Isn’t it romantic beyond words? Come out of the stiff-faced prose of life. It squeezes you too tightly. Delve into the open charms of poetry. There is freedom for exhilarating escapades.  

No guys no, I am not asking you to go out there and be a starving shayar. Expect money from other mundane occupations. Modern manmade system leaves you with countless opportunities to make mullah.  All I am asking you to do is to get in league with harmony, rhythm somewhere deep in you, which is just a replica of the cosmic harmony of stars and galaxies going cyclically as per the ultimate law.

Plato: “Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”

And as love caresses you, you are supposed to turn a poet. And your life a poem. A life lived poetically nourishes your soul. The prose approach to life is simply to earn the conveniences to support you materially.

Niels Bohr, lost in the endless evolution of atomic possibilities at the subatomic level, surrendered his hardcore matter of factuality and turned a dreamer: "When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images."

If life appears stale and boring, you have got to blame your own self. For you lack imagination in not seeing the endless colors and splendorous charms lying around.

A bit of poetic daydreaming detoxifies the crammed brain because with poetic imagination, a sense of beauty pervades your being, putting all other pinching realities of life at bay.

You have got to believe me, the Big Bang was a poetic moment. If not for the infinite possibility of rhyme and rhythm, me and all you out there won’t have been enjoying this beautiful unfolding of things and phenomena according to self-sustaining laws.  

Without the seed of poetry there won't be any prose. Just like without the tiny seed there won’t be a tree. The canopy, the full foliage of the tree, is just an extension of the dream lying with its realistic potential inside the small seed. The elaborate network of trunks, branches, twigs, flowers, fruits and leaves is nothing but a commentary on the small poetic seed. So all ye wannabe writers of a good life story, nurture the poet in you, who understands the value of pause in life, who moves slowly to watch everything, sight and smell everything. Whose senses are open to the inclusive interplay of wonderful harmonies of the supreme song, the universe, the one song.

The brushstrokes of poetry softly touch the soul without disrupting its restful muse and bring out the nuggets of love, compassion, harmony and peace. If you are poetic in nature, you have the potential to be anything because all these elaborate extensions of your life, your dreams, your professional and personal goals, your milestones, the world around you, all these and more are nothing but a reflection of that poetic pure seed.

Being poetic is being the master of all the best-ever possible emotions as a human being. No wonder love and poetry are almost synonymous. Poetry is the common soul of all the art forms. It’s a smiling and loving approach to life, not just rhymes on paper. It’s about being in tune with the soft chimes of your soul. It is impossible to visualize an unpoetic artist. It’s impossible to have an unpoetic visionary. It’s impossible to have an achiever who did not dream poetically.

Poetry is the womb that mothers all that has ever been loved and appreciated by the mankind and Mother Nature. To be poetic is to love. You taste godliness by being poetic. The mankind has pictured heaven just as a huge poetic dream. All the myths, gods and goddesses are marvelous poet philosophers and poet soldiers. So learn to be a poet.  Love yourself as a poet. You will find love shielding you with its soft power making you the best of a human being.

Irony is that our language is a poor carrier of the ultimate truth. But ultimate truth is best summarized by the word ‘love’. Within written styles, poetry lets loose its open invitation to invite truth. Even though it smiles hazily, yet it has its charms; some poetic outpour to reach out to the ultimate with your love.

The Elixir of Life

 

A look of hate snatches and steals a part of life; a look of love adds something good to life. A hateful thought kills; an idea of love saves life. Hate is the evil collaborator of death; love is the bright-smiled custodian of life and living. Nurture the good and the best in you, it will in turn make you more loving, the latter qualifying you for the real ‘living’.

Like most of the things, it can be practiced and learnt. Practice smile. It’s a small pill of wellness. Learn to look at things with love. Start with your food, water, whatever you drink, or whatever you eat. As you take a sip or chew a mouthful, keep smiling and feel the friendliness of the thing just beginning to be a part of you. Feel the bonhomie because it will soon become a part of your physical self. Your receptivity and acknowledgement will bestow nourishment beyond the mere calorific value of the food and drink.

Before you eat or drink, take a minute’s pause and look at the thing. It’s the instrument of life, the soldier of your survivability, the keeper of your physical self, resting before you on the table. It’s there for you, to help you get strong and survive and live another day. At this moment there is no better friend to you in the universe. Accept its friendship and brotherliness. Embrace its camaraderie. And it will become a part of your system with far more nourishment than you can imagine.

As you chew and swallow, it is ready to become a part of you. It’s something that will become you once you have it in your guts. During the moments before being eaten, it becomes a sacred part of your extended self. Accept it. Look with love. Take it as a blessing from your guardian angel to help you beat the negative forces hankering for your demise. The food taken with such love and affection becomes the elixir of life.

Practice smiling. It will pave the way for you rolling with real laughter later on in the journey. The tiny, feeble lines drawn by a delicate smile will lay the foundation for miles and miles of undisturbed peace and harmony in your persona. No wonder, I have a little smile glued to my face while I type this. And a surge of contentment and happiness overtakes the hitherto untouched, unlit and gloomy parts of my being. I feel happy and once you get the feel of real happiness, you simply cannot help distributing it. You want each and everyone out there to be happy and smiling. There is no bigger nourishment for your loving self than this.

All the problems out there, born of differences and misunderstandings, are born not of hate but lack of love. Turn more loving, smile more. Hate is the darkness that just vanishes the moment you light the tiny lamp of love. It vanishes like darkness from a pitch dark room once you light a candle.

Hate is the phantom. The only reality is the lack of love and smiles. By taking up a smile, you symbolically blossom a flower for mother existence. And believe me, you yourself will be the direct gainer once you decide to turn into a flower. Guys, let loose your alchemy of smiles and love. Believe me, humanity will need more of smiles than the mega-bombasting leaps of science and technology in future.

I tried a small experiment of love and smiles on a plant. I had planted some marigold flowers in my little garden at the start of winters. Yellow and orange marigolds sprinkled their unrestricted charms. All these turned out to be robust flowering plants except one. The poor plant appeared stunted, malnourished and didn’t grow. A few buds remained unopened and the odd one that tried to smile, just bore a famished one-quarter smile.

I tried the alchemy of love and smiles. I started to sit by this plant for a few minutes, giving it kind, sympathetic looks, caressed its leaves, and sprinkled water droplets on it. I just tried my level best to turn as much loving to it as I would to a little child. And no miracle is beyond the reach of love and smiles. The buds that hadn’t opened for a couple of months burst forth with unrestrained hilarity. It turned out to be the best flowery plant in my garden. This is what love and smiles are capable of!

So guys, go and capture your share of life’s real worth through the simple technique of love and smiles.

The Magic Pill of Love: Smile

 Mother Teresa says, “Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”

Burning in the agony of anger with your whole self ready to explode? Try to smile. Like a bolt of light sizzles across the blackest domes of clouds, a sinewy smile will cut across the hard façade and the castle of anger, a temporary madness, will come crashing down like a sand fort erected by kids playing on a beach.  

Thich Nhat Hanh: “So brothers and sisters let a smile kiss your lips. Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.”

A smile is like the sun on a cold, frigid and gray day. Comforting. Warm. Healing. Soothing. It dispels the gloom. It absorbs the pain. Its nonjudgmental rays embrace you in your totality, the way you are. It touches you with sympathy. It becomes your lenient confidante. You can hardly realize a smile’s mammoth power.

Mother Teresa holds a clue for us: “We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.”

As Yoko Ono says: “Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.”

First of all you will like your smiling face more. A good beginning.

As Anthony J. D'Angelo sums it up so smartly: “Smile is the key that fits the lock of everybody's heart.” So guys hold your great key to unlock the biggest chest full of treasure.

You may not be enjoying a rollercoaster ride in life. There are pains and problems and of course you feel like crying. Agreed that you are not in a position to laugh. Well, if laughing seems too much, you can smile at least. Even a sad, resigned smile will do to begin with. Smile just to yourself, without any reason. Or at least try. A fake, feeble smile is better than no smile. It reshapes the lines of your tensions, your worries. You will instantly feel its warmth, its light. It cannot be the other way. A maneuvered smile at least cannot give you more pain, cannot aggravate your messiness, however hard is the situation.

 And then there is always something or someone around who can help you in building up a smile. There are more reasons to smile than cry. Just that we overlook them. So give yourself a reason to smile. It’s as simple as picking up one tiny bit of tension from the overloaded basket and throwing it away with a muse. So move away from the big garbage dump of worries and smile as you walk away.

Mind you, a smile is the best ornament that you can put on yourself. A tender smile is the universal language of love. So guys meet people with a smile, because it is the first step on the ladder of building lovable relationships. Aren't these colors in nature the replica of the eternal smile? Go, enjoy the therapy.

Your smile is just the hoarding out there telling people that here goes a happy, loving and caring person. Generally your happiness creates a smile, but if you learn to smile, it may even start your joyride. These few lines of curve on your lips oftentimes set puzzling chaos straight. So go around smiling, who knows someone is looking at you and since people love smiles, you may come across unexpected boon also.

This is the best face job. Even a fake smile is better than a morose, brooding and suffering look. Don't you think everybody looks at his/her best with a smile? And believe me, a warm smile makes you appear younger also. 

 Forget about the little world of your problems. This creation is not human centric, and within the human system the thoroughfare is not you-, me- or anyone-centric. In fact, it’s not bothered about anyone or anything at all. So why should we? One big reason to start smiling more often.

 The cosmos around you is too big. And you are just a tiny part of its endless bounty. But luckily the things of beauty are as good for you as they are for any other happy person around. Claim your share. Observe. Look around. Pick out from the unassuming treasures lying around in bits and pieces. A flower. A child’s pure smile. A bird chirping. A gust of breeze. Rustling of sun-baked pale dry leaves. Some green tree. A sparrow’s free dart in the sky, the sun, the stars, someone helping somebody, or anything for that matter, provided you have the loving eyes to see.

Everything is just drenched with beauty; it’s we who throw the jibes of ugliness born of our biases, greed, hate, jealousy and anger. Remove these blots from the screen and you clearly see the perfect beauty around. And once you see the beauty, love oozes out of your spirit in copious amounts. It’s as natural as you have light once the sun shines in the morning.

 There are infinite reasons to let a smile kiss your lips, to help you, to sympathize, to emphasize the cool hold of goodness inherently holding the system together. Just open up the door for a smile. It will open up a huge gate of comfort for the inner self. Light will enter the dungeon of real and imaginary problems. There is no logic for this. It just happens. Just like you feel the healing warmth of sunrays on a cold day! So try to smile without any reason. Immediately you will get a feeling of so many things to be smiled at, to be felt euphoric about, or even laugh about.

Do you know there is brain-brewed whiskey: Anandamide? It’s the chemical of happiness, ease, comfort and contentment produced in the brain. By learning to smile more often, you start the brain brewery in motion. It’s a simple practice, just like you get habituated to go for invigorating early-morning brisk walks. So let your brewery of joy become operational at full capacity. Believe me, it can be done by simply starting with the belief that it’s possible.

The world is full of those who need narcotics, drugs and alcohol to enter a pleasant, forgetting and easy-going state. These definitely give you some temporary solace but come with huge physical and social side effects later on when you crash-land on the rock hard surface of reality. Count upon your own self-made, brain-brewed chemical of bliss and happiness, Anandamide. It's available free to all of us. Just that we need to look within for the joys that we seek outside! So seekers, happy days and nights! Brew your own Anandamide and stay blessed permanently. Happy spiritual boozing! Booze makers, beware!

I have started to smile more and brew mine quite copiously...

The Lamp called Love

 

You need light to dispel darkness. Similarly, to remove thousand and one individual and collective ailments, you need the single pill, the dose of love. It's the most effective healing therapy for mind, body and soul. Hate is the parasite afflicting the self, eating away the blossoming prospects of your growth and evolution. Love is the nutrient that is meant to blossom your potential, to fulfill the mission, to shake hands with your destiny.

Love is the magic wand that turns you grateful for the small-small things coming your way. It turns you forgiving, enabling you to avoid many a peril, keeping the chances of remedy and correction still alive for someone. And with gratefulness and forgiveness, there gets ripened the fruit of kindness, the best strength in a human being. With just kindness you have so much to offer. Your empathy triggers huge constructive waves in the cosmic womb.

A loving emotion is all pervading. It leaps over your fears. It jumps over your insecurities. It penetrates the shell of your inhibitions. It punctures the balloon of distress, setting the stale air free. And once all this happens, you feel liberated. This freedom enlarges your perspective. You come out of the self-created dead-ends. You feel like standing on a mountain top and smile at the small gullies where you felt lost and cribbed and poured anger and hate. Now you realize that all those were simply the means for you to reach here.

The most profound memories are sepia-toned love moments. Even at your worst, even if you stand justified in your fury, you won't become nostalgic about the chaotic moments when you lost it and the storms blew. It proves the innate nature of human beings, the loving nature. It's love without reason.  

Compassion and love are the absolute necessities. This world can survive without hate and fury, but not without love. Love is soul's gravity, keeping it relevant. It has to have this force. Everything floats off into oblivion without it and the whole lot turns meaningless in one stroke.

Hate is the stone that drags you down. Love is the airy cloud, taking you to panoramic flights to give you the glimpses of the eternal muse. Heart is a dark place without love. So come and light up your little lamp as we try to put it in words.  

Self-love is the seed of the all-loving tree to sprout. So love yourself. Kindly don't commit the mistake of clubbing your overblown passions, ambitions and hot pursuits in life with self-love. These are the tricky illusions that dupe the self in taking them as self-love. Self-love is totally free from nagging externalities. It’s the prelude to your all-loving journey. It’s the launch pad that hurtles you into the orbit of bliss. Well, no wonder the journey starts with self-love not self-negation.

Human beings are mentally and physically wired to love. Love is the master key that unlocks the chest of phantoms and the evil progenies scamper away. They don't want to stay with you. Just that you cling to them, in a sort of self-injurious addiction. Love is the sunshine that sustains the garden called life. Without it, you have the gloomy, frigid silhouette, no life, no living.

Friedrich Nietzsche says: "We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving."

Kindness, compassion, laughter, joy, freedom, happiness, all these and more are simply different recipes made of the same grains, love. There is an element of magical beauty to the things done with love. You hardly work if you love your job. No relationship is a burden if love is at its core. No goal is tiresome and devoid of compassion if you have a loving approach.

And if you still need to be told what love looks like, kindly listen to Saint Augustine: "What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like."

Michelangelo says, “Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.”

Death surely will be one of the wings. Question is: Do we have the other wing to carry us onto the destination?

The Art of Love

 The great mystic poet Rumi says, “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

Long before love sprouts through your actions, emotions and thoughts, you have to accept your essentially compassionate nature. Accept it and own the feeling. From this point, it becomes easier to scale the ladder to reach the cusp of happiness and joy, which is nothing but realization of your true loving self.

Love is our fundamental nature. Its soft power lies in all of us. Just that it needs to be pampered out of the cocoon. Like you build-up your muscles slowly, dedicating many hours over months and years in a gym, you can sharpen the instincts of love. Love at the emotional level is as good as some goodness in action. These are two sides of the same coin.

There are always parallels between the self inside and the socially convenient identity we have build up for ourselves to survive. Believe me, however hard is the mask outside, it still survives on the intrinsic foundation of what you are in the privacy of your real self at the centre of your being. And that is unconditional love. Our illusions in this regard are simply in proportion to the virtual walls we have allowed to be built between what we appear and what we really are.

Practicing goodness and love in behavior, thoughts and emotions is like any other task we accomplish on a daily basis. Just that our continuous obsession on staying at the periphery of our being has tricked us into believing that it’s an angry world out there. We have to fight or perish. No man, it isn’t so. Most of our fears are the phantoms of our mind. Come out of the virtual world and see the world as it is through clear eyes.

Happiness and joy are simply the warmth of the sun of love. They share reciprocal cause and effect relation.

Denis Waitley sums it so beautifully: “Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”

The showers of care and consideration from others nourish you, and your own love-blossoms define the purpose of life.

Lao Tzu: “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

The art of love is basically the art of living. Love is the overarching emotion covering your work, relationships and modes of self-expression. It pulls you into a sphere of all-inclusiveness. This is the top-most art. All other means of self-expression are just byproducts of this supreme alchemy.

Just have a closer look. The things and activities where you feel yourself to excel, they appear so because you primarily love and like them. So love basically is a prelude to liking, which in turn makes you capable of cozy relationships, well paid careers and other creative outpours in the arena of life.