Love is

Love, in a moment, or a mere state of mind?

An effortless emotion words hardly define.

An indulgence beyond time, logic or reason;

No boundaries, no heed, yet intense & complete.

It isn’t but is insane, yet calm and contained.

Then why express it in resentment & hate?

Shadowed, by shallow needs that mutate?

Why forceful calibrations of materialistic minds?

What more are we searching, what else will we find?

Why the delusion, when the real is divine?

Why can’t love just heal, pacify, be calm

And not burn, desiccate and alarm.

Why indulge self in narcissistic scars?

Why I, me & mine, not us not ours?

Lift the blindfolds & open your doors.

Laugh with someone, it is melody and more.

Skip a heartbeat, listen to one fore,

Stop running, hold hands & walk down the shore.

Haven’t you heard the seashell? It’ll sing you lores

Of love and its magic, of hearts it adored.

Of Love, that needs no masks, no lies.

Needs no deception, no spectating eyes;

Just yours, with wonder, a heart more alive,

That finds exuberance in journey, not when arrived.

Photo Credit : Christian Lechtenfeld

Its not a blood group, that you're born with

Being one and following one, is it the same? They say you’re born with it while some say you have to follow what your ancestors have practiced. Some are selective followers; they will practice what makes sense to them & elude the rest. Well, does that make them true practitioners? Since they will still identify themselves with a particular one. Another interesting theory was “you’re born with it”. It’s like a tag on a baby once it is born. How can you be born with it? Is it like you wait for the baby to completely appear and you discover "Oh! It’s a boy”. But that is discovered after the little human is born. But what he or she will follow is pre-decided, a supposition. “Mera beta toh Engineer banega” (My son will be an engineer), even to instil that thought a parent waits for the child to finish high school, but that is also when a child has already discovered the magic word “choice”. He or she knows that a choice of a career is a possibility.

“Well, I let my elders decide my life, they know best”. Well, they do know more, but the best is quite subjective, depending upon what they were subjected to at their adolescence. Giving birth gives you the right to label them? We’ve always chosen differently when we knew there is a choice. But what to follow, that is conveniently capsuled around us from the moment we are extracted. Smartly done I say, it starts with your primary identity, your name; you have to be called a name in accordance to your future practice & adopted belief system.

I was watching a horror movie; a ghost buster asks a parent whether the children were baptised. Seriously? that would stop a ghost? Well, tell me if I encounter a ghost in rural India, will it be frightened seeing 2 pieces of wood perpendicularly placed? Or would it just get confused? Making choices for people before they’re born wasn’t enough let’s do so even after death. Thomas Gray, about man-made practices says, ‘Where Ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise. Is it not what these belief systems are based on? 

Believe them, doubting is a sin, follow them but don’t rationalise. Each of their theories is the ultimate truth of life. Well, how can that be different for you and for me? Same planet, same species, similar life cycles, but distinct beliefs; and... mine is always better than yours, obviously, right? Ignorance is bliss, remember? 

You’ve never been educated about the other practices, they're taboos. If you know too much, you might question your own and maybe, just maybe look for logic, which could be disastrous. Even something as frivolous as ordering yourself some food; aren’t you given all the options and explained the ingredients of all of them before you choose, or is it that only one is revealed with a great packaging and the rest are labeled as unhealthy options? And this is a course you take for life, why can’t one test the taste buds by a morsel of each before choosing which one to devour?

Maybe you might realise, you don’t have an appetite for any.