Reality is not clueless

The world we live in is hardly, hardly clueless.

It’s not that we know everything, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything either. We find ourselves somewhere in between these boundaries, but just like the position of an orbiting electron in an electron cloud, we cannot at any given moment say, “this - is where we are” and pinpoint it.

Over millennia past, our thinkers and philosophers have agonised over this “knowing” - and their verdict, far from being clear and doubtless, is fractured and splintered into thousands of views, very like the uniqueness of snowflakes. Some claim we can “know” but cannot “describe”. Some say it’s better to describe, but that we should never think that whatever we describe may be literal or even real. Some just flatly say we cannot even “know”, let alone describe. Some espouse relative, subjective realities and say that these subjective parts can never make a whole. Some claim there is no unifying idea, but from what we know and see, we can at best only say that reality is a disconnected jumble of discrete episodes - that it cannot, even NEED NOT, make any sense. Some say there is a unifying factor, even rather a Person, called God. The whole range of views like agnosticism, empiricism, naturalism, theism, experientialism, and so on contain the sum total of what we human beings have come up with to deal with the reality of our world.

Regardless of what view we take, believe or espouse, each of us explains or interprets reality based on some sort of clues that it furnishes. Reality is hardly clueless for anyone, including the most hardened agnostic. Yes, the clues it gives may strike each of us in a different way and point in some divergent directions, but that there are clues that present themselves - this is universal and beyond doubt. To deny this, we’d have to deny reality itself. Saying that the clues are ‘subjective’ does not nullify them as clues. It’s impossible for us as human beings to kind of stand over and above everything, or totally outside ‘the whole show’ we call ‘reality’ and make ‘objective’ pronouncements. To do any such thing we’d have to deny reality - and this would cut the integrity from under our prognostications.

From the clues we get, what can we say? Is ‘reality’ just what we happen to see? Or are there layers? Is there anything beyond what we happen to see? For most of us, this question can be described using a range of words and phrases - irrelevant, an impossible pursuit, a waste of time, a set with zero elements, not worth the effort and so on. Many of us claim agnosticism to be the only reasonable, tenable view, consciously or otherwise. “I don’t know” is a perfect, effectively pragmatic explanation, and together with “I don’t care”, it becomes a formidable fortress that very rarely comes under siege. In the cover of this explanation, we live our lives and think we have kept this question at bay.

But the fact remains that reality just doesn’t let up - it keeps us in the ‘I-know-it’s-useless-to-try-but-I-want-to-know-at-least-something’ frame of mind. All of us give ourselves (or want to give ourselves) SOME sort of explanation, and many of us admit at least one (or more than one) layer behind reality. So we do the work and give ourselves some plausible explanation. Now these explanations might not all be consciously believed, but as long as we can tell ourselves we have them, they do put us at rest about reality as we know it and help us go on with our lives from day to day.

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From the clues I’ve gotten, however, in my life, I can definitely attest to layers behind reality as my eyes and my heart see it. It looks to me like our world is not just a single, three dimensional entity. It’s not just space, time and matter that make up reality. There is plenty of evidence for intangible stuff that we cannot account for using just space, time and matter, or any possible combination of these. To me it looks like reality is just a front, a blind, a cover for something I cannot see, but which definitely exists. Now my big problem is that I cannot by myself peel my reality off like the layer it is and see what lies behind it. The crunch here is also that herein, I believe, lies the key to get at the roots of things as I see them.

It also seems to me like there are at least two kinds of realities that have perfectly intersected to create this ‘front’, this ‘blind’ that I see from where I am. In crystallography, we are told of the phenomenon of “twinning” - when two identical crystals are kind of conjoined inseparable. Only, in the case of the reality I see, the two realities that make up the ‘front’ are not even distinguishable or similar, not to speak of identical - but they are twinned nevertheless. An invisible world is inseparably conjoined with ours - but this may have left very few clues to us for us to suspect anything. What’s more, this invisible conjoined twin is always in the process of being manipulated to delete all traces of its existence, when in ‘reality’ it not only exists, but also ghost-writes our scripts sometimes, and alters the front of the picture from behind it, under cover of darkness.

Interestingly, one of the most peculiar things about this conjoined reality is that even though it invades our seen reality and takes absolute control many times, we human beings cannot cross over to it fully except when we die. We live all our lives in the ‘front’, the ‘blind’, the ‘veil’, never able to pull back the curtains to see that invisible reality.

Space plus matter plus time - it doesn’t add up. In fact, the sum of these makes only a diminutive part of that whole show we call reality. So much happens in our world that should alert us to this possibility being true. I here offer just one case in point - the exponential increased interest in the occult. It’s very ironic that many people keep telling us religion is a failed experiment, but from the vantage point of ground realities, almost no computer game or special effects film these days can get by without appeal to the occult and to altered realities or even altered perceptions of reality. Isn’t the occult the realm of religion - of metaphysical and transcendent entities and existences? If so, then how can religion be a failed experiment? It has at least taught us there is (or at least, ‘might be’) a world behind the one we see, and our interest in the occult is resounding evidence that we want to touch that reality that lies ‘beyond’. This might be a simple point, but it is overlooked because many people tell us that religion only has to do with ‘God’ (who they discount) and not with occult forces (which they certainly do not discount). Who’s to say that that invisible conjoined reality cannot have to do with both God and occult forces?

Another case in point is the huge interest in ‘spirituality’ over the last few decades. So many people preach to us to ‘get in touch with the inner you’. Who, what, and where is this ‘inner us’ if space, time and matter made everything we know? Ironically, even though spirituality and naturalism may contradict each other fatally in a logical sense, they can peacefully coexist as tenable arguments in the ‘front’ that we all call reality.

Two realities, then, are in constant friction - that is the ‘reality’ that we see. One reality is invisible, the other is visible. During our lifetimes, we live (or at least physically seem to live) largely in the visible reality, unable to fully cross over to the other reality. At the same time, we have some presence in the invisible reality (the ‘inner us’); and also, the invisible reality is always furtively altering and reconstructing the ‘front’ that we perceive as ‘reality’. It LOOKS to us like one reality, but there are actually two realities always jostling to produce the picture, the front, the blind, the ‘veil’ we see.

What do we know about this invisible reality? Not much - though, like all things, our nosy-parker minds have always pioneered fresh new vistas in it - regardless of whether or not such knowledge is actually to our advantage. We know this much - if we can ‘control’ that reality from our visible reality, we can alter almost everything in the visible reality and do exactly as we please. All of the things human beings have been known to do to ‘interact’ with this invisible reality have taught us this much. We also do know and admit there are beings in this invisible reality that might be very unlike us, but which we know have huge powers over our reality that they wield to devastating effect in many cases, and we try desperately to tap into this power and use it to our advantage in the visible reality.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m just describing things as I see them. I’m just taking into account everything I’ve seen human beings do, and every human behaviour. I might even try to compress things to this one simple point - if you really believe there is no such being as ‘God’, then maybe you shouldn’t believe in the occult or in spirituality (“the inner us”) either, because that would be a selective kind of belief fraught with fraudulent logic. If there is the one, there is no plausible reason why the other must not or cannot exist. If you think spirits exist, well - God is a spirit, why cannot he exist?

Reality, that which we call a single thing, that front of the picture, is hardly a single thing. It bears all the evidence of being a ghostwritten or paint-by-proxy thing in which at least two realities are jostling it out for elbow room.

What of ‘God’ then?

The most telltale giveaway that God exists is that we all admit the power the invisible reality has on the state of things in the visible reality. Why then does it sound so unbelievable, unthinkable to us that a ‘God’ could have created both the invisible and the visible reality, and is in supreme control over both? If we can conduct a seance to tap into the power of a lesser ‘spirit’, what is so absurd or outlandish to at least believe there is a God who is benevolent, transcendent, in supreme authority and who has created us? If we want the ‘bad’ so much in the occult, why do we deny the good that we can surely tap into in God?

Just throwing questions and thoughts into the air - think about them if you’d like.

2016 years on......

This post was inspired by Axwell and Ingrosso's song "Something New".



A new world breaks into an old.

We’ve seen something like this before, when, every morning, dawn breaks into the darkest hour of night. The night resists, but daylight wins slowly, now taking root and spreading into the invisible nooks where darkness nestles, now flooding the open spaces.

Yes, we’ve seen something like it before.

But no, we often don’t quite see it now. Not because it doesn’t happen anymore, but rather because we only learn to expect what we’ve seen before…..and, truth be told, we ain’t seen anything quite like this before. So we fail to perceive, understand or fathom it. To some it looks exactly the same as before; to others, nothing is ever quite the same again.

Now the new tongue, the new song of eternity is being learned by people everywhere. The song of beginning to die when we’re born – has now begun to die itself. In the new song, we are now reborn, to begin to live for ever. Death has itself died forever, and life has itself begun to live forever. There used to be both life AND death in one life before; now there is EITHER life or death. If life, then life grows forever; if death, death grows forever. You can choose again – after all the chains of centuries before.

The new world, the new man, the new song, the new story.

It is time, ABOUT time, in fact, to speak of new things. Now the sounds ring out, never ever heard for centuries before. The fire of life throwing over death to start again and never ever be extinguished.

The new world enters by an imperceptible spiritual osmosis, seemingly keeping everything intact but transforming everything forever at the same time. Whatever cell or tissue is touched mutates for the good, for ever. This is good “infection” – one that gives life and spreads forever. Contagious in the most delightful and gorgeous possible way.

The new man looks upward with hope – hope that, for the first time, will never fail to be realised fully. This time the bad people will not take the hope and run, denying it to everyone else. No one on earth can steal it to ruin mankind with their theft. The new hope will surely come to anyone who receives it with open hands and an open heart. It can never be taken from anyone who has it; it will never leave, go away, or rot. Hope fulfilled – the best healing balm.

The new song tells of new things never heard or seen before. Of love that can actually prevail no matter what. Of an eternal love that denied itself on a bloody altar to be applied to wounded hearts, to bring eternal healing. Irreversible. Irrepressible. Always exciting, joyful and bright. Eternal – can never die away. It is the ultimate odd time signature to break open all earth’s cadences - the ultimate key signature that unlocks all of earth’s songs.

The new story is unlike all of earth’s stories. It is the one, only, single story that illumines every earthly story and every human story. It is the one story that defies earth’s logic, the ultimate counterpoint to reverse all wrongs. It is not merely of earth, but spans a cosmic panorama that the biggest human mind cannot conceive. It can never be told fully even when one has known it and lived it. It is a happy story, blasting all the withering sadness of life’s existence away for all eternity. It is the only true good news story in the history of life on earth.

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Why do you sit among the ruins? Why cannot you perceive the new world? Why are you not able to understand what I say? Why can you not see what I see? Why do you act as if it’s the same old world? Why do you live as though nothing has ever happened? Why do you mock the only true “too good to be true” story? Who are you? Can you tell me? Ah, but only this story can tell you who you are - without it, you wouldn’t know who you ever were, or unlock your true identity.

Everywhere I see invasions of the new world. Everyday I see an invasion. Every time, I meet at least one person who is living in this new world – and next door is the same old world. The new world breaks in one person at a time, and will not touch that person’s neighbour until received by the neighbour too. It comes only to them that perceive it and receive it with empty, open hands and hearts.

Call me a deranged madman. A talented con artist-word smith. A charlatan. A pathological liar. A judgemental doomsday prophet. Or simply a deluded person. For heaven’s sake call me what you will. But at least hear what I say and try to see what I see.

When the new has fully come, the old will have to make way – but at that time it will be too late to receive the new. Now. Now is when the new can break in. Only you can lock it out – forever. Sit down a minute and think……

Go find that someone who's not human

Pause long enough if you indeed can, and you will see what's really going on. It's not exactly behind the scenes - it is in front of your eyes, but you can't see it. Your eyes are defective. They need the scales to fall, the penny to drop.

Around 80 percent of readers are going to abandon this post right here. I'm not surprised and I don't care! I'm not trying to act like I know better than you. I am worse than you in many ways. Far worse. Those who really know me would have pressed the buzzer long ago.

All of that aside, don't you ever wonder what has happened to any patience our human race ever had? I can almost hear the screaming, "get to the point already! I don't have time!" We're hardly a couple of paragraphs into this post. 

So why do we need to know RIGHT NOW? This instant? Can't we wait for it?

Why do we have to know EVERYTHING? Can't we leave any room for mystery?

Why do we have to turn the spotlights on every detail? Can't we leave some things alone?

Why do we have to name things all the time? Isn't that merely a form of denial - a way of "homogenising" everything? Why can't some things be left unsaid, undone, unnamed. unknown, awaited?

Why are all the wheels in the world squeaky suddenly?

Why does every loop, every thread, need to be closed and circuited? What's wrong with leaving some things open ended? Why do there need to be results all the time? So what if some things actually do not produce results? Do all such things become invalid because of that?

Do we have to solve for every variable in this world? Every time?

Why does every single thing have to be binary - either succeeding or failing, with nothing in between? Can't some things succeed at times and fail at others without making the news and everyone's red-eye target?

Thank heavens that even though we insist on knowing everything all the time and controlling everything all the time, there are a zillion things that we cannot know and cannot control no matter how successful we get at doing so. Such things remind us that we are limited and ensure that we don't become bored. They also keep some mysteries intact and away from our prying eyes and nosy-parker minds.

It's ironical that even though we insist on knowing everything and looking under every carpet, we accept the answers that present themselves without questioning. We want answers but we won't wait long enough to work out whether an answer actually works or not, whether it is really credible or not. We are so impatient that we assume answers, many times. We act on these assumptions too. We are both feverishly nosy as well as childishly gullible, all at the same time, with everything.

Therefore, everything that's really important remains under wraps and shrouded in both mystery and controversy, because we accept pat answers and leave no room for subtlety, nuance, shades or depth. We don't have the ken for complexity, really, no matter how vehemently we multi-task. As you can imagine, this is both a good thing as well as a bad thing, because life is more complex than it is simple. So, with our present (as in, this age) approach to our quests for knowledge, we're not going to be able to learn very much about it that we can really work with. Not that this ever deterred us.....

What are the important things in life anyways?

We somehow cannot agree on this. Some of us say it is the here and now. Many of us say it's happiness. Some of us say it's the future. Very, very few actually will admit that it is where we came from and how we got here, that really has the power to endow our lives with purpose and meaning and shed a beam of light down our present paths and where they are leading us. 

We very rarely pause long enough to appreciate that though we do know that only the big picture, with origins, the present and the future, will make complete sense of our lives, we usually opt to live locally in the now and ignore questions of origin ("no one will ever be able to find out, so why try") and destiny ("we'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it") Along with the pivotal questions of origin and destiny, purpose, which is the jewel of life if we cared enough to admit it, also becomes somewhat of a diamond in the rough and in the dust.

The question we're usually most concerned with, even though many of us are ignorant of this and many of us are in denial, is this thing called identity. "Who am I?" still remains the most pivotal unanswered question. Many of us go through life without ever having asked it; and almost all of us substitute anything for it but the truth about it. 

There's a big technology revolution going on these days. Almost every human being is becoming increasingly traceable, monitor-able and track-able, but the real distances between us are opening up in yawning chasms without even broken rope bridges between. We are getting up to within jostling space of each other, but the possibility of us remaining strangers forever has never ever been more than a heartbeat away. Nearness and communication have become increasingly inversely related. The nearer technology brings us, the worse we seem to be able to communicate.

Whistle blowers come and go. Actually, trumpets are blaring in our ears. Real insights are waiting for the eyes that care enough for a second opinion about the diamonds in the dust. But most of us just pass on by. Our faces are grim; our outlook like a pronounced judgment, and there seems to be some force within us that will keep us going, even if it is in the wrong direction.

The image I get of life on this planet is that of a nuclear treatment plant in which alarms are blaring because the radiation walls have fallen and the toxin is everywhere. The sound of the alarms is deafening, and the sights of radiation damage, unimaginable. Yet, most of us go through this nuclear treatment plant impeccably dressed, blissfully unaware and/or immune, ostensibly not harming ourselves or others (never mind the radiation damage), perfectly mannered, smiling as we drift towards eternity, even as we mutate imperceptibly, inexorably and irreversibly into eternally feral beings without knowing it, as if life was nothing more than a comedy of manners. Can we not hear? Can we not see? Apparently not.

We are on a systematic hunt for all mirrors - to destroy them so that we will never have to look at ourselves again. The picture of Dorian Gray has already been altered willingly and there is no remorse at it, or even anger. Every single dial at the nuclear plant is spinning out of control, but we think it's just a manufacturing defect. Even though our attempts at fixing this defect have failed miserably again and again.

Now that I've painted us all into some dark, sinister corner, you may ask, what are we supposed to do? Don't you have answers instead of these infernal questions? Can you not offer hope rather than doomsday prophecy?

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Answers cannot save us. Every single answer we figured out has only led to more questions.

Solutions are always temporary. The wrong people always take them and run, leaving the rest of us holding the bag. It's always been that way.

The thing we've always failed to understand about life is that there has always been a need to RESTART it. Technology should help us with the analogy that goes with this word "restart". However, when a virus hits a microchip, restarting is of no use. You need to replace the motherboard. Change the chips. Virtually, re-make or re-model the computer.

Now since we've lost the instruction thingy and/or have failed to do it perfectly, the magnitude of this "re-make" is unthinkable, and those among us who know this have already given up trying to do it on our own. We need help. Presumably, we will get help if we first give up trying on our own and then actually ask for it. Ask where? Ask who? Ask what?

Ask the maker of life, obviously. There's got to be SOMEONE like that who knows what's going on, surely? 

So, go figure. Never was there a time when more depended on us having to "go figure".

If you believe in meta data, so much the better. There's ALWAYS meta data. Yet, meta data also stops with someone who knows themselves completely; and obviously this someone isn't human, or we'd have been able to fix ourselves perfectly by now. 

Don't look at me now - I've only done what I was supposed to do - sit by the wayside and blow whistles. Go find that one who's not human.

……and, another bright spark - on teaching kids

When you came to me, you were exquisitely beautiful. So much so that I could not look past your beauty for a long, long, time - it held me in thrall, captive. In one sense, I could look past everything else about you - your smallness, your untidiness, your nano-second attention span, your inability to sit still at all, your loudness, your default disobedience, EVERYTHING. Initially, for a long, long time, I completely forgot I had to teach you something, because your beauty just captured my heart.

You touched my heart very deeply by just being around, many, many times. When we spoke, I didn’t remember much of WHAT we spoke as much as the fact THAT we spoke. I loved the way your eyes lit up like bright twinkling points in the night whenever something caught your sense of wonder. I loved how you went berserk when your mind actually grasped something, even something minor and trivial (like how the wheels of a bus go round, for example).

You fulfilled me without having to do anything; there was nothing imperfect about you. Nothing. You were always the highlight of the day, the thing that made me smile even when other things and adults constantly wore me down. You became, in a manner of speaking, an idol.

For a long time, it became enough for me just to see you everyday, to spend time with you, to watch you grow. I wanted to be there for all the changes that came with growth.

It was only when I reflected on the fact that you were meant to grow, that I came to my senses. I realised I had been given you so that I could help you grow. I began to realise hard, cold facts like you needed me, in one sense, far, far more than I needed you. You weren’t there for my enjoyment or pleasure (though you certainly succeeded at that without even trying) - you were there because I, the adult, had something really pivotal and essential that you needed to grow, which I had to give you so that I give an account to the One Who gave me that thing.

It was then that I realised that it had become selfish of me to want you to be with me, and yet not give you the very thing I had that you needed. In idolising you, I had thought only of myself, not of you. Then I also remembered how innocent you were, and then I fell into deep anguish that I had, in fact, used you instead of helping you grow. I had failed! It was crushing to realise that only I could give you what I had, and I had been consistently failing to give it to you.

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At that time, I thought I must give up because I was so angry at myself; and I saw you, in all your beauty, now with the imperfection of lack - you lacked what only I in this whole world could give you, and your growth was stunted because I hadn’t done for you what I was supposed to do.

I thank God above that I did not wallow selfishly, thinking only of myself; had I done that, you might have remained imperfect and stunted the rest of your life, because only I could give you what I was supposed to give you. No one else could have done that for you. 

I thank God that the deep, deep love I had developed for you came to my rescue. It goaded me into action; I realised that I wasn’t supposed to leave you the way you were when you first came to me; that would be a far worse sin than my selfishness with you had been.

I saw that my love for you must find fulfillment in my heart, for me too, because it wasn’t entirely a selfish love. 

I then resolved to never leave you until I had given you what I was supposed to give; to stop using you and start giving to you.

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THEN began the process of trying to give you what I had been ordained to give you. In those days it became very hard indeed; and I must say you made it no easier for me. I now began to see your bewitching beauty as something indeed bewitching beyond bearing - the temptation to be selfish was always there, waiting to move in. I also found that in your innocence, you had no idea what I was supposed to give you; and you were constantly in the way of receiving what I had to give you without even meaning to do so. You began to frustrate me - sometimes you pushed me away and cried.

I realised you wouldn’t be able to help me fulfil my love for you in any way. Then many things that had at first endeared you to me now upset me beyond bearing because they were, stubbornly yet innocently, hindrances to your ability to receive. I realised how hard my task really was; my eyes had indeed opened.

I just stuck to it because of my love for you. I had a mission, and I would not quit no matter how hard it got because that’s what friends do for each other. I put my nose to the grindstone and started the long and lonely trudge to the real you, hidden deep inside you, that was able to receive what I had to give.

Sometimes you helped, but most times you were just unable because you were just growing. But I still remember your affection and your love that you showed many a time, all innocently and always without warning; these in no small way made everything easier, and more than easier, WORTH IT.

Sometimes it was like the early days, when you would go absolutely and uncontrollably berserk when you received a bit of what I was giving you and knew it; you understood. At other times, I softly cried that you thought I was such a nuisance and so hurtful to you. Growth hurts, we both realised.

I just want to tell you this - I would do it again for you if I had to, without batting an eyelid.

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The whole thing was almost chemical, electronic even, maybe there was a robotic element to it. I realised that you had switches, just like I did. What I had to do was find them for you and turn them on, because you couldn’t do that by yourself. 

But you were this impossible, bumbling, energy-dripping bouncing ball which I could not hold down, and even when I could physically get you, I could not engage that mind of yours!

I had to engage that mind - or, no matter how close I came, all my efforts, all the years, would have been useless. USELESS! The thought chilled me.

So I did a number on you. I FOUND ways to get into your mind and there I searched frantically for those switches. WHERE WERE THEY?

You kids bury those switches. I have to tell you that now, after all these years. The maddening thing is that you hardly know how you do it, yet you do it expertly even so.

Then I realised that you buried the switches because other adults failed you. It was the only escape hatch you had been given to protect yourself from harmful people. The harmful people, far from loving you or doing their duty to you, just filled you with layers of dirt. Just plain ‘unadulterated’ dirt. This dirt made you behave really strangely - first, you buried the switches, then you began to hide clues too. Sometimes even the scars would disappear, leaving me with nowhere to start.

So I began digging. I held you close and felt fiercely protective, so fiercely that it began to cost me. I didn’t care what it cost. I just went on doing my work. Layer after layer, red herring after another, false positive after another.

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So you want to know where this story ends?

Today you walked in to my class. After half a century, maybe. You were not beautiful, at least not in the way you had been when I first saw you. That made sense - you were now an adult.

But you were complete, in a way that you had never been in those years. And being complete made you beautiful in a whole new way.

I know this because you told me things about those years that I had been unable to see even then - the fact that I had finally been able to find the switches; and indeed helped you turn them on. And the light that flooded into you carried you through life, and here you were, telling me so - after half a century.

You asked me what I saw in you during those years, that I never stopped working on you. I really don’t know, I said. I just did what I had to do because I loved you and understood what I had been placed in your life to do. In fact I neither remember at what point I found the switches, nor turned them on. I guess once I found them, you turned them on yourself. It was easy THEN - child’s play, so to speak.

And here you stand, speaking highly of me. Now. Half a century later.

I didn’t tell you, but I will sleep easier tonight, because I can rest knowing I finally gave you what only I could give you; and you received it, and accepted it. But it’s more than that. Much more. 

*************************************************

In the dark, in bed, I thought about you. The years rolled back. At one point, in those years, I had only been painfully aware that you needed me and I should not fail you; but tonight I realised that I had needed you too. Not in the selfish way I remember back then, but maturely - to help me grow, just as I was supposed to help you grow. I realised that, had I failed you, we’d both be incomplete today, and that would have been a cosmic tragedy - true failure without remedy.

And I lie here and think of all those who came before you and after you; some, I succeeded, some I failed. I’m only human. The awesome thing is that there were others like you, each one as special as you; though none as special in the same way as you. Pleasantly, yet strangely, even among a constellation of ones like you, each of you remains individually special, and uniquely so.

Thank you for helping me. I want you to know that I would do all of it all over again should you need it, no matter what it would cost me.

Ode: A child

Life is fun.
Life…..is me.
Life is sometimes a big deal, a very big deal.
Sometimes it ain’t no big deal
And I can’t see what all the fuss is about.

I can see things you can’t see
Or don’t want to see
I don’t know if you know this
And sometimes I don’t even care whether you know
Sometimes I wish with all my heart that you could see,
Especially at those times when I can’t tell you.
But it’s okay if you don’t.

Do you see something about me?
I do. There are a few people who do.
I don’t know who they all are but I know some of them.
Some tell me. Most don’t.
I don’t care as long as they see.

This is a beautiful world
And this life is a thing full of deep feelings
But to see this you need eyes. My eyes, maybe.
I’m afraid many don’t have my eyes. It’s okay.
If you did have my eyes, you would see
That life always passes by when you’re not looking.
Some call me a dreamer. Maybe that’s what I am.
But I see life passing by and I can see all its colours.
Some colours, in fact most, are wildly and exhilaratingly vivid and iridescent.
Others are full of the hues of sunset. Warm, maybe, but ultimately sad.
I’m just thankful for the colours, whatever they are.

Sometimes I feel alone, but not in a lonely or sad way.
Sometimes I feel utterly alone in a devastatingly lonely way.
When I’m happy alone, I just wonder why everyone can’t see what I see
When I’m lonely alone, I wish more than ever that someone would actually see what I see.
Some do see and I am thankful for them.
Those who don’t see, well, it’s not their fault.

Life has a few words.
There is such a word as ‘noble’.
Some things that are always going to be right
No matter who we are or where we find ourselves.
Some words about life mean many different things.
‘Beautiful’ doesn’t always mean that we can see it.
But if we did really wish in our hearts to see,
We would.
Beautiful also means pretty.
Pretty is when I feel good about myself in a noble way
And when I am not thinking only of myself.
Maybe sometimes people are looking at me just like they see life passing by,
Those times when they do see.

Maybe I try to be those things I like.
The colours of life.
Sunrises. Flowers. Rain. Sunsets. Summer sun. Beaches.
The mountains. Snowflakes. The unending sea.
The happy skipping doggies.
It’s simple, really, when I think of it
Sometimes I can capture all of the things I love
In a smile. In the wind in my hair.
I’m very thankful that it’s simple
Because sometimes I know that for many, it is anything but simple.

I remember when I see life passing by.
I can’t forget. Guess that’s just me.
I need to remember the good things
So that I can be them.
Because sometimes I just get the feeling this isn’t a good world,
And we made it that way.
So I try to be part of the good things.
So people can see the good things all the time.
They need to.

So if you’re reading this,
I’ll ask you to remember
If you’ve seen me you’ll never say the world is a bad place
Or that life is only a thing of sorrow
Maybe you will ask where I came from
And maybe you’ll go ask The One from Whom I really came
And when you do, my work here’s done.

"The reign of good comes; I hear its footsteps at our very door!"

How long will we lust after earthly appointments and earthly power?
As the world's largest 'democracy' turns kingmaker,
Why choose we amongst those that are merely men
Whose sway extends but a breath in time?

I am asked to say,
Justice delayed is not justice denied
If an injustice toward our yeoman lies without atonement,
A time comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door,
When atonement will be required of us.

Why does evil prosper forever?
Yea, not forever, I am asked to say,
The reign of good comes; I hear its footsteps at our very door
For the evil man, it comes inexorable, unending and unendurable
Unanswerable, a crushing weight, a fatal wound with no remedy
Yea, the reign of good comes; I hear its footsteps at our very door.

I see a bloody cross
A symbol of foolishness and weakness this day
Yet I see it - a blazing unquenchable fire that consumes all
Today we nail One to that cross and think, here is an end of it
But in the day that comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door, 
Trapped without escape we will be, every last one
Unless refuge we find under the wings of that very Cross, today

Do not worry about the cause of justice, goodness and love
Today weak, desolate and friendless
Their Embodiment does not slumber, nor sleep in stupor
The Timekeeper stands alert, if merely silent
For the appointed day
You asked for justice, goodness and love
And finding none defended, denied the Timekeeper
When the reign of good comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door,
It will last till all evil is purged forever from all memory

Even now I hear trumpets. I see seals opened
That had been shut for eons
Like a nuclear station where the alarm ceaselessly blares
When all hope is gone
All around me every thing hisses, get out of here while you can
We can cover you no more
The reign of good comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door
Inside me is calm without a ripple, for I am now good
Because I have been washed clean by Divine Blood
A pristine cleanliness in a restless corrupted sea

Look up, not down
Look up - the sky itself speaks;
Now look around - the nations speak too
Mighty rivers even now dwindle into children's brooks
Petty kings today, gone forever tomorrow
Precious black flow,
Even now it keeps the wheels turning
But while the nations bustle about,
It dries imperceptibly
The reign of good comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door
When no one cares for the precious black flow anymore

And of that Sacred Mount,
That City of God,
That chosen race of God
Take careful heed today
The reign of good comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door
Those ancient gates fling open
Glorious, for The One to Whom His people gather
There will be no more rubble or smoking grave pits
The Sacred Mount will be exalted above all the mountains
To it will all earth's people stream
From it will flow life-giving streams
That heal the earth

The reign of good comes, I hear its footsteps at our very door
When the earth's riches will be replenished and free
And no one complain of want
Good will reign, justice will be crowned
Love will be the imperishable jewel
The Rightful King rules in righteousness and justice
There will be no usurper, no snake at His heel
No intrigues, no desolations
The earth will be full of the Glory of its Rightful King
Righteousness like a never-failing stream,
Justice a river flowing forever
Rain in its season and fruit in abundance
Every man under his own vine and fig tree

But lo! Twixt this day and that
Evil bursts forth!
The Warrior King even now prepares His holy right arm
Which brings Him victory
And the evildoers sit at tables
Speaking untruths to each other with grave countenance
The chosen race we will destroy, they say
Conspirators band together, masters of intrigue
Those that speak of destroying entire peoples
In the quiet of power's tall corridors
Look! War and not peace
Deceit and not truth!
And yet, the reign of good will unfailingly come
I yet hear its footsteps at our very door!

Come, do not tarry;
The trumpets, the trumpets,
Seals you never knew, now opening
The four winds of the earth
This is not the time to build houses
Or treasures on earth
What can be shaken will surely be shaken
So that what is unshakeable can be clearly seen
Come you now to that lonely hill
On which, many eons ago,
You killed One you thought was a mad Carpenter
Come now, there is refuge there, even a fortress
And you will come to no harm
Your soul preserved for when the reign of good comes
I hear its footsteps at our very door!

Life is....

Life is fragile.

'Fragile' is its most descriptive word, I think. The only other word that remotely qualifies is 'elusive'.

Now I speak of earthly life, that is to say, 'creaturely' life, and not Divine Life. The Divine Life is anything but fragile. And yes, the Divine Life is different from our life.

And I use the meaning of the word 'life' as in statements human beings make such as 'life is....' - that is, in a kind of descriptive sense, not definitional. 'Life is a shortbread butter cookie', though most formidably unanswerable, can hardly be definitional, I think, even if expressed by a two-year old.

Life, someone famously said, is what happens when you're not looking. I might say, of the one who said it, 'a famous person once famously said, with insight that I had not thought him capable of'.

Anyways. Somehow I agree. The moment I start trying to 'catch' life or distill it into repeatability, it hides or dies. It happens surreptitiously when no one is looking. And once it happens, it might almost said, it's almost impossible to simulate or repeat, even under conducive conditions, like death can. You can go on killing someone, for example, when the circumstances are favourable, such as no resistance, and so on. But you cannot go on creating life. Once life dies, it cannot be resurrected.

Now I must say again, I speak not of the Divine Life, nor of the Divine Life in some of us. I speak of the stuff of earthly life, creaturely life, in a descriptive sense.

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Will I ever be able to play the piano quite like I did, on a specific occasion? Will I always be able to find the words for each successive situation, as I did for a specific one? Will I always be able to express myself with the scalpel-sharp precision and blessed economy of words as I once did?

Will she always look at me like she once did? Will I always have the 'absolutely right' friend to be with me as my circumstances need as I once did?

Will there again be an hour before sunset as magical as yesterday's? Will my favourite mountain always look the same? Will the clouds be as magical tomorrow? Will the light catch my garden as magically as it did that day? Will the rain be as absolutely delightful and opportune on another day as it was on that day?

Will my two year-old always look as loveable as when she was two? Will my teenager ever ask a question with the same maddeningly bewitching innocence as he did once?

Will this life be as enjoyable if I had it again? (a big 'if', as it usually turns out)

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Yes, it is like catching a soap bubble to weigh it on a scale. Like a mad scientist who once weighed a man just before and after he died and concluded that the human soul weighs 21 grams.

Life is unique, unrepeatable, unpredictable, and uncontrollable. It will have its way.

You can alter it perhaps, but you can't have it again. Opportunities for adjustment are not infinite, nor will they be available forever.

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There is one thing we can do, however. We can NOTICE. And once we do, we can enjoy it. Life may be a moment, but what a tragedy if we fail to notice.

Since it is what happens when we're not looking, let's make our looking count.

This could just mean taking a half hour to walk in a garden between 4:45 P.M and 5:15 P.M on a day when it rained in the afternoon and then the sun came out. There were still dull-grey clouds in the sky, but every one of them had a silver lining and the dappled sunlight touched every single green leaf. You missed it today? Okay, you tell yourself, I'll see it tomorrow. And then..... it rained all day for years after that and the sun never came out.

It could mean spending an hour with a two year-old without trying to change him in any way. Letting yourself be and letting him be. So what if he wrecked the house? So what if he put the ice cream into the chicken broth and insisted on drinking it? And what if, in the middle of all of that, he called your name just once, plaintively, melting your resistance? Yes, there is tomorrow. But this happened today, and you didn't notice? What a horrid little lifeless creature you must be!

It could mean catching a ratchetty 85 year-old in a particularly reflective and chatty mood. You thought she had just gone senile, didn't you? What if the time you spent with her helped her stay in a good mood for many days afterwards? Yes, there is always tomorrow, but why are you counting on it when you know better? How many tomorrows anyway?

It could mean making paper planes in the office for ten minutes. It's a scientific thing, you know. It's not easy to make those turning planes turn. Yes, there is tomorrow, but what if there's no more paper, or no more time?

It might mean that I visit Kilimanjaro before I die, for example. Or Jerusalem.

The stuff that life is made of - all of it, comes with an enjoy-before date. And you can never know or change that date to suit yourself. If you missed it you missed it and you can only hope you make it before the enjoy-before date, while there's still time.

It amazes me how much time I've spent trying to make people 'see'. In the words I use. In the pictures I paint. In the photos I take. In notes I play. I've not always been successful. Part of that is because I am a farcical bungler and a bad workman, but an equal part of that is because people are as obstinate as mules, blind as bats, short-sighted as tyrants, jaundiced as prejudice and bigotry, unforgiving as granite, or just plain unwilling to stop and notice life.

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There's another type of person, who wants to CONTROL life. This kind of person wants to capture it, cage it, auto-play to someone else so he can gain from it and extort the price of enjoyment from another.

This kind of person also wants to see how much life can be squeezed out of every situation, every resource, every person, every enjoyable thing, every pleasure.

This kind of person gets drunk on repeatability and return on investment.

This kind of person will just never understand that life is free, that it can be given away but never hoarded, profiteered from, captured, bought, sold, monopolized, patented, branded, and so on and so on .........

It never occurs to such persons that life cannot be captured. It will not be caged. You don't create life; you just enjoy it. And a huge, huge part of that enjoyment comes from helping others enjoy it too. There can never be any "net" life. All of it either gets noticed and enjoyed (and so used up), or a good part of it is wasted. No one sees and no one knows it, so no one can enjoy it. It can never be created again, at least not by human beings.

Do you find yourself spending all your waking hours doing math, even perhaps for a living? Being fascinated by constructs and contrivances (read as technology)? Solving problems? Casting a leering eye on any hoard-able, profitable thing (including people)? Measuring everything? Trying to put 'life' on screen in a 'reality show'? A shameless opportunist? Caged by your own desires for yourself?

THAT. THAT is what the famous someone meant when he said life is that which happens when you're not looking. Life WILL pass you by, because it is fragile. Perishable. You cannot HANDLE it and make it malleable like a tangible thing. You cannot measure it or engineer it to happen again.

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If we would come to our senses, we would treat life tenderly, because it is so fragile. It is seriously hampered by short-sighted people, and disappears altogether among empiricists. We would stop trying to 'make it pay' and 'valuate' it to justify its existence. Our touch on the world would be a divine touch, an imprint so soft and beautiful that we would indeed leave this world a better place.

I've met far too many whose touch on life is crushing, a weight it cannot bear.

Go gentle.

Ode to mirthless smiles and those who don't ever feel sad, ever

Every single one of us fails at life.

I don't view life as a test, and somehow I am not a "religionist" trying to ram Christianity's doctrine of "original sin" down anyone's throat.

Soberly considered, I say again, every single one of us fails at life. We express our sense of this failure (those of us honest enough to realise and recognise it) in ways that are so colourfully diverse, unique - our individual imprint on the canvas we call life.

Surprisingly, the full unabated force of the pathos and scope of failure strikes only very few of us, and this is coloured by religion and religious thinking in many. In others, a stubborn, tottering pretense at dignity is often made, pathetic in its foolishness, yet heartrending in its courage. Some of this is vehement, some nihilistic, some so broken that only unalterable stone remains. Some of us go to The Divine, credibly or incredibly. Some reject The Divine and scoff incredulously.

What was demanded from us by life? Was it just to be a good son or daughter? A good wife or husband? A good father or mother? Or was it to be more than anyone else, more in every possible definition? Ironically, no matter what we expected to be, realistic or otherwise, we know that in the end we fail. "Success", as we define it, is short-sighted, and happiness illusory. All our achievements are indeed the stuff of Shelley's Ozymandius, no matter how belligerent (Julius) Caesar might have sounded when he conquered Britain.

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Why do I sound so depressing on this blog? Why can't I be happy? Why does the weight of failure fall so heavy on these pages?

Many of my friends believe in God. I believe in God too. So, doesn't God hear these words? God is indeed touted as the solution to all of life's ills. The trouble is that, true as that indeed is, there are always the remains of the day. The trouble is that the claim for the Divine is somehow offered too easily. God is more than merely an answer to my own failures and humanity's failures. How do you cram Someone like The Divine into the brains of slugs like me? Help me understand that. Of course school was easy; because what we learned there were merely lessons. We forget that in the innocence of childhood, most of us never seriously thought that what we learned was indeed true; that the world really was like that. The mind was trained, but the heart wasn't. Many of us got into life with unprepared hearts and bursting minds.

I will never say I don't believe; I wrote earlier that I have no illusions I can make it alone. In the darkness of the hour, I pray with tears.

I guess we may indeed say that somehow, through our stained tears, God has become irrelevant because the pain has consumed us. We are almost not ourselves; we hurt so much that we cannot receive help even if it is at hand.

How can The Divine be irrelevant? History itself has proven otherwise, contrary to the many philosophers who ridicule this claim. I'm not so concerned here with PROOF; I'm just soberly trying to understand how our failure has made the only help we can get irrelevant to us. It is, indeed, a cosmic tragedy. Whereas I myself have taken help from The Divine, and can attest to it firsthand, I know, I feel and I hear the groans of human beings who feel that God is irrelevant. Can you see how great the pain must be? Am I exaggerating it? Am I making too much of it? You tell me.

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Our drivenness to do things, to "achieve", as it were, is really at its root a mutant reaction that we use to salve our brokenness from the plain facts of failure. Our "will to achieve" has brought many words into our vocabulary - words we use to describe, perhaps, how each of us individually deals with the enormity of having failed.

Dictator. Self-made man. Fierce individualist. Positive thinker. Optimist. Self-made evangelist. Humanist. Philanthropist (as if being moved by humanity's plight is an IDEAL and not default), Conservative. The "good person who harms no one". The list goes on.

*************************************

Tell me where you go to escape responsibility. You're a miserable liar if you tell me you haven't failed. When you go back to whatever miserable hole you crawl into at the end of the day, when you're alone with yourself, tell me you don't cry. Tell me and have it be true. I dare you.

Tell me you didn't harm someone. Tell me you learned someone's language. Tell me you touched another heart. Tell me that you tried, at least. But did you? Or are the scars such wonderful healers in themselves? Do you wear them like badges in the show-window of your life? Tell me!

Tell me you regret nothing. Tell me you failed no one. Didn't you fail yourself?

Tell me you succeeded at life. Liar!

*************************************

Now I will tell you what I've done. I gave in and capitulated. I admitted I was a miserable ne'er-do-well dressed in filthy rags. I failed and I did not lie about it. Not to you. Not to anyone. Not to God. And most importantly, NOT TO ME.

I told you before. I pray. I believe in The Divine. I don't believe knowing The Divine is a miracle cure, an acquittal in court, or a light switch that merely happens to work. I don't believe, even, that there is a sword over my head. There's no feel-good about it, really. How can admitting failure 'feel good'? There's no fear of hell in it - can the way I feel now be any worse than hell? In one sense I've been there already. No, these ideas are constructs. Empiricisms. They reduce the truth to something like it, and rip its heart out in so doing. Believing in The Divine is the end of me, but it is my only hope. This is one death-dealing Rubicon that must be crossed. There is no abdication of responsibility, integrity, intelligence here; and there is no blind faith. Believing in God is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It is also the wisest thing I have ever done in my life.

What's it like for me to admit failure? I learn to leave myself alone. I learn to be heard when I cry, and be fussed over. I learn to speak the truth, even to myself, even about me, without a sword hanging over my head if I didn't. I learn. I cry. I learn. Sometimes I laugh, even though the happiest thing in the world is tinged indelibly with deep throbs of underlying grief. I learn to listen. I hear cries for help; I learn someone's language so I can help them.

It's not a pretty world, since we all failed. But it isn't a hopeless one, though it seems so.

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It's possible you might be unmoved. It's possible you believe you succeeded at life. It's possible you think I'm deranged. I have nothing to say if you do. I just hope, for your own good sake, that you're not lying to yourself.

If you do, I wonder how you go out everyday, and not hear the groans of people. Sometimes the cries are so silent that the whole world reverberates with the sound of silence. Scan the faces of people on a commute. Tell me what you see, from the well-provided-for to the derelict on the street.

I wonder how you cannot hear yourself when you cry. I wonder whether you think it will just get better one day for no reason. Whether you think it's just a phase. Tell me, if being 'good' was enough, how come it didn't make the world a better place? Why do you still cry in the still of the night, stifling it so no one will hear, yet desperately hoping someone will? Why does despair hang so heavy when you wake?

"Are you happy?" is still a clincher. You can answer "yes", and gain nothing at all; prove nothing at all. We landed men on the moon, we did, but I cannot stop my heart from bleeding over me.

Our indictment in what we call life is the most important truth about ourselves, the beginning of many other truths.

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Did this post depress you? Stop kidding me. You? YOU? you who have a thousand ways to lie to yourself?Don't patronise me.

Did I really now? Oh, just go take a nap. Mow the lawn. Take a cold shower. Prepare dinner. Work on that report. Do some math. Play with your phone. Get a shave, will you? Get on Facebook. Take off your shirt at a Guns'N'Roses concert. Buy a house. Get married and have kids. Read Norman Vincent Peale. Take a vacation. Land on Mars. There's a great big world out there. You'll soon forget, and with any luck your forgetfulness will carry you through so you'll never have to feel sad again.

The remains of the day

It’s about ten to midnight.

I can hear the shrill spark of traffic on the street. It’s probably not too much because it’s a Sunday, but nowadays in Bangalore it hardly matters - Sunday or any other day. There is a relatively new pedestrian crossing right outside my window, since there is a pre-university and graduate college just across the street; and every time a heavily laden truck or bus negotiates the raised crossing, I can hear the protest of the axles and absorbers.

I came in late tonight; everyone at home is in bed already. They’re all early sleepers and early risers. As you can probably imagine, I’m neither, and proud of it. I find it obnoxious, inexcusable and absolutely mean that people rise or get to bed early.

I wonder what others do just before getting into bed. Maybe some pray. Others are buried in their tablets or laptops (worse still, their smartphones, which in any case is what they have done all day). There are those absolutely insufferable folk who actually plan their next day. Many of these are exactly the kind of people who will not bat an eyelid if nothing goes according to plan, which begs the question ‘why plan in the first place?’ Some of these will hyperventilate if so much as a fly sits in a place unplanned.

For me, the time before I get into bed is all mine. So many people make demands of me all day and they have to be dealt with, spoken to, ‘answered’ in one sense or another, ‘actioned’ in whatever way, fended off, lied to if absolutely unavoidable, or lost in some sure way if they chase after me. But the time before bed is mine, all mine. Yes, I pray. I have no delusions that I can indeed manage on my own.

As I look around the room, I see a hundred things lying about. They’ve been lying about for years and years and I wisely let sleeping dogs lie (I don’t have a dog). Some of these things lying about are my dreams. Yes, there are some crushed flowers among those. But I’d rather not speak of them.

There are other things that are simply out of place, that is, out of their proper places. They need to be restored, but for the life of me I cannot find the strength. Or perhaps I’m just lazy. Whether I cannot find the strength or I’m lazy depends on who’s asking.

There’s a curious silence during that hour before bed; things and people who spent the day screaming their heads off at me are strangely quiet. I don’t see what the point of this is, knowing full well the screaming will start again tomorrow. Why the space? If there’s one thing that kills me a little at a time it is the intervening night that allows those who scream at me to renew their strength. I wish they would spend it all at once and then be quiet forever.

Don’t imagine the people who scream at me are all others.

One of the other curious things about this hour before bed is that this other person shows up.

He’s exactly like me, so much me that it’s scary.

What’s scary about him? I’ll tell you what’s scary about him – he never sleeps. But even so, strangely, he only shows up an hour before bedtime. When I get into bed, he won’t let me sleep, simply because he’s awake and he intends to stay awake all night, till daylight. He is all of the ones who scream at me all day long. He is them, but he is also me.

If the day had mistakes, he’s not going to let me forget. He’s going to dredge them up. If the day had some small good things or new beginnings, he will batter those things into non-existence and make me forget the good.

I sleep, externally unencumbered, but he puts all my Waterloos around me, so that I must wake with them.

Do you ever think of a big, well-fed bully beating the legs of a wobbly, malnourished child? I do.

There’s just one way to fend him off.

It doesn’t always work. I mean, I believe it always works (and it in fact does), but some nights he beats me so badly that there is no strength to use that way; and I find I’ve fallen asleep without putting him out of the room, so he’s there first thing in the morning.

I told you I pray. I indeed pray. I pray because there’s no other way. If the day has been a battle, why should the hour before bed be a worse battle than that which raged all day? So, I pray.

There is a place I go. When I go there, this other me does not follow, because it’s his Kryptonite.

Some of you probably go there too.

It’s a cross on a hill and a man hangs on it.

For all like me, who have their ‘other me’s’ beating them up all night, there is this place. This Cross. This hill.
More than the cross and more than the hill, there is One.

When I go there, I find that a grisly place dripping with heavy tissue-tinged drops of human blood has turned into…… a garden. Have you ever caught the whiff of fresh blood off a living person who is about to die? What do you think that smells like? What do you think that smells like?

Yes. A grisly place, the finest garden on earth. The cleanest, freshest winds blow there. The fragrance, quite literally, is divine. And I turn to find I am alone. The other me did not follow me into this garden. I am not alone with myself, like the hour before bed. The other me is NOT THERE.

I sometimes wonder how my mind can still bring up this picture. But it’s real; I cannot deny it because it is real. How can the other me not know the power of this place? This blood-tinged garden that wards him off firmly and surely?

And then I know I am not alone with myself, but I am alone with Someone else.

I cannot tell you what we speak about.

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Now it’s almost time to sleep. I know I will sleep, because the room is the garden now. The other me has been asked to leave.

There are still a hundred things lying about. They will be put into their places. I don’t know when and I don’t know how. And I’m not asking. And my dreams? It’s just so liberating to know someone actually understands my dreams and takes them seriously – when I think of the fact that not even I could do that for myself. There’s a line from a song I love – “you heard my dreams, while the rest of the world closed its ears”

Strange things, my dreams. I am astounded because they still live. Then I know it’s only because of the garden. The blood. The cross on the hill. And most of all, because of Someone.

Now this has brought tears and I hate tears.

My bed is a lovely place. It’s slovenly, smells like me, and is pitted and dented. All the same, I have it and I’m thankful. Today, there’s a book by the pillow – it’s called Rattigan: Plays: One. Terence Rattigan was born in 1911 and died in 1977. He wrote drama.

There’s another book too, but that book lives inside my head. It keeps me alive.

My blanket is lovely. Light purple and yellow squares with embroidered flowers.

I pray for dreams that are not tinged with yesterday.

It’s now ten to one, and the street is actually quiet. The week has begun.

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Some days. The garden. The cross on the hill. The One.

Some other days, the other me. Resourceful chap – he can never forget anything, good or bad.

Some days I am more alive than life itself. Other days, I survive.

Man indeed does not live by bread alone, I’ve realized, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the One Who gives life.

I told you before. I pray. I harbor no delusions that I can make it alone.

On reality and truth

When I started this blog, I knew that about 90 percent of blog-readers will not read it. This neither surprised me nor dismayed me. It still doesn't.

I really don't see my posts as normal, as a matter of fact. You see, I really doubt very much whether human beings these days are allowed to think for themselves. I'm not talking about people who are under the iron thumb of tyranny or oligarchy in our world, as many indeed are. I'm talking about you and me.

Anyways. It's time the curtain closed again.

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Reality.

I wonder at the word, because we are being asked to believe in this age that reality is not real. Some time ago I was in a restaurant where three gentlemen sat and spoke philosophy. I admit I eavesdropped, because the views they expressed intrigued me.

One of them kept saying nothing is "really real". "This glass here - it can be proved that it actually does not exist."

Never was there a more deceptive word. "REAL"-ity.

We live in that ridiculous age when almost anything, including the fact that you're reading this post now, can be proved to be unreal, or real, just as it suits you, and no matter what evidence there might or might not be to the contrary.

To take a really ridiculous example, when it comes to the word "I", by a simple sleight of hand with words, it can be proved that "I" do not exist. The unreal edifice so built can also be dismantled equally easily. Do I exist? But who is this "I" who is asking?

"Explaining away" is more the prevailing mood of thought than "explaining". The bottom has indeed fallen out of "old time-tested truths", we are told. Everything, even our most precious possessions, come with a shelf life and a use-before date. After that, their very existence, past or present, can be questioned, proved or disproved just as it suits whoever is doing the deconstruction.

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"Everyone on the side of truth listens to me", said the man. He was not making a philosophical statement, really. In one sense, he could not afford empty philosophy. He was being tried for his life. No amount of "explaining away" could have helped.

The judge under whom he was being tried snorted contemptuously in reply. "What is truth?"

In other words, truth is almost anything that can support my view of my "reality". That is, I can set you free, or have you killed, just as I like, and then what will "truth" matter? And after I've done what I like with you, I can "explain it away" as unreality. No problem there.

In fact, later on in the same trial, the judge thundered, "Do you refuse to speak to me? Don't you realise I have the power either to free you or to crucify you?"

Some years later, someone reported this trial. His report was not believed. They've spent many centuries trying to prove it didn't happen like the witness said.

Just one example of how "explaining away" is more expedient than "explaining"; and just one more example of how "reality" can be proved to be either real or unreal, depending on who has the power. Of course, since we all have the power to view anything for anything we want it to be, who's to stop us from calling something real unreal? To go further, we can make people believe me even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary!

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What's your reality, friend? What is truth? Does it have a sky painted pink and brown water? Does it have more crawling and creeping things than beautiful ones? Paint-by-numbers!

Maybe you think it's not as bad as all that. I mean, evidence is considered objectively in most arenas of "reality"; there are convicts "justly" (another word we use often but cannot explain) tried and executed, in the face of proper evidence, and so on.

Of course. No denying that. But really, if I wanted to, I can deny it, establish my findings and make people believe me. Really. Don't you watch the news? Don't you read the papers?

There are always layers. If reality is indeed "real", it is not a case of "what you see is what you get". Some people have claimed for about two thousand years now that a man rose from the dead. Was that reality? Can you tell? There is equal evidence either way, you know. So, if it's true, reality itself has altered hasn't it. Normally, dead people do not rise up and walk among us. There's got to be something BEHIND this.

Let me try to construct an alternative reality (or at least, a different one). What if there was a world you couldn't see? What if this invisible world overlaps so perfectly with the visible one so that people in the visible world find no evidence in their visible world of the existence of the invisible one?

What if there were powers and potentates in this invisible world? What if they had intents, purposes and designs on people in the visible world? What if these potentates had the power to follow through on their designs? Worse still, what if they could do it by confusing people in the visible world about what is real?

What if there is a cosmic battle going on in this invisible world? A conflict just like we see in the unreal movies people make these days? Among monsters, demons, invisible forces that have designs on people like us in our visible world?

It doesn't sound so far away from sanity, you know. People have thought about "gods" and "demons" for thousands of years now. Who's to say they aren't right? After all, reality can be just about ANYTHING....... any flavour, and I can choose!

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I really am talking to those of us "normal, good folk" who go about making a living, marrying and giving in marriage, raising children and providing for them, and looking after our parents when they get old. GOOD people, who do nothing "wrong" (what can indeed be termed "wrong" now, if reality itself can be redefined to suit me)

You drive to your workplace everyday. An honest day's labour. You use your mind. Solve problems, sometimes difficult ones. You drive back home. Maybe you stop at a mall. Or a grocery store, a bank perhaps. You make phone calls.

You come back home to a family. Perhaps you help feed children and put them to bed. You share love with your spouse. Perhaps you watch TV. Strictly the news and perhaps sports. Or a senseless movie. In your heart, you perhaps laugh at the drama that goes on in our world, as reported on the news. Sometimes you're moved by sad things that happen. You're amused by heated debates where someone accuses someone else of unforgiveable wickedness, and the accused one always counters that it can be rationalised, that there was no other option. You're amused because you really have no opinion on any debate.

Perhaps you're online. It's nice to connect with others like yourself. You talk about how you can make your life a lot more secure than it is now. You sensibly lay up for the future.

Perhaps you live for years this way, responding to no other challenge other than what affects you directly; you hate "causes". You have nothing to say really, about history, especially about whether it really happened or not. You're surprised and even amused that some people can become so unreasonable when they speak about "spiritual" things - because you see no evidence of anything beyond "your reality".

I'm talking to those of us who are as I've just described. What do you really think? For you, reality is predictable. For about 75 percent of the others on the planet, reality is what happens moment by moment. To stay alive is a miracle, even if you don't believe in miracles. To get a good meal is a miracle. You could, for example, in equal probability, be snuffed out routinely or denied food just because you don't fit in someone else's "reality", someone who has power over you.

Someone can report that to the rest of the world, and everyone who sees it can construct his own version of YOUR reality, to suit HIS reality.

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Now that I have mangled the word "reality" irrevocably enough, I am done. You really cannot be angry with me for wasting your time - you thought what I've penned here was real. Maybe I influenced that. But if it did not suit you, you would anyways have gone elsewhere and found something else to suit your reality. In any case, we all fashion each other's reality at least a little, don't we, in some sense.

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But you know, I really was talking about something real - the fact that reality is like an onion, which can be peeled off in layers. The fact that no matter how we can PAINT reality to suit ourselves, it is a stubborn thing that does not change just because we started thinking differently about it. The fact that no matter how much others try to impose their version of reality on us, it still won't change to suit their description.

The fact that, as human beings, we can, at best, just ADJUST for the better. We cannot completely re-create it anew at our whim; and that parts of it are the same for us all and will remain the same no matter how much we try to adjust them. We can only do so much. Anything beyond that is deception. Just because we can successfully lie to ourselves or others is neither here nor there.

The fact that, whether we like it or not, reality has to do with truth; they go together and parts of them can be the same for everyone. There are indeed realities and truths that actually exist for all human beings no matter how cleverly or successfully we might "explain them away". The judge's question "what is truth" does not invalidate the existence of truth.

And most importantly, the fact that there just might be something beyond reality that exists even though it is invisible. If we can admit the idea at least in thought, who's to say that it could be too fantastic or unimaginable - especially when you consider how ingenuous we are at deceiving ourselves about the reality that is visible.

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The daily grind. Have you ever looked beyond it? This is not just pious talk, you know, or a carefully worded platitude. There are reasons why you do the things you do, in a world such as this. It IS all headed somewhere. There is purpose; good or bad. There is the passage of time; there is history, there is now, and there is the future. These are real, stubborn, tangible things. Explain them away if you like; or accept someone else's explanation if you like. That will not change anything.

Oh, and those adjustments you want to make. Make them while you still can. Just because eternity is a possibility, do not assume that making adjustments will always be possible. We can only know so much.

Look beyond reality. Peel a layer off. Why do you do what you do? Why must things be this way? Why is our life-span "three score and twenty" and not more?

Peel another layer off. Why are some things good to do and others bad? Can I make everyone do good all the time? Can I make everyone do bad all the time?

You can still continue living like this is a time capsule that will last forever, too. Go right back to sleep.......sorry to wake you.

The Greater Coucal and the Indian Pond Heron

The land of granite dust and ornamental stone......one more building.

Around me were the sounds of another grand structure being built. The Business Park is filled with these new, spanking-clean looking structures where the under-30s roam about, feeling as if they own the world. There's not an inch of shade anywhere though; near the "food court" (an awful phrase with bad associations and even  worse food), there are some trees that are clearly ornamental to the degree that the local avifauna will not go within a hundred metres of them. Clearly, the birds know these trees to be alien to South India. I've been through much of Bangalore and its environs and I've never seen this tree anywhere! It must be some young, clueless libertine's idea of "being different" (it's amazing how in this age, "being different" just means being exactly like everyone else who wants to "be different"; we have indeed redefined the word "different"!)

Dismally inhospitable but impeccably clean and green

All in all, the Business Park is inhospitable to any sane man. I must say that. It has no decent food anywhere, no pharmacy except a few ramshackle ambulances, and importantly, no shade. Maybe 20 years from now the trees that have been planted will provide some decent canopy. Even the offices are inhospitable. The housekeeping staff are old hands at petty thievery, and loneliness roams the corridors. The ironic thing is the efforts being made to make the place look and feel peaceful; some meadows which manage to attract some wagtails, while driving away any other bird.

Apart from that, there is the dust. Of dry sand and mud, broken kerbs everywhere, and granite lying about like refuse; and worse still, granite dust that eats into everything. Everyday there is the sound of power-drills boring into granite or some other ornamental stone.

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We have eyes only for white golf balls

Next door are the Golf Links. There, some play one of the most elitist, costly games in the world on the meadows. Trees are everywhere; some man-made water bodies too; and pristine meadows. It's avifauna paradise, or so it seems; only the people who play golf there have no eyes for these, I'm sure. The customary  high nets, unsightly and unfriendly to birds, surround the place though. There's a few feet between the pylons which support these nets and the actual wall that separates the Golf Links from the Business Park. Here there is rich plant life, many trees, but no birds want to really go there because it will be a tough and revealing trench to get out of. I have seen chameleons, though, and heard an insect, the one that buzzes at night, don't know what it's called - and this insect thrives there because there no birds to keep its numbers down.

At a few select spots next to the wall, there's enough of a rise from which one can peer onto the meadows in the Golf Links, from the Business Park. It's like how schoolboys peer over a fence eagerly. Precious few spots, actually; because the taxi drivers often relieve themselves near the wall and you cannot really be sure you're not stepping on something like that.

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This patch of wall is birding territory for me.

Avifauna in the land of granite dust

It's been interesting that in spite of every difficulty, birds do find roosting places, food and nesting ground. They manage to eke out an existence of sorts even though man has done all he can to keep them out and take over what was their habitat completely - even towards the close of the last millenium this spot, where the Business Park stands today, was just fallow countryside, home to all grassland birds. Now there's nothing left except in the military area next to the Business Park, which in any case had always been there.

Of course there are the usual birds we would all expect to see, like the feral pigeons, House Crows and both kinds of Myna. Both Mynas and Crows, in fact, nest in the hollows at the top of some of the steel pylons that support the high nets.

Within the Business Park, there used to be quite a few birds who want to get away from predators, and so make their homes in the pittance of greenery that is now being grown in the Park. When I first came to the Business Park, we had Spotted Munias, Pied Bushchats, Large Pied Wagtails (or White-browed Wagtails, as they are known today) and Ashy Prinias. The Spotted Munias tried many nesting places, but couldn't sustain these, because the Park management was (and, I suspect, still is) devoted to keeping the place green but driving out any birds - a strange juxtaposition of endeavours. The Munias were quite persistent for many months at many places within the Business Park; nowadays, over the past year or so, I don't recall seeing a single one. They've all gone. So have the Pied Bushchats - they have gone back into the Golf Links.

Ashy Prinias have found some success, though, and are regularly seen and heard within the bushes near the Golf Links. The Wagtails have been successful beyond their dreams; they seem to prefer the Park more than the Golf Links! Not a day goes by on which the Wagtails are not seen. They nest in many places, all near the artificial ornamental water structures all over the Park.

Surprisingly, a huge flock of House Swifts keep flying madly about some of the buildings; the flock could easily number about a hundred or so birds. They are sweet, trilling, tiny, flying about really fast and madly, aimlessly, it seems, and are refreshing to watch.

In March and April, flocks of Starlings (probably both Grey-headed and Rosy) passed by in huge numbers, sometimes 300 - 400 or so in a single flock. There are also what could be Indian Pond Herons or Little Egrets which pass by regularly in flocks of about 10-20.

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Within the Golf Links, there is a deathly lack of bird life in the trees near the wall separating them from the Business Park. Not even an occasional Flowerpecker or a Sunbird; not even a Tailorbird! I've seen about one or two Purple-rumped Sunbirds in the last year, and today I did see and hear a Tickell's Flowerpecker. But it's like a deathly silence otherwise.

There is enough, however, within the Golf Links meadows, in terms of bird life.

Shikra? Eurasian Sparrowhawk? Common Hawk-Cuckoo?

These last few months I have been trying to track down a bird that sometimes roosts in the trees bordering the pylons. The first time I saw it, it was on the Business Park side and looked like a female Shikra (the Shikra being the most abundant expected short-winged hawk in these parts). On closer inspection, serious doubts have arisen in my mind, though. The other difficulty is that the bird is absolutely silent. It could be a Shikra; or a Eurasian Sparrowhawk; it could also be a Brainfever Bird (or Common Hawk-Cuckoo). The colour seems to say Shikra; the behaviour seems to say either Eurasian Sparrowhawk or Common Hawk-Cuckoo. The sub-terminal bands on the tail seem to point to this being either of the latter birds; but neither of these is too common in these parts. This is an ongoing mystery that hopefully will get solved sometime. It has provided a lot of excitement, though, and I love the fact that this could get solved any day now.

Western Marsh Harrier?

One of the other really exciting sights was one evening well past sundown, when a dark, sooty-coloured raptor flew heavily over the D-Block. It was not large enough to be one of the Kites (besides, the tail was held stiff and straight without a fork) and it was definitely larger than the short-winged hawks, though the wing-shape in flight looked like one of them. It was also particularly sooty-coloured. I suspect this could have been a Western Marsh-Harrier. I've never seen the bird again; so perhaps it was a vagrant in these parts. But I do know it could not have been any of the other raptors.

More usual suspects

There are White-breasted Kingfishers that pass through the Golf Links often; because of the man-made water bodies. This also means that Brahminy Kites are more numerous than usual, too. The Black Kites seem to love the meadows and are often found perched on the ground, pulling up earthworms or other insects and such. They are found in huge numbers; I keep peering to see if an eagle joins them; or a harrier or any other bird of prey. There could well be some other raptor out there too.

Asian Koels are found in plenty within the Golf Links, as are Rose-ringed Parakeets, which is all as it should be. I've never seen any of the robins or chats except the Pied Bushchat, though.

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The Heron and the Coucal

Today was very refreshing and soothing. I did not see any new birds I've not seen before; but what I saw must be described, because it brought peace to my heart.

There had a been a constant "coop coop coop" going on for a while; I was scanning the trees for the answer to my mystery bird. Then there was a splash of white that fluttered down on to the grass in the Golf Links.

I had to clamber up to a point where I could see the bird, and I was rewarded handsomely by an Indian Pond Heron in breeding plumage. The Pond Heron is not new to the Golf Links; I have seen some of them before on the meadows, but this was a close-up.

It's lovely how birds combine colours - lovely and indeed awe-inspiring. The Pond Heron is crow-sized, with a longish neck and a long, pointed yellow bill with a conspicuous black tip. Seen from under when in flight, it looks absolutely white and graceful. But during the breeding season, the back of the bird attains a lovely chestnut-brown or maroon-brown colour which is in fact the effect of the growth of soft, downy plumes of that colour. It is a work of art, like a water colour that has deliberately been allowed to run a bit in gentle streaks over the white flanks. The neck of the bird attains a light coffee sandy colour. An off-white crest, consisting of longish streamer-like feathers, is also visible, though almost always folded back on to the head and never raised.

I am not attached to water birds; I love passerines immensely more. But this was a lovely sight, I must say. Observing the bird's behaviour was even more soothing. It seemed to move slowly and absolutely daintily; wary, I think, of low-flying raptors (like harriers or sparrowhawks) that flush birds from the ground. Sometimes, a measured dainty walk; sometimes a leg raised but not lowered; and sometimes, a sudden twist, turn, quick few steps to capture an insect morsel. I realised that the bird was watching for unwary insects on the grass.

I had observed that the insistent "coop coop coop" had become louder, more resonant and deep and closer at hand. I had been scanning the trees opposite the meadow, for Greater Coucals which are numerous in and around both the Business Park and the Golf Links. Then, from a tree absolutely at the edge of the net, a huge Greater Coucal descended to the ground. These are huge but wary birds; and somehow, in true Coucal fashion, it perceived me peering over the wall, and it was back into the branches of the tree before I could get a decent glimpse. I then realised how deep, rumbling and resonant the 'coop coop coop' call could be, when I heard it up close. After a few seconds, the bird lifted into flight and disappeared into the top branches of the trees opposite the meadow. I saw a lovely but momentary vision of deep, chestnut wings and glossy black body and long, thick tail as the bird vanished into the tops of the trees opposite.

Greater Coucals love to roost in the trees in the Golf Links and are often heard and quite numerous; I've often seen them roosting at mid-day in the trees that are near the Gate 2 entrance.

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It's amazing to watch the birds; they seem so un-self-conscious, peaceful and free. But it is a wild world out there; in the trees opposite the meadow, on the ground, a huge number of Black Kites regularly descend to the ground. These raptors, though mainly scavengers, are not exactly harmless; they can easily take a crow-sized bird like the Pond Heron with ease if they decided to! And in fact, if my mystery bird is really the Eurasian Sparrowhawk, like I largely suspect, a Pond Heron or even a Greater Coucal, though larger than the Sparrowhawk, can easily be taken by surprise and tremendous speed. Being torn to death under the talons of such raptors is one of the worst fates that a bird can meet with! So while the Pond Heron might have enchanted me with dainty movements and lovely colours, it must have been wary as ever, because the arrival of a Sparrowhawk can send all the birds and small animals racing for cover.

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An hour spent watching the birds is time well spent; I recommend it even if you cannot recognize even a crow or a pigeon. It can bring a curious peace; and a good dose of refreshing and rejuvenation into our thoughts. Try it!! Get into a park within a city; watch the birds; listen to their sounds.