What is poetry?
December 4, 2008 at 7:08 pm (Uncategorized)
I used to write a lot some 10 or 15 years ago. Then I thought that I was writing prose. Stories, Essays… stuff. And people said to me, I read your ‘poetry’. It does not rhyme, I thought. Why do they call it poetry?
Now I have 2 blogs, one for my stories and another for my poetry. And half the time< I don’t know which goes where.
So I am going by what my school teacher taught me… if it appeals to the mind it’s prose and if it appeals to the heeart, its poetry. So that’s what I am trying to use for my classification.
If you see a piece, that belongs in the other one…, do let me know…
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Desire is the root cause of …achievement..?
December 2, 2008 at 10:45 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: desire, feelings
This is different from what the Buddha says. Buddha said that desire is the root cause of sorrow, because it could lead to disappointment if the desire is not fulfilled. This implies that sorrow is a thing to be avoided and therefore desire is to be given up. The Bhagavad Gita says that desire springs from attachment which springs from continually thinking about something. And that desire lead to anger loss of memory, intellect and destruction. I have seen greed as a bad thing. I have seen desire leading to unhappiness.
But there is something else too. Contentment leads to peace. But desire leads to effort, effort to achievement. Even a desire for peace or for freedom from sorrow is a desire. Buddha’s desire for the truth was so great that he undertook a huge effort to find it. Slavery is a result of a desire to stay alive even under apalling conditions. Many devotees who desire God are unhappy till they reach that state of oneness. Even a desire for God is a desire.
The Bhagavad Gita talks of Nishkama Karma or desire less work. To me that looks like a “cool model’ . The society benefits through such an approach and through that the individual benefits. The point is to focus on the ‘process’ or the activity and not on the results.
The Western Corporate talks of drive for results, it talks of greed, of growth for the sake of growth and it yokes people to itself through their greed and fear. This is unhealthy. To me the Western Corporate is incompatible in its fundamentals from the Bhagavad Gita. But once you give up that greed and fear, you also give up any possible achievements in that line. If I don’t desire money, power and glory why would I do a corporate job? Then I cannot have that achievement.
I still have desires. Realistically, I may have desires till I die. So I stand to suffer from not fulfilling my desires because: a) they are impossible desires. b) they are possible – but I don’t know how to fulfill them. c) I know how, but I have failed in my attempt.
I may never reach a desireless state – even if I try. Is it so important to be free from sorrow? Vivekananda said that he was willing to be born a thousand times to serve his country. He did not desire salvation or moksha (freedom – from the birth and death cycle).
Sunday September 3, 2006 – 06:17pm (IST)
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God, Prayer and Fate
December 2, 2008 at 10:40 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: god, prayer, fate, effort, values, emotions, garva, bhangam, doership, karma, actions, detachment, responsibility
Prayer works. (From my personal experience).
That means that things can change… This point is against fate.
Astrology works at a macroevent level… (From my own study of Hindu predictive astrology and study of horoscopes). This point is for fate.
It looks to me like a few discrete events are pre-determined and the details can be filled in by us with effort, prayer, boons, curses and Will.
Markandeya overcame even death with penance and Siva’s grace.
So we should be well-intentioned, pray for success and good things and work for them.
And if there is no major pre-determined event that overrules or overrides this., then we can get what we wish for/work for/ pray for/ are blessed with.
There is power in words, thoughts, wishes, prayer, effort and blessings.
Saturday December 29, 2007 – 12:49pm (IST)
God, Prayer and Wishes
We pray God to grant our wishes.
But where did these wishes come from?
Our wishes come from our nature and from our environment.
Therefore our wishes come from God.
We pray God to grant us those wishes that he gives us in the first place.
We envy those who ‘get’ their wishes. We pity those who do not. We do not understand those whose wishes are different from us. We hate those whose wishes cause us or others harm.
But both the wish and its fulfilment are really upto God and not upto us.
Thursday December 27, 2007 – 09:39am (IST)
God, Minds and Prayer
Our minds are linked to God.
God can give us some thoughts.
We can sense sometimes what is happening elsewhere or what will happen later.
We can pray for what we wish will happen.
God and we can listen to each other.
God can influence us through events and thought prompts. We can influence God through prayer.
It is God who decides or has already decided what will happen. Action and events are God’d realm not ours. But we can ‘pray’ God for what we want or need.
Thursday December 27, 2007 – 09:35am (IST)
God and Values and Emotions.
Values, like wishes, are acquired from environment and nature.
Therefore they are acquired from God.
So all conflicting desires and values that we see around us come from God.
God gives us values, God gives us anger when our values are not upheld, He gives us shame when we do not live upto our own values and pride and admiration when we do live upto them.
God gives us our feelings through nature. It is God who gives us the sadness that we feel when we think the situation will not improve.
It is emotions that drive our actions. It is God that determines actions. God is intricately tied up with our emotions. God must cause emotion or influence it at least. And in our popular stories and movies.. God is highly influenced by our emotion too.
Thursday December 27, 2007 – 09:46am
Karma:
If God is responsible for our actions and events and not for our thoughts, then we cannot accrue karma for our actions.
The Gita says God IS responsible for what you do and what happens to you, but to be free from karma, your must know/think this when it is acting, experiencing.
Karma sticks to those who do know this, who think they are responsible and not God.
If everything that happens is because of God.. there is no point in thinking and planning. Thinking about what you are going to do is pointless.
The Gita’s point exactly. Nothing is in your control – so leave it to God.
Since it is God and Nature that compel you to act, be free of responsibiliy and of guilt – both are ego products.
This makes me a little sad. Because I want to control things, influence things and change things through my actions. What really happens is that I get hurt and tired trying to move mountains, the mountains are still there.
It is my lack of wisdom in underestimating the size of the problem and my over-estimation of my strengths and abilities that cause me to get into trouble like this.
Garva Bhangam. The destruction of pride. This is what God does to people all the time in the puranas.
If I can do nothing… then what ’shall’ I do? Bhaja Govindam.
Turn my mind to God, away from the minds of humans, away from work.That will give me peace. Work will get done anyway, either through me or others.
Thursday December 20, 2007 – 06:52am
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February 11, 2008
December 2, 2008 at 10:19 am (Uncategorized)
Focus on the love in my heart for others and I am happy.
Recognise the indifference or actual malice on the hearts of others towards me and I am miserable.
Deny it or Do not recognise it.. and get hurt.. everytime it is forced into my recognition.
Remember it and feel dull and de-motivated.
So neither denial nor thinking about the bad stuff helps.
Distraction and Acceptance might work.
Thinking about the love in my heart or about God; and finding things to do that will not bring me in contact with the negativity in the hearts/minds of others: that would mean – withdrawing into myself.
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Ideas and Opinions
November 26, 2008 at 9:02 am (Uncategorized)
Lower and Higher Mind (August 2005)
People have instincts, survival, mating, parental etc.
People are motivated by instincts.
Intellect is a tool that serves their basic instincts. That is how it started out. That is how it is going on.
People need other people, not just to band to gether against the environment and and against common foes etc, but also just to feel happy, emotionally. However imperfect people are, they need each other and they have each other.
Some people who accept this, turn manipulators. Recognise and avoid such people, they are dangerous.
Some people who do not accept this go through life frustrated at every interaction with others, disappointed at lower-mind behaviour.
Some people try to function from their higher mind. Some people try to elevate others to that state.
Some people who battle a lot of odds to behave nobly, get broken-hearted when others do not recognise their nobility and treat them as if they are motivated or have behaved from their lower mind. This is why Sita jumped in the fire and returned to the earth. She could not bear the thought of being suspected of less than divine behaviour.
Some people imagine that all others are noble and cannot understand their behaviour. They are taken in by external declarations and appearances. They suffer recognising their own human nature and make serious attempts at divine behaviour. These people are sad.
Some are certain of their divinity and the humanity of others. Some are certain of the humanity of all and the divinity of none.
Gurus help us focus on our divinity and behave in a divine way, while forgiving our human lapses, that they are confident that we will make. When we attain divine behaviour and act from divine motives, we will attain divine society.
Attribution of causes (May 2005)
When we think the other guy is hurting me, we feel angry.
When we think this is caused by my samskaras or my fate, we feel resigned to the circumstances but not angry with anyone. What have I done in the past that I suffer so. I cannot escape it.
When we see the hand of God, in the events that happen to us, then we find acceptance of the event. We think what am I supposed to learn, what am I supposed to do, that helps me evolve into that kind of a human being that can take on more serious work, or be closer to God. This is evolution.
One (Mar 2005)
There is only One soul, One consciousness, One body. and I think only One place and One time.
This is why the Universe responds to us and we to the Universe.
You can move your finger because you identify with it and vice versa. The same is true of your friends, family and the universe.
Your pain is their pain and their pain is yours. Your wishes are their wishes and their wishes are yours. Your needs are their needs and their needs are yours.
Because, they and you, you and I are one.
Our fear of death, loss, separation and individual suffering are a sense of false identification or limited identification. There is truly no pain or worry for those who identify with the infinite : either on their own account or on any one else’s account.
Our yogic powers are merely our ability to realise the connection between us and others, our union with the rest. That is why they work. It is a stage in enhanced identification.
Why things happen. (Mar 2005)
When we make a heartfelt prayer, sometimes, surprisingly unpredictable events follow : Consequences of our prayer, events that are wish-enablers. They may not be pleasant and packaged as miracles. They may be unpleasant, painful and packaged as difficulties. But they enable the inner, powerful heartfelt wishes that we have.
Some unpleasant events are like the knocks of a sculptor’s chisel designed to make us more beautiful people. Especially those that break our false pride and leave us with a sense of true worth and self-respect.
We form our destinies based on our nature and values. Siddhartha Gauthama may have let go of all his riches in one stroke to find the truth, others may lose their inherited situation more gradually. They may give up respectability to lead a life of dissipation.
Anil Ambani ‘gave up’ his life of inherited poverty and ended up one of the richest industrialists in the country. His values and nature were about wealth creation.
It is not sufficient for a soul to select a birth advantageous to its goal.. if its samskaras and impulses drive it to some other goal.
Where were your born? Where are you now? Can you perceive the choices you made and the actions you took that brought you here? Do you know others who have chosen differently in similar situations? What is the one thing that you would never sacrifice? What is the one thing for which you would sacrifice all other “goods”? That explains the course of your life, that explains why things happen to you that do not happen to other people.
What is the one cause that drives and defines your existence? The reason why do something, stick with something or abstain from doing something? What is it that you love? That is what makes things happen for you.
Intelligence without social awareness is not an evolutionary trait (Feb 2005)
Take the Beverages and Ground Water Problem. In India, soft drink bottling plants (Pepsi and Coke etc) use borewells to pump up the groundwater. The poor surrounding villages who cannot afford such borewells are losing their water supply used for drinking, bathing and irrigation. Then this same water is adulterated with beverage concentrate, phosphoric acid, artificial colors etc and is being SOLD BACK to the villages. Only may be another village farther away after consuming more of the world’s petrol and polluting the air. The Beverage industry has actually a “Go Rural” slogan now. If all the villages around the bottling plants die, that can’t be good for the human race. If Pollution can be defined as “Matter in the wrong place” then, bottling plants are themselves pollutants because they do not belong in India. I can see no value to the human race in the production, consumption or distribution of these drinks. It is a clear case of intelligence used to create, market and distribute a product without the social awareness that it is very bad for the human race. If human beings use their intelligence to kill themselves off, it will be sufficient proof of the fact that intelligence without social awareness and environmental consciousness is not an evolutionay trait. My heart weeps at this tragedy that we are bringing upon ourselves. We cannot think that it is okay for some of us to die so that other among us can grow rich. And if we think that making Pepsi is more important to a poor country than growing rice, we are not displaying survival traits, we are displaying mass level deluded traits.
Perspectives (Jan 2005)
The stars are enormous and look so little. We are so tiny and look so large. Things are not what they seem.”
The Stars and Us (Jan 2005)
I am currently under the influence of a fabulous book called, “The Majestic Universe”.
What characterises a star? The thermo-nuclear reactions. When the nuclear reactions stop, the star dies or becomes something else.
What characterises us? Bio-chemical reactions. At the electronic-ionic, atomic and molecular levels. When they stop, we die.
Stars are phenomenally larger and hotter than us. Our planet is mostly powered by stellar (solar) energy that is converted into various forms.
The Iron in our blood is made in the stars. The Oxygen that it carries to our cells is made in the stars. The Carbon that we are made of, the Silicon of our computers all : Made in Star!
The stars provide the material and energy that sustain life as we define it. The first molecules of life were created in stellar reactions. (New discovery).
Stars concentrate the matter in the universe, distribute energy and illuminate the universe. (Sergei). They make all the raw material that we have organised into ourselves and our world.
What do we do? We bridge synapses, the gaps between neurons in our brains. We transfer our “brain patterns” or thought processes to others : teaching, writing conversation etc.
We alter the landscape of the earth and create new materials : molecules like plastic, new intelligent beings : robots and computers.
We put small objects like satellites in space which serve to transmit information among ourselves using electromagnetic radiation.
In addition to transforming the appearance of our earth’s crust and sending new plastic materials (satellites) into space (our solar system)., we actively observe Others in the Universe and Ourselves, forming impressions that explain the world. We learn, we are conscious and we have at least the illusion of free will. Do the stars learn? Are they conscious? Do they have free will? Can they “grant wishes”? Who do we pray to when we pray to the Sun? Do the stars have Souls? Do they have minds? DO they sense our wonder, our gratitude, our fascination, our love?
The stars can curve space-time, to a level that we cannot. Time itself means something else near a black hole.
The Sun has been silently dragging us at a million km an hour around a massive black hole at the centre of a galaxy. But now, we know!
Devadas (Jan 2005)
Devadas was really a lucky fellow. He could indulge in his emotions to his heart’s content. In the older Telugu Movie version of Devadas (played by Nageswara Rao) there are many lovely songs. One line haunts me.”Marapu rani badha kanna madhurame ledu, Gatamu talachi vagache kanna soukhyame ledu.” Nothing is sweeter than a pain you cannot forget or more comfortable than sighing over the past. How lucky to indulge in your own emotions and weep or get drunk and go completely to pot. Devadas was a Zamindar’s son with access to family and tax money to spend on drink. He felt he owed nothing to family or society. No need for the accursed stiff upper lip. Where do I have that luxury? If I don’t work, I don’t eat, let alone drink. My heart weeps but even my eyes ration the sympathetic moisture. Not here, not now, not in front of strangers, not in front of near ones, young ones, old ones. Hide, hide, hide! Evaluate which feelings are allowed, evaluate which expressions are allowed of those permitted feelings, express only those. Show those feelings that others approve, so what : if you don’t feel them? People say move on, move on leave the past behind, but the present is a vacuum,a desert, a void. The future looks lonely and bleak. Having left the past behind, what shall I embrace?
The Sought (Jan 2005)
The clamour of my thoughts and emotions is preventing me from listening to God. I know that God is listening to me. I know God not. How may I recognise one that I do not know. I do not even know what realisation means. Who art thee who I seek?
On Action (Sept 2004)
All humans have the freedom to act. But we are merely agents. Whether we elect to do good or bad, whether we wish to practice self-restraint or self-indulgence : none of this really impacts anyone else. What I mean is this. You could choose to help a hungry man or kick him in the face. Or you could choose to do neither. But if is due is food or a kick in the face or neither that is what he will receive through you or someone else. Your choice is limited to whether you wish to be the agent of service or agent of retribution. Everything you give comes back to you. Good or Bad. Good and Bad. You can in no way alter what another person gets.
People who practice self-restraint set up fewer waves of activity : or good-bad cycles that will come back to them.
People with a love of life and activity, people who equate living with activity : set up a lot of waves. They are always doing things. Things are always happening to them. This is “karma”.
Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita says : if you act, conscious that you are My agent : then Karma will not stick to you.
My Master in Sahaj Marg says : you must act if only to eat and go to the toilet. Even “not acting” is action : it is the act of not acting. Since some action is unavoidable think that it is I who act through you and I who experience the consequences.
The concept is to recognize that we are agents of ideas whose time has come. This frees us from credit an culpability. It frees us from the tremendous burden of our actions.
The Butterfly Effect is the concept of a butterfly that flaps its wings in China either setting off or not setting off a tornado in Kentucky through a series of interlinked meteorological changes. The enormity of the consequence of such an action would weigh heavily on a butterfly if it could think.
All our actions are similarly bound in such complex interconnections that it is impossible to know whether we are doing right or wrong. Will mercy make the receiver lazy and reinforce his negative traits? Is mercy to one cruelty to another? Is a harsh word to an enemy what it takes to kindle his pride and become a great success in life? If we think through all the consequences of our actions: most of us would be paralyzed.
Rishis and Munis act as little as possible. Karmayogis whether they be soldiers or civilians, try to do what they perceive to be their duty and leave the consequences to God.
Others like myself agonise over what they ought to do. They identify what they think are desirable consequences. They act on what they think is a plan to achieve those results. They are amazed when they realize that the basis of their planning was not right, when their good plans go awry and when they realize that the desired results are not so desirable once they are attained.
They realize that they have never enough data to make a good plan and never enough wisdom to select the right goal. This inhibits them from thought-out action. The consequence is that they end up acting on impulse which could be worse. (For e.g. a person caught in an internal debate of whether it is right to eat or to earn to eat… when overwhelmed by hunger can steal and eat.)
On Living
Insecurity is generated by a fear of losing something we love or like. A job, money, family, a lover, health or even life itself. The truth is that nothing is permanent, not life nor health nor job nor family and most certainly not wealth. The sun will cool, the earth will spin into the sun, the universe will collapse into itself, a bubble with a different time scale.
The alternative to living in insecurity is to live IN the moment. Not “for” the moment. Today you have much that you did not have yesterday and will not have tomorrow. Some things you never will have! (Sept 2004).
Trust is a delegation of self-defense. It’s a shortcut often caused by laziness. (1993)
We often recognize those traits in others that we possess. (2003)
On God (2002)
God is not vindictive.
God is the soul of the Universe.
Humans like the “light side” of God. To us God is Truth, God is Light, God is Cleanliness, God is Beauty, God is Love, God is Compassion, God is Life, God is Service, God is Learning, God is Goodness, God is Bliss, God is our Highest Value, God is our Final Goal. God is Just. God is Forgiving. God can save us. God can be prayed to, pleased, loved and realized. And when we do something difficult, God is on Our Side.
96 percent of the universe consists of dark matter. There is in this universe dirt, disease, hatred, death, exploitation, ignorance, badness, misery, apparent injustice. Are these a part of God or of the Anti-God? Is there a war between God and Anti-God? Is there a God above them? The fact is we haven’t a clue.
On Dreams (2003)
The human race has an inherited fear of reptiles and of falling. A desire to fly. Our dreams about reptiles, falling or flying are just that and nothing more.
Some dreams are prophetic. All dreams are a result of our brain interpreting its unwinding and discharging electric potentials. Some prophetic dreams could be the results of our right brain working.
On Ecology (2003)
The earth is one living organism. More of the earth’s crust is being converted into human beings and human habitats. This is de-stabilizing the current ecological balance. We are consuming our planet in an effort to modify it to suit our needs and comforts. The old equilibrium was suited to the multiplication of human gene patterns. The new equilibrium may favor the dominance of other gene patterns.
Perhaps the earth is using her “human cells” to transform herself to phase next. Perhaps we have no choice. Perhaps that is our program.
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House To Let
November 17, 2008 at 12:29 pm (Uncategorized)
There is a two bedroom independent house with a garage and terrace in H.S.R. Layout. Big kitchen, hall, pooja room, built in space etc.
It is around 7 minutes walk from the Main Road through the village.
The car approach is bad on normal days and even worse when it rains – so the only noise pollution is air traffic and music practice.
It is a peaceful place with the nearest shops being in Koramangala 1st block or teacher’s colony. The only vendor that comes that way sells Kashmiri carpets.
Servant labour is inexpensive when available.
The circle of life will involve you at the bottom of the food chain, the mosquitoes which eat you, the frogs and lizards that eat the mosquitoes and snakes that eat the frogs. If you’re willing to eat the snakes then the circle is complete.
The soil is rich., so you can grow a beautiful garden with various lovely birds and colourful spiders thrown in for free.
The house owner will only visit you under the pain of death or if you haven’t mailed him the rent cheque. So you are a free agent.
Water and electricity are available unless the pipes burst or the transformers blow off. The street lights work.
There is no air pollution except when the wind blows from the ‘kere’ (lake) direction.
And as soon as it is dark the air is filled with the delightful calls of 200 frogs inviting their friends over for a nightcap.
1998
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Moving!
November 16, 2008 at 3:02 am (Uncategorized)
I am moving all my poetry from geocities…, good, bad, sad, happy and all other shades in and out between….
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