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Monday, June 28, 2010

A labour of love

Writing a poem is almost like a birthing process. Tremendously joyful and yet simultaneously painful. To know that something has been gestating within you and is now fully formed and knocking on the doors of your heart to get out. Those are the first pangs. But how does one find the words to give shape to something so ethereal, so ephemeral, so other-worldly. The soul does not easily translate into words. So then the labour starts. Some poems are short-laboured, some take days to give body to. To catch a fleeting feeling, to turn into phrase an ethereal thought, to solidify images that float ephemeral on the other side of consciousness. That is the labour of love.

And finishing a poem is always a joyous experience even though I sometimes put down the pen in exhaustion. But some dissatisfaction remains. Because words, no matter how cleverly woven and intricately embellished always fall short of the nebulous magnificence that was the original idea. But I like to think that somehow the soul speaks to the reader’s soul.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Self-knowledge

"That which is the Pure Atman is the Great Cause, The Cause of the cause. The gross, the subtle, the casual, and the Great Cause. The five elements are gross. Mind, buddhi, and ego are subtle. Prakriti, the Primal Energy, is the cause of all these. Brahman, Pure Atman, is the Cause of the cause.

This pure Atman alone is our real nature. What is jnana? It is to know one's own Self and keep the mind in It. It is to know the Pure Atman".

Sri Ramakrishna

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Surrender

A beautiful song, lyrics quite literally out of the world!

jhoothi duniya
jhoothe bandan
jhoothi hai yeh maya
jhootha saans ka aana jaana
jhootha hai yeh kaya
yahan saancho tera naam re...

Sigh!

Click here to watch video

And Waheeda Rehman looking so breathtakingly beautiful. Sigh!