इमारतों के आँसू

ख्वाहिश है आँसुओं की,
यह चाहत रो पड़ने की,
सम्बन्ध नहीं इनका सुख या दुःख से,
माध्यम हैं खुद को मिटा देने के...
 
मेरा दिल है जो टूटने से डरता है,
अपने झूठे अस्तित्व को संजोने वाला,
एक अंश है मेरा,
जो बिखरने से झिझकता है...
 
आज मैंने जो अपने महादेव को है पुकारा,
विनाश हो गया जो अपना माना था मैंने सारा,
टूट गयीं अहम की बनावटी इमारतें,
उनके टुकड़े भी मेरे आँसुओं में बह गए...
 
शम्भो  !

PS: It's a blessing to be able to cry in the presence of one's Guru. It releases one's karmic baggage and is probably the most transformational experience a seeker can ask for. 

Carpe Diem

You ask how would I be,

If this day were to be my last?

I would,

Keep nothing back,

Would have fuelled everything,

Given all of me in the blast of life...

 

I would,

Move past my feeble mind's, timid excuses,

Wouldn't trade for anything,

That which is truly Divine...

 

I would,

Protect the flame within me,

Protect the fire, that burns my mental shackles,

Allowing my surrender to the infinite Universe...

 

I would,

Drop these colours of the ego,

In the Ocean of life, so vast,

Effortlessly surfing, on the waves of daunting tasks...

PS - Being in touch with one's own mortality, is the biggest blessing one can ask for. 

पुकार

अकेला खड़ा हूँ मैं,
अनंत की सीमाओं को ताकते...
इन्हें लांघने की चाहत है मेरी,
आपके बिना ना हो सके ये पूरी...

क्यूँ आपको छोड़ आया हूँ,

मैं खुद पर न जाने कितना खफा हूँ...

इस शैतान को मैं मार डालूँ,

पर इन नादान बहानों से फिर से चूक जाऊं...

 

आ जाओ न मेरे संग आप फिर,

आपको कभी मैं भूल न पाऊं...

पर जब हो क्षण निर्णय का,

तब क्यूँ आपकी सीख को भुला देता हूँ ...

 

यह पुकार है इन सूखे आसुओं की,

चीख है इस प्यासे जीवन की...

मत रहो इतना आप दूर मुझसे,

ठीक करो मुझे,

सिखा दो खुद तक पहुँचने के रास्ते...

 

दो सीख मुझे इन रास्तों पर चलने की...

थोड़ी हिम्मत,

और थोड़ा साहस भी...

PS - To all those who have guided me in this life and those before. Especially remembering Rishi Nityapragya ji 

The Connect

 I never lose it…

    On days with machine like structure;

        Even those with unmanageable mayhem,

It's always there -

The connection- to the one above;

The connection - to the one within…

 

I live through it…

    In moments of effortless brilliance;

        Even those of suicidal heaviness,

It's always there -

The link - to my divine self;

The link - to the real me…

 

I shine through it...

    In moments of deepest slumbers;

        Even those of excruciating wakefulness,

It's always there –

That connection -  that link -

 

Through calm or chaos -

Of the body or the mind;

        I am still connected- I am still linked.

Through that which sustains it all -         my breath…

This Breath.

The Arrow Pulled Back

Green is the color of my devil,

It's not that he is always evil,

It's not the wind's fault that the boat is shaking,

It's actually the misaligned sails' making…

The permission i have  given to the weakest thought,

The permission to be heard and acted upon without being fought,

This permission is shaking the ship's fulcrum,

Not allowing the conditions to be set at optimum,

Conditions that allow for the divine seed to grow,

Conditions that will make life effortlessly flow...

Can feel the resistance within me to play the angel,

My bad experience of ego's dangerous angles,

But Look around and feel the moment my friend,

It's only a mental role play to make life's choices bend,

Approach each moment, revering my mortality,

Invoke Shiva to destroy all that's mine, with brutality…

Surrender my friend, surrender, for it is the only way to go,

Intoxicating yourself will only make the inner confusion grow,

It messes up each time with the vaayu* and the jal* elements of the body,

Leaves me dehydrated and craving for making everything shoddy,

I really want to escape this messy chaos in my head,

The enormous weight makes me wish I was dead…

I was feeling like a child left alone by his Guru,

I realize it was a pot where victim consciousness brew,

For Nitin Bhaiya* had clearly warned me of these,

The conniving victim and the guilty thief,

Kaan Pakad lena* ! Did he say with a broad beautiful smile,

I still feel he's here, but it's been quite a while…

I am still that intense boy, with intentions pure,

Why allowing a thought to make my dream vision obscure,

My ajna* can filter the thought at least,

And deny it the opportunity to become a beast,

For me, the focus of my time on earth is clear,

I find happiness in moments when i have nothing to spare,

Nothing to spare, for everything i have is thrown in the fire of life,

Lovingly nourishing roots and shoots of lifeplants of me and my wife…

Green is the color of my devil,

It's not that he is always evil,

For now, off this bag of greens go,

I'll play with the thoughts like a pro,

Dopamine will be released through tick list and DC stars,

Ways that relax and please without leaving their scars,

For me each moment of Life is a perfect gift,

I've to smilingly surf over its troughs and cliffs…

PS-
*vaayu - air element in the Pancha Bhoota
*jal - the water element in the Pancha Bhoota
*Nitin Bhaiya - Rishi Nityapragya from Art Of Living who was the guide in the Divya Samaaj Nirman Course I did in 2010
*Kaan Pakad Lena - apologise to the master for getting trapped in the mental mess and making wrong identifications and move on
*Ajna - The Third Eye Chakra on the forehead that is also the seat of Prefrontal cortex of the brain, responsible for rational decision making

Being Spiritual: It's all about Balls!

Sometimes the most mundane moment leaves a learning that lasts...

I have had a very sedentary lifestyle since an year and am attempting to pull my socks up now;but the problem is that it's not as easy as it sounds. While jogging today I realized there's some semblance of a tiny voice inside my head that tries to control my actions (for example, reducing my pace of run by giving lame justifications that seek to garb my mental weakness). After a few hundred meters and conscious efforts to subdue this voice's indications, my understanding of what's happening in my head gradually increased and I realized it's not a singular voice but a set of thoughts that consistently knock each other out in my head. 

And then my hippy imagination (of late, subdued by the sarkari work) took its wings...

I could imagine my head as a closed room with hundreds of super-bouncy crazy balls banging each other inside it.These super energetic (and annoyingly bouncy) crazy balls contain thoughts that color them and the mind acts as a room made of projector-screen walls that contains hundreds of such balls striking against one another and against the screens in an environment filled with chaos. What seemed like a "tiny voice", now seemed like a dominant and attractive ball of thought ("मोह"?) that hits the screen the hardest and leaves an image. The mind's existence thus appeared to be an unending competition between the crazy balls of attractive thoughts to leave an imprint on our mental screens. ("मायाजाल"?).

After a further hundred meters of physical struggle I could imagine an alternate cognitive system wherein the mind is not a closed, restricted environment where things get stuffy, turbulent and dissipative ("तनाव"?) but an open environment where multiple thoughts exist independently with minimum possible entropy. Gradual dropping of the futile thirst for mental activity will allow a peaceful life, devoted to the present moment. Such an alternate environment will allow one to look at the finer, subtler elements of life and one's existence ("ध्यान"?).

The fatigue in the mental system is created by entropy and the energy loss through futile competitive efforts of various thoughts while they fend for domination in order to run the show (i.e. influence our decisions). The thoughts balls can easily be utilized in a less energy-consuming fashion using an idea of a person who acts as an owner of the tool that is the mind. This person will attach itself to the idea of a super-structure, the Self ("अहम"?). This Self will act as the person who controls and uses the mind as a tool to further his life's goals ("आत्म-विकास"?). He will use the mind as a machine, according it importance based on its functional utility but never identifying himself with the machine. 

The practice of Vipassana Meditation, as "re- discovered" by Gautam Buddha and guided by Shri Goenka focuses on this approach and leads to a natural reduction in entropy. It only suggests one to look at one's natural breath without influencing it purposefully. Just as it takes a while for a crazy ball to drop its momentum on its own, the mind's habit of thought-hunting doesn't cease immediately; Vipassana guides that whenever the mind is swayed towards a thought (i.e. one of those crazy balls dominate and leaves an impression on the screens), just calmly bring it back to the awareness of one's breath. With time and practise, the projector-screens lose their importance in decisions making (as the balls lose momentum without any external push) and the mental walls slowly dissolve, making the mind an open-system. Meanwhile, the practice of looking at the breath naturally leads to a stronger sense of self that was, until now, hidden behind the chaos. This sense of self allows one to calmly use the mental system and increase its efficiency by getting maximum work done using minimum energy. 

Thus, with a stronger sense of self and a calmer mind, the intuitive voices become clearer and one begins to better understand one's purpose.

In a "nut"-shell, the key to happiness and a carpe-diem lifestyle is how well you handle your crazy balls!