I wonder what my life is, fun and frolic
or solemn and austere!
Having been all that mankind wants of me,
I wonder what my life is, dutiful and responsible,
or feckless and complacent!
Treading past a million souls and a thousand
different skies above, I wonder what my life is,
endless and infinite or limited and fading!
Walking down the lane surrounded by emptiness, I having left my beloved home seek what all have sought throughout their ephemeral lives. I ask myself in whispers while walking silently in the midst of fields that stretch as far as the horizon; Am I to be rich? Am I to be a king? Am I to be a sage? Or Am I to be like my father who gave everything up for my beloved home?
Sometimes I believe a life of pleasures and fantasies would be my calling, but alas when faced with the ephemeral I quaver and feel the emptiness I am surrounded with today. Even in countries far beyond my own where messiahs still persist in the hearts, people swirl in the ephemeral groping in the dark with the hope of finding the sun.
Thus, their shallow lives fade even before the sun rises bereft of all light and illuminance. I have knocked many a door of eminent teachers of both matter and the unseen, but their words failed in their actions leaving me yet again broken and shattered. They called themselves ‘teachers of the great law’ but spit blasphemies against those who never believed them, and ranted words from texts they had never written.
Turning to love with the hope that the eternal lay in it, I drew smiles across the skies of her eyes and bore children who were to leave behind my legacy. But I remained bereft of joy breaking my back like my father did before. I could see the pain behind all wealth, and all love my father showered on me, and alas asked myself often ‘Am I to be like my father who gave everything up for my beloved home?’
The tips of the golden paddy swaying in the light of the setting sun broke into whispers that seemed more like the music of the winds, the skies and the disappearing sun. Grazing past the gentle embrace of the crops I too join in their whispers forgetting my worries and concerns for a life filled with bliss. The clouds above roar not to bring rain but to add to the music, and the sky changes its colours in rhythm with the whispers.
When I look about with an awareness of my breath, sight and hearing the endless expanse of fields become a great ocean of nirvana in whose golden waters I find my soul being bathed in. The shell of my heart breaks and reveals the hidden which though subtle and unseen is what I and any other man has sought throughout this ephemeral existence.
Thus, delighted I sway along the bobbing heads of the paddy and continue my journey to delve even more into what I have found. The emptiness has receded along with the turmoil that comes with the awareness of the ephemeral. Wearing a smile as profuse as the golden paddy I swim across the golden waters of nirvana, shoreless and infinite, becoming one and the same.
Leave a comment