SPIRITUALITY

I remember the time I became interested in spirituality;
Everywhere spiritual window-shopping, trying every modality;
Tried the old thought, as well as the "New Age";
Read many books, turned many many a page;
Found a "Guru", sought the wisdom of that sage;
False it was, trapped myself in my own cage,
Disillusioned, disappointed, broke out in rage,
Healed my anger, the wisdom from the experience my wage.
Still I continued on my heroic quest;
Spent much time to sit, think and rest;
And discovered that all my window-shopping, my search
Hand-me-down from others, even the "New Age" church,
Was the wrong way to look upon a spiritual quest;
It is neither the discipline of the East, nor science of the West;
It is simply the mastery of an art in my own way..,
Be, learn, step along my path, even in the way I pray.
Simply allow my talents, my flower within
Grow, flourish, and bloom, purify me from sin;
Embraced by divine light, or any other means
Purge my dross, my morality I cleanse.
Spirituality is not something I achieve, attain or reach,
It is a way of life that I can learn, but not teach.

NOTE: I do not identify myself as the author of this poem. This poem was sent by a student/friend Ramnita Sahni. I simply posted it for those of my friends who want to enjoy it.

Why don’t you dance inside me?

I have seen little atoms of dust dancing
A dance of life
They bob up and down
Round and round
As if caught in a chakravyu
They move in their own concentric circles
Without disturbing each other’s rhythm
Dance through the haze of my vision
Dance through the swirling waves of Time
Dance as though life would never end
Whirling dervishes
Spinning around their axes
Moving from axis to the rim
And then back to the axis
Their movement is a spiral of stillness
Slowly winding down the dark stairs
Edging closer to the heart of the matter
The eternal naad resounding deep within
The waking hours of zikr turning into songs of lament
Oh! Why don’t you dance inside me?

Why don't you become the ocean?

Thoughts are like colorful fish
Inside the aquarium of mind
They float and dive
Skirting around what looks somewhat like
The green moss on wild hedges
Resting on tiny, white pebbles
Moving upstream, downstream
Constantly
Propelled by an inner urge
Searching for scraps of food
In eternal restlessness
Their beady eyes darting all around
Sometimes hitting against the glass frame
Returning to self-limiting enclosures
You be the spectator outside
Perched on the shores of silence
Watch them till the glass frame breaks
And fishes leap out of the splashing waters
To return to the ocean

Rendezvous

That evening
We had thought
We’d make memorable
Shall sit across the smooth edges
Of an elliptical table
Stretch out our close-fisted palms
In warm handshakes
Tease the yawning years
Into easy wakefulness
Dip our frail fingers
In dewy silences
Seal the loneliness
Of weary hearts
By toasting drinks
We had thought
Time would shrink
To the size of our memories
And vast deserts
Shall drown
In the moist, liquid eyes
We had thought and hoped
But nothing of the kind happened
We remained marooned
In our silences
Our several voices trapped
In the crisis of selfhood
Crooned endlessly
Mise en scene
Of some surreal film
The warm handshake
The dewy silences
The moist, liquid eyes
Hung across the pallid wall
Like an old painting
Out of sight, forgotten and dust-laden
Vast deserts
Edged closer to our hearts
Memories reduced to a junk-heap
Lay crumpled under the table
Shared past
Danced in the shadowy background

Yes, it was
A Walpurgisnacht of vagrant souls
Floating helplessly
Inside a liquor bottle.

Frozen Moments

A watery smile
Flickering across your silent lips
Laced with the pain of yesteryears
Is a memory
I’d much rather forget
A testimony
To disquieting nights
When you sobbed endlessly
Through the darkness
As I lay by your side
Dreaming of two little cuckoo birds
Nestling and cooing thro’ the rain
Or
Drab and insipid days
Stretched between you and me
Separating us
Like two shores of a stagnant pool
Whirling and gurgling
In its own scum

Wish
I could wipe the pain
With my silent gaze…
Sing the cuckoo song
Across the drain…
Or make the stagnant water
Rush again.

Meeting Point

In day time
We walk side by side
Like two earth discs
Rotating around their axes
Hallowed by piercing light
Trapped between sun and moon
We resemble a solar eclipse

At night
Moon walks miles ahead
And earth folds up
Layers of light
Into a tight embrace
Our shadows lengthen out to meet
To overlap
And cut across
The barriers of identity.

SHAPER SHAPED

Dear Friends
I'm posting this poem by Harindranath Chattopadhyaya today. It was sent
to me by a friend of mine, Simar Omkar, and it sums up my thoughts on the
first day of 2009.
Here it goes:

In days gone by I used to be
A potter who would feel
His fingers mould the yielding clay
To patterns on his wheel;
But now, through wisdom lately won,
That pride has gone away,
I have ceased to be the potter
And have learned to be the clay.

In other days I used to be
A poet through whose pen
Innumerable songs would come
To win the hearts of men;
But now, through new-got knowledge
Which I hadn't had so long,
I have ceased to be the poet
And have learned to be the song.

I was a fashioner of swords,
In days that now are gone,
Which on a hundred battle-fields
Glittered and gleamed and shone;
But now I am brimming with
The silence of the Lord,
I have ceased to be sword-maker
And have learned to be the sword.

In by-gone days I used to be
A dreamer who would hurl
On every side an insolence
Of emerald and pearl.
But now I am kneeling
At the feet of the Supreme
I have ceased to be the dreamer
And have learned to be the dream.