0091 The Scholar - A Dutch portrait
The scholar, in his book-lined study, sits,
walled in by printed thought in black and white;
silent; by a pool of lamplight lit;
now still in reading, or now drawn to write;
inaudible, the music of his mind,
invisible, that dazzling light, his thought;
unknown, the destiny of human kind;
unwrit, the future glories to be sought;
he like a human hour-glass: single grains
passing into future mind from past;
and in his presence, all Creation reigns,
the history of the world from first to last.
this secret glory, scholars are allowed;
so fragile; mortal; subtle; noble; proud.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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A Time Machine Mind!
Human mind, dreams, vision and imagination
Can transport one forward and backward in time.
Mind is the time machine to go to past and future
But time never goes backward but only forward;
Also, time never goes in circle but only straight!
Recollection of past is possible in the present;
Visualization of future is possible in the present;
But one cannot go to the past or future ever now!
Hour glass can show the time like clock of today
But it cannot bring back the past to reality now
Or bring to our vision the future of world now!
Mind is the time machine that can read history;
Mind is the same machine to see the future too;
But time never goes to the past but only to future!
poem by Ramesh T A
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Aurobindo-6-Savitri-Book -1
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book I The Book of Beginnings-canto-3-
The Yoga of the King: The Yoga of the Soul's Release
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
Yoga of Aswapati-
'In hands sustained by a transfiguring Might
He caught up lightly like a giant's bow
Left slumbering in a sealed and secret cave
The powers that sleep unused in man within.'
Andthere, promoted pristine experience unfurled
A revelation the soul was offered
'The gifts of the spirit crowding came to him;
They were his life's pattern and his privilege'.
'The world's thought-streams travelled into his ken; '
Tuned to 'ethereal symphonies' was the king's soul
'A world unseen, unknown by outward mind
Appeared in the silent spaces of the soul.'
Unlike incapable in every human's unopened lay-mind
Great he saw his 'secret face'
His'mind leaned out to meet the hidden worlds: '
Unlike the still attached mind of a departed common soul
Ambrosial 'honey of Paradise', aromatic celestial fragrance
'Heavenly hues', 'a channel of universal harmony'
All 'beneath the cosmic surfaces' by a 'secret sense
'In the unceasing drama carried by Time'
That are 'Inaudible to our deaf mortal ears'..
'All was revealed there none can here express; '
'The kings of evil and the kings of good'
'Battled for his soul as for a costly prize'
'It was a region of wonder and delight..'where world was not'
And the king 'looked beyond into a nameless vast.'
'There unity is too close for search and clasp'
'And oneness is the soul of multitude.'
And isn't that oneness every human looking for
Despite sky-high desirous sufferings...
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
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A Lesson In Living
What words expel the conscious
leaving the mind to wander aimless
Where history haunts like a ghost
Forever watched by the days past
Then to the future that great unknown
The words and phrases of a mortal fear
Hold present in each taken breath
What awaits, what awaits
Anticipation burns beneath the skin
A fiery torment of a busy mind
The levels of observation and judgment
Overwhelm a tired soul
Love a word of just four letters
Becomes a saviour to behold
A creation of countless misunderstandings
Bore into the world into the conscious
A daily never ending cascade of thought
Each one becoming a lesson in living
poem by Matthew Holloway
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0009 Persian vase, Persian thoughts
As you enter this quiet and peaceful sunlit room,
it seems at first all space; but then your eye
- as is intended – straightway drawn
to that fine Persian vase which sits
upon an old oak chest, its lid, polished
with the wax of love and years,
a crack across it somehow speaking
of trials borne and overcome;
the tale of life, of time, of history, of lessons learnt.
The chest – it’s cedar lined, as aromatic as memory
when the lid is opened – does not now hold,
as when it was first carpentered, a bridal trousseau;
a girl given with fine clothes to destiny -
now, precious family documents
that tell of rights and duties, high positions
and their responsibilities, once held;
past, present and future, public life and private,
aromatic in the memory.
The vase is cool and vivid, curls of blue and white;
a cobalt blue, the colour of far-seeing beauty –
the surface colour seen in deepest sea;
the colour which the upper air, in flight,
seems to yearn for; as if we look
into the vase and through it and beyond it;
the white’s so white, it speaks of purity;
and here are touches of an emerald green
which sets off both, as if jewelled thoughts
are never far away from golden minds
I am the potter, speak that vase:
I am the eye that draws your eye,
I am the beauty that may touch your heart;
and to your mind, I bring the thought –
I too was born of dust, of clay and precious water,
decorated with a potter’s love;
one day I shall, by that accident which reigns
in life that passes, be broken into pieces
and return to dust…
you and I, our past is dust, our future dust –
but oh, the beauty of the present that’s eternal,
the joyous dancing of the here and now…
cobalt blue like sea and sky, innocent as white,
emerald as green fields fresh diamonded with dew..
poem by Michael Shepherd
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A human mind
I t is like human mind
you got to know and find
be generous and very kind
observe it by not remaining blind
mind should be allowed to be broad
it will think and cut into road
it may shed the fears and think
it may feel free for the doubts to sink
There has to be single and positive thought
no unnecessary provocative thoughts to be fought
one has to determine course of action clearly
Else time may come to pay for it dearly
time and ground to be tested twice
they may look cool and nice
it may prove very deceptive
there is something more to be suggestive
Assess the ground and venture
there may lay a clear future
jump when you are fully sure
with no double mind to assure
no one may come and guide you
it has to be performed by only you
it is folly on our part to expect from others
try to swim to shore and win over
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
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Breath by Breath
Our moments are precious and
Our time is now.
Use it wisely and use it well!
There is no connecting the past
And future. The presence is the
in-between and only lasts but
Less than a breath.
The presence is so fast,
a blink of an eye and it is the past!
Then are we really living our future with
each inhale and our past goes out
with each exhale?
Are is it really just a pretence of presence?
Future - Past,
Future - Past,
Future - Past!
poem by JDarrell Kirkley
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The History of Now
The recording of culture is history;
but our culture is more than that.
It's the world of human action,
and the myths we make of the fact.
The recording of history is culture,
but our history is more than that.
It informs a hidden agenda.
Unconscious of motive we act.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
It's only the present that exists as endowed.
It's the history of now. The moment - KAPOW!
That knocks you right over and muddies your brow.
Through the prism of language, we know what we know.
We carry our baggage and stories of woe.
Victor and vanquished pride cannot budge,
the dead weight of hatred and ancestral grudge.
We fight our good fights with our hand on our heart;
the music is swelling as loved ones depart.
As sheep to the slaughter, the script cannot chart,
a course more ignoble: the propagandist's art.
The recording of history is culture,
but our culture is more than that.
More than the great individuals,
the scholars so love in their tracts.
The recording of culture is history;
but our history is more than that.
Not simple dates or statistics,
the full horror and gore still attracts.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
A strange contradiction that makes sense somehow.
It's the history of now, a mystery and shroud.
The past and the future: best fiction allowed.
poem by David SmithWhite
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The Future Of The Past
New times are now old ones,
Old ones are now history,
History becomes ancient,
Ancient becomes unknown,
Unknown shifts though time,
Shaping and molding in every which way,
Unknown times become myths,
Myths become religions,
False becomes truth,
Truths move to morals,
Morals are now what we live by,
Now has just become then,
The past has once been the future,
The future will soon become the past,
You were once born in the future of the past,
But the past has caught up,
And taken you with it.
Like a deadly arrow the past pierces life,
The future itself becomes victim to its strike.
As if to be Bonnie and Clyde,
Hand in hand the two opposites collide,
Together bringing everything to their long awaited fate.
Doing what they do best toward their ever most passions,
The future and the past are, and were, the two deadliest assassins,
Today,
Tomorrow,
And yesterday...
poem by Justin MonacoBarnes
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Aurobindo 99 Savitri Book 7
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Seven: The Book of Yoga
Canto Three: The Entry into the Inner Countries
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
So a method of expedition spiritually medicated
Thus commencing here for us to follow..
'At first out of the busy hum of mind
As if from a loud thronged market into a cave
By an inward moment's magic she had come.
A stark hushed emptiness became her self:
'Her mind unvisited by the voice of thought
Stared at a void deep's dumb infinity.'
'Her heights receded, her depths behind her closed;
All fled away from her and left her blank.
But when she came back to her self of thought,
Once more she was a human thing on earth, '
'Amazed like one unknowing she sought her way'
'Then a Voice spoke that dwelt on secret heights: '
'For man thou seekst, not for thyself alone...
..Man, human, follows in God's human steps...
Accepting his darkness thou must bring to him light,
Accepting his sorrow thou must bring to him bliss.
In Matter's body find thy heaven-born soul.'
'Then Savitri surged out of her body's wall
And stood a little span outside herself
And looked into her subtle being's depths
And in its heart as in a lotus-bud
Divined her secret and mysterious soul.'
'At the dim portal of the inner life
That bars out from our depths the body's mind
And all that lives but by the body's breath,
She knocked and pressed against the ebony gate.
The living portal groaned with sullen hinge: '
Salvage o'Savitri down on Earh the mundane.....
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Soul's Soliloquy
It’s said that universal single mind,
as in a flash it flowers in our individual mind,
hastens first in two directions: polar opposites,
and then and thus, duality..
then, within these mighty parameters,
all that we call our mind –
all our imagination, and its limits self-imposed,
all the great adventure of our human thought –
watchmaker’s intricacy, tumble-dryer, roller-coaster,
battleground of warring factions –
all that we call our mind..
and thus from time to time, one concept which I throw
into this zoo, my mind, at feeding-time –
suppose the Hindu view correct – or at least,
worth any animal’s good chew –
that our most inward part, call it
the soul or what you will, is on
an almost ageless learning curve of many lives:
each life as homework set by shrewd examiners
of the last life’s papers; homework set to test
this candid candidate: we know your strengths,
let’s now work upon your weaknesses…
and let’s see, which family
would best suit you, get you going
one way or another…turn you out
a better-rounded personality…
If this is so – and personally, I like
the divine symmetry of this tiger
in the night of destiny – I wonder why
I should have no inkling of those past and future
friends, so intimate – my past and future soul:
to say to one, you, my elder brother,
are you proud of me? Have I upheld
our family’s just pride?
and you, my younger brother –
or should I call you, son? I bequeath to you
the best I’ve got to leave you with…
some things you’ll need, I may have quite forgot;
for that, I’m sorry; but here, take my loving wishes,
have yourself a great, great time…
you’ll never know, I’ll never know, perhaps
how much we three love one another..
or, perhaps, we shall..
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Aurobindo 118 Savitri Book 7
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Seven: The Book of Yoga
Canto Six: Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'But most her gaze pursued the birth of thought.'
'Affranchised from the look of surface mind
She paused not to survey the official case,
The issue of forms from the office of the brain,
Its factory of thought-sounds and soundless words
And voices stored within unheard by men,
Its mint and treasury of shining coin.
These were but counters in mind's symbol game, '
'In our unseen subtle body thought is born
Or there it enters from the cosmic field.
Oft from her soul stepped out a naked thought
Luminous with mysteried lips and wonderful eyes; '
'A seeing will pondered between the brows; '
Thoughts, glistening Angels, stood behind the brain
In flashing armour, folding hands of prayer,
And poured heaven's rays into the earthly form.'
'Impenetrable, withheld from mortal sense,
The inner chambers of the spirit's house
Disclosed to her their happenings and their guests; '
'A sight opened upon the invisible
And sensed the shapes that mortal eyes see not,
The sounds that mortal listening cannot hear,
The blissful sweetness of the intangible's touch; '
So spiritual sense differs from mortal sense..
'She felt the movements crossing unknown minds;
The past's events occurred before her eyes.
The great world's thoughts were part of her own thought, '
'The unseen grew visible and audible: '
'So she beheld the many births of thought,
If births can be of what eternal is; '......
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Forget About The Future
I know we got some history
We got some issues that we need to solve
But is it really such a mystery?
It's just the way that the world evolves
Let me ask your forgiveness baby
My heart is ever full of sorrow
We got to move into the future maybe
And think about a new tomorrow
She said you know I used to love you baby
But you're thinking way too fast
So forget about the future
And let's get on with the past
So they called a 'nited nations summit
To negotiate for peace on earth
And it may be idealistic baby
But I know what peace of mind is worth
Everybody aired their grievances
And they threw away the suture
They opened up all the wounds of the past
As they failed to find their way to the future
They said we'd better check the weather chart
Before we tie our colors to this mast
It's just too hard thinking about the future baby
So let's just get on with the past
She said we'd better check the horoscope honey
Just in case this feeling wasn't meant to last
It's just too hard thinking about the future
So let's just get on with the past
How many times you ever hear me say
I'm as flawed as any other human being?
There simply has to be a different way
And a whole new way of seeing
Are we doomed by all our history?
Is our love really beyond repair?
It's getting close to midnight baby
And we ain't got time to spare
Just when I think I'm home and dry
And she's given up the fight
There's an unmistakable optimism
In romantic music and candlelight
There's this lingering perfume
The merest ghost of the past
She says wait a minute baby
You're moving way too fast
Wec1
song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What is your substance...?
What’s your ‘substance’, Aristotle, pray? -
that in your book On Metaphysics, you
should feel the need to look at ‘being’ more
than Plato said of soul? How ‘know thyself’?
You focus your so glorious mind, O sage,
on what confronts us in our human state;
hoping that from there, all will disclose
itself; and so you seek to formulate:
in Book Four, Chapter Two, acutely list
four ways, four meanings, of the Greek as used;
to us, they’re more apparent grammar-wise:
‘being’ as noun, verb, adverb, adjective…
you ultimately choose the languaged thing:
nouned as existence, substance - ‘ousia’;
no wonder Shakespeare took you up on that;
asking as he did, God’s self in human form
what were the essence of that insubstantial
substance that the world’s whole being holds:
and out from all these cloudy worlds of thought -
it’s ‘constancy’ in godly human heart..
I wonder, Aristotle, if Will’s search
to see the One that’s constant in the All
would satisfy your subtle Grecian mind?
or, in Creation’s grammar as it lives,
do active verbs precede substantive nouns?
And do we know our godly self more true,
as constant in ourselves, in Being Now?
*
[For Pete, who asked]
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Humanity In Harmony
so tiring numb
casting mind back
into decades past
to conform
to previous
liquid life lived
thoughts ideas
words emotions
past thought
to live
form thought
confined
in spectral images
ghost life
echo of who
we were lived with
seize power energy
potent in today
life opportunities
are waiting
for creation
dreams be born
shape better word
now tomorrow
future children
future reality
create a new world
a better world
humanity in harmony
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Broken Record
Days are passing like the wind
When you try to grasp the memories
You only catch an empty air
You told me it's not your heart that hurts
When there is broken glass shattered
You told me it's not your tears that shed
When I see the shake in your body
I'm tired of waiting nothing
I'm tired of reading signal
If we already know of the future
We don't have to use unnecessary lies
Why do you regret for the moment you never there
Why do you sad for all laugh that you are missed
And the sweet memories just become cruel reminder
I thought that it's gonna be rain
When I see those glassy mesmerizing eyes
I thought there'll come a storm
When all the trees whisper of danger
There is a deep deep abyss under my feet
And I'm going to fall miserably
When the pool of darkness stirred in my mind
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Hour Glass
As grains start to fall, everything is new.
Nothing is known about what to do.
As the pile of grains continues to grow,
It seems easier to know which way to go.
When grains approach a quarter of the way,
Things appear less black and white versus an earlier day.
But the world is exciting and there’s plenty of time.
Any thoughts of the hour glass give way to the sublime.
Pleasure, money, power and love battle for share,
While the grains at the top become increasingly rare.
At half way flowing grains take on a resounding force,
Though few pay attention as they race on their course.
Mental and physical factors band together as reminders,
But many still prefer to continue using their blinders.
As the grains accumulate to their three quarters state,
The niave and unprepared are in for a sad, brutal fate.
They still act as if they have power over the grains and the glass.
Nothing could be more wrong as the last few grains pass.
For matter not the importance or the manner of any man
When his last grain falls, the hour glass won’t turn over again.
poem by Gregory Huyette
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Our time is now
Days continue to pass, still no future in sight
took a left at the fork, i should have turned right
oh how i wish i could see, the beginning to the end of time
and defy the laws of our human mind
instead stuck i stay, forced to live day by day
but is it really such a curse? striving to make each day better than the worst, realizing were not promised tomorrow, this is a thought ment to borrow
what if the future i saw, was bitter and dead
a thought as this would confuse the head
maybe find a feeling of inevitability, and refuse every responsibility
then lie down and wait, to let this impending future become your fate
perhaps your future was the other way around
walking on the sky instead of the ground
would you try as hard to find your light, or dive from a plane that never took flight, because you were blinded by your future shinning so bright
living day by day is a curse? i believe the opposite, reverse
so before from reality you are torn, in seeking the future i must worn
the only rewards are sickle and thorn,
for our time is now, thats why we were born.
'Death is the future for us all, we walk a lifetime, untill we fall' E.A.F
poem by Ethan A. Francis
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Constant Time
Time past and the future give way to this present picture,
But can somebody tell me how to recognize that gate that leads to the bed of roses,
We speak about the future like the past is a grain of sand on the shore,
Washed away by the ocean tide,
Giving way to new grains to make a portrait of the present,
These past memories stay deep in our heart like the depths of the ocean,
Though it gets washed back to shore ones in a blue moon,
Reminding us that our past is a standard measurement of our strength,
Time moves so fast making the past to fade away,
this makes us seem so secured about the present,
Forgetting the fact that our present becomes our past that was once a present from nature as a new day,
Some take the future to be a dream and a wish,
But I take my future to be what I see when I stand from the bottom of the mountain to look at the top,
And my past to be the depth of the ocean that can always be washed ashore …
The only thing I can control is my present,
Yes cos my mind controls my hands to give you a flash of what goes on in my head
Like this words i write to you was once my future and will become my past, making my future my past and my past my future..So ironical isn’t it?
Standing here I sure know 1 thing,
I will reach the top by that foot path,
Yes of course it’s not to mean that I wouldn’t fall,
But I have to break myself off my present past and walk with grace to stand where I belong,
There where I am the king of my destiny,
The past is just going to be a page of memories,
And my future will become my present making time constant in my head,
Because I stand on my past which was once my present and my present which was once my future, making time equal and constant
As I flip thru this page of life,
By: ade
poem by Adeniran Oluokun
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The Thought Police
(d. pickerill/p. odonoughue)
Chorus:
Thought police
They will put you under
The thought police
They will take you in
The thought police
They will clean your mind out
The thought police
You can never win
You can never win
You can never, never, never, never, never win
There are people around with problems
Those who live in fear
Running from the shadows
Waiting for another year
Thought of the secrets
Secrets of the mind
Thoughts can spell out danger
To the leaders of the time
Chorus
Thoughts are fleeting glimpses
Of the future or the past
They lock ideas in a bottle
Its time to break the glass
Hiding out in the daytime
Crawling through the night
Keeping out of danger
Just trying to find the light
Chorus
Chorus (x2 and fade)
song performed by by Lisa Stansfield
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Love is difficult: Isaac of Nineveh
Love is difficult
until it’s easy..
How to write of this,
unless, until, we’re like him.. old and wise and
blind with reading and austerity,
speaking of what he’d become;
so that we, enfolded in his love,
become a little, that of which he writes?
On his painful, joyful, great adventure
to become the world,
seen as Creation sees it,
his heart so loved the mind,
his mind so loved the heart; that
these two walked together,
climbed hard mountains,
washed in cool, fresh streams;
were compassionate of each other’s failings;
rejoiced in each other’s purity.
Call this what you know of it.
First, he sought the body’s freedom
to be the tool of what was asked of it;
call this what you know of it.
Then, he sought what the unconscious mind
threw up from depths yet still not deep enough:
‘logismoi’ was the name some gave:
those seeds of action which he learned to listen to
to know whether they brought light,
or that darkness which is hard, agitated, cold,
these all at once..
call this what you know of it.
Then, love was easy: nothing was profane,
nothing sacred; he, sanctified,
sanctified the world around him;
his soul, when you were near him,
seemed to exhale a subtle, joyful fragrance
which changed the air around him;
embraced you in unspoken prayer
for all the world in mind: even devils,
serpents, sin, were thus embraced;
is this purity, compassion?
Call this, what you know of it.
All things then revealed to him
the secret of their being;
the visible, teaching the invisible;
the manifest teaching the unmanifest.
It’s said that Isaac was described
as ‘priest of all the world,
celebrating at the altar of his heart’;
call this, what you know of it.
For love is difficult
until it’s easy.
*
{Saint Isaac of Nineveh was born c.625 AD/CE
at what is now Qatar on the shores
of the Persian Gulf; especially beloved
in 19th century Russia.}
poem by Michael Shepherd
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