Peaceful

I have often found the adjective “peaceful' being misplaced. What is a peaceful place? There can be quiet places, silent places or ones without pollution. Well then, What is a peaceful time? There can be times that help us focus, that unleash the animals in us, or times when we care for our own well beings. The only thing that can be peaceful is a mind. I've seen people whine at the most serene places, including temples and hills and temples on hills. I've witnessed them being lost a couple of hours past midnight when even the owls and crickets sleep.

As a generation laden with sensory input, we have transformed our definition of peace to an external entity. We often tend to link our peace with places like temples or hilltops or serene beaches, with times like festivals or Saturday mornings or Friday midnights. Indeed, our quest for inner peace and understanding has also become something physical where we seek external inputs. Think of backpackers, weed smokers and cat lovers.What consequentially follows is our love for the “feeling" of inner peace and not the peace itself. This, like most other feelings, is allusory and temporary and will leave us seeking more.

On the contrary, achieving such peace leaves you without a desire. The lack of such desire is a powerful experience. Like most logical solutions to brainticklers or cycling, it's something that you won't/can't forget once it is done. Such lack of desire is not to be confused with mere laziness or lack of will. Laziness or lack of will often create a desire in the other direction, where the physical luxuries are prioritised. Unlike a theory that relies on total brain control, this requires no abstinence. For you shall see, there is nothing more enjoyable. Or for a moment or two, you'll see your body as a physical entity with never ending needs. If only we could sustain such momentary joys and learn to experience them in mundane routines, we shall be heading towards the greater man, the Superman, the Atman that every Nietzsche wants.

The answers to such questions on the ways to achievement are best summed up atleast 3 millennia ago in the form of Bhagavad Gita. With a theistic mask of attaining Moksha(freedom, from life), Lord Sri Krishna has shown the three ways that should support everyone achieve it.

1. An atheistic approach - The path of knowledge (Gnana) - Learn about the universe well until you realize your "infinitesimally small role.” With such feeble effect on the universe, realise the lack of importance that you give to yourself, let that ego die and become a silent spectator of the universe until you die.

2. The theistic approach - The path of ignorance (Bhakti) - Believe that God exists. Believe that he is the supreme power and controls everything everywhere. Believe everything in this world to be God's plan. Be a silent spectator of the rest of the world until you die and probably walk into heaven.

3. The agnostic approach - The path of thoughtlessness (Karma)- Stop pondering on the act and simply keep doing whatever feels productive and right until you die.

One of these should take you there.

Renunciation

Renunciation is one of the prime principles that most religions aim to push through into the human mind. Indeed, a person who practices renunciation is often revered by the society besides being admitted into the heaven and winning a seat in the Lords court. While it might sound appreciable at first to start being selfless, we might often forget that nature (or Theist’s God) in its logic of creation never aimed for self-less individuals.

In all its glory, nature has always rewarded the selfish individual by following principles of the evolution theory. We had been offered memory beyond instinct to store information, hormones to process and react to that information, that can induce many emotions into human mind, beyond fear and satisfaction. The nature’s offerings means that we are free to exercise our abilities to work to meet our needs, beyond which we can splurge in emotions.

Given that we have access to memories and hormones and willpower to remember, recall and relish the sweet memories and thus, be happier in life in general; Given that the after-life is a mythical concept adored by the religions to make behavioural changes in human minds and thus controlling their activities, acting in personal interests and emotional well-being seems like a better option to pursue in wake of logic. While the choice to ruminate includes the risk of sadness, it certainly makes life more lively.

Ye Laal Ishq

Distinct rafts in tempest flows, maybe we aren't close,

Clean, sober, empty over, over to the seas do we hover.

Death strikes a heart twice, once when it lays once when it lies,

Wouldn't I cut and throb in pain, to be in your company again?

I still wait for the bus to pass, I still wake up for a physics class,

Nostalgic is the flu and inventory, such a fucked up story.

The love is red indeed, red as a rose, ye laal Ishq...

The love is tender, tender as butter, ye malaal ishq…

Naive

A tender naive heart is forever won,
When a morning bloom meets the sun,
Or when the ship of love first sets sail,
Or when a ferocious dog wags its tail.

Such a heart rains emotion everywhere,
Unaware that future also needs a share,
Blinded to have found a partner in crime,
Ignorant how nature changes over time.

The flower shall wilt and the dog will die,
The grief may leave no more tears to cry,
All that lives shall someday have to perish,
Blessed is the heart with a love to cherish.