The Self

The nafs is a sea of calm until it roars.

The nafs is a Hell that radiates little heat.

The nafs is an ankle-deep river you drown in.

Better to be ignorant of worldly concerns,

better to be mad and flee from self-interest,

better to drink poison and spill the water of life,

better to revile those who praise you,

and lend both the capital and the interest to

the poor, forgo safety and make a home in danger.

Sacrifice your reputation and become notorious.

I have tried caution and forethought;

from now on I will make myself mad.

- Mevlana Rumi

~  ".. I am both the candle and the moth crazy around it ..'"

Who Says Words With My Mouth?

All day I think about it,
then at night I say it.

Where did I come from,
and what am I supposed to be doing?

I have no idea.

My soul is from elsewhere,
I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness
began in some other tavern.

When I get back around
to that place,
I'll be completely sober.

Meanwhile, I'm like a bird
from another continent,
sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear
who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes?

What is the soul?


I cannot stop asking.


If I could taste
one sip of an answer,
I could break out
of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord,
and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here
will have to take me home.

This poetry,

I never know
what I'm going to say.

I don't plan it.

When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet
and rarely speak at all.

From The Essential Rumi, page 2. Translated by Coleman Barks.
© Copyright, 2004, HarperSanFrancisco. Permission pending; fair use intended.









“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust”

~ MEVLANA RUMI

Being Alive - Live Curious

If you are alive, you think.
When you think, you talk.
When you talk, you ask.
When you ask, you reflect.
When you reflect, you know.
When you know, you experience.


When you experience, you learn.
When you learn, you grow.
When you grow, you find.
And when you find...you doubt.


When you doubt, you question.
When you question, you understand.
When you understand, you know.

And when you know, you want to know more.
And when you want to know more, you are ... alive.!

~ Thanks to brand campaign of National Geographic Channel







~“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

In the circle

A magical soft-Gothic, I have no words for how perfectly this song suits the human community and its common philosophy!

The wind will drift and spread the flame
A spark will land inside your heart
You will never be the same
As ashes tear your life apart
Tragedy can make us stronger
But cannot be undone
If you wish it
It will happen
Fates aren't sealed for everyone
It flickers in the circle
A dance of life for you
It's safer in the circle
Where visions remain true
So often people judge those
That they do not understand
The innocent are dying
At those judging hateful hands
If only we could show them
We do not wish them harm
Instead we'd like to live life
Inside each other's open arms
We sparkle in the circle
There's fire in our eyes
So much magick in the circle
We're in need of no disguise
Be with me in the circle
You're always welcome here
It's safer in the circle
But do not bring your fear
I'll meet you in the circle
Within your own good time
I'll be here in the circle
Forever with you intertwined.

~ “If each man or woman could understand that every other human life is as full of sorrows, or joys, or base temptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own . . . how much kinder, how much gentler he would be.”
( William Allen White )

The Dreamer's Paradox

The Hypnic Jerk

The average person spends 22 years of their life asleep. One third of your life will be wasted. You’ll lie in an unconscious, catatonic state and sleep your life away. What if you could take those years back?

The desire to dream is primordial. Some evolutionary process has instilled life on this planet with the ability to dream. It is essential to survival. Even dogs dream. The exploration of dreams in search of answers we cannot otherwise obtain is a tempting solution to things we’d rather not deal with.

Sometimes, this desire transforms dreaming into a vehicle that attempts to displace the mediocre existence of our ordinary world. At first, it is a plunge into hyperreality - a world more real than the real itself. One so entrancing it can become an addiction with confusing side effects, such as finding evidence of things you don’t remember doing, looking at the world through a fog, or experiencing false awakenings - dreams that are so real it seems as if you have already woken up.

Yet as you sit on the verge of the illusory twilight, the view is so alluring you can’t help but fall into its grasp and be swept away into the dream world.

By now, the dream state has become your primary mode of existence and the reality you left behind is only a hazy memory. You have escaped, you have salvaged the time you’d otherwise have lost in sleep, you are leading a life by proxy.

Just as this form of escapism appears to be working, your sleep patterns collapse and parasomnia invades your life - you cannot sleep, you’re kept awake at night by unseen forces and the addiction to dream sinks its teeth into your mind, the mind split asunder by insomnia and insanity. I’ll tell you what dying is. Dying is what happens when you can no longer dream.

As you lie awake and alone with the sheets stuck to the cold sweat dripping from your body, you can’t help but form a skeptic’s hypothesis - it becomes impossible to tell when you are dreaming and when you are awake. Why even try to differentiate?

Suddenly, there is a great elucidation and the answer becomes clear. An equilibrium must be reached and balance much be brought to these two worlds. Only in moderation will sanity be achieved - overly embracing mundane reality and extreme escapism with both lead to ruin.

And as you once again drift peacefully to sleep, free of your former dissociation and confusion, you are reminded of the bizarre world that stretches away from your consciousness with one last hypnic jerk.

It is a dreamer’s paradox - by seeking escape, a surrogate world is created as a replacement. The lines between fantasy and reality are blurred, fact and fiction become identical. The dream is real, and reality is as meaningless as a passing dream.


~ Lyrics of the album by same name : JT Bruce

And if you didn't notice,there is a difference between the image here and the one above.


Clue: Diagonal symmetry ;)

Cobblestone Runway

"Former Glory"

The Amazing period of time - when i was in my school, was the best part of my life.

I was recognized by almost everyone there, i was happy when so many people were interested in me, "Everybody Loved Me and then Everybody Disappeared".

"These Days"

Almost Lacking the spirit and enthusiasm that once almost filled my body with every inch, the young and confident me, bubbling with energy is lost in the crowd.The crowd,where the neighbour doesn't cares who lives the next door.

"Least That I Can Do"

See my family happy, that i have transformed from a helpless crying infant into a succesful Man right before their eyes.Gift myself with a smile when i see kids on street playing with marbles, school going kids enjoying rain - where as the grown-ups run for cover.

"God Loves Everyone"

I know how spoilt i was as a kid ~ the meanest and nastiest kid on the block. Bullying around.Liar.Thief.Adamant.Revengeful.Violent.Crazy.Disobedient. But God loved me for the everything i shouldn't have been, He didn't had to show any aversion towards me.He still Loved me.

"Disappearing Act"

My first job.Great expectaions.Launchpad for a great career.They were short lived.One solid year passed by.My co-joinees - i saw them begin to settle in a specific area and specialize it.Meanwhile i was juggled on the basis of requirement.Some say you've got to lose to win.I hoped for,my luck to stumble in.But,I had to do something to avoid being treated like a Twelfth man.I chose to do a 'Disappearing Act'.I broke away from Bangalore and moved to Chennai with nothing but hope.And i knew, my hope would be tested.

"For a Moment There"

For a moment I swore - I knew where i was going.Never Knowing.If it would go anywhere.
I should have waited - my heart told me. May be i should have done that earlier - my mind ordered me.The current patch would be the most difficult and i must be cautious is what i could understand.

"Gold in Them Hills"

Every new challenging situation is a new hill to climb.With a new adventure in mind.Exploring for the treasure - a gold mine.You won't get anything unless you make a move.Worrying won't get you anywhere, Move out of your comfort zone.There is Gold ! Gold ! everywhere, and you must know that gold doesn't walks - No one knows how the day might end.You may not wake up tomorrow.But,Tomorrow never comes!!

"Heart's Desire"

A lovely hut.A carefree life.Food for thought and something to be alive.A Sleep on the meadows and gazing the heavens at night.Grazing the cattle and feeding the hens.Wealth means nothing.Friends always there for me and just peace of mind.
A ferrai to drive.No time to say 'Hi'.Medicines for health.3 hours of sleep.Gazing the Liquid Crystals.Fortune with no future.Complaining everything and blaming everyone.Running all the way to school till grave.With no knowledge of who are friends and who are not.

~ Just a Century passed since 1900 and then everything had to change.

"Dragonfly in the Bush"

Buzzing around from bush to bush.He took a wrong turn and was lost without trace.The sticky tongue, doing the damage.What is the competition? - It is all or Nothing at all. Just like us?-In the crowd without a face.

"The Less I Know"

It is a waste of time.To analyze what i know.I knew less,but the less i knew - was meaningful.It is just confusion now, with nowhere to go.Love can bring me back.And no one to Love and and nobody loves.The whole picture is fake.Now I know more, and i wish i knew less.

"Up the Road"

A quarter century rolls by.Retirement on edge.Driving up the road with my partner. A drive along the Manhatttan.I heard that my daughter had married in India.The stars on the horizon greeting the evening, and sun sinking in the west.The time would soon come - to say good bye.With memories intact and they being the only source of link to mother and motherland.

"Best Friends"

She cried over my coffin, she had shared her life with me.I always wanted to see - Who cries when i would be gone.My soul watching my lifeless corpse being transported back to my own land.And so it arrived there, the dead and dumb 'myself'.Pushed into a grave that i might be sharing with a lot many buried before me in the same place,new friends - i said to myself.But some six or seven people standing six feet above and dropping the moist soil over my dead myself.Their eyes were moist as well.I said to my newfound grave-friend over his hairy-beard, "You see there - They were my best friends".



P.S:
----
This post was inspired from the Musical Album "Cobblestone Runway" , by a canadian artist Ron Sexsmith.And each Paragraph is the title from that album(But the words inside are of course mine).Frankly, i haven't listened to them, but the lyrics i came across was filled with soul and freshness.This post may resemble a bombed Art film, but i was happy typing down this, i wanted to believe that i am a poet and then the thoughts began to assemble and flow, just like a river.

A Lady From Lanka.

Click on the image to get Full-view.

A really good way of 'self-intro' in a poetic narration.

I have never been used to Tamil, though "Tamil" was my Second Language since my Grade 5,

I always had difficulty in pronouncing and spelling tamil words correctly, "Pizai" as my teacher used to call those mistakes.

And i am really thankful and grateful to all my Tamil teachers at school, they really supported me and corrected me patiently, i am amazed at that part.

And these words (in the Poem up there) up there were kind of that i read few of them last time in a half-a-decade or so, and i am happy that i can still comprehend those words (though it took me a great deal of time to makeout those words' meaning), i admired the way those words were put in order - brilliant..!!

I learnt from her blog, that the lady was a 'Tamil-Lankan' - she should have atleast done a doctrate in Tamil to use such rare words - or may be "Tamil in TamilNadu" has become a kind of mixture of dialects and this "Lankan Tamil" still seems fresh and original.

Looks a classic to me. :)

and the name of the lady out there sound familiar, hmmmmm..!! -well not really.

I have one of my good friends by the same name.

A Matter of Life or Death...

Well here you are
at the edge of the abyss...


at the beginning of infinity
heaven or hell


an afterlife
or a nothingness


forgiveness
or an eternity of suffering ?


Does anyone really know ?


Why have you come here ?
What do you need ?


To Find a Way to Live ?
or To Find a Way To Die ?



_ _ _ _ _ _ _







I feel happy, I feel pretty good, I feel normal.

I am grateful.



It's been 23 years now that my life stay

on earth has been voluntary.




You have a chance right now

to start your life over

instead of trying to end it.



You can resurrect yourself

from this living death

to restore and re-start your life anew.






~ Insane

The first step into blogging universe

Finally here...!!

"He slept beneath the MOON,
He basked beneath the SUN,
He lived a life of GOING-TO-DO,
And died with NOTHING DONE.."

May be i created this Blog .. fearing the above statements..

My mind is quite vacant now.. nothing..!!
except for a feeling.. I ve created my own blog..!!
Wondering..how did this start?




This is the First One..Hope i ll get back to this sooner or later..!!