“Good manners come from having sympathy with others and from understanding our own limitations. We should always realize that we are humble, unimportant people on this earth and try to help the world as much as we can in our short time here. I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now.” (September 30, 1981)

When did I learn to fill my pen with the ink of dilemma, passions of my soul that threaten to suffocate me? The experience of pain that tells me the deeper story inside? They invented the letters and the words. Nay, they took refuge in those sounds to render their soul's song. Who am I? No, it is not this body in which I am imprisoned. I have been in more bodies before and I shall visit more bodies, perhaps to sing the same song. What illusion is this, that separates me from you? Separates me from the wind and the bird who longs to soar??

Nothing calms this restless heart, swinging from the heights of ecstasy to the deepest depths of despair. Thus life goes on... a meandering river, of stumbling stones and gushing currents, sometimes so peaceful and then so stormy. Then the faint memory, a lingering hope… one day, to merge with the ocean.

I called over a friend to dinner at our place for Id-uz-zuha¹ and got embarrassed. No, he wouldn't touch a single piece of chicken made with butter and all. I think it was Gadzookz' manner of making a point. Like he always did.

“An innocent but fundamental irreverence for life, shrouding the minds of the ignorant or rather, the indifferent. So much blood must have been shed today, just because some fancy dishes had to be cooked, because the insatiable human appetite is more important. And so, indifference fuels the crime, and then the endless circle of uncomprehending misery, brought about by an uncontrolled mind. Did anyone think even for a moment why? Why the violence committed upon helpless animals seems to be repeated in the human milieu? Oh! I forget... one has to be a poet to understand all this!!”

There was rain with hail today; the kind that used to excite us kids once upon a time. When we would wrap ourselves in warm clothes and go out to collect the ice cold tablets of joy. I felt a nostalgic twinge of that wonderment, but no, there wasn't anyone around to share that temptation.

Somewhere between afternoon and evening, I went over to an old chum's place, somewhere along a tree lined road that evoked a faint memory, difficult to place how and where, yet with a feeling of wonder that it is all still the same. The same blue azure specked with cloud sheets, the same sudden wind out of nowhere, the same hoping, soon... very soon!!

Nahi,² it cannot be. There will be many more times of goofing up. I still make thoughtless mistakes because the “I” is still too big. On the other hand, the three dimensional fools of the world would always prefer you to remain silent and meek and obey their three dimensional folly. What does one do? Where does one go?

Over and over it goes on. Thinking this is it, then everything just falls apart only to leave a sense of helpless humiliation, insignificant to be given any importance. In the world of noise, one's tiny voice is easily drowned. Desperate from the disconnectedness that surrounds us, pained by the scenes of life's ugliness everywhere, thoroughly disgusted at the outrageous indecency passing off for imbecile elitism. Rotting at the center of all that chaos is the exaggerated sense of self-importance not even knowing where the self really is!

Maybe it is all better like this in the dead of night and no light for the darkness. Let all those who wake up to ignorance and stupidity, sleep and snore so a few of us can think about the mystery of meaning in existence, where the fateful turns of life can lead. But then, this fragment of understanding is so vulnerable, so easily threatened and life feels like walking on a tightrope... always about to fall.

I was looking at my life but couldn't see the structure yet. A great practical component was missing. The seed crystal was yet to define its shape and so I felt that I had done all I could do and yet there was no result. There seemed to be a great quarrel between the mathematical model of the universe based on numbers and the creative element that finds its expression in words, so I was compelled by fate to allow a similar division between hope and reality in my own life.

A man allows a woman to dominate his mind and arouse the subconscious devotion. She becomes the ideal of his perfection, the epitome of grace while she is no more than the ordinary girl, ever vulnerable to changing impressions. And when they live together, if they live together, love is just an open book they themselves wrote, still suffering from the amnesia, when?

I wake up by the tolling of the church bells. In the morning freshness of another new day, a happy wind blows from somewhere making the roses dance outside the window, while the pine trees sing a chorus in the distance. My heart beats in anticipation, waiting to be together with Gadzookz after quite some time. Does The Great One think of me too? This puny little goblin who thinks he is too good?

So Gadzookz took me to the chapel. There I sat looking at the messiah nailed to the cross, while on the left was the statue of The Mother gently holding her baby. I am her baby, I thought, but where were her consoling arms? Where is that benign look of simple faith to give me strength? Mother! Where are you?!! Come and give me light, so I may feel the grace of my being and help to light up others...

Maybe, vision is strained or else one would see how everything looked, the winding turns of life opening up to promised lands and dreams that come true, hinted by the stillness of silent blue skies. The three dimensional fools of the world bear their crosses alright, but very few have the guts to bear a crucifixion.

*                 *                 * 

Love and lust are so close to each other nowadays. She knows, if She were to behave like a Bitch (Being In Total Control Honey) with the man she loves, but how?

Meanwhile, the more he comes to know love, the more he feels desire. Desire says, “Now!” Love says, “Wait, please!!”

When will they come full circle? When will the abyss between the wife and the lover be bridged?

Love is an ambition to soar and everything is pulling it down, especially the tremendous weight of false ideas borne out of fear and inhibition. The sublimity of the skies is for the brave, in whom fierce flames burn to apprehend the glory of the Sun. And for every Sun there must be a beautiful Moon, radiating truth everywhere...

*                 *                 * 

The world sometimes looks like a circus of liars, and when someone speaks the truth, he becomes dangerous. There are no weapons to kill him. You touch him and you touch your barriers of falsehood. You ignore him and you know you are missing something. Every day you slowly inch closer and closer to him. You dare not escape.

One by one, thus they come, hesitating that the gates be opened so they can enter. An occasional glimpse here and there, of what lies within, looking but seeing only little, listening but hearing only echoes... until everything is destroyed to rubble and there is only ONE light and ONE sound.³

Everything is altered. Friends turn to strangers and strangers become friends. The days come and go but time stands still. One is pained to sadness, but no tears come. Danger lurks all around but there is no fear. The purse is empty but one feels rich. The atmosphere looks cold and lonely but one feels warm and loved.

I, me and myself suddenly becomes Something else, saved until the last moment. The last disturbing ripples of falseness dying away and gravity can no longer hold me back from ascending the skies on my new found wings. It is not like before, heaven found but lost again, somehow that finding was not true and lasting. THIS time there seems to be a promise, NEVER to part again.

Life in a new Heaven, for Love on a new Earth, across so many new Universes, who knows? Time is simply the vibration of planetary mind in form. One such vibration belongs to each one of us when there is absolute harmony. Our joy knows no bounds when one is truly born. The true life is a sound that echoes forever, a light that ever grows in radiance. The true life is pure existence.

“So much can change in the span of a few days. An entire life can change its entire course. A radical development can take place in the personality without anybody being aware of it. What is the Self but vacillation between a better idea of who you are and who you think you are in the so-called reality?”

Having come this far, I realized that unless the Light shone above the path, one would not have seen anything! All glory to the Light!! But neither could I have found my way unless there were others who were shining, whose light guided me. The fleeting encounters with The Ones who are performing miracles this very minute of every day and my loved ones who reflect my idea without even knowing it! Thus each one is progressing towards a sublimity beyond understanding. Initially in form and thought, through people and the senses and the appetitesthe passions, then the subtler and subtler and subtler...

Honest enduring relationships are possible only between honest enduring people. But people come with egos of various sizes, exaggerated sense of themselves and fancy notions. Perhaps we do not find the real life, the real answers simply because we are not real enough.

So this is how it works. The idea is to be perfectly aware and then everything else simply follows. All along I have been intrigued whether I would find a place for myself here but now I realize that it does not require anyone's permission. I thought others too would open up and life would be commonly shared. But no, it's the other way round. All concerned simply goof up to such an extent that a lonely some emerge the natural winners!

No one can fulfill my expectations because it is not “my” expectations that really matter. I would become a vortex of attention so that some things could be facilitated through me. It is really the same for the rest of “us.” One succeeds in making life sing a different tune, a slight change in cadence, then it is filled with the real music.

“He⁴ sat there like a huge volcano, its power controlled. There was energy sizzling from every inch of his presence. It was electrifying and one could sense the awe he commanded, not a miniscule grain of fear, and eyes that looked, seeing everything down to the depths where any selfishness may still be simmering. Everything bows before him, drawing life from him. He is the master of it all. Towering above the courtyard, shining from the throne, surrounded by beauty. He is the power to be worshipped within.”

Our life is fundamentally false and every effort on our part, in thought, word and deed is motivated by a compulsive aspiration for the true life. We have our own visions and ideas of a more authentic experience of life which we try so hard to achieve. Our certificates, our trophies, our abilities and our achievements only dimly portray who we really are, what we can really do.

“She is never the overt seductress. A soft veil of coyness always surrounds her. Blending of the emotions and feelings and the consequent sense of harmony is more of a natural state of mind than something aggressively sought. A delicate aura of joy from God knows when and one cannot remember when life is without it either. We often frown at couples displaying too much courtship or enmity from apples of discord or full throated sounds of passion. We wonder at the other kind of couple, the ones who look happy and are trying their best to make the most of life.”

I often wonder at these words. Whether they were, are or will be?? The sense of time has long since vanished when we looked at each other and got lost in a strange wonderland. Every other face looks bewildered because I know what they would say if I were to ask them, Why? Don't you see what I see? While I  am brimming inside with the thrill of the seeing.

The face that wore a terrible look of dilemma one day, now looks confused. “I mean, how can all this be? If miracles are actually possible then should it not be possible to transform the ugliness of this world into its true beauty in a wink?” “Of course! Of course! But how, when you wouldn't believe, you wouldn't listen to the subtle sounds of music or read between the lines of stories or wonder at the mystery of having life… or Stars??” “And what about food and clothing and shelter and PRESTIGE?” “Oh my Dear! Those things too, they only exist in the mind! We are simply undoing the past, living the present and creating the future!!!”

In mundane life, I went about telling others that I was employed in P & T. (Peace and Tranquility) while I was basically waiting for a fresh new lease of life. These are tumultuous times. Old ideas and old methods are increasingly under pressure and the rigid people with outdated attitudes have a tough time coming. Nothing is as important as the need to cultivate one's self and bring about a sense of fairness, within and immediately without. Fear is the result from the insecurity of being unable to understand, what the hell is going on?

Life seemed like the seasons that go through rhythmic changes. I could sense the rhythm changing, calling me somewhere, moving away from the old folks and friends. I too was an instrument of change and the world is changing all the time. It was important to find my way and my role in this change... in this great movement of life.

“Life serene,
placid as the calm waters
of a lake,
idle clouds
floating in a blue sky,
chilled by the lonely touch
of a sudden wind,
no ripples
of any happening.”

For some time then, I became a non-entity, no longer my old self, searching for something to do, yearning for the perfect (?) girl to make love to. My mind was swept clean and nothing was written on it, and the writer was confused what to inscribe next. Time was a season less part of the year and life was throwing pebbles into puddles of water. Void, void, void... question marks everywhere.

(.*_*.)

1. Id-uz-zuha, the festival of Muslims, involving animal sacrifice, usually a goat.
2. Nahi, “no”
3. The One sound that I heard at night was the Saut-e-sarmad. It is a Sufi term for abstract sound and around the time I heard it, I clearly remember seeing Three Beings who smiled at me, while I was shivering with fright. They were not human but vaguely appeared to me that way. The Sound and the dream haunts me till today and the only clue I have managed to discover in connection with them is that around that time, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were “retrograde.”(To use an astrological term.)
4. I had some work in college that required me to meet our charismatic principal, Fr. Stephen Mavely. I remember being so captivated by his aura that I even contemplated running away to become a Don Bosco brother spending my life, rendering selfless service.