I CHANT... by sathyanarayana (story reading TXT) 📕

In search of freedom; how strange
waves are running away from the oceans;
rays are running away from the light...
Can they ever sever from their founts?

Fastened are lives, likewise
one and all in this universe
to the unraveled hidden source;
yet humans run in nescience
towards an illusory independence.

Stop your sprint dear straying mortals!
Start searching your inner souls.
Not really fathoms deep to grope.
Well nigh the ultimate free rein
in the inner wellspring!
The Mighty Divine!!


AFTER SIXTY

You learnt
something or a lot
for sixty years or more
keeping your nose
to the grindstone.

It’s time to halt!
Come on! Throw away
those grammar books...
discard those language lessons
...try something akin
to your hunching spine.

Help fellow humans
or chant the names
of the Divine!

Of what use is stock pile
when it is not to consume.


Of what use is knowledge
when it cannot blossom
into true wisdom.

Look at the twilight welkin!
The milk is getting sour!

Add some butter milk!
You can savor for sure
sweet curd tomorrow!

(This poem is based on the first sloka of Bhaja Govindam by Sri Sri Sri Audi Sankaracharya)

HE AND I

He keeps watching
my coming and going!

He paves my path;
makes me walk
...but often tethers
and blocks.

By turns, I rejoice
and curse.

Of late I realized
...when I obliged
to His ways
an instant blue Monday
endows in prospect
many a Halcyon days.


GOD

One says there is ‘NO’ God!

One shows to the skies
and says ‘YES’.

Well, jokes one clever modern
“I WISH He is there”.

As one who’s neither a Leftist
nor a Rightist
nor even a go-in-between
I visualize
in every YES, NO, WISH and CONFUSION
His visage with glowing beams
and mocking grins.


DON'T TELL HIM

Don’t lend your ears to that thumping heart.
Ignore those occasional jarring notes.
So true; good friend he’s;
your congenital transporter;
your literal shandrydan
guiding you through emotional ups and downs...

At least don’t tell him how awful he sounds.
So delicate he is;
so tender are his wheels (sans grease).

Just keep to yourself...
but where can you keep...
try somewhere in the shandrydan itself
at some corner...
without the knowledge of HIM...the owner.

So, don’t tell him.
The moment you tell him...
He stops!!!!


UNSAINTLY

Two saints on a long journey
towards some unknown destiny.

On their way met a pretty houri
at the riverside of Kaveri.
She prayed them humbly

“Oh! Hermits holy! Can you take me
to the other side of Kaveri?”

The younger saint said with fury
“Don’t you see oh lady?
We are saints! Don’t touch thy body!”

But the older saint said kindly
“O’ young lady,
Climb on my shoulders! I’ll carry.”


Crossed over the river, all the three.
The girl left their company
And the saints resumed their odyssey.

After a long walk silently
burst out the young saint wildly.

“You have done something unsaintly.
How could you carry that lady? ”

The older saint smiled and said coolly
“I left her at the banks of Kaveri.
Do you still carry her in mind heavily? ”


THE FUTURE

You lose your calm often
without any reason.
You start shouting at someone.
Your sleep had gone
down the drain
of your liquidized brain.

You are troubled by a question;
one serious question:
“Tomorrow…..what happens?”

In pursuit of answers
you burn incense
in shrines and run after saints
and soothsayers.

Yet that question lingers,
“Tomorrow…what happens?”


Let me ask you one question…
why should you question at all, when
the time to come is pregnant
with every answer, every response
every rejoinder and every retort.

If you have an omen
that your questions will remain
unanswered, for ever
gulp them like bitter medicines
and get not restless
at the time-keeper’s reticence.

Take it granted that
it was enough of His disclosure
as much as you’re entitled for.

Who knows? It may be
a blessing in disguise.

What use is rattling on and on
and on and on and on and on
a tree with fruits none.

VENTED POTS

Wanton sirens and Don Jeans
gad around for new heavens.
Lures and sneers true contentment
like a laughing mirage, distant.
Yearnings end as yearnings
loading them in chagrin and pain.
In spite of glutting their wants
linger they like vented pots
unto death with eternal thirst.


THE TRUTH

During the scalding summer, how much
we yearn for a chilling morn drizzle!

When in the bone biting winter lurch
don’t we pray for a sunny sizzle?

Which season man can bear; I marvel,
without a demur, to its full run.

Yet swaggers he with synthetic preen
that he conquered the nature’s riddle.

Come storm, Tsunami or some crisis,
man at last comes to his consciousness
amidst falling contraptions of his
false conceptions and failed finesse.

Whence sprouts from the ruins of reason,
rationale and dialectics; the Truth...
the vital Truth; that’s beyond his breadth
...to see, feel, deal, conceive and reckon


THE TALES I DIDN’T TELL

I told you my little harmless tales O’ friend
and made you laugh at my silly
peccadilloes.
But those blunders I did; those grossest
sins I did perpetrate
and those moments when my head
had to hang down in shame
my mouth had failed to utter.

Forgive my reticence O’ friend.
It’s human that I’m such a hypocrite.

But carrying I’m, the load of my follies
heavy on my heart’s shoulders
and traipsing hard to reach that
Judgment Day
for pouring them out as confessions
before the ONE
Who neither frowns nor laughs at them
...but simply executes His decision.


TWILIGHT CALL

At the twilight’s quiet call I walked
towards the shoal; in trance; in haze
possessed by the dim dusk’s spilled grace
and stood alone like a dumb rock.

When back to my senses, I lied
on the sandy bed; peered inside
the pond to find its rock bottom
and my image in that fluid prism.

Fickle are the waters by waves;
ficklest the mind is, fazed by thoughts.
They rouse even to the slightest
of stir; just slaves to all the knaves.

Hey Ram, hey Raam, I called and cussed;
demurred, implored, billowed and cursed
the one in whom I keep my trust;
the one in whom my doubts are worse.


Flustered, I kept pelting pebbles
into the pool; melting the calm.
Between my wish and the impulse
I swayed alike a lamp in the storm.

I’m still out there at that sand shoal
waiting to see the waters still
to find its rock bottom and my
image, the true and mystic ‘I’.


I KNOW NOTHING O’ LORD

What’s good, know not. What’s bad, as well,
know not. But lo, my heart does swell
with love, O’ Lord and eyes do well
when hear your name.
And why my lips always drivel
Your tales and fame?

I try no logic Lord. No doubt
as well I entertain about
Your greatness, since my brain isn’t stout
and faith, just blind.
These songs I sing and pleas I shout
are undefined.

Wisdom is no wisdom; they say,
unless it lays a floral way
to reach, at last, your sacred quay.
But what’s wisdom?
Know not I; but belongs my clay
to Your kingdom.


JEEVAN MUKTA

Prologue: A person who neither elates at success not depresses at failure is called as a Jeevanmuktha. The sage Ashtavakra taught this to King Janaka and Janaka taught this to sage Suka and this tradition is going on. Precisely this concepts teaches us how, one even while enjoying all mundane comforts can still keep his heart and soul in the divine Spirit always. In Lord Krishna's Bhagavat Gita, he describes this state as a drop of water on a lotus leaf. The drop stays on the leaf, no doubt but in a touch-me-not manner. The Gurus preach that the humans should have that kind of attachment with the mundane world.
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Once he feared every omen. Ticking Big Ben
thundered cannons; mind’s filled with demons
and lived he phobias unfounded and unknown.
Inane adversities even; sent cold sweat down
wetting his head to feet; shattering thoughts sane.

But a day came soon like Sun shine
when dawned in him nascent omniscience;
that he’s laden himself with false burden
nescient of the ONE, who’s wearing the whole creation.

Was it due to his strong devotion
or result of his rinsed out sins...
knew not but; became he a new man
Like a full Moon out of cloud curtain
and like blossomed rose petals
that burgeon out of coarse sepals.


He now submits every poser and pain
at His Lotus Feet with staunch faith.
No fear; no meaningless joy!
He does his chores
smiling at every trial and comfort alike.

He is an ascetic in bon vivant mould;
a jeevanmukta...a jettisoned life boat
...an indulgent body with unattached soul;
an elemental flesh housing Holy Ghost!


ONE + ONE = ONE

I dispute his permutations
at least twice a day. Him, I curse.
Me; he often pinches and wrenches.
Well! I understand his compulsions.
He too does sympathize my follies
Again, we laugh off our excesses.
Runs thus our rollercoaster romance;
yet lingers a feeling of emptiness.

I asked him, “Why this gulf between us;
aren’t we friends? Very, very close friends;
with consensus of minds?”

He smiled, “You understand me. Yes.
But you don’t know me in essence.”

I asked, “Hey! What’s the difference?
Both words sound me in the same sense.
When do I know you in wholeness? ”

Trickled down HIS words, mysterious
“When you become I, and I …you!”


THE ODESSEY OF A YOGI

(Prologue: This is last stage in the life odyssey of a yogi...just before Moksha or Nirvana...read the struggle between the earthly lures and the steadfast yogi...)
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Glowing like a precious nugget;
straight, taut with bust bulging out...
his head held high and eyes glittering
as if he’s gazing at a distant burning wick
...looking like a possessed maverick
he is carrying on his ceaseless walk...

The path is rugged and briary.
From a distance the access road
in a misty mirage shroud
is looking like a blind alley.

But when he reached the invious end
the thickets are clearing away
as if he said ‘open sesame’.

A jewel-hooded ophidian
is following the steadfast pedestrian
like a crawling lightning;
though not to his sentience.


Floating in air before his face
fairies with mystical grace
are inveigling him to come close
and immerse in their sensual embrace.

Piercing through the earth
a thousand hands uncouth
from abyssal depths
are trying to pull his legs
and hedge his esoteric growth...

Long ago overcame he, his five senses
and conquered the six evil Nymphs.
His body is just his golden cage...
his soul, he well realized
as part of His