Jai Arunachala!

a poem for what remains

Vishnu welcomes me at yet another airport portal

Carrying a trident and spinning a divine disc with his mighty index finger.

Giants churn the milk ocean over a backdrop of designer hand bags.

I desperately try to not forget all that I have seen

As unforeseeable outcomes emerge in waves of final calls

While across the sea of stars another war is raging.

A cultural war.

A war on time.

A war on sanity, purpose, matter and mind.

Beauty is at stake.

Memory is fading fast.

A trail of misguided grievances has fed a homeless army of ghosts.

Greed has caused the most rational to think thus only from the lens of fear.

I pause and reminisce.

…

Those who had nothing gave me everything.

Those who had everything left me out to dry.

Why is the world like this?

Why are those like me so often cruel?

The plain truth was always there, I suppose.

You can only take what doesn’t belong to you for so long.

Eventually the ghosts find you.

They take advantage of your forgetfulness.

No security can be found where motivation is impure.

…

“We shall overcome” echoes through the chamber hall.

While millions merely complain,

A rare reminder of the human capacity for courage sounds the alarm.

But we keep buying their products and using their tools,

Unable to live with less than what we have grown fond of.

Few among us can handle but even a spider on the wall now.

How far we have severed ourselves from the holy soil.

What does it even mean to be alive in times like these?

…

I remember the millions who ran toward The River.

Intoxicated by a love of god.

I remember the smell of incense burning,

The sound of happy children singing

And the sight of Krishna devotees dancing in ecstasy.

No possessions other than a robe, prayer beads and a small bell.

…

What does it take for the rich man to give up his throne?

And when everyone is rich, how can an entire nation be convinced to let go?

It isn’t only the billionaires who cling too tightly.

We have all taken too much.

We have all taken too much.

…

Ours is an era of Maya

Ours is the yug of Kali.

I continue writing when increasingly nothing in this mad world seems to matter.

Yet an ancient memory urges me to grow deeper, to feel more, regardless of relativity.

Knowing few in these degenerate times will pay the artist, the teacher or farmer

I find my strength instead in an undying devotion to Her

Like the sadhu at the feet of Ganga Ma

Like the holy madmen with spines ever erect in the wee hours of Shivratri

Like the anonymous saints who wander barefoot round Arunachala at dawn.

There is more to life than what has been told.

…

Some go to India and see but chaos, trash and despair.

The anthropologist opens the medicine bundle and only sees dust.

While others find God in the charnel grounds,

Eternity in an ear of Corn.

Look deeply dear friends.

These are powerful times.

OM.

#mayallbeingsbehappyandfree