Purge

A few months back there was another emotional upheaval to go through.

What do you do when you are offered a path?
Is there ever a choice?

You think you have a choice.
You do what you have to do.

So I did.
The question had presented itself.
It is much simpler than what it was made out to be.

It was merely a question of recognizing the pus that had been festering.
The pus of unanswered questions.
The questions unanswered because they were never asked.
The questions never asked for fear they wouldn't be answered.

The only way to rid the body of an abscess is to drain the pus.
I did it too.
I asked all those questions.

I was right about one thing.
There was no answer.

I was not right about one thing.
It was not a futile exercise.

We sometimes hold on to our shackles.
So used to them, we guard our own prisons.
Letting go is all it takes.

The answers will come... 
Or they may not.

But now I am purged and the healing has begun.

Why?.... Because.....

There was a time, when someone would walk out on me without a reason, and I would be left with only one thing.

A curiosity so strong, I could barely make it through the darkness of that one word.

Why?

Then it started happening.

Those people started to come back. 

Years apart.

Paths start crossing and things have a way of coming around.

There must be some merit to the String theory! 

And when they come around, the backs are no longer turned.

To avoid looking into the eyes is no longer an option.

The truth is Absolution!

It is never what I expect the answer to be.

Never an assumed flaw I wondered about.

Even though, relentless self scrutiny did offer observations that remedied many a real flaw I had.

It is a poisoned gossip vine.

Or a weak spine.

Sometimes, mere inconvenience.

Greater than the closure, is the lesson.

The more precious for the bitter way it is learned.

When someone turns their back on you for apparently no reason, the Universe is giving you a gift!

Accept it and cherish the opportunity to know the truth about someone's character.

Q. Why?

A. Because...

Sometimes we need just an ear.

Sometimes we need a hand to hold.

Sometimes we need a shoulder to prop on.

Sometimes, we need to look into the mirror of a turned back.

Clarity... or Lack of it!

My previous blog was full of outrage.

Fueled by a sense of unfathomable betrayal.

Probably, based on a belief that telling someone you love them, somehow makes a difference.

It gets you the right to be directly informed.

It makes you deserve that much.

Apparently,it doesn't.

Only madmen in love can nourish such romantic notion.

The timing is so atrocious.

The moment I gather myself and shards of my heart.

The moment I decide to distance myself, he has to come back.

He has to leave a word.

A formal greeting.

A word so deprived of emotion, it feels disrespectful.

Disrespectful, and fouler than an abuse.

Like spit in the face.

Like alms so petty, they offend a beggar.

It is like he mocks my love.

Or his knowledge of it.

Yet, I wait for that one pitiful word.

Wait with eager anticipation.

Wait, till it brings the disappointment of its bland notion.

Yet, I love him, over the other who loves me so truly.

Am I so blindly ungrateful?

There is nothing I appreciate more than my unparalleled fortune in what I already have.

Then why are my affections so divided?

Is it the allure of that which is beyond reach?

At least, the question is clear now. 

In time, the answer may present itself too.

Until then...

Interpreting Silence!... What a mess?

Everything I posted so far, I kept impersonal.
Derived from so deep in the heart or so far in the past that it has a surreal distance from me.
Like it was someone else's story.

Today I must talk of something so recent that it can't be separated from reality.
Cannot be draped in any veil of comfort.

I told him I love him and I would leave everything for him.
It was too early to let him know but it was my only chance.

I asked for five minutes to hold him because something inside me knew he was too good to stay.

He didn't give me those five minutes.
He gave me a song and went silent.

I needed one answer.
He wouldn't even let me ask the question.

I kept banging at the door.
He let me know he was there but he wouldn't make a sound.

The song could have meant anything.
His silence could have meant anything.

Did it mean he didn't feel the way I felt?
Did it mean it just wasn't right?
Did it mean anything at all?
What? 
What did it mean?

I kept telling myself that it was I who came on too hard.
That the silence could only mean he loved me not.
And it looked like it.
He removed all trace of me.
Even as I watched.

So I tried to keep up my best face.
I believed he moved on.
So I tried to make myself believe I moved on.

Then he shows up with this girl.
So much of me in her, from the trinket she wears to the words she used.

Now.. what do I make of the silence?
Am I reading into it because I feel jealous?
I must be jealous but something else is bothering me more.

What's wrong with boys?
Why don't they say it to your face?

It will hurt much less to know the truth than to keep guessing.
A man can't read a woman's mind but so is true for women.
Women can't read minds too.

Why don't you go lose yourself Jad?
Why don't you say it out loud?
Even now, why don't you?

How long till I am free of you?
How long till I can move on?

How long till this noisy silence lasts?

Que Importa... What does it Matter?

What's so important?
Is there anything so important?

Ultimately. No.

There comes a moment when the realization dawns that Life is, in fact, just a moment.
A moment in the passing of innumerable more.

The only moment that is real is the present moment.
The moment gone, never retrieved.

The moment coming, becomes present even as we think of it.

No reality except that minuscule iota of time that's Now.
All that we think is Real is merely our Brain telling us it is.

Then what does it matter?
Why get tied down with attachments?
Why get torn down by loss?
Why celebrate or mourn a moment?

The moment is passed.
The next has come.

Let nothing stop you.
Move on.

Love.
Live.

Hermit, Not Ascetic!

Semantics. 
Some would say.
What's the difference?

I say there is.
It took me all my life to realize I am one and not the other.
It took me all my life to realize it is not required to be one in order to be the other.

I am a Hermit.
I like to stay away in general.
Glorified introvert?
I like to say,"I respect personal space. 
Most of all, my own personal space.
I extend that courtesy to the second and third person."

I am not an Ascetic.
I follow my spiritual goals. Tenuously.

I do not deny anything in the process.
I do not deny responsibility.
I do not deny pleasure.
I do not deny myself.

Denial is voluntary ignorance.
How can there be spiritual growth where there is ignorance?
How can someone master something they never experienced?

Spirituality is not about denying that a vice exists. 
It is not about acknowledging a vice to condemn it.

Spirituality is about rising.
It is about acknowledging the vice and then rising above it. 

It is not about turning the other way.
It is not about crossing the street.
It is not about avoiding the temptation altogether.
Spirituality is about learning to stay strong in the face of it.

Hence, I say, I am not an ascetic. 
I can never be while I tread the path of spirituality.
I doubt you when you ask me to take the escapist route of being one.

I stay a hermit. 
Stand on the sidelines and experience by observing.
I am not attached to what I see but I am not closing my eyes.

I see.
I experience.
I learn.
I grow.

Love and Pain

Love. Pain.
Contradictory.

Yet the subject of more songs in any language than any other perhaps.
Why? One wonders.

Why is pain universally associated with love?


Pain is not born out of Love.
It is the child of attachment.
Of desires.
Of expectations.
Of trying to hold on too tightly.
Of the need to be seen by the loved one.


Pain is not woven into the fabric of Love.
It is woven into the fabric of human nature.


We don't love to love.
We love to possess. 
To conquer. 


We want to conveniently label our associations of convenience as Love.
We are merchants looking for returns on our goods.
When our goods bear no profit, it hurts.
If they bring returns, the thought of losing it hurts.
If we lose it, the loss hurts.


Love is not a business. 
If it is a business, there is only give no take.
Love only gives immense bliss.
It only gives the soul a taste of the divine.
It takes nothing. 
It adds. Never subtracts.

Feel Love like appreciating the beauty of a butterfly.
A butterfly looks the most beautiful flying among the flowers whose colors complement those of its wings. 
Catching a butterfly merely rubs off its delicate scales and brings it harm.
The moment we start thinking of chasing it to catch it, we stop enjoying its beauty.


Relax.
Lay back.
Become one with the flowers in the garden.


Let the butterfly come to you and when it does, don't try to keep it there.
If you have the nectar it needs, it will stay.
If it doesn't, still rejoice in the beauty of its flight.


Let love be a Rise not a Fall.