Soulmates

Soulmates come into our life to teach us lessons.

When the teaching is done they leave.

That is inevitable.

Wisdom lies in letting them go.

Joy lies in being grateful that they came into our lives.

P.S. The laws of the soul are implacable and wise.

Haiku

Sometimes it is enough

to just be there

and just be yourself.

My need, a wound,

bleeds into the night,

bleeds me of joy.

Long dark night of rain,

long night of the soul,

brilliant, glorious morning.

Attention

Anything you nurture and pay attention to flourishes,
anything you neglect dies,
this is a law of nature.

P.S. this also applies to relationships.

Feelings and Emotions

---- a lovely poem by the Vietnamese poet Xuan Dieu ----

To be a poet is to hum with winds,
to ride the moon and dream, to roam with clouds,
to have one’s soul involved in myriad ties
and share one’s heart among a hundred loves.

Here is home where all the world may lodge,
a vase that gathers minds of every hue,
a garden birds will sow with every seed,
where honey flowers jostle poison fruits.

His eyes, two wells, contain the skies above;
his ears erect no barrier , stop no sound:
he can perceive each whisper out of space
and of the blue can catch the faintest hint.

With hand on breast, he feels the tide of blood
and tears for all men’s hearts within one heart.
He penetrate the murmur of a brook,
birdcalls, the howl of storms, a sunbeam’s cheer.

Born wingless, he takes off and roams the sky;
walking on earth, he visits heaven’s heights.
His minute can enfold a thousand years;
he sees all nature in one blade of grass.

I am just a little pin- a million things
are all a million magnets drawing me.
Night scents, entrancing, rise with the full moon-
why blame the poet for his throes of love?

- Xuan Dieu

Astonishing the Gods

----- excerpt from Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri -----

And as he breathed deeply the changing colours of the air, he noticed that the glow that was his guide seemed to be floating.

"What is the first law of this place?" he asked his floating guide.

"The first law of our city", the guide said, with that almost ironic smile in the voice. "is that what you think is what becomes real."

He pondered this as he walked past fountains and alongside the fields of dancing colours that he had already passed before.

"Does that mean if I think I have passed the same place twice it too becomes real?"

"Yes."

"But what if I pass it twice before I think it?"

"That means you are not aware of it the first time. Anything you are not aware of you have to experience again."

"Why?"

"Because if you aren't aware of it, you didn't pass it. You didn't experience it."

"But what if I am aware of the second time?"

"Then you experienced it once. The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time."

"Why is this so?"

"It is one of the foundations of our civilisation. At the beginning of our history there was great suffering. Our sages learnt that we tend to repeat our suffering if we have not learnt fully all that can be learnt from it. And so we had to experience our suffering completely while it happened so it would be so deeply lodged in our memory and in our desire for a higher life that we would never want to experience the suffering again, in any form. Hence the law. Anyone wo sleeps through their experiences would have to undergo them for as many times as it takes to wake them up and make them feel the uniqueness or the horror of their experiences for the first time. This law is the basis of our civilisation, a permanent sense of wonder at the stillness of time."

"Is time still?"

"Does time move?"

"Yes."

"Where to?"

"I don't know."

"Have you seen it move?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"On a sundial."

"That is a measurement of a motion. Time itself is invisible. It is not a river. While you are in time all time is still. As in a painting."

"But day turns into night."

"Yes."

"So times moves."

"No. The planet moves. Time is still."

"I don't understand."

"That's because you move your mind too much."

"What then is the second law of this place?"

"When you need to know it you will find out."

"You are a difficult guide."

"Wait till you meet the others."

With this remark the guide fell silent again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Strength Song

------ Powerful yet tender, another gem by Attila Jozsef -------

I toss spring over my shoulder
and feed it to my heart
I bear the yoke of my defiant age.
I groan but my knees refuse to bend.
I hoard the flaming dragon of my rages,
the tongue that wrings the page’s sorrows
Pyramid worlds crumble under my feet,
I stagger the heavens. The sun crowns my head.
Worlds of pain drain from my clenched fist
Nothing, but nothing brings me to my knees
but my mother’s grave overgrown with weeds

-Attila Jozsef

I wait for You

--- an amazing poem by the poet Attila Jozsef -----

I wait for you
There’s dew on the rough grass
Sprawling branches wait for you
With open arms

I am cold. The leaves are wet
And shiver at night.

Should you come, they would quiet.
And there would be great silence.
We would listen only to our hearts,
Feel only the sweetness of our lips.
Nothing else would matter

Our skins would burn
Red and infinite
And our souls melt
Into the dawn’s scented altar

-Attila Jozsef

The incredible lightness of being ...

The incredible lightness of being
without fear.

The incredible lightness of being
without desire.

The incredible lightness of being
my true self.

The incredible lightness of being
in God.

Beguilement

Between my body’s great desire to live
and my soul’s implacable will to be free,
I am caught, like a moth enthralled by the flame,
circles it in hypnotised flight.

Weighed down by the world and its ways,
my soul ever ready to take flight, waits.
While remembered glimpses of freedom
beguile, tantalise, but out of reach…

Whales

----- the latest from Tia's creative pen -----

Whales are creatures that live in the sea
They have feelings and moods
Just like you and just like me

They are beautiful animals
that should not be left out
they have tails and wonders with a water spout

So you see that these whales are important to me
in the ocean they live from Antarctica to Greece
we should just let them live in peace.

The flaming moth

My soul afire
at Your touch,
all else turned to ashes
at Your feet.

This flaming moth
this luminous soul,
resplendently caught
in the flame of Your candle.

Freed of bondage
light with bliss.
Only You and I
and ecstasy.

Emergence...

It took me three decades to finally realise that the purpose of my life is NOT to bear children or raise a family. To realise that I don’t have to be a mother to feel complete. That I don’t even need a home and hearth to be at home. It took me this long to find out that the only reason why I was born is to find myself. And what a perilous thing that seems, so fraught with adventure, danger, fear and failure. And yet when I look back, I see that I have come a long way from being a lost, confused, misguided youth to being a woman who is finally beginning to see glimpses of her true worth, to see that her womanliness is intact even without kids, her soul is divine under all circumstances, even when she is down in the dust. I have come to realise that I don’t need a man, a career, relationships, looks, wealth, roots, country or even the identity of a name to feel complete. I am finally beginning to see the wisdom of the words that ‘all treasures lie within’. So now I have finally dropped my search for them without.

At first it seemed strange because when you take away all external things there is nothing left. Our mind is so occupied with the externals, with the superficial things that we seek our happiness in. The lack of which causes pain, the presence of which gives happiness, but which is so temporary that it is foolish to base one’s happiness on something so inconstant. But when you drop your dependence on the mind, drop the mind itself, then a vast silence comes into being which instead of being desolate, is alive and pulsating. In which dwells peace that passes understanding, bliss that is out of the world and whose very nature is love.

I have realised that all the experiences I’ve gone through in life have been there for my learning, even the horrible ones. The ones I have railed against and shaken my fist at God against. That at that time felt like I was being made to swallow the bitterest, foulest medicine ever made. They were His form of tough love. It was as if He was saying to me, ‘Why are you all curled up and sitting in a bud? Bloom, my child, bloom to be the magnificent blossom you were meant to be.’ When someone trusts you so much you cannot let them down, can you? I guess the ugly chrysalis has to emerge to be a beautiful butterfly one day.

We are like waves in the huge ocean of existence, we rise briefly and fall back again into the source. The mistake we make is to think ourselves separate from the ocean, to lose our sense of connection with the whole. The knowledge of oneness is our only anchor, without it we toss anchorless, drifting aimlessly, buffeted by the storms of circumstance, bruised and broken on the rocks of misfortune.

So now I’m in a state of peace, a state of grace and this grace is hard-won. It did not come easily. It came after defeating persistent demons, crossing tumultuous rivers and braving devastating storms. It’s like the well-earned peace that comes after a particularly destructive storm, when all is swept away and the only thing standing is yourself. And you realise that that’s all you need to build again.

I have come to realise that my magnum opus is the book of my life. The masterpiece that is me is not in the making, it has already been created, already written. Harmonious, complete, joyful, in tune with the universe. After all, God writes only bestsellers :) I only have to read it and savour it, everyday, every moment.

Haiku

Seeking nothing for itself
but finding itself everywhere
my soul rolls in ecstasy.

The caged bird

Though wings have I
yet I cannot fly
the sky is just a dream.

~~~

The soul held captive
by the bars of the mind
yet knowing itself free.

Gabriela Mistral

Some beautiful poems by Gabriela Mistral, great Chilean Poet and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

ROCKING

Holy Oceans rocks its millions
of waves in the sun.
Listening to loving seas
I rock my little one

Wandering in the night the wind
rocks the wheat.
Listening to the loving winds
I rock my sweet.

The Father rocks his thousand worlds
Silent, mild.
Feeling his hand in the darkness
I rock my child.


THE SAD MOTHER

Sleep, sleep, my beloved,
without worry, without fear,
although my soul does not sleep,
although I do not rest.

Sleep, sleep, and in the night
may your whispers be softer
than a leaf of grass,
or the silken fleece of lambs.

May my flesh slumber in you,
my worry, my trembling.
In you, may my eyes close
and my heart sleep.


I AM NOT ALONE

The night, it is deserted
from the mountains to the sea.
But I, the one who rocks you,
I am not alone!

The sky, it is deserted
for the moon falls to the sea.
But I, the one who holds you,
I am not alone !

The world, it is deserted.
All flesh is sad you see.
But I, the one who hugs you,
I am not alone!


LITTLE FEET

Children’s little feet,
blue with cold how can you be
seen and not protected
dear Lord!!

Little feet bruised
by every stone
abused by the snow,
the mud:

Blind eyes don’t see that
where you pass
You leave a living flower
of light,

that where you set
your bleeding sole
the sweet herb grows
more sweet.

Since you walk
the straight streets,
be heroic, as you are
complete

Children’s little feet,
jewels of suffering,
how can those who pass you
not see!!


GIVE ME YOUR HAND

Give me your hand and give me your love,
give me your hand and dance with me.
A single flower, and nothing more,
a single flower is all we'll be.

Keeping time in the dance together,
you'll be singing the song with me.
Grass in the wind, and nothing more,
grass in the wind is all we'll be.

I'm called Hope and you're called Rose:
but losing our names we'll both go free,
a dance on the hills, and nothing more,
a dance on the hills is all we'll be.

Haiku

My soul unfolds
in widening circles
of love.

seeking ......

Most people think that the purpose in life is to find happiness
and they search for love, wealth, peace ...
But little do they know that if one finds the Self,
one would have found everything ....

One

Peel away these layers of ignorance, oh Lord,
so that my soul shall stand revealed.

Then I shall offer it to You, oh Lord,
with inexpressible gratitude and joy.

Then there shall be no division, oh Lord,
then we shall forever be One.

I already Am

There is no growth
I already Am.
There is only a revealment
of who I already Am.

the Self

If you love the Self,
you will have loved the world.

Living is Life's only Purpose

--- excerpt from 'I Am That' by Nisargadatta Maharaj ---

Questioner: What does it mean to fail in Yoga? Who is a failure in Yoga (yoga bhrashta)?

Maharaj: It is only a question of incompletion. He who could not complete his Yoga for some reason is called failed in Yoga. Such failure is only temporary, for there can be no defeat in Yoga. This battle is always won, for it is a battle between the true and the false. The false has no chance.

Q: Who fails? The person (vyakti) or the self (vyakta)?

M: The question is wrongly put. There is no question of failure, neither in the short run nor in the long. It is like travelling a long and arduous road in an unknown country. Of all the innumerable steps there is only the last which brings you to your destination. Yet you will not consider all previous steps as failures. Each brought you nearer to your goal, even when you had to turn back to by-pass an obstacle. In reality each step brings you to your goal, because to be always on the move, learning, discovering, unfolding, is your eternal destiny. Living is life's only purpose. The self does not identify itself with success or failure -- the very idea of becoming this or that is unthinkable. The self understands that success and failure are relative and related, that they are the very warp and weft of life. Learn from both and go beyond. If you have not learnt, repeat.

Q: What am I to learn?

M: To live without self-concern. For this you must know your own true being (swarupa) as indomitable, fearless, ever victorious. Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by truth alone.

Q: What may be the reason that some people succeed and others fail in Yoga? Is it destiny or character, or just accident?

M: Nobody ever fails in Yoga. It is all a matter of the rate of progress. It is slow in the beginning and rapid in the end. When one is fully matured, realisation is explosive. It takes place spontaneously, or at the slightest hint. The quick is not better than the slow. Slow ripening and rapid flowering alternate. Both are natural and right. 
Yet, all this is so in the mind only. As I see it, there is really nothing of the kind. In the great mirror of consciousness images arise and disappear and only memory gives them continuity. And memory is material -- destructible, perishable, transient. On such flimsy foundations we build a sense of personal existence -- vague, intermittent, dreamlike. This vague persuasion: 'I-am-so-and-so' obscures the changeless state of pure awareness and makes us believe that we are born to suffer and to die.

Q: Just as a child cannot help growing, so does a man, compelled by nature, make progress. Why exert oneself? Where is the need of Yoga?

M: There is progress all the time. Everything contributes to progress. But this is the progress of ignorance. The circles of ignorance may be ever widening, yet it remains a bondage all the same. In due course a Guru appears to teach and inspire us to practise Yoga and a ripening takes place as a result of which the immemorial night of ignorance dissolves before the rising sun of wisdom. But in reality nothing happened. The sun is always there, there is no night to it; the mind blinded by the 'I am the body' idea spins out endlessly its thread of illusion.

Q: If all is a part of a natural process, where is the need of effort?

M: Even effort is a part of it. When ignorance becomes obstinate and hard and the character gets perverted, effort and the pain of it become inevitable. In complete obedience to nature there is no effort. The seed of spiritual life grows in silence and in darkness until its appointed hour.

Q: We come across some great people, who, in their old age, become childish, petty, quarrelsome and spiteful. How could they deteriorate so much?

M: They were not perfect Yogis, having their bodies under complete control. Or, they might not have cared to protect their bodies from the natural decay. One must not draw conclusions without understanding all the factors. Above all, one must not make judgements of inferiority or superiority. Youthfulness is more a matter of vitality (prana) than of wisdom (jnana) .

Q: One may get old, but why should one lose all alertness and discrimination?

M: Consciousness and unconsciousness, while in the body depend on the condition of the brain. But the self is beyond both, beyond the brain, beyond the mind. The fault of the instrument is no reflection on its user.

Q: I was told that a realised man will never do anything unseemly. He will always behave in an exemplary way.

M: Who sets the example? Why should a liberated man necessarily follow conventions? The moment he becomes predictable, he cannot be free. His freedom lies in his being free to fulfil the need of the moment, to obey the necessity of the situation. Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom.

Q: Still there must be some way of making out who has realised and who has not. If one is indistinguishable from the other, of what use is he?

M: He who knows himself has no doubts about it. Nor does he care whether others recognise his state or not. Rare is the realised man who discloses his realisation and fortunate are those who have met him, for he does it for their abiding welfare.

Q: When one looks round, one is appalled by the volume of unnecessary suffering that is going on. People who should be helped are not getting help. Imagine a big hospital ward full of incurables, tossing and moaning. Were you given the authority to kill them all and end their torture, would you not do so?

M: I would leave it to them to decide.

Q: But if their destiny is to suffer? How can you interfere with destiny?

M: Their destiny is what happens. There is no thwarting of destiny. You mean to say everybody's life is totally determined at his birth? What a strange idea! Were it so, the power that determines would see to it that nobody should suffer.

Q: What about cause and effect?

M: Each moment contains the whole of the past and creates the whole of the future.

Q: But past and future exist?

M: In the mind only. Time is in the mind, space is in the mind. The law of cause and effect is also a way of thinking. In reality all is here and now and all is one. Multiplicity and diversity are in the mind only.

Q: Still, you are in favour of relieving suffering, even through destruction of the incurably diseased body.

M: Again, you look from outside while I look from within. I do not see a sufferer, I am the sufferer. I know him from within and do what is right spontaneously and effortlessly. I follow no rules nor lay down rules. I flow with life -- faithfully and irresistibly.

Q: Still you seem to be a very practical man in full control of your immediate surroundings.

M: What else do you expect me to be? A misfit?

Q: Yet you cannot help another much.

M: Surely, I can help. You too can help. Everybody can help. But the suffering is all the time recreated. Man alone can destroy in himself the roots of pain. Others can only help with the pain, but not with its cause, which is the abysmal stupidity of mankind.

Q: Will this stupidity ever come to an end?

M: In man -- of course. Any moment. In humanity -- as we know it -- after very many years. In creation -- never, for creation itself is rooted in ignorance; matter itself is ignorance. Not to know, and not to know that one does not know, is the cause of endless suffering.

Q: We are told of the great avatars, the saviours of the world.

M: Did they save? They have come and gone -- and the world plods on. Of course, they did a lot and opened new dimensions in the human mind. But to talk of saving the world is an exaggeration.

Q: Is there no salvation for the world?

M: Which world do you want to save? The world of your own projection? Save it yourself. My world? Show me my world and I shall deal with it. I am not aware of any world separate from myself, which I am free to save or not to save. What business have you with saving the world, when all the world needs is to be saved from you? Get out of the picture and see whether there is anything left to save.

Q: You seem to stress the point that without you your world would not have existed and therefore the only thing you can do for it is to wind up the show. This is not a way out. Even if the world were of my own creation, this knowledge does not save it. It only explains it. The question remains: why did I create such a wretched world and what can I do to change it? You seem to say: forget it all and admire your own glory. Surely, you don't mean it. The description of a disease and its causes does not cure it. What we need is the right medicine.

M: The description and causation are the remedy for a disease caused by obtuseness and stupidity. Just like a deficiency disease is cured through the supply of the missing factor, so are the diseases of living cured by a good dose of intelligent detachment. (viveka-vairagya).

Q: You cannot save the world by preaching counsels of perfection. People are as they are. Must they suffer?

M: As long as they are as they are, there is no escape from suffering. Remove the sense of separateness and there will be no conflict.

Q: A message in print may be paper and ink only. It is the text that matters. By analysing the world into elements and qualities we miss the most important -- its meaning. Your reduction of everything to dream disregards the difference between the dream of an insect and the dream of a poet. All is dream, granted. But not all are equal.

M: The dreams are not equal, but the dreamer is one. I am the insect. I am the poet -- in dream. But in reality I am neither. I am beyond all dreams. I am the light in which all dreams appear and disappear. I am both inside and outside the dream. Just as a man having headache knows the ache and also knows that he is not the ache, so do I know the dream, myself dreaming and myself not dreaming -- all at the same time. I am what I am before, during and after the dream. But what I see in dream, l am not.

Q: It is all a matter of imagination. One imagines that one is dreaming, another imagines one is not dreaming. Are not both the same?

M: The same and not the same. Not dreaming, as an interval between two dreams, is of course, a Part of dreaming. Not dreaming as a steady hold on, and timeless abidance in reality has nothing to do with dreaming. In that sense I never dream, nor ever shall.

Q: If both dream and escape from dream are imaginings, what is the way out?

M: There is no need of a way out! Don't you see that a way out is also a part of the dream? All you have to do is to see the dream as dream.

Q: If I start the practice of dismissing everything as a dream where will it lead me?

M: Wherever it leads you, it will be a dream. The very idea of going beyond the dream is illusory. Why go anywhere? Just realise that you are dreaming a dream you call the world, and stop looking for ways out. The dream is not your problem. Your problem is that you like one part of your dream and not another. Love all, or none of it, and stop complaining. When you have seen the dream as a dream, you have done all that needs be done.

Q: Is dreaming caused by thinking?

M: Everything is a play of ideas. In the state free from ideation (nirvikalpa samadhi) nothing is perceived. The root idea is: 'I am'. It shatters the state of pure consciousness and is followed by the innumerable sensations and perceptions, feeling and ideas which in their totality constitute God and His world. The 'I am' remains as the witness, but it is by the will of God that everything happens.

Q: Why not by my will?

M: Again you have split yourself -- into God and witness. Both are one.

In retrospect ...

I wish I'd known from the beginning that I was born a strong woman. What a difference it would have made! I wish I had known that I was born a courageous woman; I've spent so much of my life cowering. How many conversations would I not only have started but finished if I had known I possessed a warrior's heart? I wish I'd known that I'd been born to take on the world; I wouldn't have run from it for so long, but run to it with open arms.

----- excerpt from Something More by Sarah Ban Breathnach -------------

Happiness, misery and the Atman

After every happiness comes misery. They may be far apart or near. The more advanced the soul, the more quickly does one follow the other. What we want is neither happiness nor misery. Both make us forget our true nature. Both are chains--one iron, one gold. Behind both is the Ātman, who is affected by neither happiness nor misery.

- Swami Vivekananda

Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. June 25, 1895. Complete Works, 7.11.

The Distant Footsteps

by Cesare Vallejo

My father is sleeping. His noble face
suggests a mild heart;
He is so sweet now....
If anything bitter is in him, I must be the bitterness.

There is a loneliness in the parlour; they are praying;
And there is no news of the children today.
My father wakes, he listens
for the flight into Egypt, the good-bye that dresses
wounds.
Now he is so near;
If anything distant is in him, I must be the distance.

And my mother walks past in the orchard,
savouring a taste without savour.
Now he is so gentle,
So much wing, so much farewell, so much love.

There is loneliness in the parlour with no sound,
no news, no greenness, no childhood.
And if something is broken this afternoon,
And if something descends or creaks,
It is two old roads, curving and white
Down them my heart is walking on foot.

Haiku

Water flowing, endless -
earth river sea
air rain earth ...

~~~

A flowing tune,
in the darkness,
a melody of light.

~~~

Moon, beaming,
house, resting,
soul, awake ...
~~~

Quotes on Solitude

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a "lone traveler" and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude - feelings which increase with the years.

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Source: Ideas And Opinions, Page: 9 (The World As I See It)

On a long flight, after periods of crisis and many hours of fatigue, mind and body may become disunited until at times they seem completely different elements, as though the body were only a home with which the mind has been associated but by no means bound. Consciousness grows independent of the ordinary senses. You see without assistance from the eyes, over distances beyond the visual horizon. There are moments when existence appears independent even of the mind. The importance of physical desire and immediate surroundings is submerged in the apprehension of universal values.

For unmeasurable periods, I seem divorced from my body, as though I were an awareness spreading out through space, over the earth and into the heavens, unhampered by time or substance, free from the gravitation that binds to heavy human problems of the world. My body requires no attention. It's not hungry. It's neither warm or cold. It's resigned to being left undisturbed. Why have I troubled to bring it here? I might better have left it back at Long Island or St. Louis, while the weightless element that has lived within it flashes through the skies and views the planet. This essential consciousness needs no body for its travels. It needs no plane, no engine, no instruments, only the release from flesh which circumstances I've gone through make possible.

Then what am I - the body substance which I can see with my eyes and feel with my hands? Or am I this realization, this greater understanding which dwells within it, yet expands through the universe outside; a part of all existence, powerless but without need for power; immersed in solitude, yet in contact with all creation? There are moments when the two appear inseparable, and others when they could be cut apart by the merest flash of light.

While my hand is on the stick, my feet on the rudder, and my eyes on the compass, this consciousness, like a winged messenger, goes out to visit the waves below, testing the warmth of water, the speed of wind, the thickness of intervening clouds. It goes north to the glacial coasts of Greenland, over the horizon to the edge of dawn, ahead to Ireland, England, and the continent of Europe, away through space to the moon and stars, always returning, unwillingly, to the mortal duty of seeing that the limbs and muscles have attended their routine while it was gone.

Charles A. Lindbergh

Source: The Spirit of St. Louis

Something in us doesn't want to be civilized, linked too closely with Apollo and all his humanitarian accomplishments--medicine, music, ideas. It doesn't want any kind of union, but desperately tries to preserve its individuality and integrity. Something in us wants to be wooden, untalkative, and impenetrable. It wants to revert to dumb nature. Something in us doesn't want to be loved or desired. A tree's beauty is purely unintended and purposeless.

Daphne is wooden. She is that which doesn't want to be communicative, available, friendly, present, or articulate. Instinctively she flees from the most noble of attentions, the most humane of admirers. She would rather be like a tree than a person, an it rather than a thou. The Daphne spirit is so pure that it has no use for the sentimentality of relationship.

Modern psychological thinking doesn't appreciate the necessity presented in this myth. We consider it normal and healthy to be intimate with each other and communicate well. We interpret flight from intimacy as neurotic, abnormal, and practically immoral. But within this myth, flight from interpersonal contact is the norm. Resistance to humanitarian sensitivity is valid. Disappearing from the human scene somehow protects and preserves Daphne in a completely acceptable way.

Rather than judge each other and ourselves for our failure to be sociable, we might reconsider our biases and assumptions, even our sentimentality, about relationship. Perhaps some of our narcissism is a symptomatic attempt recover as strong unrelated sense of self. How can we reach out to another anyway, if we don't have strong devotion to our individuality?

Thomas Moore (1940 - )

Source: Original Self: Living with Paradox and Originality, Page: 45


Source on the web

A Buddhist song

When shall I at last retire into solitude,
alone, without companions,
without joy and without sorrow,
with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream?
When, in my rags - without desires -
shall I retire contented into the mountains?
When, seeing that my body is merely sickness and crime, age and death,
shall I -
free, fearless and blissful - retire into the forest?
When?
When, oh when?'

Truth is a pathless land

Truth is a Pathless Land (Jiddu Speech for Dissolving "Order of Star" ) Transcript of the Jiddu Krishnamurti speech in 1929. Jiddu announces the dissolution of the spiritual organization — the Order of the Star — for which he had been groomed since boyhood to lead. WE ARE GOING TO DISCUSS this morning the dissolution of the Order of the Star. Many people will be delighted, and others will be rather sad. It is a question neither for rejoicing nor for sadness, because it is inevitable, as I am going to explain. You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of Truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to let him organize it." I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. You must climb towards the Truth, it cannot be "stepped down" or organized for you. Interest in ideas is mainly sustained by organizations, but organizations only awaken interest from without. Interest, which is not born out of love of Truth for its own sake, but aroused by an organization, is of no value. The organization becomes a framework into which its members can conveniently fit. They no longer strive after Truth or the mountain-top, but rather carve for themselves a convenient niche in which they put themselves, or let the organization place them, and consider that the organization will thereby lead them to Truth. So that is the first reason, from my point of view, why the Order of the Star should be dissolved. In spite of this, you will probably form other Orders, you will continue to belong to other organizations searching for Truth. I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind, please understand this. I would make use of an organization which would take me to London, for example; this is quite a different kind of organization, merely mechanical, like the post or the telegraph. I would use a motor car or a steamship to travel, these are only physical mechanisms which have nothing whatever to do with spirituality. Again, I maintain that no organization can lead man to spirituality. If an organization be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth. So that is another reason why I have decided, as I happen to be the Head of the Order, to dissolve it. No one has persuaded me to this decision. This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies. Then you will naturally ask me why I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do this: not because I desire a following, not because I desire a special group of special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions may be! I do not want to encourage that absurdity.) I have no disciples, no apostles, either on earth or in the realm of spirituality. Nor is it the lure of money, nor the desire to live a comfortable life, which attracts me. If I wanted to lead a comfortable life I would not come to a Camp or live in a damp country! I am speaking frankly because I want this settled once and for all. I do not want these childish discussions year after year. One newspaper reporter, who interviewed me, considered it a magnificent act to dissolve an organization in which there were thousands and thousands of members. To him it was a great act because, he said: "What will you do afterwards, how will you live? You will have no following, people will no longer listen to you." If there are only five people who will listen, who will live, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it will be sufficient. Of what use is it to have thousands who do not understand, who are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but would rather translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves? If I speak strongly, please do not misunderstand me, it is not through lack of compassion. If you go to a surgeon for an operation, is it not kindness on his part to operate even if he cause you pain? So, in like manner, if I speak straightly, it is not through lack of real affection - on the contrary. As I have said, I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him towards freedom, to help him to break away from all limitations, for that alone will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditioned realization of the self. Because I am free, unconditioned, whole-not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal - I desire those, who seek to understand me, to be free; not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears-from the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so I do this and not because I want any thing from anyone. You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority, which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another can, by his extraordinary powers-a miracle-transport you to this realm of eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on that authority. You have listened to me for three years now, without any change taking place except in the few. Now analyze what I am saying, be critical, so that you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally. When you look for an authority to lead you to spirituality, you are bound automatically to build an organization around that authority. By the very creation of that organization, which, you think, will help this authority to lead you to spirituality, you are held in a cage. If I talk frankly, please remember that I do so, not out of harshness, not out of cruelty, not out of the enthusiasm of my purpose, but because I want you to understand what I am saying. That is the reason why you are here, and it would be a waste of time if I did not explain clearly, decisively, my point of view. For eighteen years you have been preparing for this event, for the Coming of the World-Teacher. For eighteen years you have organized, you have looked for someone who would give a new delight to your hearts and minds, who would transform your whole life, who would give you a new understanding; for someone who would raise you to a new plane of life, who would give you a new encouragement, who would set you free-and now look what is happening! Consider, reason with yourselves, and discover in what way that belief has made you different-not with the superficial difference of the wearing of a badge, which is trivial, absurd. In what manner has such a belief swept away all the unessential things of life? That is the only way to judge: in what way are you freer, greater, more dangerous to every Society which is based on the false and the unessential? In what way have the members of this organization of the Star become different? As I said, you have been preparing for eighteen years for me. I do not care if you believe that I am the World-Teacher or not. That is of very little importance. Since you belong to the organization of the Order of the Star, you have given your sympathy, your energy, acknowledging that Krishnamurti is the World-Teacher- partially or wholly: wholly for those who are really seeking, only partially for those who are satisfied with their own half-truths. You have been preparing for eighteen years, and look how many difficulties there are in the way of your understanding, how many complications, how many trivial things. Your prejudices, your fears, your authorities, your churches new and old - all these, I maintain, are a barrier to understanding. I cannot make myself clearer than this. I do not want you to agree with me, I do not want you to follow me, I want you to understand what I am saying. This understanding is necessary because your belief has not transformed you but only complicated you, and because you are not willing to face things as they are. You want to have your own gods - new gods instead of the old, new religions instead of the old, new forms instead of the old - all equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches. Instead of old spiritual distinctions you have new spiritual distinctions, instead of old worships you have new worships. You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few. So why have an organization? Why have false, hypocritical people following me, the embodiment of Truth? Please remember that I am not saying something harsh or unkind, but we have reached a situation when you must face things as they are. I said last year that I would not compromise. Very few listened to me then. This year I have made it absolutely clear. I do not know how many thousands throughout the world- members of the Order-have been preparing for me for eighteen years, and yet now they are not willing to listen unconditionally, wholly, to what I say. So why have an organization? As I said before, my purpose is to make men unconditionally free, for I maintain that the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self which is eternal, is the harmony between reason and love. This is the absolute, unconditioned Truth which is Life itself. I want therefore to set man free, rejoicing as the bird in the clear sky, unburdened, independent, ecstatic in that freedom . And I, for whom you have been preparing for eighteen years, now say that you must be free of all these things, free from your complications, your entanglements. For this you need not have an organization based on spiritual belief. Why have an organization for five or ten people in the world who understand, who are struggling, who have put aside all trivial things? And for the weak people, there can be no organization to help them to find the Truth, because Truth is in everyone; it is not far, it is not near; it is eternally there. Organizations cannot make you free. No man from outside can make you free; nor can organized worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organization, nor throwing yourselves into works, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an altar and worship it. But that is what you are doing when organizations become your chief concern. "How many members are there in it?" That is the first question I am asked by all newspaper reporters. "How many followers have you? By their number we shall judge whether what you say is true or false." I do not know how many there are. I am not concerned with that. As I said, if there were even one man who had been set free, that were enough. Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity. So you will see how absurd is the whole structure that you have built, looking for external help, depending on others for your comfort, for your happiness, for your strength. These can only be found within yourselves. So why have an organization? You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible? You are not serious in these things. So why have an organization? But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that real understanding there will be true friendship. Because of that true friendship- which you do not seem to know-there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this not because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation for a cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice. So these are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration for two years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I have not been persuaded to it by anyone. I am not persuaded in such things. For two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and I have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be its Head. You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally

The Art of Poetry

by Jorge Luis Borges

To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.

To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.

To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.

To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness--such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.

Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.

They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.

Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.

- Jorge Luis Borges

An afternoon insight

Today I was listening to a Lata Mangeshkar CD and one of my favourite numbers was playing. The melody of the song, Lata’s smooth golden voice scaling the heights, laden with emotion, the lyrics and the bansuri-vaadan never fails to bring tears to my eyes and send me into raptures. ‘Agar tum ho sagar, main pyaasi nadi hoon’, how else can the Lord be described but as an infinite ocean and our longing like that of a thirsty river seeking to be one with the oceanic vastness. ‘Agar tum ho saawan, main jalti kali hoon’, when our minds burn with the fire of ignorance then the grace of the Lord like the monsoon, rains down and washes away the soot and the dirt.

Tumhein dekhti hoon ...


Great music has that alchemic effect on us. When the notes rise in perfect cadences, our mind drops and in the ensuing stillness, the music seems to rise and reverberate within us. We are aware only of oneness as barriers vanish. We become one with the music, one with all, one with the universe.

Nature had a similar effect. Lying on the grass under a tree, looking up at the sky through the lattice of leaves, the warm earth pulsating beneath ..... Or standing outside in the night looking up at the moon, the sky scattered with stars, the universe stretching out into infinity, we get a glimpse of our own magnificence, our mind-made barriers drop, our concepts vanish and we feel our own essence, our infinitude, our oneness with the whole.

Introduce a human being into this scene, may it be anyone, a spouse, parent, child, close friend and instantaneously the mind jumps up, puts up barriers of concepts. We step into our roles, our self-made cages, we become separate, we and the other. The mind starts humming out rules, codes, expectations, desires... In an instant, the world closes in, we become bodies with minds, oneness slips away, the glimpse of our soul is lost.

It takes diligence to remain in the world and still hold on to the knowledge that we are the soul. Anything that aids in dropping the mind should be pursued. Music. Being in nature. Any activity that requires focus and is done with love and at the same time gives immense joy. Watching a baby. Watching a flower. Ceasing from mindless, needless and endless activity. Solitude. Being in silence, not only verbal but stilling the mind too. Being in Being, being in the soul, in oneness, in bliss is the only treasure worth seeking.......

Effortlessness

It seems to me that the best way to live is effortlessly. Look at us, how much we strain and stress at living, while look at the grass, how effortlessly it shoots forth from the ground. Or the flower, it strains not to bloom from bud to blossom. Least of all we should put no effort into our spiritual quest. Without effort, with only the strength of pure intention, our illusions will vanish, our ignorance will turn into insight, and just like the blooming of a flower, the flower of our soul will emerge, effortlessly, unravelling its luminous petals.

Effort belongs to the realm of the mind, how can a mind that wrestles with itself uncover the soul. The soul is beyond mind. The soul can be realised only when the mind is put away, without effort, like one would calmly put away winter clothes when spring has arrived :) We do not fight off the clothes, do we?

In our quest only intention is needed, pure unwavering intention. And stillness. In silence, in the absence of the mind, the supreme soul reveals itself. It has no other choice :)))

I am not I

Poems by Nobel Laureate Juan Ramon Jimenez

I Took Off Petal After Petal

I took off petal after petal, as if you were a rose,
in order to see your soul,
and I didn’t see it.

However, everything around—
horizons of fields and oceans—
everything, even what was infinite,
was filled with a perfume,
immense and living.

Full Moon

The door is open.
the cricket is singing.
Are you going around naked
in the fields?

Like an immortal water,
going in and out of everything.
Are you going around naked
in the air?

The basil is not asleep.
the ant is busy.
Are you going around naked
in the house?

I Am Not I

I am not I.
I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see.
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And at other times I forget.
The one who remains silent when I talk,
The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
The one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
The one who will remain standing when I die.

(I like the above the best :)))

Song offerings ...

---- selected poems from Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore -----

Clouds heap upon clouds and it darkens.
Ah, love, why dost thou let me wait outside at the door all alone?

In the busy moments of the noontide work I am with the crowd, but on this dark lonely day it is only for thee that I hope.

If thou showest me not thy face, if thou leavest me wholly aside, I know not how I am to pass these long, rainy hours.

I keep gazing on the far-away gloom of the sky,and my heart wanders wailing with the restless wind.

~~~~~
I came out alone on my way to my tryst. But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?

I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.

He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger; he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.

He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame; but I am ashamed to come to your door in his company.

~~~~~~

If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it. I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil and its head bent low with patience.

The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish, and thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky.

Then thy words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds' nests, and thy melodies will br forth in flowers in all my forest groves.

~~~~~~~~~

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put of thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.

Strength

--- extract from the Gospel of Strength by Swami Vivekanand ---

First step in getting strength is to uphold the Upanishads, and believe -
“I am the soul,”
“Me the sword cannot cut;
nor weapons pierce;
me the fire cannot burn;
me the air cannot dry;
I am the Omnipotent, I am the Omniscient.”
So repeat these blessed saving words and be strong.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You must know what you are , what your real nature is. You must become conscious of that infinite nature within. Then your bondage will burst.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Think all of you that you are the infinitely powerful Atman, and see what strength comes out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Knowledge is power,” says the proverb, does it not? It is through knowledge that power comes. Man has got to know that he is a man of infinite power and strength. Really he himself is by his own nature potent and omniscient. And this he must know. And the more he becomes conscious of his own Self, the more he manifests this power, and his bonds break and at last he becomes free.

-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The soul was never born and will never die, and all these ideas that we are going to die and are afraid to die are mere superstitions. And all such ideas as we can do this or cannot do that are superstitions. We can do everything. The Vedanta teaches men to have faith in themselves first... Not believing the glory of our own soul is what the Vedanta calls atheism. To many this is, no doubt, a terrible idea; and most of us think that this ideal can never be reached; but the Vedanta insists that it can be realised by everyone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Always talk and hear and reason about this Atman. By continuing to practice in this way, you will find in time that the Lion (Brahman) will wake up in you too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The self within is always shining forth resplendent. Turning away from that people say, “I”, “I”, “I”, with their attention held up by this material body, this queer cage of flesh and bones. This is the root cause of all weakness.

-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hear day and night that you are that Soul. Repeat it to yourselves day and night till it enters into your very veins, till it tingles in every drop of blood, till it is in your flesh and bone. Let the whole body be full of that one ideal, “I am the birthless, the deathless, the blissful, the omniscient, the omnipotent, ever-glorious Soul.” Think on it day and night; think on it till it becomes part and parcel of your life. Meditate upon it... All your actions will be magnified, transformed, deified, by the very power of the thought. If matter is powerful, thought is omnipotent. Bring this thought to bear upon your life, fill yourselves with the thought of your almightiness, your majesty and your glory.

- Swami Vivekanand

The hidden world

It's such a waste really, this whole business of living, so superfluous, so meaningless. This hankering after worldly things, for material pleasures, this running away from so-called pain. So completely are we hypnotised, so inextricable is our conditioning, so vicious is its grip on our psyche that we do not even think to look for anything else. For a different reality, for a more luminous possibility, for a truth so bright, for a self that is infinitely bigger than what we think it to be. For a vastness that contains everything, everything that we seek - love, peace, bliss. No, we do not seek these, we go only for the shiny glass pieces mistaking them for real gems while all the time it waits, in silence, in patience, for a shifting of our awareness. We get glimpses of this world, of this ineffable joy in brief, fleeting moments that we seek to grasp but pass too quickly. And so it waits, for us to shake off our hypnotic sleep and wake to reality, to truly live, to be truly ourselves…

Hope ...

Hope clings
as leaves
to the tips of trees -
bare-limbed
and shorn by autumn.

Hope floats,
buoys, uplifts
a heart
almost drowning,
gives it sails.

Hope flies
on the gossamer tip of
a dragonfly wing,
ethereal
yet enduring.

Hope rises
eternally,
every morning
as the sun,
even after the blackest night.

Hope triumphs
over despair
always,
every time.
It cannot be otherwise.

Hope flows
like a river
in search of the sea,
like a soul
in search of the source.

I am...

The Universe has
no purpose,
no direction,
no meaning,
it just IS...

It is our mind that seeks
purpose,
direction,
meaning,
where none exists...

If you ask a realised beggar,
"don't you want to be better off,
become something else?"
He would say,
"Why, what is wrong with me?
why change?
I already am.
Can't you see?
This being is immutable,
ageless,
can't be lost,
nor stolen,
not taken away.
I am Being.
I AM."

Do you know?

Do you realise that if you had all the wealth you ever wanted, all the love (from others) that you ever desired, all the pleasures, comforts, success, fame, glory that you could want - in spite of this apparent abundance - after a while you'll begin to feel the presence of a void, a deep longing. And you will rush to fill that void with more wealth, love, success, fame, but it will never be enough.

Have you stopped to consider why it is never enough?

Life

The following are selected verses from Emily Dickinson's collection titled 'Life'.

SUCCESS is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear.

~~~~~~~~~~~

MUCH madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

~~~~~~~~~

THE SOUL selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.

~~~~~~

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They ’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody! 5
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

- Emily Dickinson