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Tuesday 8 December 2015

Disquieting



      The agony of it!                                           
       Looking at it                                                                     
       life is a balance sheet,                                          
       it might be said,                                                        
       with credits and debits—                                 
       good ‘n’ bad thoughts                                       
       pleasure ‘n’ pain                                              
       selfish and unselfish acts.                                             
       These are born of self,
       it’s said,                                                                  
       there’s a day of reckoning
       a day of judgement, they say                            
       as you stand before the Supreme.                     
       Another says                                                           
       this self is of  itself                                           
       the cause and the result                                     
       the one leading to the other                                            
       and                                                                                   
       the other leading to the one—                         
       a never-ending churning
       and silence.                                                 
       Oh why these credits and debits?                     
       You’re born,                                                      
       you succumb                                                     
       you die;                                                             
       this cycle is for ever, it’s said.                          
       Why must life be                                              
       a balance sheet?                                                 
       Why should good overcome evil?                     
       Why have a balance sheet                                 
       why blank it                                                   
       why go on and on,
       for ageless ages                                           
       kalpa after kalpa                                                
       oh, why?                                                                       
                                                                                 
       No wisdom has the answer                                 
       Can there be a question                                      
       without an answer?                                                 
Apparently there is.
______________________________________________________________________

      (dis)illusion          
       If my soul is only a part
       my consciousness only a division
       and there’s a corresponding whole,
       why is the part apart?     
       why did the division come to be?
       And if the part being apart
       is only an illusion            
       why is this illusion?    


      If I act wisely
       the credit is yours
       If I act stupidly
       the blame is yours, too,           
       you say.              
       If credit and blame are yours
       if you are wisdom and stupidity
       why is this illusory reality? 

       If you are I  
       what am I?
       If I am not I
       why am I?     
       If this ‘i’ moves
       at your pleasure
       (as they say)
       why move it so?


      ‘yugam’ after ‘yugam’
       Why is this birth and death
       Is there a ‘different’ quest
       For how long is this quest
       Is there a ‘different’ thirst
       for how long is this thirst
     
       for how long is this churning
       how long how long…
       Who is there yonder
       who is here near
       to tell…

       One practised and said:
       ‘Love and surrender’
       One preached and practised
       reformation and renaissance
       One declared and thumbed:
       ‘O captive, seek release’

       Yet no one is saying
       why this quest, thirst, churning?



       Life
       Under the greenwood tree we sit and muse
       over ideas, values, emotions that confuse
       straining our wits to reach a solution
       but to no consequence. No philosophy, no religion
       has found an answer to the eternal question;
       with all the reasoning, the intellect in his possession,
       man is yet to solve this puzzling riddle;
       it seems it’s been a vain attempt though noble;
       sure, there’ve been thinkers great
       the question’s there unsolved but.
       Will man ever succeed in his venture?
       There’s nothing else but to surrender;
       Life’s been a puzzle and will ever remain so.




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