Quest

2:58PM

5:24PM - Prajapati Awakens

Stillness.

No sound, no wind, no moon, no stars.

There was only One.

He breathed.

He breathed in silence, “I am”

Who knows whence He came?

No thought, no desire, no creation. Yet.

“Yeah, I am”

If time had existed, many a million years would have passed.

But there was neither a past nor a future, not even a now.

In silence arose the first question, “Who is?”

The emptiness trembled in anticipation.

“Who is?”

And then began Time,

A silvery thread of light speeding towards the endless edges,

Backward and forward,

And instantly there was eternity in the past and in the future,

Time wiping out the possibility of its own genesis.

He asked only the one question ‘Who am I?’

The question was Tapas

The questioner was Tapas,

The answer too, was Tapas.

In Tapas, He burned.

Out of that austerity, arose sacrifice.

With joy, He gave himself up.

The Father gives himself in sacrifice,

Like His son wouldst one day give his flesh and blood.

From Him sprang forth the worlds many.

Galaxies and gravity, mind and music,

All made from His own marrow.

In sacrifice, He became the many.

Cleaving His own heart, He breathed life into existence.

And today, we search for Him, the first-born.

“Where is He? Where is He?

When will He come, the King of Kings?

Do I find Him in the church, mosque or temple?”

The way back is the same.

Out of sacrifice is born austerity,

Out of austerity, the question – “Who am I?”

Dwell upon the primordial question for this indeed unlocks the door.

Behold the answer oh Prajapati,

Behold thine own face.

2:41AM

What makes a difference in our lives? When I turn back and look at my life, spread behind me like a map, what stands out? What do I remember? What makes me smile? What moves me?

I remember loved ones, I remember dawn, I remember kisses, I remember solo-trips, I remember sacred rivers, I remember moments of truth - those heart to heart talks, and I remember a moment of Truth, I remember walks in the crisp air, I remember beaches, I remember songs, I remember dancing, I remember love, I remember teary-eyed poems, I remember the evening sky as the sun danced on the ocean, oh I remember butterfly-kisses, I remember that rave, I remember some friends, I remember hugs, I remember a starving man and the guilt, I remember a moonlit night on Fraser Island, I remember childhood lies greeted by love, I remember inspiration, I remember the Himalayas and I remember Koh Phangan, I remember some msn chats, I remember wanting to be like dad, I remember the dark monsoon skies, I remember first days of school in June, soaked shoes in torrential rain, I remember kissing the ground, I remember books, I remember a couple of movies, I remember questions that would make my heart ache with ignorance, I remember moments of stillness.

All these, I accept. Now and in the future. The rest I reject, I do not remember you. You are not me.

10:27PM

There is a moment in the life of every generation when that spirit of hopefulness has to come through if we are to make our mark on history. -

President Barack Obama

1:40AM

When I was in my early teens, history lessons were a mixture of boredom and comedy thanks to a slightly eccentric history teacher of peculiar mannerisms and a tendency to flirt with the girls. History – hard-to-remember dates and names of emperors, strange sounding dynasties and a distant national struggle for freedom which seemed best relegated to its regal place in those thick, dusty books.

Perhaps it is a testimony of our education system that the living dynamic stories of nations and civilisations can be made to seem about as appealing as pickled pig’s feet. It is only in recent years that I have begun to appreciate the rich tapestry of lives, knowledge and myths that have brought us to the doorstep of the present. To understand the world today without truly imbibing the past is an attempt doomed to failure. We are but expressions of the waves of change that have swept through the world over decades and centuries. Our present is deeply rooted in the history of our forefathers, our lives built upon the toil of others and the blood on many a sword.

If through religion, we try to seek our place in the cosmos, through history we seek our place in Time. Time the conqueror, Time the slayer, Time which has brought civilisations to dust. The historical imagination (to steal from Mills’ sociological imagination) is at once an experience in profound humility as well as outright fantasy.

To truly understand that for many thousands of years, hundreds of millions of people have lived and died, almost all of them forgotten in the deluge of time, is to begin to question our individual-centred perception of life. Magnificent cities arose on the banks of the mighty ancient rivers and yet with the ebb of time, there is nothing left but buried ruins that archaeologists dust away with that little brush of theirs.

1:23PM

I sat on a rock on top of the bare hill. The sunset over the forested valleys around me began to look surreal as the mist crept up from the winding river, engulfing the trees bit by bit. Surreal. The sun bounced off the fluffy-white tree tops, strands of gold knitted with the softest cotton. There was a stillness to the evening which began as a serene calmness and then as I watched, right before me, it flipped. An eerie silence. Eerie. When did that word enter my mind? I wished I hadn't thought of it.

Surreal became sinister. The evening rays were weak and the mist had taken a life of its own. It swirled and turned, taking varying forms and shapes. Within minutes, the entire landscape would change, instantly transporting me from one location to another. Even my memory began to fail me. How did I get here? Where is this place? Panic. Death. The heavy mist was creeping upon me from all sides and I could feel the chill in the air. The atmosphere felt ominous. Yet, I did not move, I dared not.

The wind picked up and in the cold, I was thankful. Movement, discernible movement. The lack of which, is why one fears a corpse. But as darkness descended, the wind carried sounds to me from where the twisted trees and its gnarled branches once were. Grey pools of crawling fog, lay spread out over the valley, soaking in the darkness, turning black. A black mist. I did not think this was possible. I could hear again those sounds in the wind. They were not words, it didn't sound like any language I've heard before. It didn't sound human.



http://www.pbase.com/falcn/image/68501900

4:57PM

I have stories to tell, I wish I had words to tell them all. I have images stuck in my head, little staccato moments caught in camera flashes. I have moments of mental inversion, a topsy-turvy world where I see through someone else's mind. I have moments of clarity when the mind slows down and I can see the possibility of what could be. I have moments of weakness, I have thoughts of despair, I have highs of wonderment and I have lows of wretchedness. And I have questions....many. Could this be what it is to be human?

I want to be a photographer and capture the life of the city, grim skies against the Kremlin in Moscow, a flaming dusk against the skyline of Sydney, the flow of lights, cars and hope along the streets of Vegas on a Friday night. I want to be a backpacker and let myself sink into the depths of the city's character. I want to soak in its juices, feel the life of Melbourne pulsing through my veins, know the streets of NY like the back of my hand. I want to be a bum, under a bridge on Chicago River, know what it is to be homeless, know that 'we' are the only true sons of this city, for every part of it is home. No doors, no locks, no mine and yours.

The city is just one of us, a tad bigger.  It's alive and it has stories to tell, hundreds of thousands of them. It's a she, because I cannot understand her. She reveals herself and then shrouds herself in mystery. She has moods, infinite shades of them. She is anonymous despite her well-known name and she confers that status upon us, as we wade through the evening crowd on Oxford Street in London. Sydney's Oxford street, half a globe away, rooted in its bohemian days,  embraces a quirky capitalism, traversing the grey, undefined areas of sexuality. "Am I straight, lesbian or bi?", she asks.

The city is alive, yeah it is! If only you stopped by and looked at 3am as sounds die down, you can feel her breathe. Her sighs, her sobs and even her passionate moans.

7:57PM

I wish I could write poems everytime I sat on my computer with the word document open before me, like I used to. I've lost count of the number of times in the past many months, I've started writing a line before having to close the file because nothing further would come. I think I'm not a writer/poet, I'm just a chaneller. If I were one, I would be able to write whenever I wanted. Maybe there are no muses flying around me like they used to. I should set up a muse trap in my bedroom.

I have my first lecture next week, it's as a guest lecturer in a course on Migration and Multiculturalism. I'm kinda worrying about it now. I want to be a fun lecturer but I think that comes along with years/months of practice and confidence. It's quite different from my usual job of being a tutor,where there is a lot more interaction and comments.

7:34PM - Rasa Unmasked

4:35PM

My housemate who is from Hongkong laughs like a retard. She goes into these laughing fits where she makes these crazy out-of-breath sounds in between laughing like she was just pulled up from underneath water after 2 whole minutes. Plus she is messy and doesn't clean up after her. Safe to say that she is not my 'favouritest' housemate.

Wow i think this is my first ranting post in many years. I'm proud of myself! :D

Current mood: bitchy

11:03AM - Annul Mele - Vaaranam Ayiram

I translated the rest of the song. Some of the words might be second guessing as im not a native Tamil speaker, I checked against two crappy translations available on the net...they were very crappy. hehe. Also excuse minor poetic license.



The dewdrops that smother these burning embers.
A little bird fluttering aimlessly.
The raindrops that seek to quench a tree.
All these, she has become.
Each eyelash pines in separation,
Sleep itself stands frozen,
Oh, why not let these barriers crumble now?

In which gentle breeze
Will the flower buds bloom?
In which divine moment
Will the doors of the heart be thrown open?
One little thorn still pierces
My heart, oh my heart.
Yet a glance from those two eyes soothes me.
Immersing me into an unconscious reverie.
Let the story of this body wither away,
Let this remain as the stain on the moon.

(Annal mele..)

We crossed paths in dreams,
Was it a few times or was it many?
Under the dark night sky we wandered,
Don’t you remember those times?
As the sea crashes on both these weary shores,
Will the waves swell even more?
When these two lives tremble at the precipice,
Will not the path be revealed? (Not sure what is kalangaraye)
As your waves lash me,
Reaching the shore has become but a forlorn dream.

(Annal mele)

10:58PM

5:34PM

I just read the below quote on a random quote page and i thought why did i never think of it in that way! :)

You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.

- Lydia M. Child

5:12PM

I have lost the will to pray, I have lost the will to write, I have lost myself whom I had never found. I have lost the search, i have lost the answer with the question. There is talk somewhere about miles to go before I sleep but I dismiss it as a rumour and return to my splendid stupor.
I have but a few more years left and while Rome is burning, this Nero cant help but fiddle like his historic predecessor. I'll kick a pebble or two into the pond and watch the ripples tonight.

2:08PM - Repost from 2003

In thy soul of love build thou a fire
And burn all thoughts and words entire.
-Jalálu`d-Dín Rúmí

10:28AM

What words shall I sing to thee my child?
What stories shall I tell as the moonlight kisses thy brow?
Many a time had I dreamt of this moment,
Now my dreams, a shattered crystal vase.
I would show my child,
Flesh of my flesh, heart of my heart,
I would show him this world,
Whisper its secrets in his ears.
Now my tongue is tied, my limbs numb,
What shall I teach him in whom I reside?
Dumb I have become before him who has hushed
Even the Vedas into bewildered negation.
Neti, Neti – not this, not this – no words to describe his splendour.
What words shall I sing then my child?
Why have you done this to me, little one?
I had asked for but a child,
Were there none left that today I kiss these tiny feet,
A beggar before my own son.

1:20PM - ‘Wandering Poet’

It is neither the love for places, nor the love for words, which gave me my name. Both are ephemeral. Places change, so do words. Yet, there is a common thread that strings together my love for both, but which transcends the idle curiosity of the tourist or the linguist.

Sometimes I feel it not. Sometimes I perceive it as clear as daylight. But deny it, I never can. My life is a search for meaning. This is what draws me towards places and words, not the mere external beauty of both. This is what makes me a poet; this is what has made me cross many a sea.

I know it, I feel it. There is something beyond this world that I live in. I move from place to place in hope of finding that one spot where this reality is breached, where the canvass of the world lies in tatters, where the knots of the heart are finally torn asunder. Where I stand face to face with true freedom.

Sometimes, deep within my mind, in a place where words have not yet formed, which emotions have not yet disguised, I sense this very same freedom. Poetry, pure wordless poetry. Unspoken. Sublime.

Therefore, I travel. Therefore, I attempt to write.

7:01PM

When her lips part, her sensuous tone subdues me,
Helpless, I beg for mercy, but she has nought to spare.
She is a surgeon, expertly excavating the depths of my brain,
Placing in my mind phantom memories,
Like the imagined pain in the limb that was removed and is no more.
The scent of the red earth, of a childhood throwing stones at mangoes,
In a monsoon soaked land which I have never seen.
Her words are beautiful, nauseatingly, I do not want to hear,
Yet I stay. I retch and yet it is pleasurable.
A black ant, I am, dragging a cube of sugar twice my size,
Nauseatingly sweet as it may be.
Come, make love to me under the night sky,
Do not touch me, for I am another’s,
But love me through your words, love me again and again.

12:27AM

The drops of rain opened a door within my heart; the poet lay asleep inside. The poet is neither male or female, nor old or young. Absolutely androgynous.

The door clattered loudly against the walls of my heart. The wind, urgent. The god of sleep had me in his clutches. “I, your God, am a jealous God,” he once said. He is loathe to let me open my eyes. The struggle is not between gods, it is between him and the absence of one. In all the great battles – fought on the plains of the Deccan, the expanses of Kurukshethra, or outside the walls of Jerusalem – there is a moment when power hangs in balance. I was not sleeping any more, nor was I awake. The door rattled louder, a helpless rag doll as the wind roared like a mad lion.

“What the!”, I sat up. The god of sleep looked at me reproachfully, betray writ on his face and then he slunk away. The godless poet. The androgynous poet. A poet without words, a poet without poems. And I opened my mouth and spoke. You didn’t hear anything, but you were only half right. I spoke the poetry of silence.

4:09AM

Sometimes I am engulfed by an unrest within. It is not unhappiness, it is not sadness… it is like an abyss which is devoid of meaning, an abyss in which lies buried deep mysteries which I myself can’t fathom. Sometimes it makes me write, I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and write whatever it makes me write and then the feeling goes away. Sometimes it is clearly a spiritual unrest. A spiritual longing. But today, I felt the same way but knew that whatever I wrote, it wouldn’t go away. And neither was it a spiritual feeling as I have come to know it before. It was just there. Without name, without any clear form.

I remember a line from the Matrix which nearly reaches this hazy place which I can’t seem to describe.

“Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad”

It doesn’t quite drive me mad. But it is there. It is like the screen upon which all my daily activities, thoughts and ramblings are carried out. When my self-made noise dies out in moments of quietness, the screen comes to the fore. There are nights when everyone has fallen asleep around me, no sounds except the crickets and the gentle wind, but I sit awake. I look out of the window, walk around the room, go outside and look at the moon and come back in. It’s just totally mad. Nothing is driving me mad, but the world is just so totally mad. So random. Nothing makes sense here. Maybe there is a finer dimension that I am not seeing. A finer network of cause and effect or some other logical instrument which connects the past and the present, the present and the future. Some things are straight forward. I drop a stone and it hits the ground. Other things, not so much. Maybe it’s a subtler dimension of causality. Maybe it’s not causality at all and something else which I can’t even begin to recognise.

If I were a sitarist, I would probably pull out the instrument and play out this song of inconsistencies. A bizarre tune which would make only sense to the most deranged lunatic. You would ask me what raga I was playing in. And as my fingers fly along the strings, I would smile and say, “The same raga that we are all dancing to. The crazy raga.”