"The moon is full again and I am in much pain again."
Showing posts with label Diary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diary. Show all posts
Walk on
Well, I'm taking a break from bloggin. I leave you with this favourite song. It's a song about that journey to a place that has to be believed to be seen.
And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring...
And love is not the easy thing....
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind
And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong
Walk on, walk on
What you got they can't steal it
No they can't even feel it
Walk on, walk on...
Stay safe tonight
You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom
Walk on, walk on
What you've got they can't deny it
Can't sell it, can't buy it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight
And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
Home, hard to know what it is if you've never had one
Home, I can't say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the hurt is
I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you steal
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress up
All that you scheme.
- U2
The breaking cross
The train journey to Delhi was hectic yet so much fun. I met people, played with little kids, made friends, made speeches and yeah made many new observations to work upon. And one observation that I wish to quickly share with you is that the youngsters of India are pretty smart, they click the facts pretty quick, and yes we do produce the best workers in the world, provided we have good policy makers there is no way that India is going to go down any drain. This country is only going to rock diamond and solid gold.
I had fun talking to those young chaps in the train, I got ears turning, they got readily sparkled by the deep thoughts conveyed and that made me feel so much at ease. We talked business, religious traditions, politics and yeah about life itself. And yes I punched them hard with some seriously dominating observations/facts which they did swallow with difficulty. Maybe I should get some easy books published and get them marketed at the railway platform footpaths.
The journey should have taken just 44 hours but due to some traffic problem we had an additional bonus 10 hours. I reached at Hazratji Nizamudin Station at 1 AM, so I had to wait till 6 AM for the metro train stations to open to reach Anup's place at Botanical garden. Slept at the station nicely with the co-passengers, beggars and dogs, the floor was clean.
But I was not brave enough to go and barge myself into the people out there in different compartments, there were different kinds of people in the environment, some sadhus in saffron, some bearded men in skull caps, some nuns with the cross, and then yes there was this pack of Sikh families in yellow orange robes that arrived at the railway station being led by a man carrying a sword and that really looked medieval, seems they were on a pilgrimage. Two important Gurudwaras in Delhi, Bangla Sahib famous for the story of that young boy Guru Hari Krishan and the other one is Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib which was built to commemorate the historical fact of the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bhadhur at Chandi Chowk. A Pseudo Muslim ruler called Aurangezeb asked him to convert to Pseudo-Islam or to get beheaded. The Guru chose to die. He died for the world, a great man he was.
Then to talk about business, I was talking to this fresher engineer from Nagpur who was planning to start a company. I asked him where in India would he prefer to set his venture. I then quoted Chief minister Narendra Modi's words on his state Gujarat, "For entrepreneurs, no red tape, only red carpet in my state". Yes, indeed Gujarat is a good place for your business ventures, I tell you, it makes a big difference. The policies taken up to promote entrepreneurship in Gujarat are pretty good.
Modi should be purified out of all his pseudo-religious gimmicks and be fully involved solely in the Union ministry of Commerce and Industry. This man is smart, he has a vision for industrial development. C Subramaniam did a great job for the agricultural sector in the Seventies, he got a Bharat Ratna for that. Modi too has that caliber for the industrial sector, I really wish I could contact and help him see things clearly, he does have a good website http://www.narendramodi.in.
Then about politics, yes I met this guy who was a big fan of Mikhail Gorbachev and Fidel Castro. While talking to him about politics of India, this symbol of the swastika came to my mind. I like his symbol of peace. It's a symbol used world over, going way back to the ancient times, the ancient Indians, Harappans, red-Indians, Celts, Norse, the Chinese, Tibetians. And yes in modern times, that distorted-politician Hitler used it for his wrong pseudo-agendas and so this symbol is banned in Germany as it reminds them of Nazi terrorism. It is a very controversial symbol alright. In fact there is a website http://reclaimtheswastika.com dedicated to it just to reclaim the pristine meaning to this symbol. And so putting all that Hitler pseudo-aryan stories aside. I would love to revive this symbol too if I were to join politics because many of my observations are well represented by it.
I had fun talking to those young chaps in the train, I got ears turning, they got readily sparkled by the deep thoughts conveyed and that made me feel so much at ease. We talked business, religious traditions, politics and yeah about life itself. And yes I punched them hard with some seriously dominating observations/facts which they did swallow with difficulty. Maybe I should get some easy books published and get them marketed at the railway platform footpaths.
The journey should have taken just 44 hours but due to some traffic problem we had an additional bonus 10 hours. I reached at Hazratji Nizamudin Station at 1 AM, so I had to wait till 6 AM for the metro train stations to open to reach Anup's place at Botanical garden. Slept at the station nicely with the co-passengers, beggars and dogs, the floor was clean.
But I was not brave enough to go and barge myself into the people out there in different compartments, there were different kinds of people in the environment, some sadhus in saffron, some bearded men in skull caps, some nuns with the cross, and then yes there was this pack of Sikh families in yellow orange robes that arrived at the railway station being led by a man carrying a sword and that really looked medieval, seems they were on a pilgrimage. Two important Gurudwaras in Delhi, Bangla Sahib famous for the story of that young boy Guru Hari Krishan and the other one is Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib which was built to commemorate the historical fact of the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bhadhur at Chandi Chowk. A Pseudo Muslim ruler called Aurangezeb asked him to convert to Pseudo-Islam or to get beheaded. The Guru chose to die. He died for the world, a great man he was.
Then to talk about business, I was talking to this fresher engineer from Nagpur who was planning to start a company. I asked him where in India would he prefer to set his venture. I then quoted Chief minister Narendra Modi's words on his state Gujarat, "For entrepreneurs, no red tape, only red carpet in my state". Yes, indeed Gujarat is a good place for your business ventures, I tell you, it makes a big difference. The policies taken up to promote entrepreneurship in Gujarat are pretty good.
Modi should be purified out of all his pseudo-religious gimmicks and be fully involved solely in the Union ministry of Commerce and Industry. This man is smart, he has a vision for industrial development. C Subramaniam did a great job for the agricultural sector in the Seventies, he got a Bharat Ratna for that. Modi too has that caliber for the industrial sector, I really wish I could contact and help him see things clearly, he does have a good website http://www.narendramodi.in.
Then about politics, yes I met this guy who was a big fan of Mikhail Gorbachev and Fidel Castro. While talking to him about politics of India, this symbol of the swastika came to my mind. I like his symbol of peace. It's a symbol used world over, going way back to the ancient times, the ancient Indians, Harappans, red-Indians, Celts, Norse, the Chinese, Tibetians. And yes in modern times, that distorted-politician Hitler used it for his wrong pseudo-agendas and so this symbol is banned in Germany as it reminds them of Nazi terrorism. It is a very controversial symbol alright. In fact there is a website http://reclaimtheswastika.com dedicated to it just to reclaim the pristine meaning to this symbol. And so putting all that Hitler pseudo-aryan stories aside. I would love to revive this symbol too if I were to join politics because many of my observations are well represented by it.
In Sanskrit, the word "Swastika" denotes "well being".
I give it a new name on my own non-authority,
I call it the "The breaking cross".
I call it the "The breaking cross".
Note: One lesson that I learned from this train journey was that, I really don't need any credentials to support my words/observations, they rise and fall on their own. They need no authorization. "I" is just a first person singular pronoun. So I tell them to to either to Take it or Fake it.
Crossroads
The time has come to leave for a new home, and yes, going to miss the rain, going to miss the green, heading for Delhi, have no concrete plans, no bulby ideas as such, pretty much floating in a cast away, got to get up on my feet, swallow the divine heat, and yeah, from moment to moment, to be love, to make new friends and family all the way, fail and succeed, get rejected, get valued, more adventures, more suffering, more life to a mystic bottle of sand grain shining.Miss you! May you gain even more strength.
The time to survive
I am taking a break
from blogging now
from blogging now
it was fun to build more on my thoughts,
but I am still lurking in the dark.
Nobody else here baby
No-one else here to blame
No-one to point the finger
It's just you and me and the rain.
Nobody made you do it
No one put words in your mouth.
Nobody here taking orders
when love took a train heading south.
It's the blind leading the blond
It's the stuff, it's the stuff of country songs.
Hey, if God will send his angels
And if God will send a sign
And if God will send his angels
Would everything be alright?
- U2
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Krishna resigns,
apologizing
to Radha,
to Radha,
the time rains
to win
her heart
reigns.
The world waits!
to win
her heart
reigns.
The world waits!
The origin always being the truth
I think people go poetic when they need their readers to be of the category that is situated between the understanding ones and the misunderstanding ones. And I think people go into prose when they need their readers to be from both the understanding ones or the misunderstanding ones but not from the middle.
Poetry tries to compress us to a subtle moment and expects us to take the risk of getting that lightning strike on our stark dark heads. And Prose is like rain, sometimes the rain falls on the fertile plains and sometimes on the rocks. "Out of poetry comes a Prose of thoughts and out of Prose comes a poetry of thoughts." Ah, this line sounds good.
Now to talk about truth and fiction. I think fiction is a reflection of the truth. I see it that fiction can be divided into two: stupid fiction and wise fiction. Stupid fiction is that which is stupid. Yeah, that's how stupid it's definition can get. An example for stupid fiction to me is, when a fiction tries to portray an inner truth that is actually false. Stupid fiction is a product of an unconscious mind. Wise fiction on the other hand, is that which comes from a mind that is of a higher conscious level like the parables of Jesus, the works of Ved Vyas, Valmiki.
And now to add more on that, fiction whether it's stupid or wise, its existence is always true. The very fact that this fiction exists gives it the element of truth. If I say that "I have twenty heads on my head". That's fiction alright, but the existence of the statement is very much true. Fiction thrives on the fact that existence is a truth. The fiction is untrue but the existence of the fiction is true, and can be considered wise, if the inner idea being projected through it is a great truth.
And with the origin always being the truth, it's up to us to decipher out the wisdom from the total setup, to collect the honey from the garden. Fiction is indeed a necessity to convey an idea, its the means to an end. The end being the truth.
Some selected quotes:
“The reason truth is stranger than fiction is that truth has a better author.”
“To me a story is true not because it happened, but because it happens to make sense.”
“Emotional truths can sometimes be conveyed more effectively, more compellingly, through fiction.”
You
Ah it's the Kerala New year Vishu today. Enjoyed my first hours with some good family food time on a Banana leaf and in return I cleaned the kitchen utensils for mom. And as Vishukkani which means "the first to be seen", I give you these poems by Vivekananda.
These poems by Vivekananda are beautiful indeed, but they could have been even more beautiful. Maybe you could make them more beautiful, what do you say! So are YOU ready to break the idols!
When I Asked God for Strength
God gave Me Difficult Situations to Face
When I Asked God for Brain and Brown
God gave Me Puzzles in Life to Solve
When I Asked God for Happiness
God showed Me Some Unhappy People
When I Asked God for Wealth
God showed Me How to Work Hard
When I Asked God for Favors
God showed Me Opportunities to Work Hard
When I Asked God for Peace
God showed Me How to Help Others
God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted
God gave Me Everything I Needed
- Swami Vivekananda
Vivekananda ready to rock the Parliament
a century ago
and I am still blogging on it
The Living God
God who is in you and outside you,
Who works through all hands,
Who walks on all feet,
Whose body are all ye,
Him worship, and break all other idols!
He who is at once the high and low,
The sinner and the saint,
Both God and worm,
Him worship —
visible, knowable, real, omnipresent,
visible, knowable, real, omnipresent,
Break all other idols!
In whom is neither past life
Nor future birth nor death,
In whom we always have been
And always shall be one,
Him worship. Break all other idols!
Ye fools! who neglect the living God,
And His infinite reflections with which the world is full.
While ye run after imaginary shadows,
That lead alone to fights and quarrels,
Him worship, the only visible!
Break all other idols!
These poems by Vivekananda are beautiful indeed, but they could have been even more beautiful. Maybe you could make them more beautiful, what do you say! So are YOU ready to break the idols!
Ghostbusters
"Ghostbusters…
If there's somethin' strange in your neighborhood
Who ya gonna call (ghostbusters)
If it's somethin' weird an it won't look good
Who ya gonna call (ghostbusters)
I ain't afraid a no ghost
I ain't afraid a no ghost
If you're seein' things runnin' thru your head
Who can you call (ghostbusters)
An' invisible man sleepin' in your bed
Oh who ya gonna call (ghostbusters)
I ain't afraid a no ghost
I ain't afraid a no ghost
Who ya gonna call (ghostbusters)
If you're all alone pick up the phone
An call (ghostbusters)"
Yeah, I used to watch that Ghostbusters cartoon, and yes I liked Slimer the green floating friendly ghost. I liked the cartoon intro song too. Here are the lyrics and if you know how to sing along, ah it's some fun, busting ghosts into the Light, but hey my table is swarming with a variety of ants all over the place, hmm, this place needs some simple cleaning up.
Heaven and Hell
If you had noticed, lately all my blogs have a picture that have a rose in them. Yeah, and it's because I was totally lost into the beauty of what Buddha had done once!One fine day, he came to his disciples, holding a rose in his hands. And he just kept quiet and quiet.
But to me he was talking to me the loudest. The very loudest! The very essence!
"To be a blossoming then giving out that colorful fragrance for which it is plucked and then dying away into a blossoming life where love and logic were never separate and never ending.
When is Judgement day! Oh it's just after my deathday. Suppose if I died right now-here, then the next time I rise up, oh it's judgement time. So what is it! Heaven or Hell for me.
Hell is indeed the finest purifier! Whereas Heaven is the finest relaxer! And that's what the mystic rose is all about with a Hell of a logic and a Heaven of a love dissolved in it.
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Yeah, I remember a street boy giving me a Mystic Rose, I got a picture of him and used it for the cover of my poetry book. Then I remember while distributing flowers in a temple somewhere in Andra Pradesh, the last flower that came to me in the distributing basket was a beautiful rose, that mystic rose.Now the whole idea is to be that mystic Rose.
Mother where are you? Am I still not your son?
Some say, "When the disciple is ready to be guided, the teacher arrives".
I say, "When the baby is ready to be born, the mother arrives".
The relationship of a teacher with a student is paradoxical, the teacher teaches the disciple so that with every lesson learnt, the teacher becomes less of a teacher, the disciple becomes less of a disciple and the greatest joy for any teacher is to see the disciple rising to a level of even becoming the teacher's teacher.
Why to wait for the Real teacher!
O Real teacher,
I need you like the poet needs the pain
I need you like the politician needs the gain
I need you like the farmer needs the rain
I need you like the silly street dog needs the lane.
O Real teacher,
I can write you a thousand books of poems
I can compose you a hundred albums of songs
I can travel far and wide breezing out your name
taming our game, blaming my blame.
This temporary fate of your absence
dominates me in silence
to invite you with aggression
unconsciously forcing me
to compell your freedom all over you.
Imagine a young lad who studied hard, gives the exam,
and is satisfied with the attempt,
and he expects a distinction result,
the exam results announced
it says "Failure", a Zero.
The young lad revolts,
goes to the examiner-teacher and asks for an explanation,
the teacher replies, "ah, God must have decided that you should fail, Amen.",
the lad retorts, "If God can decide that then,
then surely God can also decide that I should win now, Amen.
I am not a failure, I know I wrote that paper well,
I compared it with the those of the Prophets,
and I did well enough, so now give me my marks, do you hear me?
Give me my love, give me the care, I deserve it, lots of it."
The young lad stood their romantic and tall,
waiting for the care and love...
The teacher kept silent and talked to the innerself...
"hmmm this young lad really did well in that paper,
but how can I give any marks now,
look how the lad aggresively demands, no respect for me,
a lesson should be taught,
this should break the young wings well enough,
they broke my wings when I was young,
so now let those little wings too break break.
Ahahahha hahahaha ahahaha evil laugh within."
The young lad stops waiting,
and asked the innerself
"why to wait...?
The real examination of life
was not in the examination hall papers,
the real examination of life
was how to cure the disease,
the disease that has blocked the inner hearts
of the people of the likes of this fake teacher,
and indeed in this regard,
in this real exam to cure,
I was indeed a Zero.
Temporary fate had to make the teacher make me a Zero."
The young lad smiled, laughed, and sang Zero Zero Zero,
thank you Khuda for opening my eyes to a more true education,
thank you for your score,
a divine score
Zero."
The young lad touched the feet
of the fake teacher,
the fake parent,
the fake friend,
and bid farewell with a smile,
and he left his fake home
to write his Real teacher a hadith,
his own personal hadith.
Alas, why should I ask Khuda to work for my cause!
instead I should only ask myself to work for Khuda's cause.
Not to follow Khuda to do my work,
but to follow Khuda doing my work.
XVII-III-MMX
"A master is a mother, s/he is not a father. With a father you are related only intellectually, with a mother your relation is total. You have been part of your mother, you belong to her totally. The same is the case with a master in the reverse order. You have come out of the mother, you will go into the master. It is a returning back to the source."
- A Bird on the Wing
So dear blog readers, I am back, and I am back with a punch line:
"I dont want to be a Mother Teresa anymore, nor do I wish to be the mother of Mother Teresa anymore, I just want to be the Great Grand Fairy god-mother of Mother Teresa, yeah that would be fine!"
To be a mother, that's what! That's the new journey! No no I am not reverting my gender now. By mother I dont mean in a physical sense, I mean to be a master! A Master in compassion. All these days, I was a fool, I was asking the poor man to clear the debts of the rich man, how is that possible! It's time that we surrender to the provisions of existence. Probably I will have to edit and rewrite the Communist Manifesto, and make it into a Mommunist manifesto. It's time for the mother to take care of her baby and not the other way round.
I know that inside every human being there is a man and a woman. But as I observe today, most men are becoming women-like, and most women are becoming object-like, the very reason for so much homosexuality and prostitution, why to ban them!
There are very very few men and women who are mother-like. Mothers are so few these days in our society. Just so many namesake physical mothers mostly filled with black mail, distortions and expectations, that's all. All prophets were true mothers, all great social reformers were mother-like, and if you ever meet a human being with so much goodness, just know it that there was a great Mother-like figure behind him/her.
Today, it is very very rare to see children respecting their parents, it's very rare to see the parents ever respecting their children, by respect I don't mean "Obey". By "respect" I mean adhering to the truth in a beneficial and agreeable way, I mean without compromising, and here today it's so common to see so many people fooling their dear own.
Some children rebel against their parents totally even if they know deep inside that their parents are partly right, whereas some children obey their parents totally even if they know deep inside that the parents have it partly wrong. Both ways, the children as well as parents are showing great disrepect to each other. It's a great pseudo family freak show, who are these people fooling! Themselves! "Malpractical ain't being practical anymore!" We have fooled ourselves so much that we are no longer aware about how foolish we are.
That's why a Mother master is required, that's why an Amrithanandamayi is required, an enlightened master who sees both the parents as well as the children as Her own children, a mother who does not loan her breast milk to her babies.
We need more REAL mothers in our society, only then can we have REAL children, and a REAL peaceful family to live with.
Mother where are you? Am I still not your son?
Missing my Makerere college
The Library of Makerere college
I wish to share with you my Makerere college Anthem.
"We are men and women of Uganda
marching along
on the path of education
singing
and dancing
along
together,
united for
a better Uganda."
When I was in Uganda, I did my high schooling at Makerere college School. I had a wonderful time over there, the academic curriculum had 16 subjects which included lovely subjects like Music, Political Education, Home Economics, Fine Arts, Physical education, Local language, English-II, and Foreign language.
I miss the college grounds, I miss my class. I miss Nangozi, my desk mate, she was so understanding that before I need to tell her anything, she used to get it and cover for me whenever I got into trouble - Frienship at its best. I miss Karwani Kiiza Paul - the noble one, I miss the Dean - Mr. Katongole who used to give me hard times, he used pick on me for no reason, he made me kneel down twice in front of the whole college, he even sent me and some guys out of college for not doing some homework, I was actually absent on that day when he gave the home work and so we chilled, we all had a great day that day, we toured the whole Makerere University campus, picnicked by the lawns, peeked into the swimming pools, bought sweets and enjoyed the new found freedom. I miss Ndaula Sir who used to keep on praising this student called Abel for being a intellectual, when everyone just could not see it because for them he was actually only the topper in Fine Arts, but that irked me, so I did everything I could to better Abel in Fine Arts, but always failed, but then in the last exam, yes I got my victory when I got 87% for my Logo design, ((evil laugh)) hahah hahaa haaaaahaha haah.
I miss the Biology teacher's furry cat Ruby, Devan and I used to visit her garage, to get a glimpse of her cat. I miss Haria Dhruv who is now in London, don't know if he cares about this friend here. I miss Prabhakar, he has really turned to be a jolly guy, somewhere in the US now. I miss the twins Prachi and Pratichi, I always cared to give my attention to them, so much, no matter what!!! I miss Opio - fan of Jesus Christ, Ouma Michael - fan of Michael Jordan, Apio who used to make fun of me alot and yes my good friend Michael Byamukama of S1 Blue who introduced me to his world of music. I did make friends with a senior of mine from Senior 5, but I forgot his name. He was angelic. There is one more person that I miss, she was a senior to me by one year, she was kind!
God bless them all!
Stay silent to survive
"Bulla ki Jana" is the poem written by the Sufi Saint Bulleh Shah. An immense poem that tries to destroy the religious ideal-idols in the many ways possible. The poem tries to connect the reader to the truth.
"Secrets of religion, I have not known
from Adam and Eve, I am not born
I am not the name I assume
not in stillness, nor on the move
Bulleh! to me, I am not known
I am the first, I am the last
none other, have I ever known
I am the wisest of them all
Bulleh! do I stand alone?
Bulleh! to me, I am not known."
from Adam and Eve, I am not born
I am not the name I assume
not in stillness, nor on the move
Bulleh! to me, I am not known
I am the first, I am the last
none other, have I ever known
I am the wisest of them all
Bulleh! do I stand alone?
Bulleh! to me, I am not known."
Must watch
This is a must watch video. Rabbi takes us on a trip to different parts of the country, he shows the diversity, in it's unison with the itsy-bitsy truth that he sings. He brings out his Punjabi persona all over the place, regal indeed. I found his strumming and quick head movements attractive and confident. It's also interesting how the video focuses on electric posts. Indeed the song was just electric, whatever machines you are, that noumenon called electricity is used to run you all.
An essence that I see in the song is the idea of "unity through diversity" and yet this unity is unknown. We know nothing of everything, as an individual or as a whole.
I remember an interview show of Rabbi Shergill just after this song made him famous, the interviewer lady asked him, his favorite rock song? And then he answered that the one song that changed the landscape of Rock music was the song "I still haven't found what I am looking for" by U2, where Bono and his mates wander and sing around in a Las Vegas street.The lady then asked him to sing the song, so he started singing, but he forgot the words of some lines and he was honest enough to say that he did not know the words of the song totally. I liked that so much about him. Because it's not the words of the song thats so important, it's the idea behind them.
"I still haven't found what I am looking for" is already rated as one of the greatest songs of all time by Rolling Stones magazine, but I think this song, this gospel song is one of the greatest songs on Jesus Christ too, teaching us that Jesus was just a sign post, and that we have to move on in the path that he showed us and not to worship the signpost. We are here looking for that unfathomable one called God.
"I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colors will bleed into one, bleed into one
but yes I'm still running
You broke the bonds
and you loosed the chains
carried the cross
of my shame
oh my shame
you know I believe it
Then all the colors will bleed into one, bleed into one
but yes I'm still running
You broke the bonds
and you loosed the chains
carried the cross
of my shame
oh my shame
you know I believe it
but I still haven't found what I'm looking for"
I remember an incident on a bus journey from Shimla to Delhi, I was in the bus looking through the window, and I saw this pretty looking foreigner lady standing outside the bus, somehow I just had the feeling that she would come and sit right next to me. I saw her enter the bus and to my surprise, the lady comes towards my seat and sits right next to me...
We became friendly in no time, she was a mid-wife who used to work in many African countries including my country-of-upbringing, Uganda. She said she was from Ireland and as soon as she mentioned "Ireland", I started smiling so much... I said to her, "Oh I am a great fan of an Irish man, his name is Bono...of U2." Then she replied, "Oh yeah Bono, I know Bono, he comes to our club for a drink." Then I said to her, "Wow, this Bono writes great lyrics, the songs are so relevant...and and and his family and the band U2 are one good team". And then she went on to say, "Ah when he is at the bar, no one talks to him, always alone, I remember once my mom was laughing and feeling sorry for him, because after all that life gave him, he keeps singing that he still hasn't found what he is looking for! hahaha".
I went on to say that Bono has done a lot for Africa's development, he has already achieved so much in life yet he keeps going. Then again she began saying negative this and negative that about him. So, then I just kept silent, kept humming my songs until I reached Delhi. When I was leaving the bus, I did not feel like asking for her contact details but then, I could feel it, she was sad about the way she had behaved with me and she said to me in a soft motherly voice "God bless you". And I left. Well, so that's the power of Silence.
We became friendly in no time, she was a mid-wife who used to work in many African countries including my country-of-upbringing, Uganda. She said she was from Ireland and as soon as she mentioned "Ireland", I started smiling so much... I said to her, "Oh I am a great fan of an Irish man, his name is Bono...of U2." Then she replied, "Oh yeah Bono, I know Bono, he comes to our club for a drink." Then I said to her, "Wow, this Bono writes great lyrics, the songs are so relevant...and and and his family and the band U2 are one good team". And then she went on to say, "Ah when he is at the bar, no one talks to him, always alone, I remember once my mom was laughing and feeling sorry for him, because after all that life gave him, he keeps singing that he still hasn't found what he is looking for! hahaha".
I went on to say that Bono has done a lot for Africa's development, he has already achieved so much in life yet he keeps going. Then again she began saying negative this and negative that about him. So, then I just kept silent, kept humming my songs until I reached Delhi. When I was leaving the bus, I did not feel like asking for her contact details but then, I could feel it, she was sad about the way she had behaved with me and she said to me in a soft motherly voice "God bless you". And I left. Well, so that's the power of Silence.
That brings me to bring you back to our Sufi Saint, Bulleh Shah. Here is a poem and some quotes by others, quotes that we could savour for many days to come.
Stay silent to surviveStay silent to survive. People cannot stand to hear the truth.
They are at your throat if you speak it. They keep away from those who speak it.
But truth is sweet to its lovers! Truth destroys shara (shariah).
Brings rapture to its lovers, and unexpected riches, which shara (shariah) obscures.
Those lovers cannot remain silent who have inhaled the fragrance of the truth.
Those who have woven love into their lives, leave this world of falsehood.
Bulleh Shah speaks the truth. He uncovers the truth of shara (shariah).
He opens the path to the fourth level which shara (shariah) obscures.
Brings rapture to its lovers, and unexpected riches, which shara (shariah) obscures.
Those lovers cannot remain silent who have inhaled the fragrance of the truth.
Those who have woven love into their lives, leave this world of falsehood.
Bulleh Shah speaks the truth. He uncovers the truth of shara (shariah).
He opens the path to the fourth level which shara (shariah) obscures.
~ Bulleh Shah
“That which you cannot express is Love.
That which you cannot reject/renounce is Beauty.
That which you cannot avoid is the Truth.”
~ Sri Sri Ravishankar
“That which you cannot express is Love.
That which you cannot reject/renounce is Beauty.
That which you cannot avoid is the Truth.”
~ Sri Sri Ravishankar
"I have climbed the highest mountains,
I have run through the fields,
only to be with you, only to be with you
I have run, I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls, these city walls
only to be with you
only to be with you, only to be with you
I have run, I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls, these city walls
only to be with you
but I still haven't found what I'm looking for,
but I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
but I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
~ Bono
The Bully
There are times in life where you might find yourself totally tied up with work and yet people keep finding fault in you and criticize your work all over place. Just sarcasm and no empathy whatsoever. You feel like you have been trapped in the middle of some world-stage called Bully, what do you do?
You feel so put off, you feel like just getting out of there or maybe stealing the family-sedan for a long night drive or maybe to find a nice stone to relax on and stare at a dusty silent river flowing, all just to get the feel, the sense of "moving on..." only to return back to the world more recharged and ready.
"One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed on an empty beach.
One man betrayed with a kiss
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
One man he resist
One man washed on an empty beach.
One man betrayed with a kiss
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
In the name of love
What more in the name of love
Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride"
-
Lovely concert song written for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. It used to be my college-days anthem song, it reminds me of the kind of guys who come to you in the name of love, benefit, truth, when actually they don't even love themselves properly, they have no idea why they talk or do what they do, and they just call it love, because the idea-word "love" works out well for them, it lubricates their hollow words, their back-biting politics, their distorted ideas for idols, shallow ambitions in life and their veiled diseases of long term misery that they spread in the long run, as individuals or as in groups. Most of their actions are to confess/mimic this false-love, a "feel good thing" that keeps their minds satiated with the temporal, from time to time, but now, finally I have begun to clearly see such man bullies as victims of the pressure environment rather than as culprits alone, they need intelligent-proactive care and not ill-toned criticism as a corrective measure. The prayer that I practice today is to say that "may we have the eye to see, true love reign".
Yes, we are not here to run away from the darkness, we are not here to curse the darkness behind it's back, we are here to light up the darkness, to admire it's potential, to have faith in it's light, to admire light. My greatest ambition has always been to become a great admirer. To admire is an art of the highest credentials and I do have a long way to go.As of now, I am planning to write an essay on "Criticism, Narcissism and Cynicism" to straighten things out in my head, but while doing some research on these words, it was such an irony to find out, that for most of the articles on "Criticism", I found the authors to be very critical and when I tried "Narcissism", I found the authors to be highly Narcissist", done with "Cynicism".
Rarely do you find anyone with the capacity to accurately contradistinguish the human behaviours and tendencies, to understand whether they were for a worthy cause or not. Well, so now on saying this, am I myself becoming the critic, narcissist cynic! Subtle it is indeed.
So while researching late into the night, I stumbled upon the biography of this man "Michel de Montaigne". He was an influential French Renaissance writer, generally considered to be the inventor of the personal essay. Man, I admire this dude.
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
(28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592)
In order to express the reason for my admiration for this man, I wish to share with you some of his quotes...
"There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent."
"We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom."
"In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page-boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk— they are all part of the curriculum."
"Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is, like grace and beauty in the body, which charms at first sight, and lead on to further intimacy and friendship, opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation."
"No matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom."
"The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar."
"The easy, gentle, and sloping path… is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road."
"The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar."
"The easy, gentle, and sloping path… is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road."
Steady
Ah! finally, the time to get a new blog up and running, my previous blog was at erstwhile Yahoo 360!, but when it became difficult for me to access the net, I stopped using it frequently.
Blogging has been very useful to me, it has helped me in constructing many of my ideas. The fruits of my first blogging stint have been many. I got a poetry/photography/quotations book published out of it. Secondly, blogging was a way to exhaust my persistent creative energy and then most preciously, I was able to make some really nice friends like Songo and Yna. Songo is from Panama and Yna is from Manila.
I liked Yahoo 360! very much because its functionality coupled the feature of social networking along with the feature of blogging. Even though we had a nice community network in it, few people ever figured out what Yahoo 360! was good for (and being a social application it required more than just a few people for it to be much good at all). But somewhere, I did pacify myself by saying that I am glad it got closed down, like a phase of life coming to an end, heading for a better, stable one. So let me see what this blog turns into, maybe into a little tiny book with powerful secrets hidden all over it or maybe into an upside-down beetle fighting with gravity. Lots of energy I say, I see so many projects popping up in my heart with the tags of "so much of loving", "so much of serving".
There's so much to do, got to be ready for them and wait for their right time. Steady.
Blogging has been very useful to me, it has helped me in constructing many of my ideas. The fruits of my first blogging stint have been many. I got a poetry/photography/quotations book published out of it. Secondly, blogging was a way to exhaust my persistent creative energy and then most preciously, I was able to make some really nice friends like Songo and Yna. Songo is from Panama and Yna is from Manila.
I liked Yahoo 360! very much because its functionality coupled the feature of social networking along with the feature of blogging. Even though we had a nice community network in it, few people ever figured out what Yahoo 360! was good for (and being a social application it required more than just a few people for it to be much good at all). But somewhere, I did pacify myself by saying that I am glad it got closed down, like a phase of life coming to an end, heading for a better, stable one. So let me see what this blog turns into, maybe into a little tiny book with powerful secrets hidden all over it or maybe into an upside-down beetle fighting with gravity. Lots of energy I say, I see so many projects popping up in my heart with the tags of "so much of loving", "so much of serving".
There's so much to do, got to be ready for them and wait for their right time. Steady.
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