Today

Today is all that we have
With our youth and audacity
Tomorrow, the time may come
When we would all grow old
Could tomorrow then
Satisfy our needs of today?
By the light of the day
And by the peace of night
We toil away our todays
Hoping for better tomorrows
Knowing not that
All our yesterdays
Were stolen by Hope
So let us reclaim our today
Forget about tomorrow
And let not Hope enslave us
To the past that has gone away

A Hard Life... Lived In Vain

She keeps reckoning, through and through
That life, the life she knew was hard
She saw many days of misery
Days when the sun would stay hidden
Dark clouds threatening to break
Yet the rain never came
Nor light to ease her pain

She saw through her ways, her weakness
The children have grown up now
With families of their own
There were days when she shared
The laughter of her children
Her tears have dried up
For today there is no one to wipe them

She used to cook and clean endlessly
Happiness stayed in her kitchen
All the blessings of youth and health
All the parties and the people
Painted her as a queen
Old age came as a curse
And the throne was taken away

She has no words of wisdom left in her
A dried leaf blowing in the wind
There are no smiles left
No one to care if she does
Her children find her troublesome
Her husband wants her dead
And all she has is regret

She knows her life was never perfect
Faults everyone chooses to forget
Today she is reminded
Everything catches up someday
In loneliness she realizes
Born alone into a world of many
Dying alone is her fate

Another Republic Day gone by...

Sixty one years have gone by since India as an independent republic chartered its own Constitution. Yet, what have we got to show for ourselves, besides the endless political tirades and the tyranny of a corrupt regime pretending to be an honourable system pertaining to the need of the masses.

Over the years, so many people including myself have become tired of the circus parade held on this very day, simply because so many crucial issues lie unnoticed and hidden to the public eye, and so the Government’s efforts to sideline these by putting up a massive show to entertain one of the largest democracies in the world is nothing short of an insult to the people’s intelligence. One of the things I abhor the most is the blatant display of the nation’s defence prowess in the various parades held, which clearly show us in detail of the level of expenditure involved in maintaining the several wings. This expenditure is needed more for improving the social wellbeing of India’s children, not in a capitalistic or business oriented manner, but in helping at the grass-root level and bringing ourselves to a stage of self-reliance; definitely, buying more guns and developing bombs and shells is not the approach to building a stable society.

Why is it that we choose to ignore the glorious past of India, for if we were aware of her phenomenal history we would understand that the civilizations that bred and evolved here had a strong basis of peace and harmony, simply through tolerance and acceptance. For thousands of years we persevered against the continual attacks from outside, from various battle hungry empires that chose to plunder us and plague us with their inane ideas, but did we ever give up surviving? Never have we gone on the offensive and attacked another for the sake of profits. Yes, we did fight when the attacks got severe, but never ever did we have an organized approach to defend ourselves, simply for the fact that we knew that in the end peace would prevail no matter what. We gave into the ideas and attributes of others, we included their beliefs and embraced their theologies as our own, but we never stooped so low as to delineate our children on the basis of geography or elitism. Regardless of the differences, we considered ourselves and our ‘guests’ to be one in spirit, and this is the attitude that got us so far. We never showed off, we never proclaimed superiority and we never ever considered ourselves different from anybody or any place on earth, because of which the children of the Indus Valley always pioneered in every aspect of the pure life; we were trailblazers in social living, ploughing ahead in any adversity and laying the road for others to follow. All this without even the slightest shadow of egotism. Why are we then so far removed from our original attributes today?

Firstly, because we are still slaves and we might remain that way forever. We are maybe under the illusion that the Empire was driven off in ’47 and that we are free in our own land, but this so far from the truth. When the West left us, they carefully engineered a system which they had skilfully developed over the centuries of Industrial Revolution and the Age of Reason, a system so deviant in thought and application to corrupt every pure human being into thinking that his or her purpose in life is nothing more fundamental than base enjoyment. The system which abrogates the motto of Indian living which is ‘Existence through High Thinking and Plain Living’ and replaces all our social theories and evolutionary paradigms with the darkest designs of materialism. The system that I refer to is the capitalistic regime that we are all slaves of today.

Capitalism is the new Empire. That which has taken over from the Queen’s rule and has silently been guiding India and her children into the worst nightmare that humanity has faced in its evolutionary journey. Competition, an artificial sense of security and paranoia of being deceived are all derivatives of capitalism, and we are foolish enough to preach and educate the same to our children in the system of education that exists today. According to Maslow, human beings evolve through levels of needs, the basic being our pychophysical needs like food, water, clothing and shelter to higher levels like security, belongingness, esteem and the highest level being self-actualization where a human being tries to understand who he or she really is and what is their true potential. What capitalism does is fix our attention on esteem-based needs and here we are living in a social setup of show and tell. Neighbours’ envy, owners pride, live life kingsize, just do it and for everything else there is mastercard, these are the commandments that kids grow up listening to today. No wonder then that we have to spend ridiculous amounts on protecting our ridiculous way of life. This is definitely not what the children of Indus Valley had in mind, for their inscribed and inherited knowledge is much more profound and advanced than the shit that we learn today. As the Zeitgeist Movement puts it, THE SHIT HAS GOT TO GO!!!

Secondly, because no matter what we do, we have to face these issues. This is our evolutionary journey, to deal with the issues that Nature throws along our way and see if we can pick our way through the maze. We have enough evidence corroborating the fact that Nature and human consciousness is interconnected at all levels of the gross, subtle and causal reality. We create the world as we know it, and so the problems that confront us are not external entities, but reflections of our mental maladies. The world is facing a grave identity crisis, for no one really knows today who they are and why they were born into such a phenomenal reality. As children, we are asked not to question but to accept the fate of the world as it is. This is probably the worst advice ever given and if we do not change our perspective, we may end up as fossils of an extinct species like the dinosaurs. True awareness of our mistakes, our limitations and our negativities are what is needed to correct the deviation from our original path, and kids need to be told about all of this. There is no hiding from them, for sooner or later the more inquisitive ones will come to realize what we have done, and so it is our responsibility to increase awareness and also our potential to become what we are truly meant to be.

This 26th is not a Republic Day or a day when rules were formulated; today is a day of awareness that we are not silly people who once fought for freedom, we are not Kashmiris or Keralites or Indians or Non-Indians, we are not rich, or poor, the down-trodden, urban-rural-metro-cosmo dwellers, the gold-diggers and shit-pickers, the elite, literate, upper-caste or scheduled tribes, south, north, east or west; we are human beings, just like the rest of them on this planet, we are alive and that too for a reason, we have certain innate talents and powers, skills and knowledge not to make a better world, but to better ourselves. Nature is perfect as she is, and she will provide plentiful to the one who cares for her, loves one another and propagates the warmth of life everywhere and in everything. Love is the currency that we seek, not money; love is abundant and there is more than enough for everyone, but only if we give up our bloodthirstiness and profit mongering, our capitalistic strategies and our ideas of war.

The 26th of January 2011 is not different from any other day, and so let us make everyday worthwhile in our transient lives. We don’t need parades and political tirades, what we need are unity in love, in any place and among any people regardless of what differences or diversities may exist. It is these differences which make the canvas of our world brilliant, and the painting that we paint every day, a masterpiece!

Neo-Human

I love by letting go

Therefore I am free

I believe with conviction

Therefore I do not judge

I accept without conditions

Therefore I have patience

I experience without questions

Therefore I am able to learn

I live from moment to moment

Therefore I know eternity

I seek the essence of life

Therefore I feel sentient

I am what I really am

I am the neo-human

So tell me..

Its amazing to see
What people bring to me
When not much is to be said
They do have much to say to me

To me its not juicy
Whatever they try telling me
Most of the stuff's over my head
And yet they keep on going at me

Its all about the 'Oui'
Accept all that is told to me
Tell them they're right as dead
For all the lies they keep piling on me

Patient I should be
Let no reaction escape me
Like showing a bull a flag of red
They just might blow their top at me

Serve, Seek and Survive

By serving you I shall seek wisdom
By seeking wisdom I shall survive life
By surviving life I shall serve you
By serving you I shall survive life
By surviving life I shall seek wisdom
By seeking wisdom I shall serve you

By serving wisdom I shall seek you
By seeking you I shall survive life
By surviving life I shall serve wisdom
By serving wisdom I shall survive life
By surviving life I shall seek you
By seeking you I shall serve wisdom

By serving life I shall seek wisdom
By seeking wisdom I shall survive you
By surviving you I shall serve life
By serving life I shall survive you
By surviving you I shall seek wisdom
By seeking wisdom I shall serve life

By serving you I shall seek life
By seeking life I shall survive wisdom
By surviving wisdom I shall serve you
By serving you I shall survive wisdom
By surviving wisdom I shall seek life
By seeking life I shall serve you

Hopelessly in Thought

“What have we learned when we were told that instinctively draws them irresistible, such as the extravagant idea that they can dominate without realizing it, and whatever they do to get rid of it, that their thoughts come and go, mingle, mingle with uncontrollable rapidity, they see objects, hear noises, voices that exist, as is commonly said that in their imagination? ... We do not see, of course, that area of things we cannot penetrate further, probing the causes, the sequence of mental abnormalities which we speak. Is not none of the acts of the intellect, affections, especially as the sensations it is impossible to know and judge other than yourself? To get an idea of any pain, it must have felt, to know how crazy nonsense, there must be nonsense yourself, but be unreasonable without losing consciousness of our delirium, without stopping to judge the changes occurred in our mental faculties.”

- By Jacques-Joseph Moreau (de Tours)

In Hashish and Mental Alienation, 1845

To experience, is the essence of all life! To experience the vagaries and variances, the divinities and depths of utter realization, and be lost in the sea of life, where we drink in the strong and hard of possibilities, all the while drowning slower and slower as the waves of time rush by. To experience, is to transcend existence into non-existence.

We live through each day knowing fully that it is but a pattern we follow, and yet we believe in a reason for this fallacy, that this is meant to be. To live as though nothing matters and to live with the conviction that everything does, comprehending the significance of every small detail, are two entirely different experiences. One need not be a prerequisite to the other, even though the intricacies of their interactions are far subtler than what meets the general eye. Why must one think of either when wallowing in the mud of existence, all that keeps the simple mind occupied is the primal urge to be satisfied? In various ways and forms, through the infinite network of means and ends we live a very determinate life, forever entangled in the links of cause and effect. To live in such fashion without ever taking a look at the finer mechanisms of thought bringing forth existence and how the world continuously regenerates thought is akin to the meaningless drudgery of slaves. ‘Why’ and ‘what for’ are a luxury of questions never meant for slaves!

To deny the right to question, to evict from ourselves the finer aspects of being a human, such as the study of designs and patterns without ever conceding to the idea of coincidence, and bringing thought to the level of transparent contemplation of itself to reveal its nothingness, without these explorations life is nothing but a swamp of incoherent happenings, where every struggle to escape results in deeper entrenchment. As we are immersed in thought from waking moment to moment, we do not understand how it is from thought that our world is framed and being born into this ignorance is not a justification for continuing in the same pattern. Evolution is not just a betterment of our physical attributes according to the strength of the surrounding environment, but more importantly an awakening of our psychophysical capabilities and thereby adapting to our own changing thought process, understanding its mechanism and ultimately controlling its sycophancies.

Where has this inherent capacity to question disappeared in the neo-human? Questioning does exist in our social system, but in an imposed, standardized and bastardized format that serves no purpose other than to exhort the enquirer to conform to these social phenomena, subjugating free will and freedom of thought to the so called higher pathways of society building and maintenance of harmony. The irony is that all the reasons for structuring the complex interactions of our species into a well-defined mechanism of social progress have devolved into excuses and silly justifications for the widespread disharmony and degeneration we see around us in the world today. What this means is that we must rethink our objectives for all the social experiments, review our current position with respect to the various attitudes we incorporate into our daily lives and eventually have the guts to accept where we went wrong, instead of putting in stop-gap measures to hide the consequences of our early mistakes and continuing with this destructive agenda formulated by our forefathers day after day, year after year and generation after generation.

To think, defines our very essence of being human and is the foundation of what we have made and where we have reached so far. Thought as an entity, is the single most revolutionary device that isolates us as the highest evolved system in the universe today, until such counter-evidence can be brought to light proving the existence of another system anywhere else. It pains me then, to see so many of my own species going through life as an automated system does, programmed with so many ideas and methodologies to deal with issues; these issues being created by the very social machine that programmed them in the first place. Because of this tyrannical process of programming, these auto-beings living and struggling in my world have forsaken the power of thought and cognitive analysis, crudely replaced with following dictums and demented social ideologies simply for the pursuit of base pleasures and for the avoidance of silly illusory pains. Do they deserve to be called human beings, I do not know; it is not in my infinite wisdom gained through lifetimes of experience and error to classify and judge another. All I can reveal is that if humanity does not reassign its priorities as soon as possible, we are all headed towards a major catastrophe in terms of our journey of evolution and there is no saying what the consequences of our actions would be, for at that point of time no stop-gap measures would exist to save us from our follies.

My meanderings in thought would seem inconsequential to most of my fellow human beings, and to many these may reflect the insanity of a mind unoccupied by what they deem is important to daily life survival; nevertheless, I agree this is insanity, but it is the insanity of an evolving mind which has torn itself away from the mechanisms of social compulsions and which is trying to see the bigger picture. This mind may not function as per the whims and fancies of the society and will not obey the rules and constructs governing its workings, but because it is removed from this stage, it observes unbiased and understands where the errors lie. By placing thought at the summit of our personal endeavours towards sustaining linearity in our path of evolution and by revoking all attempts of society to condition us and program our activities and thereby branching away from our sole purpose which is to become the epitome of intelligent design, we can address our current issues in a succinct manner and become who we really are. I must reinforce this idea again and again; that what we are today is not the real entity that lies hidden within us but only a pale shadow of the glorious self that we shall eventually become. This is the gist of our evolutionary framework, and all our efforts lie in the realm of thought and mental expansion, which is the next stage of progress and metamorphosis.

We have already passed the stage of animal evolution, of physical fitness and adaptation to natural challenges and checkpoints, of redefining our environment to better assist in the succeeding stages of innovation of thought and intelligence. We are almost at the brink of completing the social evolution stage, where civilization and systems of interaction have been perfected to such a degree that the world seems a lot smaller and lot more connected than what it was a thousand years ago, all of which happened in the last hundred or so years. But somewhere along the way we dissipated our efforts into many ineffective strategies that a paradox exists – technologically and scientifically we are way ahead of our times, but in social principle we are degenerates, never assuming responsibility for the development of our social mechanisms and worsening the situation by reacting to the issues in a haphazard fashion. Either we pull the plug now and discover alternative methods of adaptation, or it is clear that the point of no return will present us with a situation where all existing systems will crash and a new framework will emerge. But the latter will come at a cost, so hard to bear but bear we shall for we have no choice when it comes to evolution; as Darwin so beautifully put it, ‘only the fittest shall survive.’

So to summarize, we live a life which is a continuity of experiences, from birth to death, nothing more and nothing less. It is these experiences which guide us from lower to higher stages of our own evolution, and to forget this is tantamount to forgetting ourselves. Which in theory, and almost in all practical applications of society is what we end up doing; forgetting who we are, why we are and the significance of this journey called life. Simply because the family we were born into, the people we interact with to build the various networks and the systems that keep our daily processes going, all of them keep us from realizing these simple truths. Why? Because for their survival, we must forget all about ours – this is the way of our world! And in order to keep us from realizing this, prolific systems are in place to engage our thought, our most powerful evolutionary tool in mundane trivialities of daily living. Is it possible for us to be aware of this deceit and escape the trap we were born into? Maybe, and then again maybe not – only time can tell!

In conclusion, it is only fitting to quote Nietzsche, one of our foremost thinkers who was way ahead of his time, and who was persecuted by the very society he tried to redefine: The only seeing we have is seeing from a perspective; the only knowledge we have is knowledge from a perspective. The more emotional affects we allow to be expressed in words concerning something, the more eyes, different eyes, we know how to train on the same thing, the more complete our "idea" of this thing, our "objectivity," will be. But to eliminate the will in general, to suspend all our emotions without exception—even if we were capable of that—what would that be? Wouldn't we call that castrating the intellect?

Hopelessly in thought, this is how I would define my transient life!

Ziggy

Ziggy has a room
With blue and green curtains
Dalmatians on the wall
And Jesus nailed to a cross

I know you're sad, Ziggy
The world may have gone bad
Life's strange in many ways
Yet you and I're here to stay

Ziggy got no kitchen
But he says it don't matter
Pizza's on the way
And beer stacked in a corner

I know you're old, Ziggy
People have gone cold on you
Life's strange in many ways
Yet you and I're here to stay

Ziggy says its okay
Like a toy copter he had once
Propeller's gone bust
And life's not the same again

I know you're dead, Ziggy
Buried peacefully in my head
Life's strange in many ways
Yet you and I're here to stay

A Relationship of Sorts

What is my definition in your world?
Whatever you shape as my life,
Whatever you consider appropriate
As the designs contributing to my fate
I shall willingly take as my own.

What is my place in your thoughts?
The sense that you attribute
And the senselessness you dislike
Are the windows through which I peer
Seeing the world as you see it.

What is my significance in your dreams?
The pleasures that you seek
And the pain that sets your heart on fire
Are the limits to my existence
Forging reality upon what is unreal.

What is my situation in your life?
The choices that you make
The circumstances that confront you
Inevitably lead to the consequences
Which are beyond my control.

What is my relevance to you?
All the feelings that bind me to you
And the theories that keep me away
These are but one and the same
As long as you persist in love.

What am I to you?