BEING AND BECOMING

After a long time, I have got an opportunity to listen deeply the voice echoing in my consciousness. In listening, I find the disappearance of conceptions built from the seeds thriving in my consciousness. Those seeds are there and evolving since millennia, yet their understanding is too raw to draw any definite conclusion. It is only in observing their formations one can witness the unity of everything amidst pluralities and diversities. I am amazed to see that people often talk about plurality of choices, plurality of perceptions and understandings, plurality of thoughts and values, but they stop looking deeply to the mental formations appear on the surface level of mind. They don’t pay heed to the similarity of experiences shared by all the creatures in the universe. They don’t see how our craving to survive and the fulfilment of appetites are one shared reality. Just like every flower appears to be unique but its formations reveal the sun, earth, water, and clouds, etc. in it, and ...

In quest of peace our mind wanders  But peace is nowhere in future N ever ever lived in past Past is utopia, a plaything of memory Future is an image, a caricature of imagination From thousands of years life is finding and losing itself  Manifesting and blossoming Take it as a form, it is always becoming Take it as the essence, it has remained eternal Desire to win is aspired by a loser Fear to lose is thought by a winner Those who find defeat in every victory and triumph in every loss is sovereign Perfection is a malady, a desire of logician  It lives in thought and dies in disappointment  Mountains are not spherical Clouds are not triangle Trees are not symmetrical Yet nature accomplishes the harmony in imperfections Teach without words Play without expectation Love without consideration Live without ambition Life is not thought It is lived. 

O ne day of solitude with less food and more contemplation has made me at ease to accept my vulnerabilities and to be humble about my achievements. When I was sitting silently and observing my emotions I found the fragility of mind and its quest for security. I was also aware of my mind's constant strive to fulfil some voidness inheres in me. That void comes from my understanding that I am imperfect, incomplete, raw, amateur, and that requires efforts to get a perfect state of my being. That perfect state, I observe since my awareness of consciousness, never arrived. I have tried many entertaining things to get a finished circle but a few dots move in a circumference to make the incomplete sphere and my efforts turn to be futile to run after a heavenly perfection contemplated in platonic literature.  I have found in the morning that fragility is a matter of celebration. Most of the tough minds who aspire for grand maturity turn out to be too vulnerable to be tolerated. Our history ...

Every judgment of the Constitutional court solves and unsolves certain fundamental questions. Court often takes two steps forward and one step backward (Shklar). Navtej Johar was rightly celebrated as a progressive judgment which recognised same sex relationships on the touchstone of constitutional morality. In a way, judgment progressively explored the colonial and post-colonial politics and reviewed Section 377, IPC from the perspective of constitutional morality emanating from the "objective purposive interpretation",  a concept devised by Justice Aharon Barack, a former judge of Israel Supreme Court. NALSA judgment already went ahead with the recommendations to broaden the scope of reservation policy in India to allow the constitutional protection of sexual minorities. The latest judgment has attracted widespread criticism from the intellectuals. Many of them have argued that the Court has not taken its responsibility in protecting the rights of sexual minorities. There i...

Righting wrong or wronging right; Play of reason or fancy flights; Morning hope and gloomy night; Sketching dreams on darkened sight. Blooming hate and crazy drive; Cloak-like ways and organic strives; Empty heart but ambitious voice; Mechanised bonds and constricted choice. Parochial freedoms and faking joys;  Estranged souls but impoverished rise; Hardening will and innocence quite; Childish hopes and hopeless ride.

  Language speaks the Man; Causes agony and pleasure; Determines falsehood and truthfulness; Verifies integrity and insincerity; Codifies civilization and its Discontents. Language determines the silences; Its repressive instabilities; Its meanings and meaninglessness; Its peace and cacophonous violence. In language civilizations talk; Explicate the colours of barbarity;  Normality and abnormalities; Honour and immodesty. Language draws the borders of nations; Its constitution and sovereignty; It governs and governed; Records and recorded; Confesses and confessed; Condemns and condemned.  What else is man?  If not thought and feelings. What else is thought? If not the nomos? What else is nomos? If not the script. Whose signs enunciate; The codes of lives; Its physics and metaphysics; Its facts and norms; Truly, Language speaks the Man.

Colours of rainbow; Twinkling of stars; None is the place; If not coloured in imagination. O Human all too humans. Little rays in pervading shadow; Blooming flowers in silent meadow; Dance of desire and void of echo; Try not, let it be, as it is; O Human all too humans. All too struggles; In a piece of paper; For a piece of paper; Shades of identity; Engraved at parochial image-maker; Limitless claims, labours in vain; From alien time traveller; Boast not O talkative creature  ; O Human all too humans.

If you write for the sake of writing; You're not writing. If you create for the sake of creating; You're not creating. If you think for the sake of thinking; You're not thinking. If you celebrate for the sake of celebration; You're not celebrating. When you're driven by an inner drive to manifest; When you and your poetry become one entity; When fragrance and flower are not alienated; When clouds and waters have the same identity; In that mode of existence, I, you, we all exist as an ethereal substance and process. A being, non-being, and becoming; A perpetual engulf of time; Constant joy of divine spirit; Then, all the things are the same and different; Then, sorrow is swallowed by the ecstasy of nature's playfulness; In that spirit we all create and are created.

किसी ने कहा था, इतनी दूर भी मत जाओ,  कि ख़ुद भी तुमसे जुदा सा होने लगे। और ख़ुद के इतने क़रीब भी ना आओ, कि तुम्हे ख़ुद ही ख़ुदा नज़र आने लगे। थोड़े से सी दायरे में रहो। तभी तो एहसास होगा, कि तुम बहते हुए दरिया की रवानगी हो, और झूमते बेलों की मस्ती। तुम्हें हस्ती बनाने-मिटाने की ज़रूरत नहीं, जरा कल्पनाओं को विराम दो, ठहर जाओ, फ़िर जीवन की शाश्वता और नश्वरता में कोई भेद ना होगा।

है गर शक्ति तो उत्थान करो कोई भूखा मिले तो दान करो कोई करे बैर तुम प्रेम करो कड़वाहट का निदान करो कोई दोस्त मिले पहचान करो कोई दुश्मन मिले एहसान करो अपनो पे विश्वास करो पराए संग दो पल साथ जियो परीक्षा है थोड़ा धैर्य रखो चलो सबको माफ करो अपना दिल तो साफ रखो चालाकी का सच में जोड़ नहीं पर अच्छाई का कोई मोल नहीं

कटुता, क्षल, व्यंग, व ईर्ष्या झलकता है राजनीति के बिसातो में बिन बादल देखो उमड़ पड़ा प्रेम माँ के आँचल से कुछ बोल सको दो बोल दो चंद शब्द सही निश्छलता से गर तैयार है वाणी आहत को मन मौन भरे निर्मलता से वाणी-वीरता में प्रज्ज्वलित कोई देश कहाँ महान हुआ इस मौन के अन्तःसागर में सत्यकाम, बुद्ध को ज्ञान हुआ कबीर का सबने पाठ किया शब्दों में उनको याद किया पर ढ़ाई आखर प्रेम को व्यवहार में क्यों तिरस्कार किया? जीवन बिना मूल्यों के धन बिना उसूलों के शब्द उल-जुल फिजुलों से सफलता तू कैसी सफलता है? जिसके दामन में  बेतहाशा शोहरत है पर जीवन जीने के लिए दो पल भी ना मयस्सर है।

Picture's Courtesy: Google Books I have heard people saying 'be practical'. I often think about this advice and find many puzzling answers: what is practical? Practicality may be a principle that emphasizes the importance of practice rather than having merely a 'museum of ideas'. The ownership over ideas without practice is as useful as forgetting the art of archery when the enemy is ready to blow the existence, something akin to Karna story in Mahabharata. The question of significance is if practicality can have life without the ideas or ideals? Practicality is, in fact, dependent upon some ideals, which make it practical in the first place. In that sense, the dichotomy of idealism and pragmatism is to be revised in terms of their differences as conceptual categories.  In American school of thought, Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, and John Dewey developed the thesis of Pragmatism which has gained its popularity in Rorty age (Richard Rorty, one of the last de...

Desire not to have desire is a circular trap in which many saintly being is caught. Each endeavour is bound to fail since happening of life is natural and human's desire is tilted to change the course of event by imposing the will. Will is a mythical concept whose conception only shows human's desire to control the natural phenomenon, which is unresistable and unpredictable. Human species has unbound irrationality hidden in its robe of reason and often humanly desire is guided by the dark matter of the mind, evolved from the emergence of life on Earth. The insatiability of desires makes one committed to go after ambitions. Its non-fulfilment only cause frustration and its realisation creates another chain of dissatisfaction. The circular path of life is play of desires and its non-fulfilment. Life is never meant to be filled by ambitions. Its play is as good as music whose goal is nowhere to reach. Every note is a destination, every move is a source of unlimited joys, every cho...

अतीत से बुना धागा कुछ ऐसा है कितनी भी तोड़नी की कोशिश करो उसके छोटे-छोटे टुकड़े वर्तमान से जुड़ जाते हैं अतीत की बनाई गाँठ में उलझकर  ना जाने कितने झगड़े-फ़साद हुए पर इन्सान की फ़ितरत तो देखिए हर पल अपने इतिहास को लिए घूमता है यादें ही हैं कोई पाषाण में उकेरी तस्वीर नहीं जिसे मिटाने के लिए कई बार पत्थर का अस्तित्व तक मिटाना होता है अतीत से भागने के बजाय एक समझौता कर लो आज कि हम-तुम रहेंगे एक-दूसरे का आइना बन कर मेरे अतीत के हर-एक दाग को  कुछ इस कदर उभारना कि मुझे मेरे होंने का गुमां ना हो जैसे सूरज चाँद की रॉशनी बन जाता है और उसके अतीत के खुरदुरेपन को इस तरह उभारता है  मानो कोई सच्चा प्रेमी हो।

Upanishads contemplated about changeless and changing reality. One was designated as the supreme self and other as Maya (illusion). One was conceptualized as the seer and other as seen. The dichotomy of subject and object is as old as Greek civilization. This division was also conceptualized by Nyaya and Navya Nyaya philosophy in ancient India. The modern materialistic science emerged out of this dichotomy and objectified the worldly reality. In that process, subject was also objectified as property. Ancient Indian philosophy raised this logical question: if something changes then how does it exist? It is similar to what Zeno exemplified through his paradoxes. Zeno raised the question if an arrow in moving in time how does it exist as ontological reality? Its reality is relative to time and space. Nagarjuna, a Buddhist philosopher, questioned the very essence of everything. He was was considered as the hard core skeptic whose only job was to demolish the arguments of opponents without ...

मैं एक इमेज हूँ हर सच का तस्वीर हूँ हर एक झूठ का चश्मदीद हूँ मैं एक इमेज हूँ टूटता-फूटता, खिलखिलाता, रोता-बिलखता, जगमगाता, कभी स्थिर कभी सरपट दौड़ हूँ। मैं एक इमेज हूँ। प्रतिष्ठा को प्रतिष्टित करता, चाँद में चाँदनी का लेप लगाता, शुक्ल-कालिमा के बीच तालमेल बिठाता, मन की कैमरे में क़ैद, मैं एक इमेज हूँ। कल्पना मेरे शिल्पकार है, जिज्ञासा मेरे तलबगार है, रचना मेरा संसार है, हर तस्वीर का मैं तदबीर हूँ, हर नजीर का मैं रक़ीब हूँ, मैं एक इमेज हूँ।

कहते हैं ज़हर बेचना आसान है दो मीठे बोल के सामने, ज़हर बेचकर लोग बड़े व्यापारी बन जाते हैं। धन-दौलत का पता नहीं, पर ज़हर से आजकल शोहरत बहुत आसानी से इकट्ठा हो जाता है। शोहरत भी क्या? आदमी अपनी शान्ति को कौड़ी के दाम पे निलाम कर जाता है। बड़ा बनने की ख्वाहिश में, ख़ुद में निहित ख़ुदा को हर रोज ठोकर मारता रहता है। और कोलाहल से सने मन्दिर-मस्जिद में,   ईश्वर की तलाश में भटकता रहता है। कबीर, मीरा, और श्रीराम कृष्णा की बातें तो करता है, पर अपने ही आत्मा को ताक पर रखकर  ईश्वर नाम की धूनी रमाता है। छोटे से प्रतीकों को धर्म बनाता है, और धर्मों को संगठित कर व्यवसाय चलाता है। इन तमाशों के बीच, जीवन एक मुट्ठी रेत जैसा  हाथ से निकल जाता है।

“Give evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself”. These are the profound words of wisdom, expounded by Lao Tzu, which are often ignored by the socio-political or legal institutions in dealing with criticism. In the process of using power, such institutions create a discursive stimulation, which makes a powerful institution vulnerable in the eye of public. Michel Foucault, one of the greatest thinkers of power, diagnosed the evolutionary theme of power from the “spectacle of punishment” to “correctionary and disciplinary power”, and found its raison d'etre in human psyche, which sympathizes with those who, appear to be or, are portrayed as, victims. It appears to be a challenging task for the powerful institutions to allay dissatisfaction and suspicion, emerges out of the open display of the “spectacle of power”. Soft Power Modern society and the organisation of State have been developed over a few centuries along the line with soft-disciplinary power and its judicious...