Category : English Poems

Elemental Love

One day when I woke up,
Rays of shining sun just lit me up,
Disintegrating me in a way that I can’t sum up!
What’s happening with me I just couldn’t look up,

Felt every cell’s vibration so strong,
Every element inside was singing its own song,
Since everything was asking, where does it really belong?
Struggle to hold or suppress it felt so wrong,

Earth :

Part of me wanted to lay on the land,
Seduction of soil, easy to understand,
Before I knew, I started to expand,
Solidity of existence, started to cover the land,

I let the body quench its elemental quest,
Thinking if I’m the nature then nature knows the best!,
Covering mountains, deserts and forest,
Desire was so strong that I couldn’t rest,

Water:

While I was grabbing every possible terrain,
It just suddenly started to rain,
Before I realize what’s happening again,
Part of me started melting in the vein,

Love for water came so gushing,
Thirst to catch the rivers rushing,
Before I can look at springs blushing,
Fell from the fall,
and felt ocean’s weight was so crushing,

Fire :

When with every drop of water I wanted to melt,
Part of me started burning and about to smelt,
A fire consuming existence like nothing left to be felt,
Like millions of sun-rays coming for you to welt,

But within that flames I saw the light,
Made me calm and I gave up the fight,
Nothing left to check whether it’s wrong or it’s right,
Welcoming the fire within for disillusion and for delight,

Air :

While burning like a candle which doesn’t sway,
Gust of air passed through and swept me away,
Floating and buffeting I kept asking about the way,
Air didn’t know any destination and has no place to stay!

Space :

Slowly that thinning air was gone,
I started wondering, was I forlorn?
While elements were leaving the physical self torn,
Then came the realization how ‘l’ was born !

From something the decoration of ego was created,
Dance of soul with the elements was so celebrated,
If everything is me and I’m everything, what’s get separated?
How ‘I’ was born and how ‘I’ was gone, can’t be logically debated.

I got the inspiration for this poem from two things. Since today is valentine’s day, something came to mind and I started writing. But since it was usual sarcastic take on the subject, I deleted it. Not because it wasn’t good ( I think so LOL 😉 ) but because I thought, why rub salt into the wounds ( let’s not get into the origin of the wounds 😉 ). Anyway, that was just 0.01% of the inspiration but the huge part is from the exceptionally amazing Vedantic verse.

प्रातः स्मरामि हृदि सन्स्फ़ुरदात्मतत्वम् ………..तद्ब्रह्म निष्कलमहं न च भूतसंघ:||

Who else can write such a beautiful verse which is the ultimate distillate of Vedantic philosophy, than the greatest Adi Shankaracharya. Every morning when I stand on the terrace and when the rising sun ( yeh I think it’s still rising at 10 am when I wake up 😉 ) is filling me up with its rays, I remember this verse and then it makes me forget everything else. Not going into the detailed meaning of the entire verse but the first line means, “At dawn, I contemplate on the purest form of the essence of my existence springing within my heart…” and the last line means something like, “… That ( essence of my existence ) is pure Bhram and not the collection of elements …”.

There is a very interesting story about this verse. When ‘Ashrambhajanavali’ ( collection of the songs for prayer ) was being created for Gandhi Ashram, this verse was included in the morning prayer. When Gandhiji read it, he thought about it and after that he requested to remove these three verses from it. Why? Well, it needs little explanation so I’ll include it in the recording of a lecture on Geeta or any other related lecture.

Happy Valentine’s Day. When you love another person, you come closer to discovering yourself more. Of course, conditions apply 😉

Category : English Poems

Bright Star

Cold planets revolve around the sun,
Millions of years filled with meaningless churn,
Why do things circle around the sun?
Because they themselves cannot burn,

Heat is not even sun’s fault,
He cannot contain that revolt,
Even if everyone can see the bolt,
Not everyone can feel that jolt,

Everyone is born with a little spark,
All living things got that Nature’s mark,
But neither everyone can really connect the arc,
Nor everyone really has the courage to expel the dark,

Those who can hear the freedom’s message,
Have the will to tear down any cage,
For those who are burning with tremendous rage,
Sky is that ultimate stage,

Dull and dumb always swear by the night,
Being afraid of light,  believing, this is not their fight,
Those who are destined to be considered bright,
Never ever prefer to shine from borrowed light.

Pretty much self-explanatory poem and I don’t need to shed light on something which is already so bright 😉

Contrary to many people’s belief, the universe is full of darkness. Our existence is surrounded by extreme cold and thick darkness. Even though the mighty sun lights up a few million kilometers around him to keep some planets warm, its light is not even akin to a tiny lamp in a dark frigid winter night.

A true meaning of life should be something similar to the sun’s existence amid infinite shrouds of darkness. I am not surprised that the very first batch of intellectual beings on the earth understood that truth and started worshiping the sun. Veds are proof of that.  

Adversities are always going to stay. Forces which try to quell you and make you quiet are never going to quit. It is up to you how you want to carry on that tiny little spark given by nature in the form of life. Once in a few thousand years, someone like Krishna, Buddha or Jesus can turn that spark into a raging fire and be able to melt the shackles of stupidity around the people and turn the course of mankind towards brightness. 

In the euphoria of democratization and equality we often forget that the true genius ( not talking about academics but someone with exceptional wholesome development ) is like the sun burning from within. That insatiable fire lights up his existence with infinite joy and unabated enthusiasm. So nobody can ever be equal in that sense because most people are dumb and dull, and like to remain that way. In order to acquire brightness, one needs tremendous energy and that is too much to ask from a normal human being. You can democratize the voting right but there is no way that a society can distribute the power voltage each person carries within. 

Only thing a normal mortal earthlings can do is to either remain bedazzled beneath the brightness of such a person or someone can avail that benevolent shining light and go find the next step to reach higher.

Category : English Poems

Flowers

Basking in the rising glory of the sun,
Flowers neither know subtraction nor the sum,
For that it is always full,
Flowers know how to rule,
Lily never desires to be a lotus,
See, it’s happy even with the cactus,
Ever wonder looking at the flower bed,
How come such fragile thing never sad!
It’s our perception that they try to teach,
How to live or how to reach,
But what do they care,
Whether in desert or along the Nile,
It’s just a seeds success celebrated by smile!
Fragrance or color, really doesn’t matter,
Secret is, for a flower it’s always now,
And nothing saved for later,
Basking in the glory of shining sun,
A tiny flower is so full of all the fun!

One of the celebrated ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus has said, “He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” This thinking reverberates among many of his tragic plays. Also, interestingly such thinking is a prominent theme in many philosophical ideas coming from western philosophers. On eastern landscape, Buddhist philosophy is also mainly based on the painfulness of existence and how to escape from it. Only Vedic philosophy doesn’t subscribe to such thinking. Instead Vedic philosophy encourages to embrace and explore the ecstasy of existential exuberance. Not in a rudimentary way but through the higher grounds of spirituality.

Somehow it has been trickled into the conscience that knowing more creates the stress and pain, and ignorance is bliss. This is a half backed truth in my opinion because it shows that the peddler of such philosophy has never been through the process of gaining wholesome wisdom. Because once you know the truth, your existence becomes blissful and sheer joy. One who says, knowing more is creating pain, has yet to learn a lot!

Some argue that nature is beautiful and birds and animals look always happy because of their lack of thinking ability. To that, I would say, it shows the person’s own lack of ability to understand the truth. Because if an animal can be happy without much brain than a person with ability to think and understand should be millions of times much happier with the unique ability to enjoy many of the universe’ pleasures. Nature has given you the exceptional ability but if you don’t know how to use it then it’s you yourself to blame for all the misery.

Flowers boom, birds sing, rivers flow… all these because it’s their nature. Nobody gives a damn about your existence and nothing in this universe exists to entertain you. Nature doesn’t even here to teach you anything like those motivational speakers tell you. It just exists. So if you want to feel the joy, learn to exist in harmony! Like flowers?! Well, you can do even better, if you know you are human! 😉