To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle
Monday, August 13, 2012
 
A man's wife goes with him to the door,

His friends go a few steps more.

At the corpse-ground there's only the stretcher.

After that, swan, you're on your own

Recently happened to read the Bijak of Kabir, translated by Linda Hess. What I found most surprising is that someone as early as in the 15th century, in India, could have had such modern and liberating thoughts, on religion, on society, on man, on God…

In Kabir’s own words:

I've burned my own house down,

The torch is in my hand.

Now I'll burn down the house of anyone

Who wants to follow me

The verses may not have a poetic quality, but they are alive with the purpose of awakening man from his earthly composure and making him aware of a higher purpose, or at least to question his purpose beyond materiality...

Thought of sharing this on the occasion of Independence Day, day after. Probably one cannot know what it is to be really free till one has experienced a state of being un-free… and then we sometimes believe we’re free but not really free… till we are bound by shackles that stop us from being true to ourselves, stop us from authentically expressing ourselves, stop us from doing the right thing, stop us from seeing the right thing done… what does it mean to be free if not to be free in spirit but only in body? Maybe these are things to introspect on… as Independence Day dawns on us…

In other news, I will be in Bangalore over this long holiday. Looking forward to it! J

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 5:12 pm 7 comments
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