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 😉