I am practising this business of letting be these days. I can deconstruct my own actions, feelings, reactions, and what have you till the cows come home (or not). It energizes me. Never exhausts me. It is a process of growth really, to know myself better and better. Growth as in not change, because not everything is about change or needs to change or can be changed. I would call it self-awareness rather. In a way, I am always in the thick of this process no matter what I am doing. But I have been wondering if sometimes it is good to let things just flow so to speak, not to question, comment, deconstruct, call attention to. To let things sort of slide, to let them take oneself over, apart,...? To talk about it sometimes might be to disenchant what is really magical in it. To name a thing might be to put it into a box and then one has to find a label... and labels again take away the magic? You understand this is not my normal mode? I am trying out something that does not come naturally to me... seeing how it feels like instead of controlling, deconstructing, making sense? How about not trying to make sense for a change? Just absorbing it? Letting it be? What's that like?

I have a bad reaction to anything that smacks of a rejection or a fail. But if life has taught me anything so far, it is this: 1. Every rejection/fail tells me that it wasn't right for me, not that I wasn't right for it. 2. This will open up space for something that is even better or fitter. 3. To let this temporary setback get to me and push me down is to give up my power. 4. Everything that causes difficult emotions can be channelled in a productive/creative direction. Harness it! 5. My definition of success is very different from the norm. Do not let the norm sway you from what gives your life meaning. 6. It takes courage to believe in yourself and stand your ground even against the high winds. Be proud of yourself. 7. Integrity, authenticity, intellectual honesty... whatever you lose, you win if you do not lose those.

Marcus Aurelius has some inspiration for me:

'The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.'

I feel like crawling back into my shell

Embarrassed and ashamed

The world asked me who I am

What are you doing here

Why do you pick

the crumbs off this table?

I looked here and there

Stunned and silenced

Scarcely could muster a word

Forgot I had language

The harsh voice rendered me dumb

I doubted myself, my right

To be here

What was I doing here, I wondered

I looked around

Embarrassed and ashamed

Not even able

To remember my name.

~Me

I happened upon this story about a Sufi mystic, as you do. As I write ‘as you do’ playfully it strikes me that I tend to see a whole lot of things that come my way as coming my way for a purpose. As if they are being sent my way. I am always looking for meaning in serendipitous encounters. Do they really have ‘meaning’? I don’t know… but what I do know is that it is through this alertness to what is coming my way from nowhere that I have ended up with learnings or experiences I wouldn’t have otherwise…

I believe very much in applying oneself to knowledge be it reading the masters, studying known works, and so on which this story poses something of a counter to. But I am also a believer in the power of intuition, what comes from the inside so to speak. Now how these two are connected is a different story…

Bayazid al-Bistami, a famous Persian Sufi mystic from the 9th century, spends years copying religious and philosophical texts, searching for spiritual truth and divine knowledge. One day, as he is working on transcribing ancient manuscripts, a Khidr or a mysterious figure in Islamic tradition, appears before him.

The visitor asks Bayazid what he is doing. Bayazid explains that he is copying and studying these texts to gain wisdom and understanding of the divine. The visitor says: "Why do you spend your life copying words about what you seek, when what you seek is within you? You are the text you are trying to understand. Study yourself, and you will find all the wisdom you are looking for."

This revelation transforms Bayazid's approach to spirituality, leading him to turn inward for direct mystical experience rather than relying solely on textual knowledge.

Having mentioned my favourite poetry genre in the last post, I must share a few lines from the category that have always haunted me with their beauty. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have shared them earlier…

As lines, so loves oblique may well

Themselves in every angle greet;

But ours so truly parallel,

Though infinite, can never meet.

—Andrew Marvell, The Definition of Love

I am sure I have mentioned before that I love Rumi? There is a depth in his verses... they seem to be not on a cerebral but a spiritual plane... you do not understand his verses so much as sense their meaning...

That reminds me, and maybe this must be a topic for another blog. When I was really young, maybe not even all of 21 years old, and the internet had started becoming widespread in India... that was when I started getting exposed to a much wider range of reading material than my libraries had allowed. I mean, you couldn't wander and meander and discover one thing to another in the library as you could on the internet. That's when I discovered a lot of poets I didn't know about. I had read many of the great novelists growing up, but poets not so much. A friend of mine at the time who had studied English literature formally and who knew a lot of the academic jargon told me, when he found out which particular poems I was enjoying the most, that these were mostly from the 'metaphysical poets'. After that, I started searching for more from the metaphysical poets... I was reminded of this because Rumi is not counted among the traditional 'metaphysical poets' who are all part of a western movement, but I would think he would fall in that category? And that makes me wonder why it is that I am drawn to metaphysical poetry...

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.

~ Translated from Persian by Coleman Barks and John Moyne from The Essential Rumi

You are going to hear a lot more about this ‘investment’ process I am in the middle of until it's done. It is all very different from how things are done in India obviously. The way I am used to things, I wouldn't mind paying extra pounds for somebody to just go away and do it and not tell me all about it or involve me in everything. I don't want to know the nitty-gritties—just tell me I can trust you and get it done! You know what I mean? I suppose I am a person who likes to be all in or all out. In things that I consider my area of interest, no detail is small enough. In things I am not an expert in, I just want the results. For instance, if I had to have heart surgery or something, I wouldn't want to know all the details of what's going to happen. I would only want to know the person doing it is the best at what he/she does and I can trust them. The less I know, the better, because if I know a little, it will cause me anxiety. Take my money and just get on with it. That's how I feel about this 'investment' process and that's how I would approach it in India... but not here clearly :(

On another tangent, I was talking to someone recently about how adversity really brings out the creative juices in you. As in, I don't think I could think deeply or feel deeply or reflect deeply if my life had been a bed of roses. In comfort, I don't see how anything could have grown inside me? I would have had no experiences to think out of or feel out of or write out of. Obviously, I wouldn't wish for suffering for that reason on myself or anyone else... but I don't see how I could have been who I am today without the trials by fire I have been through. Anyway, the main point I was coming to is that this conversation reminded me of some beautiful lines that I had almost forgotten:

"Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head"

—Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene I

I get Indian veg samosas or biryani on Saturdays sometimes at the marketplace. For a change from my own cooking. I prefer vegetarian because even though I do eat chicken, they tend to use breast pieces over here unlike in India, and I am not a fan of it. I prefer thigh/leg pieces. I like vegetarian so it's not a compromise at all. This time the chick peas and potato was gone so the chap asked if I would like chicken on my biryani instead. I was about to say "no". He remarked, "You're not a vegetarian, are you?" I guessed I was not the only Indian who didn't care for the chicken... hehe... I said no, I am not, but I don't like breast pieces. To which he said, with a straight face, "breast is the best". I didn't know how to react to this because he seemed quite in earnest. I just said I'll have the veg samosa. I found this entire exchange a bit... funny!

My approach to life appears to be to make lemonade out of every lemon life throws at me. I have remarked about this in different ways over here in the past 2-3 years. Mind you, it's not an approach I am a fan of. I do it kicking and screaming literally. I would rather God gave me grapes or honey or something instead of leaving me with the onerous task of squeezing and squeezing till my arms hurt. My first response to a lemon is the refrain you are probably now familiar with, why God? Why me? ;)

But I suppose this constant position of being handed lemons has helped in 1. making me already prepared for the task, 2. developing strategic skills for the task. Every time I am in any situation I am interested in minimizing my energy spend. Because I have little energy for physical activities or activities/people who don't interest me. Obviously, I want to reserve the most for things/people that do. With the lemon squeezing situation, which for that reason too is inherently harder for me, I try to look at how to make myself spend less and less energy at every successive such situation. I suppose that's how I end up maximizing the lemons... if you know what I mean!

I wish

I could go back

To those days

Somewhere in the past

Relive those moments

Do them over

Experience them

All over again

If I had one wish

I would ask Him

The powerful one

Can you turn back the clock?

Just once?

And don't erase

My knowledge

Because if I knew then

What I know now

I would be

So much the better

I would make

Every moment count

I would, I swear

Stop complaining

Every damn time

Even when

They were kind

So kind

I would be

Better, gooder, nicer

Gentler, mellower

Not my

Fiery self

Spitting arguments

All the time

Like now

Like I try to be now

While my heart bursts

Because it hurts

To know

There's so little

Precious little

Time...

~Me

It's amusing and irritating when some people try to play a one-up game with me. I am not really into taking them on. I don't mean 'take on' as in put them down or anything. It's just that their game does not interest me nor is it something I aspire to win. It's a bit like them showing off they are going to be the CEO of Fluff and Vapid Co. when all I want to do is write poems at Books Ltd. It's fun to watch them preen at me as if I envy them their CEOship at the Fluff and Vapid. They will never understand my passion for writing poems as much as I will never understand their jubilation at their empty title. I don't expect them to 'get it' but the problem is when they expect me to bow to their (apparently) elevated status. That is what really riles them because I don't. They can't imagine why I am not enamoured by their power and why I don't grovel to gain their influence. It's no use pointing out that status does not impress me if it does not come with depth, dignity, intellect, excellence, or anything of intrinsic merit. Even a donkey can be given a crown (no offence to donkeys). Maybe it is knowing that they don't possess any internal remarkable qualities that triggers their insecurities and makes them clutch even more tightly at fancy titles. When people don’t recognize these, they must be forced to wonder if they appear as undazzling without as they are within!

There are days when just existing feels so hard. I don't want to write on such days because it could seem very morbid. It is morbid. Existence is morbid for anyone who thinks very deeply. The cure then is perhaps to numb thinking or not give yourself any time to think. If you think about it, everything ordinary people do takes them away from the trauma of thinking. Work, entertainment, food, sleep, play, social media... you name it. It's all to occupy one's mind with something, anything, but to not let it be empty. The chap who said an empty mind is the devil's workshop was onto something. Let your mind not be attached to any activity and next thing you know you are pondering on existence. And that my friend takes you to morbid territory. It hits you like a train head-on. What's the point of all of the stuff you are doing to get yourself out of thinking, it will ask. Nothing lasts. No one lasts. They are all speeding away really, bit by bit. You are speeding away too. Just the rate of speed differs so some are moving farther away and some are catching up with you. Imagine us all sitting in different buses looking out at each other. It might seem like we are in the same bus if we are sharing the journey for a bit or a while. But then suddenly their bus is zooming away. You are lucky if you get to wave out or call out. But whoosh, gone. Morbid, right? It's one of those days where I feel like holding tightly to some people so they don't just leave me staring into the distance. Tomorrow I will likely pop out of this mode and decide to revel in the journey again, albeit tentatively. It's a decision one has to make to survive the day to day... if one is the thinking sort.

I tend to hold people very lightly these days. I used to hold them very tightly when I was younger but now it's very light. It's as if a part of me is unconsciously waiting for them to let me down. When it happens, I am prepared. Water down a duck's back. Doesn't matter because I was always seeing it coming. So it can't hurt me. I saw it coming. When you are a person who hurts very deeply, you have to protect yourself. People are very fickle, here today and gone tomorrow, say this today and something else tomorrow, they'll ask you to be yourself today and take offence tomorrow. They won't see all the little actions you do, efforts you make, loyalties you show. I don't even expect them to anymore. Maybe someday they will surprise me. But I don't hold my breath. Maybe they won't and that's okay. Because I hold people so lightly now, letting go comes easy. I anticipated the moment and sort of taught myself to live like it would come soon. Because it's a rare thing really. For people to stick around, measure up, take the bad days and good days, see where you are coming from. Probably a lot of hard work. I don't blame them. But you know what. They don't get the hard work from me either. That they have to earn. Otherwise, it's water down a duck's back. Easy come, easy go.