Loss

Most things are valued only after they are lost. The brooding over the memories and thinking of the imagined future with the lost things makes us weary.  Money,relationships,time,opportunities,health we spend a lot of energy brooding over our losses. But in the process we loose our precious life  energy without gaining back anything that’s already lost.

I have taken a lot for granted without any gratitude, sometimes even grudging the presence of some things. But it’s worth taking a break thinking of life without them, imagining the loss while there is time and learning from other people’s losses by empathizing with them. It helps value things in life, put them in their proper place.

Then there is the ultimate loss waiting for all of us of life itself: Death. It’s the loss of all our memories, of our body, possessions, ideas, thoughts, everything that we have held important all our lives. Many of us avoid the thought of it until it stares it in our face. But like all other losses, it’s probably a good idea to not wait for it but to start evaluating our lives while we are still healthy and alive.

Grace

I look for lord's grace, but I can't forget myself.
I look for eternal peace, but I can't stop thinking of pleasures.
I want to be still but the thoughts tempt me off.
Yet, I hope against all odds that grace would descend on me,
isn't god so kind and will let me have a glimpse just once.
But god doesn't help those who are not ready to see,
those who turn a deaf ear having heard of it all.
My life drains from the body little by little and I wait.
I wait for a glimpse of the shining lord within.
I wait  for grace to embrace me when the body is frail.
I can't wait one more life, it's painful to be living dead.

Kite

I dreamt my kite would soar,
I let the thread more slack,
the kite reached new heights,
but slipped off my hands.

I see the aimless drifting kite,
the uncharted lands it has seen,
the tail of thread that tries to hook on,
but the winds are too strong.

I run after the drifting kite,
to catch it when it lands,
tired or torn from the winds,
into my praying hands.

I have suffered running more
than I enjoyed flying kites,
I don't plan to fly more,
till I don't mind loosing kites.

Enjoyment

Today a friend of mine suggested me to buy a car and roam around and thereby enjoy my life. However I have been into that trap many times before and it never works for me. No more than a fleeting moment of superficial happiness comes out of these myriad forms of enjoyment which seem to keep other people happy and engaged. A few moments into the activity and I start witnessing the separation between myself and the life situation, and get too lost in my thoughts. Apparently from what I have heard until that separation dissolves there is no respite. And when it does, I won't have to change the situation in my life to enjoy it because there would be no thoughts to feel dissatisfied with life. Until then I will live a life of absolute fatalism and try to reduce the resistance that says no to life. That may not be the best way to live life but it's an easy one, to act when the life force urges you and rest otherwise. One may slip into laziness and uselessness because of that, but with enough alertness shone on it, it may turn into something useful.

The limits of programmed men

K says, The brain is born with instinctive human programming, much like all other animals. It reacts to stimuli based on the programming leading to an action. The experience creates more programming, one may say it leads to accumulation knowledge. So the faculty of knowledge of the brain is limited, since there is always something new that can be added to it. Knowledge is stored up as memory and thoughts are based on it, or a projection of thought into the future and this is how thought and time operate. By this inductive argument, we say thought is limited. So thought produces division between the known and unknown, i.e it's not the whole or the ultimate. The division leads to conflict between the self, all the things it wants for itself that it knows and what actually is, the unknown.
So having understood the limitations and consequences of knowledge, time and thought one immediately ends them, then there is perception of things as they are. This is intelligence, meditation and the end of suffering. This is the death of the self and all it's conditioning. What's left after it is pure awareness which doesn't differentiate between the observed and the observer. When the awareness dissolves it is death and when it comes forth it is birth. The universe are brought forth and dissolve from that intelligent, infinite, energy which is all there is. 

Breaking the pattern

If I die all my problems die with me. When death nears for that matter, all problems dissolve into the singularity of the so called problem of death. So one enquirers, is it possible to be dead while the body lives. To end the me that one has psychologically accumulated since birth as memories which continue in ones mind as thoughts. In my particular case I have a pattern of selected memories and thought that go on in repeat mode, the sickness, the desire to be something big without doing anything, the utter disinterest in all that goes on around me, the inability to screw someone without raising a finger, the ugliness of the physical form which doesn't draw any attention from the opposite sex, the isolation and loneliness without friends and the inability to break it, the bitterness towards an all knowing bully boss and the pathological body. Sometimes I am the job I do, the accolades I won, the pleasures I head, but most of the time it's the other things.
Having recognized them as repeating thoughts registered in memory, can they be got rid of? And what would I be without them? Would I be an awareness floating in the vast nothingness, staring at everything like an animal or new born baby? Does it threaten me so much that I hold on to this unpleasant story, which compares with all other stories to place itself at a better place.
Is this all just an idea and a new thought by watching a lot of new age stuff on Youtube, to reinforce the me or is there anything there when the self ends other than the awareness of the vastness in which there is boredom and lack of purpose. I haven't experienced anything other than boredom and few moments of relaxation before the pattern catches on, so I assume it's just an idea as of now or maybe it's the pathological body which can't take the energy that comes with such freedom.

Love

I would admit I have never understood love. I have understood and lived hate, the morbid energy of it shaking each one of my cells. I have also had the feel good feeling of the opposite of hate which qualifies as love in colloquial language, when I was pleased by something or someone. But when used in a male female context, I have no idea of what people are talking about when they say they love each other. Does it mean the presence of the gives on pleasure and therefore they won't hurt each other as opposed to what they would do if they hated each other. And what happens once the ability to please ends. Does love die with pleasure or turn into the ghost of an obsession. The obsession being one of trying to possess the other to fulfill oneself and being yet another form of pleasure.
So from what I understand of it, love is not that. It doesn't have that attribute of selfishness.
Then what is it? Are there multiple variants of it, like the male female love, the parent child love, the love of an animal or a thing or an idea? If there is no selfishness, the self must not be there. And if the self is absent all ideas and conditioning of the mind are gone with it. With the labeling of the conditioning gone, male, female, parent, child, things and  ideas and the body lose their labels. So is love all that is left there? Love is  then life itself. Life in it's vital continuity. The alternative is of course that there is no such thing as love and it's just life. But it's just a choice of English words after all.

Loneliness

Why does a person feel pangs of loneliness, sometimes even when surrounded by people. Is it because there is no communication or is it because one compares oneself  with the flamboyant life of people who apparently are not lonely and then feels miserable about it?  If it's the latter one has to watch it and end it because it's so damaging and meaningless.
However if it's the former one must try to understand why.Most conversation is repetitive and inconsequential, so it's not really verbal communication that is of much value. However one does feel that it helps communicating after a long spell of so called loneliness, it's obvious in the affect it has on the mood of a person. And one asks what is it about a conversation, a stream of thoughts originating from a person, affecting another person and bouncing back to a person. It's sort of a ping pong game.  Is it one consciousness playing the game or two? Since they are invariably affected  and modified by each other, they can't be separate entities. So it is just one consciousness amusing itself. Can a person invent ways to do that by himself all alone? Well he can, but he would then be officially crazy. That's what happens to people who lack human company. And for those who don't the craziness still continues in a subtle form, not surfacing until the companionship ends. Then it takes form of boredom, pain, sorrow, depression and so on depending on the level of one's attachment. So is there no other way to live than having to numb oneself continuously in some form of amusement? Aren't there moments in one's life when one feels one doesn't need anything or anyone, not even himself. Moments when one witnesses a breathtaking beauty, in the nature or is lying on a cozy bed tired after a days work with one's belly full with no future to worry about. One asks can't that be sustained and become the way of living. But the moment one tries to hold on, it vanishes and becomes a state of unease followed by desire and alternating cycles of pain and pleasure. And what's left of a man when he drops the need of everyone and everything, including people and relationships accumulated in the past. Is it any different than death, not physical death, but all of the qualities of death other than the end of the body? And then one gets frightened and goes back to one's  usual life with all it's loneliness and the cover ups for it.
So the way out seems to be loose the self and die to it, so that it can't ever be separate and hence alone. And since self is a bundle of memories, thoughts and imaginations which represent the past, present and future as projected in our day to day living, they must end.
Can one do that by control, possibly one for moments, but then the unease begins again and all of them are born of it back again. So it's no better than going to a nature trip feeling great and getting back to the grind of life. I guess then there is nothing to do but to understand all this and watch oneself as one falls into these pits and eventually one learns to walk around them without falling, enjoying whatever comes one way. How much time it would take depends on how uncomfortable one is with his current life and how much energy one is ready to expend into it. For some people it's instant and some people like to hold on to themselves.

Self esteem

One's so called worth comes from what one thinks of himself and how convinced he is of it. In other words, it could be called one's self esteem. It need not necessarily be positive thoughts, it could as well be once deep rooted believes in one's limitations. So essentially self esteem is the image one has of his own self in his mind. It could be called the idea of qualitative abilities of the notion of self by which a man identifies.

When one has a negative view of of these abilities, it comes up as a feeling of worthlessness.

Irrespective of what one thinks of oneself, one is vulnerable. The worthlessness by definition is a feeling of inadequacy and unease. A positive self esteem is subject to being hurt, when either one's abilities are challenged by another or when they start to wane. Nonetheless, there is no arguing to the fact  that a positive self esteem is a better state of mind to be in than a state of mind that feels worthless. 

One then asks if there is a self esteem that is not fragile, a self esteem that doesn't waver with time. If one's self esteem is based on comparative terms, whether on the positive or negative side of comparison, it's bound to be brittle as it's in constant conflict with the esteem of those around one. So we rule out comparison as an attribute of such a self esteem. Then it turns out there is nothing to feel good about when one accomplishes something, an accomplishment being something that others can't do and one can. Nor is there anything to feel bad about that one can't accomplish. Such a man would then drift from accomplishments to interests based on the innate abilities that he has. And the innate ability might be no social or economic significance, there might be millions of people who don't have that innate ability and can do the same job much better. But the man who wants to have a timeless self esteem having rooted out comparison from his psyche, would still continue to do what he is meant to and that would become his livelihood.

I wonder if one of the abilities would be to do nothing at all, not because one is being lazy or bored or indolent. Just because one doesn't see the necessity of doing it.  But that would be a selfish way to live, a man can't be alive, sensitive and stay aloof from the society like that. 

One then has to do the best he can in his capacity to end the misery around him. However, there is no self esteem derived from this action. I guess the understanding of this phenomena helps one overcome the idea of worthlessness and one's self esteem being hurt.

Beloved

Oh beloved, I yearn to meet you.
But you recede every time I desire you.
We have long been playing this game,
neither we forget each other nor do we meet.
Just when I am tired and about to give up,
you show a glimmer of interest.
I try all my tricks to seduce you,
but fail and end up more miserable.
Are we like the edges of an endless road:
eternally near, but never in union.
I wonder if I have a place in your mind
or I create an image from my obsession.
There is no way I could win over you.
So I concede and wait but you never show up.
I paint the canvas of our relationship,
with all my attempts to win, my hopeless wait,
thinking of all we could do together and my sorrow.
I see my selfishness in all of this and then you come
and I know my dirty hands can't touch your purity.
I can only see the beauty of you.
The seeing is our meeting, it’s love.
We speak no words, we don't hug each other,
I don't think of you, we are always together.

Two ways to live

There are two ways people live, either acting without  really knowing the consequences of their actions which often may be irrevocable and damaging or waiting for clarity to emerge before acting. Then the question arises, how will one ever know the complete consequences of an action in time, time being an infinite continuity and man's life being short. I have seen people act with the noblest of inentions and lament over the unforseen effects,of things gone completely wrong. The next obvious question is is there an action out of the realm of time which can never be wrong. It may be complete inactivity if the situation demands so but never detrimental. And is that action in anyway influenced by thought and knowledge or a spontaneous response of  intelligence?Thought and knowledge being limited at a given moment are never complete enough to know the cascading effects of any act. So the action must be a spontaneous unconditioned response of intelligence. But thought being the trickster that it is can deceive oneself and invent this spontaniety which is even worse than a deliberate act. So how does one become sure of this complete detachment of memory,thought and knowledge which brings with it great clarity into the act. These are of course not physical actions which are affected by time and space conditions and therefore need a response in thay realm but mental decisions and answers to existential questions. Something as significant as what should i do with my life and for how long given the resources and faculties i have , irrespective of how limited or extraordinary they are.
Accepting a ready made answer wont help because unless their is a comprehen understanding of the question why, the motivation and drive to act will fizzle out. And untill one understands what and why it might best be to do insignificant things very intensely  and diligently so that the damage is restricted.

The burden of life

On a cold November afternoon, Susmit decided life wasn't worth living anymore. I suspect it was a long and carefully planned decision and he waited for the auspicious Karthik month of calendar so that he doesn't have to bear the burden of living anymore. The burden of eating, smiling, day dreaming and sleeping while others wondered how could someone continue like that was too heavy to bear. I can only imagine how dreadful his thoughts would have been and how deep his despair to make living unbearable.
              In reality his life was no less than comfortable, there was financial stability and he could have easily lived and even started a shop on his father's pension till he was fourty, just relaxing at home. The pain of not being able to meet high expectations both his own and his parents. The constant humiliation from family and friends who measure a person by the amount of money they make and the number of scars one carries from perpetual struggle and violent competitions. The monstrous society where there is no love and respect for a fellow man unless he can be exploited to ones benefit.

But killing ones body doesn't change a thing, I wish I could tell him that. Death could alleviate his pain but only when one lived, not in the ending of body. I wish he could have gone through a catharsis and unlearned all the poisonous ideas that education and the society feeds one about living and achieving. Dying to all that would have certainly placed him in heaven as he wished. 

The Sacred Life

The energy transforms to human life and grows in the womb of my wife as I write. What would the child borrow from this deep vast history of humanity as its born bothers me. After all there is so much more fear, pain, greed, lust and violence in it than peace, joy and goodness. After thirty years I still can't get rid of all that content and partake in life fully. Its still a vision, figment of imagination maybe because the unreal has grown stronger with time.
           Time is a great excuse to relent and let the intensity of enquiry drop. Perhaps because it requires great attention and energy and I dissipate so much of it that I never have enough left to go through it completely. So what bothers me is would it be another lifetime spent without ever meeting the sacred.  Probably time would come to an end for the child and me at some point.
        I have paid great attention to what others have said about all this. And for the most part I haven't found any instructions and explanations to be of any use. It just adds to the chaos. Unless clarity comes from within and the content of thought and memories are seen for what they really are the sacred is distant.
             If I were to define life it would be perception, that's the difference between a stone and a man. So when one looks attentively at the bundle of memories that define a man's identity, the intricate illusion that thought and time create unravels itself. Thought and therefore time stops. Then whats left is the mass of ones body and its ablitity to percieve. In that perception everything is. And perhaps that is the sacred life.
          

The trap of money

It starts very early when we as children start learning about the things money can do. It's like the Kalpataru, a mythological heavenly wish fulfilling tree that manifests anything you desire.
From the chocolate that you fantasize about in your dreams to the nicest apparel.
                                             You see your parents working hard to earn and preserve this mysterious thing if you are from a poor or middle class family. For them it brings security from the travails that an unpredictable life can bring and a corpus to take care of the fundamentals of life like hunger, education and health that the developed world gets for granted from the state. If you are lucky to be born into a rich family you see the power it wields, the respect it commands for your family.
                                               So one starts to learn the importance of money very early in life and it is indeed important in this world where there is no love or compassion. All of us are insecure and money brings a feeling of security. So one starts to accumulate it by various means. There are those who want to live rich and spend it to gain the pleasures that the world has to offer and those who hoard it to feel more secure and those that give it away as charity.
                  It would be great to have an Utopian society where people have love and compassion foe each other and all needs of everyone is taken care of. Then we don't need to hoard, spend or earn money. But we are not that, we are greedy, selfish, corrupt and to survive in this society one needs money. Now the question arises for someone who observes all this mess, how should one deal with money? How much should one spend, hoard, donate? Also how much should one earn and earn at what cost.