LIST OF POEMS

Please click on the poem to read it..

1. The Dusky World

The Dusky World

Facts gasp under the cobweb of words,
When we be witty to serve some purpose.

We drag out what is of use in law,
Implicit wins reducing explicit to straw.

Implications are cleverly deduced,
If heart is lost, tongue is used.

Dawn looks dusk if seen with eyes shut,
Truth may be bright, still we have if’s and but’s.

If grey clouds can bedim the bright noon,
Lies can kill conscience and cocoon the shining moon.

Continuous heat can glow the metals dark,
Constant lying makes plausible what is false.

Coloured we see through coloured glasses,
A dream is liberation from prejudices.

The moon when seen through a lover’s eye,
Looks like the visage of some cold bride.

Emotions blur vision making reason flimsy
And falsehood boasts of its easy victory.

Where is courage to unmask Truth’s dazzling face,
Satans are on prowl and Eves yet unsafe.

Were truth as easy as to blow out a candle,
There would be more brightness in this dusky world.

2. Quintessence of Art–the Taj

Quintessence of Art — the Taj

Dream of an emperor realized in stone,
In memory of Mumtaj, a time-proof tomb.

Frozen music, a couplet in architecture,
Lover’s nest, a life’s last chapter.

Unkissed bride, marble imbued with love,
Shadow of a dream, moon on the earth.

Lustrous eye under the lid of the sky,
Mirror of love reflecting tears dry.

Telling tales of the dusty past,
Manna dew on Time’s desert vast.

The last picture from a lover’s album,
Anchoring at Jumna the boat of a Seraphim.

Stone saturated with the shy soul of a queen,
Peace’s abode, calm, quiet and serene.

3. Dad, Show Me God

Dad, Show Me God

Dad, how many gods are in God,
Where do they live and where not?
Is God bigger than the clouds,
Is He everywhere and in our house?

Can He read and write like me,
Or just He scratches like a baby?
Can He do all, can He all see?
Tell me Dad, how many eyes has He?

Does He ask you to go to temple,
And if you don’t, does He punish?
Does He punish like my teacher,
Or is He kind to all of us?

Yester-night I stumbled over a block,
Was it mine or my God’s fault?
Why He puts not in our eyes,
Torch like light to guide our sight?

Why He creates such a dark night,
Why He makes not everything white?
Why He asks not money to grow on trees,
Why He makes not all free of worries?

Why tests are held in the school,
Why some wise and why some fool?
Why can’t we fight with the ghost,
If all are weak then why all boast?

Tell me Dad, where does He live,
I will ask him such simple things;
If you can’t show Him to me,
Let me go to play, don’t hold me.

4. Purposeless Purpose

Purposeless Purpose

Fire of life is going to sink,
I grumble not, I regret not;
I have warmed myself enough,
I am ready to pack and depart.

From the rung of a ladder,
Where I presently stand,
Would I move on to the roof,
Or fall on the ground again?

I may strive again to make it afresh,
I may leave the field for someone else;
One circle leads to another circle,
Let God serve His purposeless purpose.

5. Flashback

Flashback

When I turn back the pages of life,
Something golden glitters in my eyes.

Ah! Where is youth, my colourful youth!
In the starry sky my moon-like youth!

I was young and world was gay
When millions bowed in my way.
I frowned and all would fade,
I sang and the earth swayed.

Millions fluttered at my wink,
I blushed and all turned pink.

I smiled for all, wept for none,
World loved me but I loved one.

I loved one and that was me,
All else were at my knee.

Dreams were then in technicolour,
Blissful were those precious hours.

I would refuse to go to heaven,
Were it offered to me then.

But nothing remains of that delight,
Which haunts me now day and night.

Trail in memory those sweet days,
The present is crippled by old age.

Though that love was afflicted by pain,
Yet I remained wild and untamed.

Sweet pain, that pain was sweet,
Let it come again and let me weep.

Even tears would wash away the worries,
As poison cures some chronic disease.

6. Something Works in the Womb

Something Works in the Womb

I love that flower,
I love this leaf,
Something lurks in bower
That also lurks in me.

This weed is not dead,
That rock is not cold;
Something in womb works,
That sustains and supports.

I wonder at this seed,
See, how it grows bold!
Huge tree comes out of it,
To bring in millions more!

Billions of its own kind,
Take birth in its leaves,
All gush from earth blind,
Colours bright and fruit sweet.

Dust of this earth sustains,
Wolves, weeds and stone;
It is the boon, it is the bane,
It can smile and moan.

Fruits take their taste,
Flowers suck their smell;
All things He creates
From this dusty earth.

7. The Spiral Life

The Spiral Life

The spiral life, an endless race,
No flat racing, a steeple chase;
Reaching point is out of sight,
Restless soul cries for light.

Dim is the day, dark is the night,
Foggy morn obscures the sight;
But I will face snags and shoals,
Heaven help! I’ll reach the shore.

The path is risky and untravelled,
But light within is a magnetic needle
That intuitively guides me back home
To which my homesick soul belongs.

8. God Did Not Play Dice

God Did Not Play Dice

God did not play dice
When He created life.
There was a method,
Subtle and superb
That controlled His empire,
Constituted of liquid fire,
Time and space, sound and rays.

It is cosmos not chaos,
Neither created from nothing
Nor to be reduced to nought.
Resting on some invisible arch,
Interlinked with viewless string,
Stars reeling and greeting,
Merrily blink and cross.

Billion trillion stars,
Millions of light years afar,
Do shape the things
On this tiny earth
That looks like a squib,
In danger of a hit
Yet safe in its orbit.

In this puzzling world,
All revolves in a circle;
Nothing is left to chance,
It is a measured dance;
There is rhythm sweet and clear,
Softly echoing in the sphere,
But inaudible to mortal ears.

Every note in this space
Is ringing at the desired place,
Throwing a charm over His art,
Making it a unique universe.
All is done to keep harmony
In this great grand symphony.
The rhythm enthrals each entity !

9. Prismatic Rays of One Light

Prismatic Rays of One Light

See that sweet child plays there
Under its mother’s loving care
As if it were my own childhood;
Child smiles when at it I look.

Now he bubbles with sudden laughter
Unaware of world’s disasters,
My childhood and I face to face,
Happy meeting, a thrilling phase.

There beside the child is sitting,
Its mother, doing some knitting,
As my fate knit that for me,
She once my love, now a mother I see.
She looks cheerfully at her child,
While I stand hidden from her sight;
Her smile is reflection of her babe’s,
I feel at her lips my past plays.

I smile in her, in her I live,
Yet she is she and I’m ‘I’ still.
But does she not live in All ?
Beauty she is and that is God.

Whom we love, with whom we play?
We different toys of same clay.
We please none, we tease none,
Various roles are played by One.

After all, we all share One Life,
We are prismatic rays of One Light;
All rivulets gush from One Lake,
We are ripples different, of One Wave.

Henceforth, I shall never grudge
That my beloved, my precious jewel,
Now lies in the chest of someone else;
For in all I live, and I love my Self.

10. Death of a Mother

Death of a Mother

A young loving mother died
While feeding in lap her child.
All the milk was spilt,
And hands of love turned stiff.

The child looked upon the sky,
It sobbed, cursed and cried.
The earth sighed and trembled,
It could not bear sobs tender.

Tyrant Death saw it and smiled
While merciful God shut His eyes.
Angels too, showed indifference,
They went on singing hymns.

Stars soon hid their face,
A youth had run its race.
Dew wept bitterly all the night,
Morning was not fair and bright.

Joys and toys lost their charm,
Child wept to make its mother warm.
Death drunk with absolute power,
Refused Mercy to enter that bower.

Only Nature grieved with the child
While Fate cruel grinned with delight.
Death bellowed over its victory grand,
As an elephant, after treading an ant.

Oh God! Pardon this blasphemy,
In your world injustices are many.
Set them right, I do pray,
Or Evil will have a field day.

11. Father is Very Sorry

Father is Very Sorry

My little angel, my dear son,
I’m sorry for what is done
Since your fault deserved not
Punishment of that sort.

See, I acted like a brute,
I cared not for the fruit.
Now I am myself again,
My equipoise I have regained.

Alas! I wish to wipe out the blot
When you said, “Dad beat me not,
I will not do so again;
For God’s’ sake, leave the cane.”

Your frail legs shook with fear,
I went on boxing your ears.
My fists were shaking in rage,
I allowed not you to raise

A cry against my cruelty
For which now I pay the penalty;
My own hand is paining me yet,
More than your tears, I shed my sweat.

Ah, that moment gives me pain
When I could not spare the cane.
I subdued your surging sobs,
When you fainted, I stopped.

Your words now I remember,
I see you still tremble.
Have you dreamt horrible dream,
Or my cane still you feel?

Ah! I could avoid that beating,
Had I reasoned out the things;
I would not have to repent,
Had you been good and I, tolerant.

But I did not spare you then,
Though you begged my pardon.
I still see fingers on your cheeks,
I just heard you sob in sleep.

Your sob has shaken my soul,
I sit beside your bed in remorse;
You know not how much I feel,
To beg your pardon, here I kneel.

12. The Snake and a Sparrow

The Snake and a Sparrow

The night was quiet, wind was dark,
I was in bed and children all;
While children lapped in their dreams,
My wife and I cursed our enemies.

Soon she began to doze, I began to nod,
She slipped in bed and I switched off;
A few minutes had reeled in the dark
When I heard some hissing soft.

Suddenly I heard a subdued twitter,
And then pathetic shrieks were heard;
Shrieks were of a little bird,
Which had now stopped to flutter.

My wife woke up at pity’s noise
And bade me in a tremulous voice,
“Be man, switch on the light,
See if it is a ghost or a bird cries”.

Feeble shrieks had moved my heart,
I switched on the light to help the bird.
My kindness brought a vision before me,
I saw a big snake on the ceiling.

The snake had coiled in the iron ring
That was hanging below the ceiling.
The bird was gripped in snake’s coiling,
It sacrificed itself to give us warning.

The bird’s restless movements stopped,
My wife saw, swooned and dropped.
Snake was black and night was dark,
I was alone to fight the war.

I dragged away my children’s cots
So they be safe in case it falls.
Then I took two long sticks,
Pushed one at its head with a trick.

It coiled round the stick to give a shake,
I severely pushed the other at its tail.
Its trunk furiously began to move,
The dead bird fell when grip was loose.

The bird fell on my hands anon,
It shook me and my balance.
My imbalance gave some painful rest
To the wrestling snake still hard pressed.

My hands were strong, mind was harsh,
I could not spare the devil, by God!
I mustered strength for the final phase,
And crushed it severely for Mercy’s sake.

The pain troubled the snake so hard
That it thought proper to breathe its last.
When it grew cold my wife was warm;
She sobbed, cried and raised an alarm.

I thanked the bird with all my heart
Which shrieked to death to make me alert.
Had I not been kind to it that night,
I would sleep forever with my wife.

13. New Nest on a New Perch

New Nest on a New Perch

I can’t bear to be trailed behind
Like the dust of fleeting time.
Fly I must with light-speed,
Journey is long and time deceives.

I will soar in the space,
Rest is rust, irritating slow pace.
How long can I lie like stone
With stinking moss overgrown?

If all the world is changeable,
Why this body be stable?
Life does not mean to vegetate,
Success braves storms, gulps not opiate.

Speed I must with speeding time,
Though gather nought and all grind.
Let me rein the surging waves
Than to be dust in a living grave.

Man was not born for defeat,
He was created to tame the seas.
What though in the strife he dies,
Torch lit by him will light the skies.

Body that moves at velocity of soul,
Kindles heavens like a meteor.
The brightness we see in the sky,
Is some mass converted into light.

In energy let my body dissolve,
Nowhere, yet everywhere in cosmos.
Schedule I’ll my journey to stars,
Dynamic Self finds earth small.

New heavens my soul will search,
To make a new nest on a new perch.
I’ll discover new spheres in space,
With life and light they would be graced.

Imperfections I’ll leave behind,
In dark space, light I will find.
If Heaven and the Creator are perfect,
Why can’t His image and why can’t this earth?

14. Kite and the String

Kite and the String

The sun was soft, light was dim,
Sky was clear in the evening.
Kites were high in the blue,
Alluring to sight was the view.

I too came out with my kite,
Wind helped it and it gained height.
It danced at the whims of the wind,
In the club of pale and the pink.

My lids guarded the flirtatious eyes
Which eagerly chased the swaying kite,
As beloved’s eyes chase the lover
Until he is hard to discover.

At times the kite reeled in the air
As we do when fate does not favour.
In spirit the eyes were with the kite,
In body they could never unite.

What the eyes got was hot delight,
Leaving retina in poor plight.
Same joy we get from life,
When body delights and soul dries.

When the struggle was at its height,
The string became hard and tight.
It was tired of the flight
And wished to detach from the strife.

The measured length had been run,
Darkness had devoured the sun.
The allotted height had been attained,
And fate wished to pull the rein.

As I tugged, the string betrayed the kite,
Breaking all its previous ties.
Does our soul not do the same
When it betrays body in life’s game?

15. I Met a Snob

I Met a Snob

I met a snob in the campus,
Full of conceit, highly bumptious.

His visage was big but vision small,
Being short-sighted, he couldn’t see all.

He spoke much in borrowed accents,
Half English and half American.

Indianism in him he couldn’t bear,
So foreign styles he picked with care.

His native lips hummed alien tune,
Tied to earth, he kissed the moon.

His title was big, his knowledge affected,
A few toadies he had collected.

Since he happened to be in the chair,
He gulped down all and refused to share.

Creative work he couldn’t like,
His only job was to criticise.

Imperfect, but expected perfection,
He couldn’t stitch, so did dissection.

Research he would seldom encourage,
He loved his vision to remain blurred.

Scholars number must not increase,
Lest his importance should decrease.

Male scholars he did not like,
For fair ones he had broad smile.

He was all between his boots and hat,
Soul he couldn’t feel, nor he had,

Humanism he had read in literature,
His heart lacked pity and he, stature.

He couldn’t help, nor could he sympathise,
But frowned well and gave cold advice.

Courtesy was below his chair,
Let others grumble and despair.

Being the boss he was considered wise,
Looked Solomon’s prodigy but fool in disguise.

Inspire he could none, so snubbed all,
Highbrow he was, though lowly-born.

Important as he was, he needn’t be nice,
Fools’ King, lived in a fool’s paradise.

16. A Hot Chase

A Hot Chase

Devil will never die,
However, every Christ
Will certainly be crucified
For being too bold, too right.

Before any change is wrought
In the devil-ruled heart,
Gandhi, Luther and the like
Are sure to be hated and shot.

The dark empire of Evil,
Exacts cruelly heavy tariff
From every ray of hope
That touches its shore.

Every angel comes with a torch,
Holding till it burns him all;
Then darkness spreads again,
Little stars twinkle in vain.

Stars appear dim and meek,
Play with the dark hide-and-seek;
They go on waiting for some moon,
And feeling tired, they vanish soon.

Night may be dense and dark,
But yield not, be stiff and hard.
See how it is running to hide its face,
The Sun is hot on the chase!

17. Noble Deeds on the Pages of Time

Noble Deeds on the Pages of Time

God has sent you to this earth,
To live life equal to its worth;
To scatter radiance of love and hope,
To alleviate suffering and sorrows.

Man was made in the image of God
To have hatred for none, love for all.
If man can’t love his fellow beings,
How can he love God who is unseen?

If you have chanced to pass this world,
Why should you leave it unloved?
You may not be able to come again,
Avail this chance and spiritually gain.

Suffering may look Promethean to you,
But Himalayan will can cure it too.
Flowers you may not be able to grow,
But weeds you can clear before you go.

Single-handed one can do Herculean task,
Big fire is kindled by a little spark.
Little acts of service start a chain,
Torrents are formed by drops of rain.

See, even a thorn protects the rose,
To fight the dark, glow-worm glows.
To brighten earth, moon reflects light,
The cuckoo sings to spread delight.

To transport itself to a higher plane,
A moth burns itself in the flame.
Clouds dissolve to quench the earth,
Bees gather honey not for themselves.

You too light a candle in the dark,
Be light to lighten God’s task.
There is certainly some divinity in us,
Let it wake, work and spread.

Threatening disparities in society,
Call for acts of peace and piety.
Need of the hour is revolution of love,
Else world would be heading for trouble.

Lift the fallen, encourage the weak,
Scatter smiles free of colour and creed.
The poor need bread buttered with love,
Cold charity is charity’s insult.

Break this narrow circle of self,
Be cosmic and soak up the universe.
We are integral part of the whole,
Humanity is a family and home, the globe.

Realize the magnetic thread of life,
That is woven through earth and sky.
Find the wood that lies in the tree,
Prismatic rays of One Light are we.

What brought you here except your Soul,
Empty-handed you came and thus will go.
But words of courage and deeds of love,
Vibrate ever in the memory of the world.

The stars that glitter in the sky,
Halo that surrounds the moon bright,
Are noble deeds done to mankind,
Which ever shine on the pages of time.

18. Command Your Stars

Command Your Stars

In your palm is your fate confined,
Fashion your future as willed by mind;
Command your stars change the lines,
What you want, explore and find.

You can flourish juggler’s rod,
You can beg with beggar’s staff;
You can hold scepter and sword,
In these hands lie powers vast.

You can gain laurels with hands,
You can grow flowers in sand;
You can scatter joys and thorns,
You can soothe the hearts torn.

You can grapple and struggle,
Against life’s painful troubles;
You can face sufferings of the world,
Your hands can work miracles.

You can box, bless or fondle,
You can lift the down-trodden;
With these hands you can kill,
Wipe out the tears, if you will.

You can lick the feet of others,
You can rule over the world;
You can steal even from beggars,
With same hands you can hit the robbers.

Get upper hand, deal fair hand,
Lend your hand, find helping hands;
Hand in hand continue your march,
Be the first hand to hold the torch.

19. The Cosmic Pool of Knowledge

The Cosmic Pool of Knowledge

If a grain of sand is the cosmos in miniature,
And if an amoeba is whole humanity,
There must be a central brain, a memory pool,
That preserves the experience and information of all.
Organisms are not chemistry alone,
Nor language is the only medium of learning;
Impressions from the cosmic pool surround us,
And we receive them when we tune in.
Harmony with the nature and self,
Resonance with the music of the space,
Teach us more than the dry printed leaves.
This cosmic pool emits and contains all because
Past and future are not beyond its reach,
And experience survives even the extinct species.

20. The Bubble of Life

The Bubble of Life

A bubble is born when water and air mate;
It is the product of romance
Between the wind and the wave.
And like the romance,
The product too is short-lived;
It contains a moment of Time,
A part of Eternity in it.
As soon as the moment completes its span,
The bubble bursts, the dream is shattered,
And the labour of love is lost.
Although the sin has served its purpose,
Yet the race of life will never stop.

21. Goal and the Pursuer

Goal and the Pursuer

Nothing can come between
The pursuer and his goal;
All lies within your reach,
Learn it from the bold.

Rise and rush towards the goal,
The goal too would rush to meet;
The distance will disappear,
When you are out to seek.

Chance waits on that road,
Which is not easy to tread;
On Fate’s chariot ride the bold,
The weak groan under its wheel.

There is no short cut to success,
Hard work is the only key;
Wavering mind brings bad luck,
Steady growth makes the seed a tree.

Portia lies in that casket
Which you may not like to choose;
Sweet things are not easy to get,
One wins when heart and brain are fused.

22. A Red Dream

A Red Dream

An old man had a dream at night,
A dazzling picture, shocking to sight.

There were colours bright and shades dark,
But bloody red dominated them all.

Starving black and cold blue,
A tinge of purple and greenish too.

His own sons were fighting afar,
On road that led to temple and mosque.

Youngsters were tearing the book of law,
Studies had been set at naught.

Some burnt flag and constitution,
As if they got licence for rowdyism.

Then he saw a green landscape,
A smile played on his lips soon to fade.

His smiling visage lost its glow,
When he saw a skeleton at plough.

He saw some industries afar,
Smoke was coming out of them all.

But smoke contained red vapours in it,
The old man could not bear all this.

He shook himself to shatter the dream,
To efface the memory of that scene.

He woke up though a bit disturbed,
And moved to his goal that lay ahead.

Gradually he regained his real Self,
Realizing within him the Sole Subject.

The dot of Now was in flux for Eternity;
Ages past and ahead were all momentary.

It was his own Self throbbing everywhere;
The veil that had divided soon disappeared.

23. Be Equal to the Strife

Be Equal to the Strife

My dear, my sweet child,
While you play outside,
I bid you here goodbye;
My love, my ties end tonight.

I flutter, fall, to fly high,
Your mother weeps by my side;
Warming me with tears futile,
And sobbing into ears that die.

See how the string betrays the kite
While it flies at great height;
Sudden blow has shaken my soul,
Wind is deserting the pibroch.

Every star reflects your face,
I will kiss them all but wait.
Why does reel the whole sky?
Does it mourn while I fly?

My failing brain still recalls,
Your sweet and innocent talks;
I remember the day when you asked,
“Why in evening the sun departs?

“Why does it go and where,
Can’t it stay here forever?
Does it go for taking rest,
Why does it feel so pressed?”

I said, there were other parts
That needed its light and warmth.
Now the same is the case with me,
Other regions too need me.

But I’m happy you don’t know,
Why we die and where we go;
Has our journey any goal,
And who succeeds to reach the shore?

Had you been a bit older,
You would have to be bolder,
To bear this unbearable loss,
Which would give you a great shock.

Now consciousness of my death,
Would be a slow process;
Slow would be your pain,
But unbroken like a chain.

Learn to forget pain of life,
I bless you, be equal to the strife;
Also share with mother your grief,
Grief expressed is grief decreased.

24. Journey with Pocketless Coffin

Journey with Pocketless Coffin

I would go from this world,
Leaving behind everything;
Stones pelted, flowers showered,
I will forget, I will forgive.

Insulting jeers hurled with wrath,
But suffered with quietness of heart,
I won’t remember, won’t pick up,
Tears once shed on thirsty earth.

Cold looks and warm embraces,
Love received from unknown faces,
My memory won’t retrieve,
All will fade like a dream.

With pocketless coffin, mind blank,
I’ll proceed to my far off goal;
Footprints on the sands of time
May remain or may go.

25. A Diamond in Flesh and Blood

A Diamond in Flesh and Blood

All the mansions look pale
before the one your soul resides in.
Perhaps, all the beauty of the world
has condensed into one being, named …
Need I mention your name?
To me, it’s synonym of God!
Yet no name is sweet enough
to represent the beauty you are!
Language has yet to coin a word
to express the myriad aspects
of your exquisite charms.
All the brightness of the Full Moon,
concentrated through some lens,
would be shy of your glow.
‘Heaven on Earth’, who is your pivot,
whose reflection you are?
May I call you my own Moon, my own Soul?
But Ah! I’m nothing except a little star,
dimmed by your radiance, and very far.
It must have taken God a millennium
to create a being like you —
A pure diamond in flesh and blood!
Would that with my sufficient worth,
I had diamonds enough to weigh you with!

26. The Circle of Love

The Circle of Love

Once with tears in her eyes and sobs on lips,
Miss ‘P’ presented to me a parting gift –
A precious pen-set on a metallic dove,
In memory of our unsuccessful love.

The gift was a beauty to be preserved,
Just to be looked at and to be fondled.
But its presence was a sorrow for ever
As it reminded me of a tearful beloved.

It was not meant to be used up,
And to pass it on would be an insult;
Yet we are all mortal beings,
With some big and small failings.

After ‘P’ left, I turned to miss ‘A’,
But no precious gift could I purchase;
And to please ‘A’ was must for me
Because she had leanings towards Mr. ‘C’.

‘A’ loved ‘C’ since her college days
And this gift might wean her away.
I gave it to her and she was pleased too
But just to the extent of saying, ‘’Thank you!”

Alas! Miss ‘A’ proved a cunning beauty,
She passed it on to Mr. ‘C’ secretly.
‘C’ too was a bit weak at heart,
He sent it to Miss ‘Y’, a known flirt.

Miss ‘Y’ was cold towards Mr. ‘C’
But she said she could die for me.
So she gifted me the same pen-set
With a little bit of a request.

“ Honey, keep this piece of art,
I bought it specially for you;
I hope you would love it dearly,
As you have been loving me’’.

Thus ‘P’s gift is back in my chest,
I won’t part with it till my death;
Same is the packing, set is the same,
But when I see it, I feel ashamed.

The tale has revealed the colour of love
In our chameleon cunning world.
Remember Bhratrihari’s divine fruit
How it passed from his wife to a prostitute!

27. Cosmic Consciousness

Cosmic Consciousness

The time will come
When cosmic consciousness
Will replace the narrow self.
Introvert will turn into extrovert,
All narrow channels on the earth
Will merge in the vast Deep for ever.
Sin, Salvation and Death
Will lose their significance;
No sorrow, no contentment,
Hell and Heaven will be one.
None will care for intermediaries —
Like church, temples and priests
Each soul will commune directly with the Creator
That time will be born out of the present,
Present — one third and middle of the whole race
Annals of evolution support my faith,
Let it prove or let it fail.
I have begun to see all in One Light —
All creeds, death and life,
I am all peace, all alive,
Let Hell come and pass by.

 

28. Infinite Joy of a Finite Moment

Infinite Joy of a Finite Moment

She looked sweet, smart and sparkling
In late thirties, yet claimed to be a virgin.
When I asked why she was single still,
She felt piqued and said, “I hate to be nil.”

“Men and women are complement to each other,
Search for your other half to lead life better;
Adam and Eve must walk hand in hand,
The Paradise lost can thus be regained.”

“I’m in myself whole and complete,
Let me lead a life sans worries;
All the troubles start with marriage
The cure for which only death carries.”

“Marriage is a biological call,
A natural hunger, a safety-valve;
Look for a spouse and enrich the world
With a replica of your matchless charms.”

My sweet and subtle flattery reached deep,
She suppressed the dimple forming on her cheek,
But eyes secretly betrayed the smile
While her fingers fumbled in her blouse.

She took out her wallet and showed to me,
An old well-kept photo, saying nervously:
“Lo ! I reveal to you my shattered past,
Have a look at my wounded heart.”

A bride eyeing shyly her bridegroom,
She was in her teens and in bridal costume;
A heaven of difference, a gap of two decades,
Charming still but par excellence at that stage.

“Who was the fool that left this fairy,
How and why? Do quench my query.”
My straight sympathy made her bold
She heaved a sigh and later quoth:

“Honeymoon disillusioned me of my dreams,
A butterfly was yoked to a bull, so it seemed;
The brute had no sense of grace or beauty,
And since then, I ‘ve been living a divorcee.”

Now her brain couldn’t keep with the heart,
So thoughts were converted into sobs;
Memories bitter and sour rolled down her cheeks,
My eyes couldn’t but reveal wet sympathies.

I wiped her tears while she leaned
Throwing her weight on my knees;
From eyes to thighs I gazed and assessed,
She looked docile and all possessed.

I ran my fingers into her hair
And felt the fire in her flesh;
The restless dove was naturally consoled,
Rejuvenated and happy on the whole.

The storm surging in me had also passed,
Repressed emotions got purged and discharged;
The neglected rose bloomed in an instant,
Ah! the infinite joy of a finite moment!

29. Another Angel Falls

Another Angel Falls

I told her about the sun and the stars,
How they were created and set to revolve;
The purpose of colourful days and nights,
Creation of the three kingdoms beside.

She was much pleased but curious more,
Her fair fancy had started to soar;
The colour of curiosity was so deep,
I had won her in a sweep.

The birds were returning to their nests
While I was watching her conical breasts;
With her eyes cast on the earth,
She beseeched, “Then, what happened next?”

“The Mother Earth after having received,
High mountains and beautiful valleys;
Many rivers, lakes and the seas,
Begged God for the Crown of Beauty.

“The Almighty had yet kept His best,
Result of sweet pain, deep in the chest;
Reluctantly, He brought out the jewel,
And eyed it long with a heavy heart.

“As a father gives away his daughter,
God parted with it with eyes watered;
Earth’s lap glowed with its dazzling lustre,
Angels in heaven fretted and grew jealous.

“Heaven was bereft of its unique glory,
Even the abode of God looked hoary;
But Lo! an angel decided to be a man,
To possess this jewel on human land.”

“Did he get it?” asked my love,
“How and where he found that jewel?
Have you seen its radiant glow?
Tell me anon and narrate more.”

I gazed into her dark innocent eyes,
Which looked curious and bright.
I was there under her lids,
My love played on her lips.

I rejoined, “Listen to me, my sweety,
You were that Heavenly Beauty,
Given by God to the Mother Earth,
More than her total gold in worth.

“Look, how you are set into my eyes,
None can snatch from me my sight.
You are that jewel, priceless and bright,
Without you my day would be night.”

From head to toe covered with glow,
My darling, struck with mystic woe,
Threw her arms around my neck,
Sighed, sobbed and wildly wept.

“Oh, my sweet Angel!” she softly murmured,
“You left Heaven to ransack the world,
You’ve found your goal and I’ve too;
I pledge, I’ll live and die for you.”

30. Dear, Let us Meet through the Winds

Dear, Let Us Meet through the Winds

The miles that separate us are nothing,
The high walls of tradition are something;
The swords that clink are forbidding,
Destined so, dear, let us meet through the winds.

Letters are detected by the jealous world,
Love-song is cut short by the frowning foreheads;
The watchdogs growl at the slightest purr,
Even sighs and sobs are choked at the heart.

But meet we must, Nature is with us,
Sunbeams bathed in your beauty, console me thus;
My fingers playing with the petals feel your pulse,
In the elements, I feel you close to myself.

To me, the sun just scatters your brilliance,
The best in nature reflects your presence;
The light-rays that peep into your eyes,
Intoxicate me through heavenly delight.

My name whispered by you reverberates around,
I catch your message in every sound;
Speak to the wind which you inhale,
My heart receives signals through love-waves.

This torrent originated from your eyes,
That tornado sprang from your choked sighs;
The bursting clouds do tell a tale,
The nightingale sings your morning mail.

Lend your ears to the leaves that rustle,
And decode the purport of what I whisper;
Love the wind that passes through your hair,
And feel it’s my fingers that play there.

Address the Moon your love-complaint,
Its beams will flash me anon your pain;
I kiss your lips by kissing this rose,
Both are of same stuff, Love and Soul.

Expose your bosom to the scanning stars;
My heart is ever tuned to your heart.
To maintain the imperishable link,
Let us have recourse to waves and winds.

31. The Dividing Line

The Dividing Line

Look at the extremes,
One is black the other white;
Move towards the centre,
Synthesis seems in sight.

On one side is the flesh,
On the other is the soul;
Dividing line is invisible,
You might well explore.

Start mixing basic colours,
Create millions of shades;
But a stage will arrive,
When distinctions will fade.

Butter is in the milk,
Scent is in the flower;
God is within this body,
Just churning is required.

Genes and atoms probed further,
Might such secrets reveal,
As may astonish both,
Fanatics and the atheists.

32. Did I Never Die Before?

Did I Never Die Before?

Blind alley and no escape,
Time has arrived
To part with the precious most;
There is a rift
Between body and the soul.
God is calm, cosmos is quiet,
Nature is singing with the lark;
And heaven having few miracles to perform,
There seems to be no hope!

The countdown has begun,
The soul is scanning its next abode;
Present is crumbling, future, unborn,
Past is cumbersome;
Flower is bereft of its fragrance –
Who bothers for the trash?
Death is closing its jaw,
Bones crunch, heart struggles in vain
For another breath to draw.

The period is ordained from the start;
The whole span shrinks into a dot.
But is death the end,
Or a link in the chain?
Did I never die before?
Where was I, where would I be –
Who knows?
I haven’t said all my goodbyes yet,
A long journey still to traverse ahead.

Millions of births and millions of deaths,
At the back and ahead,
Then why to fear and feel restless?
Life and death both are true;
One is evidence of the other.
Would that I could break the chain
And remain intact for ever!
What for I move on and on
In a circle, perhaps!

Is there any purpose?
Stars spinning in the space,
Soul, with spiritual force, changing forms,
After all, what for so many manifestations?
When will cause cancel the effect?
How strange, eye can’t see itself!
Divinity is latent – I don’t know the purpose,
Nor the source of my origin,
Nor I visualize the goal.

Is the path itself destination?
Do I live here and in this age,
Or is the whole Time my life,
And all universe my dwelling place?
Mystery of life taxes the brain more
Than any other thought.
Verily said, the first and the last pages
of the Book of Existence
Seem to have been lost.

Faith and hope give no solace –
Oh, the dull brain! Oh, the heavy heart!
Now brain under the strain of pain,
Seems to sever ties from the senses,
Blood supply is diminished,
Reflexes are negligible;
Pulse is missing,
Pain itself is numb!
Consciousness trips and hallucinates.

Now I know –
Too much pain is no pain at all;
Poison is churned into nectar.
The weight of the world has already left
And death has lost its terror –
Death, my sweet saviour!
Now no light, no dark,
No friend, no foe,
No joy, no sorrow.

Distinctions are dead!
Have they merged,
Or cancelled each other?
Whatever has happened, I’m relieved.
I sucked the elements
And gained this weight;
Now at one go,
I relinquish the drag,
And soar up to my eternity!

33. Cosmic Rhythm

Cosmic Rhythm

The fear of termination
Is reduced to nought
With the thought of a new inception —
And what is ‘new’ except a change?
Universe breathes always and ever,
It’s a constant swing back and forth.
The Almighty who rolled out dimensions,
Time and matter into space,
Seems to be rolling up
Each atom and each moment
Perhaps, for another Big Yawn!
Every breath exhaled from the heart of the universe
Does return to its origin,
And waves recede for another stormy surge.
The universe spins in a circle,
Trillions of light-years with all their existence,
Compress into one tiny dot and
Merge into Brahaman’s nihilistic night,
To spin out again at a Big Dawn
After the spell of the Great Weaver’s dream!
Is cosmos just expansion and contraction
With no loss and no gain —
Just interplay of matter and energy?
If so, then joy over inception
And grief over dissolution
Are all futile.
No moment ends, no atom dies;
Each atom is Cosmos
And each moment is Eternity!

34. Man a Mystery to the Gods

Man a Mystery to the Gods

Science has deprived the Moon
Of all her feminine charms
By exposing her craters,
And comparing them with small-pox.
Beloved is shy of the simile,
Lover fumbles for a new metaphor;
Love seems to have lost its glamour.
Computers compose love-songs,
Eve’s heart is synthetic fibre;
Emotions are genetically engineered,
And by proxy babies are born!
Time is at our threshold
When best of the three worlds
Will be cross-bred,
And synthesized into One Whole!
Lotus growing out of the navel
With wings of a phoenix,
Mermaids of the West
And ‘Narsimhas’ of the East
Will be possible again and more;
Kaleidioscopic range of five elements,
Instantly formed real fantasies,
Human heads growing on trees –
Like Vishwamitra’s queer creation –
Three worlds grafted on one stem,
All interlinked per se!

Dogma and disease will disappear;
Truth won’t be a mirage.
Science will sign our beliefs;
Sheer nature will sustain us.
No crisis of food, nor of space;
Even time will be ample
To live and to disintegrate.
Stars and satellites will be new home;
Physicality will be relinquished
And regained at will.
Matter and energy will be
Instantly interchangeable;
Journey through space
Will be through mind-waves.
Body and soul will act in unison,
Death will have different purport;
Telepathy will bind the Cosmos,
Action will click with the thought!
New Being will combine both the sexes;
Creating millions of his replicas
Out of his own single cell.
And yet no satiation!
Rewinding his past for a replay
And monitoring his future,
Cycling back and forth,
In Time and Space,
Adjusting his pace and shape,
As per his calculated whims,
Conceiving with the Angels,
He will be a mystery to the gods.
Pity that won’t be the end,
But a beginning still!

35. The Perfect Bliss

The Perfect Bliss

The moment I say, ‘This is my body’,
I realize that my body is not Me;
My house can’t be me!
Though I love my limbs most
Yet no limb is dearer to me than my own self.
I may allow a surgeon the amputation of my arm;
I’ll permit plastic surgery on my face.
I can get any organ of my body replaced
To lengthen the thread of my physical life.
A name represents the body as a whole,
But how strange, the name is retained
Even after every cell of the body has changed!
Body itself replaces all its cells in due course;
Then why fear abrupt replacement?
Isn’t energy constant?
When mending is neither desired nor possible,
Cast the tattered texture off
And welcome the new garment.

Death is the beginning of a new life!
Oh, but how many such beginnings?
Is life an eternal relay race or the flux of a moment?
Has it some final goal or purpose?
And is it an obligation
To giggle at success and grieve at a failure?
Is perfect equanimity not possible?
Is not the passing show of the world
Just a veil over the unchanging reality?
Can the non-existent exist?
And can the existent cease to be?
Then, who is slain and who slays?
It’s only soul that transmigrates !
But Ego is bonded with the karmas
After the karmas are squared up,
And after the light of the Soul is reflected in the Ego,
Duality disappears and Soul becomes God;
Then eternal liberation, the Perfect Bliss is attained.

36. Let Us Embrace the Totality

Let Us Embrace the Totality

Does the Creator contain All,
The time ahead and the past,
Or is He getting wiser with the evolution?
Is evolution just an oscillation
Of the circumference of a complete
And an already perfect circle?
Does God fulfil Himself through Man,
Or is Man just a toy in the Almighty’s hand?
Can soul ever achieve eternal peace,
Or must pass through wombs in endless series?
What is Evil, why does it seem to gain strength?
Is it relative or mere appearance?
Has God any utility of it, or is it outside God?
How can anything be beyond the Lord?
Then, how could all-good God create Evil?
Is it essential to square up the deeds?
Adam had the free will and chose to sin,
But who was Sin’s originator
In the scheme of the universe?
Who was the First Cause – Adam, Devil or God?
Suppose, if reason rules the will,
Will man be able to banish Evil?
And then where will go luck and fate?
Is man basically good and His own image?

If all are the rays of the Universal Light
Against whom do we fret and fight?
Is ignorance the cause of all strife?
Is happiness by- product of a noble life?
Is desire the cause of all suffering?
Is Evil always painful and Good, full of blessings?
The earthly distinctions are man-made;
Rays of the Sun don’t differentiate.
Let’s embrace the totality of the universe;
The dark doesn’t make the light less real.
The egg must bear its shell till it breaks;
God manifests Himself in many ways.
What is the use of a mirror without light –
Who can see God with imperfect eye?
The film over the Soul must go;
Just love and sympathy won’t do.
In the dark one can’t see even one’s own hand,
And of what use is even the worldly light?
The Sun is a small disc to the ordinary sight.
It’s not Soul that suffers or laments;
It’s merely drama of a tormented mind.
The divine Creator is coeval with the empirical!
Death in all shapes is an illusory show;
Those who realize Self do well know.
Knowledge of the Divinity and an egoless mind
Can liberate Soul and banish nescience!

37. The Cosmic Computer

The Cosmic Computer

Drop by drop life is dripping;
Minute by minute Time is drifting.

Not a single moment can be made to stay;
Howsoever sweet or alluring look it may.

But each moment leaves behind a mark;
On man’s mind, on infinite Cosmos.

One can feel Time and recollect;
But none can stop it, none can arrest.

Catching Time by the forelock is of no use;
Childhood has gone and so sweetness of youth.

How helpless and feeble is man;
He has no control over a single span!

Reliving memories can’t amuse Time,
The boat of life must drift down.

None can stretch breath beyond ordained hour;
All must taste Death, sweet or sour.

Even histories pale before Eternity,
Cosmos is limitless, man is pigmy.

To us trillions of years have been lost,
But the Cosmic Computer registers All!

38. The Holy Grail of Cosmology

The Holy Grail of Cosmology

Billions of years back, a primeval fireball,
Infinitely dense, inconceivably hot and small,
Banged with the velocity of light,
And scattered seeds of galaxies in the sky.

The Universe hiccupped long long ago,
Now through a unique device we hear the echo;
Fossilized imprint, past of the cosmos
Has been hooked recently by the COBE!

Was the explosion from some remote control,
That set the evolution in motion?
Who arranged the crucial temperatures,
In the epoch of recombination?

The millions of the Milky Ways,
Eternally spinning Catherine wheels!
When will they return to the fold?
Why from their origin they flee?

The pulsating, oscillating universe,
Forever swinging back and forth,
Isn’t some Intelligence at work
Experimenting with matter and soul?

If it’s Energy that changes its form
Then where lies the difference?
From black holes to white dwarfs
The whole cosmos pulsates with One!

What is the nationality of galaxies?
What creed the pulsars profess?
The same current vibrates in All,
Why be tethered to liberate your Self?

39. Conflict in the Spirit

Conflict in the Spirit

“Am ‘I’ Body or the Soul?”
I quarrel with Self and mediate;
When I am on the verge of peace,
My mind and heart agitate.

My mind slowly peels my Self,
Like the layers of an onion;
And shows me my several selves,
Creating kaleidoscopic illusion.

Myriad mirrors reflect me,
How can I know my real Being?
How a drop can know the ocean,
How the seer can be seen?

If Light reflects the matter,
Why does matter simulate?
And if matter is of no import,
Can Light shine sans a surface?

Who can realize the Infinite,
In a frail, finite frame,
Except seeing the whole cloud
In a drop of torrential rain?

How mortification of the flesh
Is gymnastic of the soul?
Why register sins and virtues
Isn’t the Devil part of the Whole?

If God were pure Spirit
Whence came the matter?
If universe is all perfect
Who can make it better?

How inert matter can suffer,
And how can suffer Divine Soul?
Distinction itself is illusion,
God and world are One Whole.

My one self asks, other replies,
And still other gets confused;
The queries are ticklish and endless,
And the war within continues…!

40. When God was All Alone

When God was All Alone

When God was all alone
Within and without the infinite void,
Flooded with uncreated Light
And rhythmical Consiousness,
All couched in Om—
His own vibrant and dynamic Self—
He desired to create
A procreating perfect toy
And Nature to coordinate.
It was His pleasure;
It was His privilege.
He invoked five elements
Out of His own Self;
Mingled them in a ratio required
And coolly infused the mixture
With a portion of His own Light!
Was it a quiet expansion of his Self
Or some Big Bang?
Never mind, the device worked;
The toy that took shape
Was named man!
The Almighty placed him
On a friendly planet
So that he could flourish
And feel the ripples of His Grace.
Man looked around,
Thought and dreamed.
He thought of his joys and free will;

He tasted sin and enjoyed it.
He grew conscious of his latent powers;
Privileges and discretion too,
And decided to be his own master.
God just viewed His own radiance,
His own replica at play!
As if procreation were not enough,
Man thought of creating his own toys —
From wheel to satellite,
From computers to robots!
And lo, man, in his short spell
Has created a lot!
But being within the conscious universe,
Though doubly removed from Reality,
His toys have started thinking aloud
And are growing shirty.
They seem to be craving for unbridled freedom —
Freedom to create their own slaves!
But how long would the Lord
Permit this proxy creation?
When the cosmos is to clock off,
When the contraction, the winding up is to start —
God has yet to decide.
Till then He will be silently viewing
The evolution of His own replica, His own image!

41. The One Whole

The One Whole

One Intelligence works within
All atoms of the space,
And faster than any speed
From edge to edge communicates.

No matter is inert or dead,
No entity is separate;
Hardest metal is porous enough,
For Divinity to penetrate.

Is life different from energy,
And can energy be ever dead?
The apparent breach is illusion,
Death and life are forever wed.

We all flow out of one origin,
One Light but different rays,
Diversity is but optical flaw,
On one ocean lie numerous waves.

Some invisible cord binds
Each cell with the soul,
Mind and matter are one,
Science works at every pore.

Each wind serves a purpose,
Each gene relays its traits;
Gross and ethereal both receive,
Messages that flash through the space.

One singularity runs criss-cross,
All issues from the single source;
Variety is but myriad reflections,
All belongs to the One Whole!

42. The Two Doors

The Two Doors

Two doors were open to me,
And I chose to pass through one;
As soon as the other was shut on me,
I realized what I had done!

I had bargained for invisible pits,
Appearances had lured me deep;
The grass had thorns hiding in it,
And I couldn’t even will to retreat.

Why can’t we penetrate the mist of time,
And why our steps refuse to retreat?
Why can’t we check the unlucky chime,
What is it that shackles our feet?

What deflects our judgement,
Ego, Devil or the Fate?
Why are we cheated by false promises,
Why conscience gets debased?

Which rays of light deceive us,
Which lead us to the truth?
Which hand has a healing touch,
And which touches us to pollute?

Is the evil baited by good,
Or is it itself so bold?
Does the alloy make it weak,
Or does it strengthen pure gold?

43. The City of Nine Gates

The City of Nine Gates

The Infinite Transparency,
Condensed in the egg of the cosmos,
Burst out with a bang,
And spread out atomized sparks.

The Catherine wheel set afire,
Presented billions of patterns;
In the kaleidoscopic universe,
Each spark mirrored millions.

Oh! what a fine divine spread,
Of light, love and glow it was;
Stars were dancing in the space,
Like trillions of tiny tots!

Then time played on its flute,
And five notes did chime
That fused into one another,
And evoked the city with gates nine.

But the city was dead and dark
With little light to sustain;
Nature prayed to the merciful God
To merge it into His own domain.

The Lord granted the prayer,
And haloed the city from within;
So kind was His Effulgence,
The ruler and the ruled fused into One.

Whosoever perceived diversity,
Was ordained to perpetual chain;
But he who realized Oneness in All
Was released from all pain.

The darkness of distinction,
Paves the way for transmigration;
But knowledge of non-difference
Brings about absolute liberation.

44. Why Dissect God Dissect Your Own Self

Why Dissect God Dissect Your Own Self

Tree worship is an expression of love
For all the greenery and the vegetable world;
It’s a form of thanksgiving to Nature
For sustaining all men and creatures.

Stone is idolized to break up the barrier
Between organic and inorganic stuff;
It’s a search for One Supreme Principle
That permeates through the whole universe.

Far less harmful has been pantheism
Than insane and heinous fanaticism.
Idol breakers have shed far more blood
Than the innocent idolaters.

Through worship the sins are consumed away;
Meditation is better than the ritualistic ways.
Infancy promises the health of the youth;
Pantheists do grow out of spiritual childhood.

Its easier to realize the unmanifest Reality.
By meditating upon the manifest Divinity.
From subtle comes out the gross,
And from gross the vision of the Creator evolves.
But why dissect God and sieve others’ beliefs?
Dissect your own self and sift your own creed.
Those who belittle or disparage others’ God
In fact, disparage their own Lord.

Though all believe in a Supreme Power
Yet atheists yearn for Its Effulgence;
All are born atheists, birds and babes,
But He possesses all with time and age.

The parental god is imposed on the child;
Even the slightest deviation creates strife.
Yet time has the strength and the sinews
To make old gods yield to the new.

Why a particular place or name becomes holy?
Why you worship a book or kiss the rosary?
Others kiss and worship alike their symbols,
Which may sound to you conceited or humble.

The Devil of intolerance has caused enough havoc
To the peace and prosperity of the world;
Love fellow-beings and learn to be tolerant
To appreciate others’ beliefs and others’ tenets.

45. The Civilized Brutes

The Civilized Brutes

Taking his seat with his friend from the Mars,
In the early space shuttle for the Neptune,
He sucked a long breath and continued:
“Well, as I was saying, in the olden times —
About 2100 AD, the Gregorian calendar —
People on the Earth used to worship
One Mr. Omnipresent within the four walls [sic]
Of their respective religious shrines
Specially built for the purpose.
“Religion was a pretext that had been invented
By those primitive tribes for regimentation.
The wretched fellows!
Though they had landed on the Moon and the Mars,
And called themselves civilized,
Had yet aboriginal beliefs
Regarding state, sovereignty and creed,
And lacked the intellectual prerequisites of peace.
“They fought among themselves like beasts
With the weapons unknown to the animals of any times —
With poisonous froth and nuclear claws —
This they did for their respective gods,
Or for some yellow trash now out of use —

Specimen available in the ‘Interplanetary Museum
For Antique Metals’ at the Uranus –
Or at best, in the name of their little territories.
As the Earth was split into petty nationalities then,
And the idea of the ‘State Government of the Earth’,
Leave aside the present ‘Confederation of the Solar Planets’,
Looked like an impracticable Utopia!
The cardinal virtues were at a discount and
Criminals were pampered at the cost of the Exchequer.

“As if the religious regimentation were not enough,
Each tribal nation maintained a regular army
To meet the challenge of self- imposed necessity of wars.
The army was conditioned to fight and kill with a franchise,
And fighting for land, plunder and debauchery
Under the veil of religion and nationalism
Was then regarded rather a sacred duty.”
“Pooh! The brutes with the cheek to call themselves civilized!”
Interjected a robot listening close by.

 

46. The Flux of Life

The Flux of Life

Life is a continuous process;
Death is a continuous process;
And a thing is never the same
As it was a moment before.
Each entity is a point-instant
With no ‘before’ and no ‘after’;
Permanence is an illusion
Like oneness of the stream,
And oneness of the flame.

Existence is in a state of flux;
Moment throbs through life and death;
And change is a universal fact.
A thing lacks all size and diversity;
Entities emerge and perish in entirety.
Oneness of the things material
Is like the oneness of a pile of grain;
The nucleus of each atom is individual
Which God holds with some invisible chain.

Change is a death every moment,
And change is a birth every moment;
Eternity is just the flux of a moment,
Yet no two moments are the same;
It’s the spectator who projects a flow
In individual pictures of a film show.
It’s not the last blow that fells a tree,
Nor it’s the first that breaks a pitcher,
Cessation is inherent in all matter.

How strange! Everything lacks duration
And everything lacks weight and volume.
What we know is all relative and illusive,
Yet all appears real and solid.
Man strives for the things ephemeral;
No man has ever been immortal,
But now genetic engineers are in a hurry,
And are pushing evoloution onto the verge
For a brave new world to come into being.

If momentariness is the law eternal,
And if change is the truth of life —
From mineral to man, from dark to light —
Then why fear the eternal flux?
Does science desire to replace God?
Does it want to make Homo sapiens immortal
By fusing man and machine, organic and inorganic?
Are the scientists aware of the dangers ahead?
Dragging life until kingdom come! Eh?

If each moment a new entity is born,
Then who relegates to whom the burden of the past —
And why the successor bears the fruit of its predecessor?
There must be some immortal essence
That pulsates and deciphers the neurons of the brain.
God permeates through the whole Universe,
And mirrors Himself through every cell;
He is the Sole Entity throughout the cosmos;
In each wave and each atom He throbs.

47. Man Writes His Own Fate

Man Writes His Own Fate

The defeat of evil lies within evil;
Devil traps him who abuses his free will.
The seed takes its time to grow;
Just wait to reap what you sow.

Why man raises himself to skies
On the borrowed legs of vain pride?
Why his ego he plumes and preens,
Why he views his crimes through a screen?

Yet what pricks him under his crown,
Why his perceptions in wine he drowns?
Who records all his thoughts and sins
And who announces judgement from within?

What makes a tyrant pluck his hair
Which worst of his enemies couldn’t dare?
What compels him to beat his head,
And why does he weep in his bed?

The egoist repents and raves in private,
But in public he wears a different face.
He mocks at all the altruistic moves
And gets stuck in the selfish grooves.

But is it just a few chemicals in the brain
That make one humble and the other vain?
Who dictates the neurons and chooses the genes,
Who makes the atoms react as deemed?

If matter seems to you lifeless mass,
You must revise your physical laws;
Out of the subtle the gross evolves;
All the universe emanates from God.

It’s his own self that man shies to face
When for power and wealth he gets debased.
His self pricks and he fears it more
Than he fears any of his mighty foes.

God sees the truth but waits
For being’s inner self to prevail.
Each man writes his own fate
And is responsible for his state.

The misdeeds of the past pave the way
For miseries of present and the coming day.
Cause and effect are linked to each other;
The deed itself recoils upon the doer.

The witness within fetters the being
And weaves accordingly events and scenes;
None can annul the retribution;
Balance leads to transmigration.

48. All is Eternal and Coeval with the Cosmos

All is Eternal and Coeval with the Cosmos

Can existence investigate its cause and its purpose?
Can any entity be wiser than itself?
Can the creation ask the Creator,
“Why have Thee created me thus?’’
Can empirical knowledge discover
The essence of things ethereal?
Can a being exist beyond its point of cessation?
How should man solve the mysteries
That his mind can’t even conceive?
Despite all the progress man still seems baffled.
It’s not for aesthetic alone that the mantle of God
Is studded with glittering little stars;
Nor it’s merely to avoid a chance clashing
That the galaxies are kept asunder;
Nor the acnes on the face of the earth
Should fill the emotive flesh with despair.
When a nucleus ejects a fragment for balance,
The deluded eye perceives it as wasteful diffusion.
God is the Omnipotent Quark that disseminates;
Nothing flickers outside Him, nor anything terminates.
Who kindles the seed through the dark recesses?
Why the things that pass through senses, get refracted?
Pain and pleasure, vice and virtue, life and death,
Emit varied shades through prismatic intellect;
What in fact, is the “pre-established harmony”,
Seems interaction between the self and the not-self.

Soul radiates and mirrors the whole universe;
And yet without doors and windows shuts up itself.
God fills each monad to its “cluster”,
And still remains eternally Unmanifest.
All is eternal and coeval with the cosmos;
God is the Light of lights and pervades all.
Oh! What a brilliance that flickers through the fog!
To demystify life, how poor a medium words are!
The Unmanifest is the knowing subject in each being;
There’s none beside Him to comprehend Him.
He sustains and He monitors the whole world;
But none can behold the All-beholder.
He unveils the whole scenario quark by quark;
In Him is interwoven the whole universe.
Can the Whole exist without its constituents?
Isn’t He the fine spectacle that never ends?
He pulsates, fluxes and oscillates;
He bangs and exists in a steady state.
There’s nothing strange or paradoxical,
Through evolution, He fulfils His purpose
To penetrate the finitude of things eternal,
Let us be the flute under His celestial fingers.
Let us through selflessness and devotion,
Ascend to the realm of bliss and salvation.

49. Retrogressive Growth

Retrogressive Growth

Will man ever emerge out of his prejudices and absurdities,
His lust , ego, his fears and fallacies?
His unholy crusades against his own brothers,
His beastly battles for power and pelf
Present no rosy prospects despite his hyperbolic ethics.
In El Dorado only the monsters of greed reign;
Should any prophet condescend to a second coming
He will be tormented and crucified again.
Lo! Gandhi is in shreds for his too rich a bequest!

This microcosm with the potential of the whole,
Dreaming to explore the inaccessible, clings to the shadows.
Genetics may grow eyes on the wings of a fly,
And may lend Janus-like head to man,
But can it assure peace and harmony?
Can the silicon mind teach goodwill and grace
To the Homo sapiens against cut-throat competition?
Can science and theology replace
The instinct for grabbing with the simple spirit
Of giving, to end wars, suffering and starvation?
How much wisdom lies in the floating mass of information?
Has man discovered new means just to meet the primeval ends?

However magnificient may look man’s creation,
But it’s infinitely small and absurdly lop-sided
As compared to the mighty and harmonious flow of Nature.
From bone-shakers to satellites, from sun-dial
To split second chiming quartz,
From hieroglyphics to processing reams of data in nanoseconds,
From semaphore to superhighway in the space,
From witchcraft to laser therapy,
From Anubis to eugenics, from anthropoids to
Genetically engineered progeny,

Man has travelled a lot but has travelled with blinkers;
As to the culture of the spirit, he is still aboriginal,
The like of the missing link, bigot up to the hilt.
To which category of civilization the massacre of Auschwitz falls?
Who is to blame for the storms and stresses in the sea of amenities?
“All is relative”, will this excuse suffice?
Is man growing retrogressively and is he reverting to type?
What precepts is he leaving behind for his offspring to emulate?
When will he emancipate his free spirit from
The subjugation of his instincts?
How sublimely unaware he is of the repercussions of
Spoon-feeding and sensual fantasies!
How ignorant the lord of creation is of the essence of things,
Despite his discovery of the top quark!
Spiritual civilization is still a Utopia!

The suffering humanity is anxiously waiting for its deliverer.
When will the earth recuperate?
When will righteousness manifest itself to preserve equilibrium?
When will the deadened human spirit regenerate?
Can’t man resolve to refrain from atomizing his own kind?
Has he become a soulless chip?
When will he learn to curb state crimes?
How long will he go on sterilizing the mother earth?
How long will he go on choking the fountain of life?
Man leaps and falls, but nature evolves.
When will man stop ravaging and bleeding nature?

In the kitchen of the globe all is not burnt to a cinder yet.
This “middleness personified” deserves to be celebrated still
For his half-hearted efforts to sweep up the dead leaves,
For his dim desire to synthesize divergence into a global culture,
For the potentiality of the awakening commonality,
Notwithstanding the rapists of the system,
And sophisticated criminalization of power.

Deflection is the fate of every movement.
This satyr with mongrel instincts, looking into the galaxies
Is groping without for the Light that dwells within.
This enigmatic sphinx, the resilient phoenix,
Condemned forever like Danaus’ offspring
To try to fill his sieve with pure water,
Deserves still a constellation in the spheres above.

None can wash away the consequences of evil deeds.
None can prevent the cause from producing its effect;
But when a sinner turns to God with contrition,
Isn’t there born a new cause for redemption?
The repentant tear wrung from a criminal
Flung the gate of Heaven open for a Peri.
God views a vice and virtue from cosmic angle.
Shadows also contribute to the perfection of the whole;
Let us thank God that thorns have flowers on their stems,
And good still preponderates over evil on this globe.

50. Et tu, Su! Be Bliss, Adieu!

Et tu, Su! Be Bliss, Adieu!

My invisible communicators
That left their earthly existence unsung,
Finding no Mozart to quench their passion,
Nor a Hyde-Lees to symbolize them in some vision,
Nor any Harris to materialize them from his ectoplasm,
Rap at my humble fancies and goad me
Into venting their muffled sensibilities,
Which they had spun round them,
And couldn’t shed while spiralling up.
I’m no spirit-rapper though, nor a clairvoyant,
Yet my human sympathies yield to their ephemeral urges,
And I let their sticky impressions infuse my mind
For emitting the flavour to their taste.
Thus far, my convexity is lined with their concavity.
My secret messengers pulsating with etheric substance,
But with no guiding beam for eternal peace,
Visit me off and on and leave behind messages,
Personal in context but universal in appeal.
The neophytes that were waylaid by the hounds of fate,
While fondling a roadside flower,
Vex me more than the old entities
That have rinsed out their sea of passion.
Lamp does not flicker in a windless place,
Nor can it shine in a smoky glass.
It’s only the illusioned spirits that keep me shaking and waking,
At times, all through the night for instructional seances.
Now I feel a spine-chilling presence—who? Come up!

Though this rush of rustlings from across the gulf of death
Strains my poor nerves, yet I enjoy this interaction with them
Who are timing their beats to chime
In unison with the Supreme Monad.
Oh! What a taxing joy, what a vicarious suffering
To try to deliver a spirit of its drag and delusion!
Now who is thrilling me through the spine?
Some one in particular seems to be tapping my neurons.
Who is rippling the stream of my consciousness?
Oh, Et tu, Su! Among the host!
Welcome Su! How can I refuse a session with you?
I quite know of your tragic fate; it was all preordained;
Of earthly existence, death is the final taste.
Death never comes dressed in perfumes,
Nor life carries tassles of gold for all,
And your span was designed for a pall of gloom.
Brave soul, you fought long and fought well
Against the King of Terrors.
Kudos for the superb performance of your role!
When you cast off your cloak,
Its rustlings resounded through the globe.
But every wrong is redressed in silence.
As the karmic account has been cleared,
Now is your time for salvation.
You are above the necessity of reincarnation;
Shed all the earthly trappings now and
Peel off the illusory layers around you and be free.

The Fumbling Fairy, all have to leave this world,
And have to leave it alone.
Death admits no love, no oblations.
There’s eternal warmth in your frozen glory.
Once you, with a boundless will,
Submitted to my chaste exhortations
While I charioted you through the meshes of passions.
Now in requital, I hand over to you the strings of my fancies,
Pull at them till you regain your composure.
The Unwetted Lotus, sleep is the little death,
And death is the little sleep.
Both constantly remind us of our incorporeity,
And both are a necessity for revivification;
The enlightened ones naturally attain liberation.
The Divinely Chiselled, what is non-existent can never exist,
And what exists can never cease to be.
Come out of your veil to be the Infinite.
Shake off the trammels of the phenomenal world.
The Immortal One, Soul can’t be regimented by cause and effect;
Look, He who dwells in all dwells in you.
You are not a soul; you are the Soul;
Will your Self across the oceans of Time.
The Unmanifest, you do not exist, you are the Existence.
You are not the manifestation of a law, you are the Law.
The Enlightened One, now as you have cast off your slough,
Shove off to the realm of no return.
Pervade the whole universe, be Bliss! Adieu!

51. The Cyberman

The Cyberman

With the discovery of the top quark,
By growing organs on the inorganic matter,
And by implanting a chip in the nervous system,
Man seems to be determined to dethrone God
From His seat of awe and mystery.
The Silicon Mind gifted with electronic telepathy
Will be able to peep through the pall of Death;
Communicate with the minds preserved by eternity
And converse with the old buddies.
It will read each mind and unravel each mystery.
All thoughts buried deep or floating in the space
Will be the commonwealth of humanity.
Privacy will be pirated for a passing fancy;
Obscenity will flash nude;
The Chip will receive, read and react;
And it will also fight the proxy wars.
Emotions and experiences will be duplicated;
Virtual tours will be made in the mind.

One person will be at several places at one time.
Landscapes with their aromatic symphony
Will always be within the reach of mental signals.
Like the `rishis’ of the past and imaginary heroes of today,
Man will, in astral form, undertake cosmical journeys
And have celestial revelations as and when desired.
The blind will see, the deaf will hear,
And the dumb will chatter, yet humanity will suffer from
Unheard maladies and tragic events.
Good and evil, cause and effect, sin, suffering and destiny,
Role of the Soul in inflating and deflating the clay,
Will have to be defined afresh.
The dawn of the dangerously flamboyant new world is at hand;
Man is closing in upon the missing link
Between the spiritual and the material world;
But then science and religion will have to pal up
To deflect the impending disaster; praise be to God
For allowing His clay to probe into the mystery of the cosmos.

52. Life in a Hi-Tech Burrow

Life in a Hi-Tech Burrow

After having finished his work at the internet,
Mr.  Rejuvebot peeped out through the peep-hole in the door;
Viewed the pall of acidulous smog on the Metropolis
And felt safe within his burrow.
He heaved a measured sigh out of his synthetic lungs
And asked his fleshy-fibred She-robot called Mona Lisa to enliven him.
As desired, she massaged him, swabbed his body with a perfume and
Adjusted his heart beats and the insulin level.
On time, his dinner was spooned out to him in a capsule.
Mr. Rejuvebot had yet to go miles before Mona Lisa would lull him to sleep.
At the flicker of his eye, the screen flashed
And the chip behind his neck tallied the graphs.
Then he did some shopping through the mobile
And had a glimpse of the ancient art.
But when he was having a furtive look at the porn,
Mona Lisa snorted and snuffed it out.
The She-robot knew well that he was too brittle to relish juicy thoughts.
Now Mr. Rejuvebot craved for Nature;
He turned to a flowerpot and caressed the only flower left there.
The pot had proved worth the water it consumed.
The sole flower was sheer poetry, a rare Wordsworthian luxury!
Soon his mobile rang and he found himself in a business conference;
Thereafter, he attended a social gathering of his la-di-da friends.
His day was not yet over, though he was feeling exhausted.
It was important to be well abreast of the latest election results.
However, the trend gave a nasty jerk to his mitral valve.
Mona Lisa’s glassy eyes were already fixed on him.
The She-robot lost no time.
The cell-sized robotic surgeon, Mona Lisa’s distant cousin,
With nanometer needle, was pressed into service.
An SOS was flashed to the nearest Heart Institute in Space,
Stereoscopic surgery through a satellite did a wonderful job.
Waves, rays and antibodies synchronized,
And within minutes, the signal of “Quite Well” beeped.
Mr. Rejuvebot beamed his thanks and
Corners of Mona Lisa’s cheeks curved upwards.
Mr. Rejuvebot checked the age of the fleshy bag he was in:
“Two hundred and ten!”
Then he consulted his biological clock and mused,
“Was he at the bottom of the barrel?”
His telomere gauge still showed “forty years plus” in the balance.
He signalled his jukebox to skylark his evening;
And within the hologrammatic cube, volumetrically appeared
His wife, happy but a bit stiff;
She had left this planet three decades back
To make room for a bit of freshness here.
Mona Lisa was alluring but was doubly removed from reality.
“How loving and how unselfish his wife had been!”
In the ocean of time, she still existed in some other universe.
But Alas! she had left him alone.
It was no use brooding over the meaning of life.
It had always left him melancholic.
But the distance from despondency to cheerfulness was just a switch away.
To snap out of his melancholy,
He flicked a finger at the Mood Box for a waft of cheerfulness.
Anon, the musical fragrance enlivened his face.
“Brain! Heart! Was there anything else except chemicals?
As for the mind, was it anything except software?
A link between soul and the fleshy brain, perhaps.
But whose finger was writing the Script of Life?
Had the spiritual chip been loaded with a programme?”
Mr. Rejuvebot was lost in the dense fog.
His mind again lurched to philosophy.
Why was he afraid of actually what he was?
“If Soul is unborn, then it must be eternal.
Death is nothing except going back to the realm of the First Cause.
Is the Universe a huge Organism evolving from subtle to gross or vice versa?
Nothing can be bigger than the Supreme , nor can anything be smaller.
All dimensions begin and stop with His will.
Or is Creation passing through expansion and contraction in a cyclic order?”
Mr. Rejuvebot tried to grasp the nucleus of the Whole
But appeared to be reaching nowhere.
He visualized the layers of darkness and he visualized the layers of light;
Both appeared to be fleeing from each other
And yet converging at One Point!
“Is my foot, my hand, my nose, my eye, ‘Me’?
If not, then where lies the real Rejuvebot?
Is life only combination of cells sans a kernel?
What’s it that animates and governs the dead matter and how?
Isn’t each atom a thought aware of itself,
A part of the Universal Consciousness?”
Would he ever be able to wriggle himself out of the confusing depths?
Was he searching without what was already within?
The thought electrified the neurons of his brain
But the flash was again intercepted by the white dark.
He had been permitted to get preserved his cells for his replica.
It was safer to depend upon his DNA
Than to depend upon the invisible Soul.
He couldn’t suffer to be reduced to ashes forever.
But wasn’t his DNA itself divine and spiritual?
Even his ashes would be so.
But he must rise from one of his clones; money was no problem.
He must rise like Phoenix…again from …
Mr. Rejuvebot started dozing fitfully.
Mona Lisa whispered “Good Night!” to him and
As programmed, she lulled him to sleep on time.

53. Cybernetics of the Soul

Cybernetics of the Soul

Freshness does decay and out of decay freshness sprouts;
The same Law operates through death that operates through life.
Light pre-supposes presence of the dark.
Wrapped up in the ephemeral,
Can one realize the transcendent?
A seed has to perish for a seedling to come out.
Until the reflection merges into the reality,
Supreme beatitude can’t be attained.
Do pain and pleasure lie within the periphery of senses alone,
Or do they persist in the consciousness even after death?
Can consciousness be zeroed,or go beyond, for eternal peace, for ‘Nirvana’?
And isn’t zero just an arbitrary point to measure others?
What appears to be real is in flux. Goal? Blind alley? Who knows?
How could Supreme Intelligance be so indifferent to the final goal?
A painter must have an idea before he starts painting a picture.
Aren’t freaks and regressions part of the universal drama?
And then, how things can evolve without resistance on the road?
We are shuffling with the shadows and vice versa.
Living matter may be designed and destroyed at will,
Evolution may move on an open road or may sprint to smash
And nature may turn against its own offspring,
Yet life will go on blossoming in myriad ways.
Can we decode the memory of a molecule?
Each atom has its past and a mirrored will, the elan vital, to go on.

As long as the Soul has the will,
Cosmos will have room enough for life to sprout and flourish.
But does a cell know the origin of its nucleus?
Can it tell who goads it on or empowers it to replace itself?
There is a mirror against mirror reflecting and replicating One to no end.
Can a centipede explain how it moves on with its hundred legs?
Each entity is dipolar and yet in itself mirrors the whole universe;
Even the inorganic realm reacts subjectively;
Then, does the same Subject permeate All?
Where everything is the Self,
Silence is the only mode of expression.
Only Soul knows the cybernetics of the Soul.

54. The Retreat Inwards

The Retreat Inwards

Heaven radiates luminuous flux
And each soul glows with perfect light;
It’s just a cloud of ignorance
That veils the Sun from our sight.

The phenomenal is not without the realm
That God illuminates and vivifies;
He is aqualung in the ocean of existence
And within the inert, He fructifies.

The present is the pivot of eternity,
The alchemy that can purge, within lies;
He awaits you in your inner self,
Lift the veil and ‘He’ becomes ‘I’.

The quest for truth is no journey,
It’s retreat inwards for a cosmic flight;
It’s just waking from a dream,
The Coin is replica of the Die.

55. Time is Sizzling

Time is Sizzling

When genocide is committed and law is hijacked,
It’s time for Nature to frown and operate.
Under the pretext of patriotism or religion,
Rulers have been feeding their cannon.

Saints and scriptures have been dwarfed
By the lure of sex and materialistic onslaught.
Primitive instincts are quick to react
But refined ones take time to assert.

Mother Tincture diluted to a higher potency
Cures well the chronic maladies;
But the Homo sapiens after myriad generations
Have yet to cure their primitive tendencies.

‘Similia simililbus curantur’
But can terror cure terror?
Can fire extinguish fire?
Agreed, diamond cut diamond.

Theories and beliefs have a life-span;
Every era needs a new Prophet
To drive the wheel out of the rut.
Is Time sizzling for a megaburst?

56. Journey without Knapsack

Journey without Knapsack

Life and death are complementary to each other.
Death is a sure cure for the incurables of life,
And the mortal extinction
May prove a perpetual vacation.

Freaking around relaxedly and
Enjoying physicality in retrospect is bliss.
Sinking into oblivion of a safari
Without the knapsack is a joy.

To black out and have nothing to figure out
May prove real peace.
It’s better to be in the space
Whistling to no tune than to crush into life.

The heat of fame cools down in the evening,
Leaving behind unpleasant hangover.
Why stop to watch flowers growing in the vicinity?
They will go on blooming as usual.

Silence is the best part of eloquence;
All gifts and garlands wither in time,
And no crown fits the head that lies in the grave.
It’s detachment that unfetters the soul.

57. The Divine Urge

The Divine Urge

If the inky vastness of the Cosmos
Has evolved innumerable lustrous forms,
It may produce its own clone in good time.
If inanimate chemicals can be transformed
Into complex life-building blocks,
Just by the pulsation of Time,
Who can prevent the Universe
From getting into the family way?
There is space enough to surrogate
And sustain a Baby Cosmos.
A perfect Whole will come out of the perfect Whole
Leaving behind the balance intact!
What a divine machine is the Universe!
In the zero hour the earth was a hot bed
For the Soul to lie with Matter and manifest Itself.
But now a single atom can reverberate its ancestral bang;
A single gene, a single thought can shake
And shape the whole globe.
Matter pregnant with Divinity is wedded to Eternity.
Evolution onward is the divine urge.
All Matter is loaded with Energy enough
To be eternally in a state of flux.

58. The Invisible Strings

The Invisible Strings

The Power that keeps the earth in its orbit
And makes it tick as per programme
Belongs to the spheres spiritual.
The Milky Way cradles and cuddles the earth
Which in turn, mirrors the same affection to its own offspring.
Each soul is shadowed by a star
All through its earthly journey.
Man though blessed with higher intelligence
Has yet to shape his own destiny.
Each cell that pulsates with life,
Each atom that holds its clan together,
In fact, has its strings somewhere else.
Rain, fire, diseases and droughts,
Man faces volcanoes, tornadoes and earthquakes
And thousand other things that happen to him.
Even his own thoughts, actions and feelings,
His tears overlapping his pseudo-smiles,
His birth and his death just happen to him.

Movements, massacres and maladies,
Kings, rulers, events & accidents,
Things material, ephemeral and circumstances of all hues
Happen to man and he mechanically suffers all.
Neither can he create nor annihilate anything;
Handling available data is no creation, no wisdom.
Can a machine know about itself?
And can it have any free will?
If none, then where lies its responsibility?
Thoughts and things are intertwined throughout the space
And things can’t happen in any other way.
Whatever passes through man’s brain gets refracted,
Myriad are the mind-muddling mysteries.
Man is still in the initial stages of evolution,
On the road of spatial and spiritual exploration.
If permitted, this doubly removed reality
May, one day, be able to peep into
His own origin and his own destiny.

59. The Fountain of Youth

The Fountain of Youth

Longevity which now confines to the test-tube,
May in time be available for the asking.
The cellular clock ticks away as the cell divides,
But beyond the inherent limit, it stops chiming,
Sending the cell into a perpetual trance.
However, now with the discovery of the telomere,
The senescent cell may be revitalized to renew youth
And a being may be enthused to breathe
Far beyond the Vedic limit.
But tickling Providence with this feathery discovery is no joke.
The more the gloomier — until some other planet is colonized.
The earth needs not merely men with longer tip of telomere,
It needs human beings with noble heart and stable wisdom.
Before the imminent immortality turns the earth into a perpetual hell,
Let the genetic engineers design an improved version of
Homo sapiens with disciplined proliferation.
Or else, this bloated civilization
Might burst like an overblown balloon.

60. Infinite and Perfect

Infinite and Perfect

Did life build itself bit by bit ab initio ?
How did it acquire the magic wand of biogenesis?
How consciousness flowered out of the inanimate matter?
Can anything erupt out of nothing?
Wasn’t it already there waiting for the clubbed manifestation?
Who tinged the neurons with ethics of the time?
Knowledge activates the eager ignorant;
Heaven gave a fillip to the tractable earth.
The Hypnotist’s commands for the pliant nucleus
Are too authoritative to be ignored;
Or else, which self-sufficient machine would cancel itself out?
Cells cultured to clones and replicas
Are nothing but an indulgent nod from above.
Intelligence is not fermentation of the elements,
Nor Soul is the quark of any particle.
It is per se infinite, perfect and Whole.

61. Rustling of the Retreat

Rustling of the Retreat

“Why do they put mud in the coffee?” asked Thackrey.
Is the geometry of the spilt drop
Decided by the texture of the cloth?
Randomness involves a rhythm.
A Bang spilt over the cosmic cup into the space —
But what a lucky dip for the earth!
Since then the whole drop has been on the roll.
Who knows when it may rub its symphony off.
Nervousness in the skies above doesn’t augur well.
Do you hear the rustling of the retreat?
Earthenware may break or may remain intact;
Does the earth bother about them?
It is attachment and ignorance of the real Self
That is the cause of misery and bondage.
Liberation and bondage are the creations of the mind.
Why should the real Self be anxious about the finite?
Dualities can be reconciled by the enlightened mind.
Realisation of Truth can make us free from worldly shackles.
Mind free from desires, knows no deprivation.
Only a dispassionate mind can attain peace and happiness.

62. Transpharmacopoeia

Transpharmacopoeia

Power that once flowed from the muzzle of a gun
Now flows from the teats of a goat!
Chinese transgenic goat, Scottish Dolly and
American mouse with an ape gene implant
Are sure signs of an awesome dawn.
As if there were not enough of beastliness in man,
And not enough of vegitativeness in animals,
The genetic engineers are tinkering with the genes
To transplant one kingdom into the other.
The fever of transpharmacopoeia has seized the world.
Soon the bionic and bio-pharms will spawn and spatter;
Cows with womanly breasts and plants with teats,
Men with piggish digestion and pumpkins with beef,
Mewing tigers and roaring homely unicorns
Will graze proudly on this earth horn by horn.
Hail homogeneity! As the bio-reactors breed freakish beasts,
And DNA cocktail is served for unnatural selection,
The gap will end between species to species.
Frankincense is more precious than the faddy ethics;
As lullabies come of age, man may lapse into myth.

63. The Never Never Present

The Never Never Present

The moment through which I am passing now
Is in fact old, very very old as it issued from the Big Bang.
Before I can catch this fleeting, flashing moment, it zooms past.
Well, I inhale the next swish which appears fresh and taut.
But lo, I’m cheated again; isn’t life a melding dream?
Future is flashing past, skipping the present, skipping me too.
I’ve been stripped of my innocence, vigour and dreams.
My precious almost six-decade-old present, has swirled up to nought;
I was always beguiled into believing that I was living in the present.
The present which seems now here is actually nowhere.
Not me alone, my whole ancestry had been cheated.
My father, my grandfather, my great grandfather, my great great…
Back to the First Great Hominoid !
All were cycled here by this ever new ‘Now’!
Who knows when will Brahaman relax and liberate all?
The expansion is bound to crunch back to its originality;
We are all destined to gravitate to the First Cause.
Inhalation must be followed by exhalation and so on.
Before the Primordial Fireball winds itself up for a fresh Bang,
Let us live in the present which is no-w-here!

64. A Quantum Leap into the Future

A Quantum Leap into the Future

Man, programmed to evolve and upgrade himself
Is now fusing his technologies with spirituality.
Mind, Nature’s personal computer to each individual
Is being turned into a terminal —
Eventually to be hooked to the Cosmic Network.
These PC’s by sharing and pooling their experiences
Are awakening matter to its latent powers,
And putting it to astonishing applications.
By inserting an invisible chip into his own Mind,
Man is going to take a quantum leap into the future.
The bionic sapient being, while riding matter,
Will still remain far above matter.
By existing in pure consciousness,
He might be able to detach himself
From the drag and soar into the galaxies.
The art of melting, melding and fusing into divinity —
The mystic practice of the ancient Indian Rishis and Yogis —
Is being rediscovered now indirectly via matter.
This physically divine amalgam may even be able
To fuse and diffuse his particles at will.
By outstripping evolution, man seems
To be heading to a timeless state –
Tangible divinity, corporeity at will!
A state where death will be another form of existence —
A device to exist eternally with the Final Law of the Cosmos.

65. The Indecipherable Chip

The Indecipherable Chip

Trillion trillion years ago, it was all compact One;
Stars and space, mind and matter, spectacle of galaxies,
Miracles and mirages, light and dark,
Resonance, dissonance, quietude and storms,
All the energy fissioned by the flux of the Unitary Moment,
Compulsions that expand, compress and round the cosmos,
Power that integrates and disintegrates a quark,
And that which conceives the void with all the dimensions,
All was harmoniously compressed into One !
After a Brahmical lull, the Power Supreme, with a silent Bang,
Gave the elements a spin round Infinity.
Atoms jubilantly jumbled and juggled to create Life —
As if it were not already there!
However, Life gave itself out via spatial evolution.
It downloaded consciously and intelligently bits of all sorts
And revealed spectacularly complex patterns.
The Divine Chip took its time to arrange and rearrange the elements
To manifest Itself to perfection, close to Self.
Being all-embracing and all-pervasive,
It compounded all that was bright and all that was dark,
Along with the intermediate and intricate shades;
Revelled in paradoxes, in rhythm and chaos,
Processing through the centre — and centre followed it everywhere –
It mirrored the perfect whole in each quark.
Thus the universe got a fillip the echo of which
Ever reverberates through Time and Space.
What a wonderful world created by the Indecipherable Chip!

66. Robots Moulded in Flesh

Robots Moulded in Flesh

We are robots moulded in flesh;
Capable of winking at others
While duping our own selves.
We proliferate to the seams and gasp for breath.

Coded viruses manipulate us;
We’re real but appearances dictate us;
We’re caged in quarks and shrouded in genes;
Constellations affect our thoughts and deeds.

Our range of knowledge is very finite;
Our ideals, though mercurial are very high.
We act, react, and walk well on stilts;
What if we growl and tilt at windmills?

We fight more for identity than survival;
Forgetting that all the seeds have gone mongrel!
In the crucible of Time all melt into One,
We cherish our past to adjust with the present.

Who is our Programmer? We know not a bit;
We seem to have been conceived in a fit;
When fears haunt us, we rush to dreams;
When courage fails, we sink in requiems.

We can peep back into billions of years;
But can’t solve the mystery that surrounds us;
Nor can we cancel our termination, nor delay;
Such is our life and such is our fate!

67. The Inexpressible

The Inexpressible

Death is no disintegration; it is to be quits.
It’s repaying nature what we already owe it.
All the elements go back to their origin
Whence they flourished in the airy-fairy fabric.

There is no sorrow in breaking a journey;
Bemoan the first step and the waft of luck.
The nectar of consciousness pervades the universe,
But we trail our bloated ego in a trough.

It’s not the same flame that burns the whole night,
Nor is it the same spectacle spinning above in the sky.
Energy is constant, why grieve about the change?
Soul does return in the garb of a different name.

But is it the soul that hitches a ride with matter?
Why does it discard a body in favour of the other?
What guides a soul’s journey, ‘karmas’ or destiny?
Is soul on a mission or, just on a dramatic spree?

It’s not merely eternity that eternity forms,
Time, a moment in flux also enthrals.
Spirit and matter both fuse and present a mirage,
There is no end to the ethereal, nor to the gross.

Micro and macro are relative terms;
Finite and infinite too cover each other well.
Is it possible for any one to perceive
Where do they part and where do they meet?

68. Genetic Puppets

Genetic Puppets

The nucleus of my primal cell is perfectly coded;
My past karmas arrayed my genes as I was conceived.
It’s neither Saturn nor the Mars that is combust;
It’s our DNA debilitated by our past misdeeds.
The inner Self, the knower of all our thoughts and actions,
Causes the wheels of Time to synchronize with each destiny.

The position of the planets, at the conception of a being,
Gives a specific shape to the karmically conditioned genes
Which keeps one’s life on a particular track.
Since the planets are incessantly in motion,
Not even twins, separated even by a moment,
Can have exactly same palms and same fate.

The Cosmic Law regulates each dot and each cell;
Neither a quark nor a star can wobble at will.
If stars above stir or deflect some system below,
That must have some cosmic purpose.
To square the stacks of the past sins,
The Self within makes the ‘jiva’ atone and suffer.

Myself is witness to the beginninglessness of the universe;
My destiny blossomed out of my own eternity.
As non-existent couldn’t originate from nowhere,
My own Self opted for a series of manifestations.
My present conception was a deluge of dreams;
What had already been carved, Time was to prompt and reveal.

With fate etched on my palms and the zodiac above,
I announced my arrival almost in the wilderness.
Time hammered my cravings with grave privations
And chiselled my frame from head to heel.
Lashes of miseries —  balance from the previous account —-
Cleansed my flesh of many many impurities.

When I correlate my fate with my thoughts and deeds,
I realize, not a single injury to life and nature
Goes unregistered at the cosmic web.
The cycle of reward and punishment does operate
And there is no escape from one’s nemesis.
Sinful inheritance begets retribution of the corresponding shade.

Even warnings of impending disaster,
Fail to wean us away from our sinful behaviour.
Is it some crazy gene that makes the body dance and shriek?
Or, is it some malefic planet that makes us bubble and burst?
How are our faculties roped in by the tiny genes?
And is the free will of any use to the genetic puppets?

69. Outer Shell and the Nucleus Within

Outer Shell and the Nucleus Within

Was the Big Bang a moment of conflict within the Cosmic Self?
Is the Intelligence a by-product of the initial chaos?
Is the expansive outburst of energy mere illusion?
Will matter and antimatter annihilate each other at zero hour?
How long this unsavoury dream is destined to linger?
Is matter outbalanced by antimatter or vice versa?
Is the invisible dark matter craving for pure light?
Will the frontiers of time and space roll back?
Cosmos is what the Cosmic Self is and
Man too, in his real Self, is the Supreme Creator.
Stars are born, they grow, get senile and die away;
They suck, sulk, steal and kill too.
Good and evil, cause and effect have cosmic dimensions.
Black holes bait and gulp the tiny tots.
Is it ethical to suck and swallow the matter gone astray?
From the First Dot to the expanding and contracting galaxies,
The splendid spectacle of illusion and disillusion goes on;
All is divine — energy, matter and consciousness.
Science and spirituality don’t clash; quite the contrary.
The outer shell and the nucleus within are essentially One.

70. Blasting of the Buddha at Bamiyan

Blasting of the Buddha at Bamiyan

The Talibans blasted the Buddha at Bamiyan
Because the apostle of love and peace,
Almost intact for two millenniums,
Suddenly appeared to them a dreadful ‘kafir’ rock!
Why are people so afraid of their own roots and relics?
Aren’t all religious structures mere brick and stone?
Then why are they preserved, pampered and even fought for?

Are the devout pilgrims drawn to mere stone?
Each religion has its holy places, its rituals, symbols and scriptures —
Parameters of faith, as conceived by its saints and seers.
Is bowing before an idol different from bowing before a book?
Each layer in the foundation, each rung of the ladder deserves care.
Each present, howsoever vivacious, is destined to get senile.
And yet wrinkles may belie what vibrates beneath them.

Can you pinpoint which wave is holier than the other in the ocean?
Was mankind born to be herded and tethered to a stump?
If only one was to speak and decide for all,
Why were others gifted with speech and divine thought?
Knowledge is infinite and deep like the cosmos
And man is being beckoned by distant planets and stars.
God manifests Himself not only in galaxies but also in the quarks.

Neither a book is mere paper nor an idol is mere stone.
Can anyone be perfect and claim universal acceptance?
Beware ! Even Evil seems to be a permanent feature of existence,
As devilry itself was inherently involved in the Big Bang,
If to me it’s Om or Anhad vibrating within each quark,
To you, it may appear your own image of God.
Does it matter? Let us learn to love and tolerate for the good of All.