I am strength that can't be seen
I am courage that flutters under your wings
I am sunshine hidden in your smiles
I am the words you cannot seem to find
I am the kiss in your eyes when you think of me
I am what you try to express and never can
I am felt when you don't know what you feel...
I am a surprise, I am with you - when you give yourself up to me
Don't comprehend me... I am Love
And I only grow stronger the more you try to understand me.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Monday, June 13, 2011
Pursuit of Happiness
The word has come to mean so many things to me as the years have gone by. Earlier on, it was too strange a concept to really ponder about - what is happiness? Having fun and laughing perhaps? Playing with friends, being carefree. It was easier being happy I guess because we didn't need to pursue it. It was any moment where we were truly present. Free from bounds, free to be ourselves.
As the years progressed, the idea of "happiness" just happening on its own, of not thinking about it became harder. When you don't think of it - it somehow seems unattainable, and you find yourself in crossroads unable to figure out the missing link.
Then there comes the time, when you consciously make the leap to try and be happy - to pursue happiness, it is more work than you realise.
It means loving yourself, taking care of yourself. It means letting things go, it means forgiving, it means moving on. It means challenging yourself, rewarding yourself, pampering yourself when you're down. It is still the same as being a child - it's allowing yourself to be you. The only difference is that now, you are a complex human being caught in a web of thoughts. Padded on with expectations from people, with our own expectations from others and circumstances out of our control. We find that we try to attain our happiness - our own existence from our relationships. When, in fact, the only relationship you need to tend to is the one you have with yourself, with the essence of life inside of you.
All other relationships fall in line when you're content with yourself. Everything becames easier, because you stop being hard on yourself. You don't ponder on the unachievable, you live in the now and you make decisions that make you happy. Sometimes giving to someone you love, sometimes taking care of someone else, helping a stranger - while happiness is related to this other person - it is still the contentment that you find inside that should drive you.
The mind and body almost crave to find equilibrium. There is research on how simply uttering positive words, or forcing yourself to smile with no reason release endorphins which make you feel good. Perhaps because being happy is the one emotion which keeps you in the best position you can be. You are happy so you feel good, you are healthy. You are happy so you can love freely. You are happy so you can focus your energy on being productive. You are happy so everything around you feels like part of you.
It doesn't matter how long you've been in a sense of your limitations - it will shine through with happiness. Happiness is the blend of all our powers and affection in beautiful proportions that sustain and perfect each other. It is simply put - an energy that binds you to yourself.
Holding on to this happiness, this energy inside you is perhaps the pursuit. Though what I find is that happiness does not need to be searched for. It is inside you - if you let it shine, if you let it come out. It is but an emotion which can change your whole perspective, your entire interpretation of you. It is the child inside you who always wants to take you back to your carefree days of truly being free. Perhaps that is what happiness is - the freedom to allow yourself ot be happy even when the world tries to bring you down. The freedom to choose hapiness instead of your troubles. The freedom from fear, from your insecurities. Happiness is what keeps our souls fueled - the soul of power that we have within us.
Perhaps, we can all start by asking ourselves the simple question "What do I need right now, in this moment to be happy?" The closer you look, the more freely you allow yourself to look - you will see that you already have it.
The amount of happiness you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.
As the years progressed, the idea of "happiness" just happening on its own, of not thinking about it became harder. When you don't think of it - it somehow seems unattainable, and you find yourself in crossroads unable to figure out the missing link.
Then there comes the time, when you consciously make the leap to try and be happy - to pursue happiness, it is more work than you realise.
It means loving yourself, taking care of yourself. It means letting things go, it means forgiving, it means moving on. It means challenging yourself, rewarding yourself, pampering yourself when you're down. It is still the same as being a child - it's allowing yourself to be you. The only difference is that now, you are a complex human being caught in a web of thoughts. Padded on with expectations from people, with our own expectations from others and circumstances out of our control. We find that we try to attain our happiness - our own existence from our relationships. When, in fact, the only relationship you need to tend to is the one you have with yourself, with the essence of life inside of you.
All other relationships fall in line when you're content with yourself. Everything becames easier, because you stop being hard on yourself. You don't ponder on the unachievable, you live in the now and you make decisions that make you happy. Sometimes giving to someone you love, sometimes taking care of someone else, helping a stranger - while happiness is related to this other person - it is still the contentment that you find inside that should drive you.
The mind and body almost crave to find equilibrium. There is research on how simply uttering positive words, or forcing yourself to smile with no reason release endorphins which make you feel good. Perhaps because being happy is the one emotion which keeps you in the best position you can be. You are happy so you feel good, you are healthy. You are happy so you can love freely. You are happy so you can focus your energy on being productive. You are happy so everything around you feels like part of you.
It doesn't matter how long you've been in a sense of your limitations - it will shine through with happiness. Happiness is the blend of all our powers and affection in beautiful proportions that sustain and perfect each other. It is simply put - an energy that binds you to yourself.
Holding on to this happiness, this energy inside you is perhaps the pursuit. Though what I find is that happiness does not need to be searched for. It is inside you - if you let it shine, if you let it come out. It is but an emotion which can change your whole perspective, your entire interpretation of you. It is the child inside you who always wants to take you back to your carefree days of truly being free. Perhaps that is what happiness is - the freedom to allow yourself ot be happy even when the world tries to bring you down. The freedom to choose hapiness instead of your troubles. The freedom from fear, from your insecurities. Happiness is what keeps our souls fueled - the soul of power that we have within us.
Perhaps, we can all start by asking ourselves the simple question "What do I need right now, in this moment to be happy?" The closer you look, the more freely you allow yourself to look - you will see that you already have it.
The amount of happiness you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Battles
There is a lot of poetry that has been written personifying death. In fact, one of my favorite poems - "Prospice", does just that. Why I love that poem though is because of how Browning romanticizes death, stands up to it and refuses to let its coldness and its inborne fear to touch him... because he has hope to meet his love who had passed away through Him - the mighty dark knight - death, has now become the deliverer of love and promise..
Death has been on my mind - perhaps with so much of it happening around me. It's cast its dark shadow around us more oft than not with every year that goes by. Though what marks my mind is not the incident of death but the life that has ceased to exist.
A man's life is chronicled by so many events which when comes to an end - it feels more and more like fading dreams you desperately try to remember. Growing up, accomplishments, graduating, first job, first date, getting married, having kids - its like a story-book we all go through where each one of us is the protagonist and our own villains too. A chronicled life that we publish through our words, our actions and hope that it continues on with our essence when we no longer can pen down any more.
It's a huge responsibility to keep that life going on - to keep that person going on. That complex person with their moods and opinions, their wisdom and their laughter... it suddenly becomes so spread out between all who they have met. Between desires and regrets and the players who spent a moment on their stage of life, hurting them, loving them - admiring them, despising them - whatever role you have, you steal that part of the person, that memory and those drops of life which exist only in your mind.
The battle of life and death continues even after - because just by having lived your life - you have handed pieces of it off to the soldiers who survive you in the battlefield of memory and recollection. Death only defeats the body, not the memories nor the spirit that is as strong and real as we remember it.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end, and the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend, shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain and then a light...
- From "Prospice" Robert Browning
Death has been on my mind - perhaps with so much of it happening around me. It's cast its dark shadow around us more oft than not with every year that goes by. Though what marks my mind is not the incident of death but the life that has ceased to exist.
A man's life is chronicled by so many events which when comes to an end - it feels more and more like fading dreams you desperately try to remember. Growing up, accomplishments, graduating, first job, first date, getting married, having kids - its like a story-book we all go through where each one of us is the protagonist and our own villains too. A chronicled life that we publish through our words, our actions and hope that it continues on with our essence when we no longer can pen down any more.
It's a huge responsibility to keep that life going on - to keep that person going on. That complex person with their moods and opinions, their wisdom and their laughter... it suddenly becomes so spread out between all who they have met. Between desires and regrets and the players who spent a moment on their stage of life, hurting them, loving them - admiring them, despising them - whatever role you have, you steal that part of the person, that memory and those drops of life which exist only in your mind.
The battle of life and death continues even after - because just by having lived your life - you have handed pieces of it off to the soldiers who survive you in the battlefield of memory and recollection. Death only defeats the body, not the memories nor the spirit that is as strong and real as we remember it.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end, and the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend, shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain and then a light...
- From "Prospice" Robert Browning
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Rising
Negativity - you who slowly spreads your cloak of darkness upon my spirit
I banish you with the light of clarity.
Despair - you who looms above me, clouding my judgment..
You are weak and insecure, I break you with the power of truth.
Because the blessings that have been hiding in the shadows
They are whispering hope in my ears
The arms of love, are lifting me up again
to stand on the pillars of faith that won't let me fall.
Strong as ever, unyielding, unchanging... this is my unconquerable God.
He shines in the eyes of the angels in my life.
To those who have loved me, when I have not
Who believed in me, when I was scared to..
Thank you.
I grow in your wisdom..
I bask in your inspiration.
I banish you with the light of clarity.
Despair - you who looms above me, clouding my judgment..
You are weak and insecure, I break you with the power of truth.
Because the blessings that have been hiding in the shadows
They are whispering hope in my ears
The arms of love, are lifting me up again
to stand on the pillars of faith that won't let me fall.
Strong as ever, unyielding, unchanging... this is my unconquerable God.
He shines in the eyes of the angels in my life.
To those who have loved me, when I have not
Who believed in me, when I was scared to..
Thank you.
I grow in your wisdom..
I bask in your inspiration.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Plight of the Conscience
Warning: Authoress not reeking of optimism!
There are days when my mind ponders what it means to be a good person. There are definitions which mark good and evil clearly as opposites – as black and white. But what is the final judge – how do we decide we have upheld the virtues to call ourselves “good” or “evil”.
Is being good being self-sacrificial? Having no desire of oneself and simply using your existence to deliver joy to others? While this does sound noble – what happens to the person when the joys you deliver aren’t enough to satiate the complex human you’re trying to please? There is no satisfaction – it robs you not only of what you can achieve for yourself but also makes you realize how insignificant your efforts have been. Happiness is short lived when it is given away. When these frustrations pile up – and you demand self-worth – is that losing the title of goodness?
Is being good fearing God? Living by a set of rules that have been chosen by the wise – religion, values, learning from others? There are times when you’re faced with so many trials that the very foundation of there even being such a thing as normal let alone good exists. It is when your faith is tested that you choose one of two paths – hold on deeper to the guiding Spirit – believing beyond reason and common sense and hence preserving your goodness. But what of those, who give in to their exhaustions, the words which leave their lips and are not answered, who try to understand what is given to them and what is taken from them? What of those who feel alone - who find reason and logic to alter their version of “good” – do they still retain that quality or are these now imposters?
I guess – we all have our own definitions of what is good, what is not – what is right and what is wrong. Perhaps that is what they call the conscience. The conscience which puts in you the fear of doing wrong; which gives birth to guilt and urges you to do things which are perhaps not in the best interest of our survival instincts. The conscience should hence be our upholder of truth – of virtue, of all that is good.
But then what happens when our conscience realizes its efforts are not accepted. Its ideas are not the “popular ones” and when all you believe become echoes of someone else’s thoughts? What happens when the conscience is plagued with doubt? With insecurity and in this uncomfortable moment, it rapidly starts looking for a foothold to define “right” and “wrong” again. But how can the upholder now be so perceptible to change – are our souls, conscience, Gods all only images of what we are comfortable believing in? Images of what we don’t want to question. Are we merely puppets of our own fears – soldiers of our own internal wars, the victims who lie on our own battlefields – the tattered soul, the resilient conscience, the child of an unconquerable God?
Or is good, evil and conscience just a thought of a mere mortal trying to give our actions, our existence some meaning.
There are days when my mind ponders what it means to be a good person. There are definitions which mark good and evil clearly as opposites – as black and white. But what is the final judge – how do we decide we have upheld the virtues to call ourselves “good” or “evil”.
Is being good being self-sacrificial? Having no desire of oneself and simply using your existence to deliver joy to others? While this does sound noble – what happens to the person when the joys you deliver aren’t enough to satiate the complex human you’re trying to please? There is no satisfaction – it robs you not only of what you can achieve for yourself but also makes you realize how insignificant your efforts have been. Happiness is short lived when it is given away. When these frustrations pile up – and you demand self-worth – is that losing the title of goodness?
Is being good fearing God? Living by a set of rules that have been chosen by the wise – religion, values, learning from others? There are times when you’re faced with so many trials that the very foundation of there even being such a thing as normal let alone good exists. It is when your faith is tested that you choose one of two paths – hold on deeper to the guiding Spirit – believing beyond reason and common sense and hence preserving your goodness. But what of those, who give in to their exhaustions, the words which leave their lips and are not answered, who try to understand what is given to them and what is taken from them? What of those who feel alone - who find reason and logic to alter their version of “good” – do they still retain that quality or are these now imposters?
I guess – we all have our own definitions of what is good, what is not – what is right and what is wrong. Perhaps that is what they call the conscience. The conscience which puts in you the fear of doing wrong; which gives birth to guilt and urges you to do things which are perhaps not in the best interest of our survival instincts. The conscience should hence be our upholder of truth – of virtue, of all that is good.
But then what happens when our conscience realizes its efforts are not accepted. Its ideas are not the “popular ones” and when all you believe become echoes of someone else’s thoughts? What happens when the conscience is plagued with doubt? With insecurity and in this uncomfortable moment, it rapidly starts looking for a foothold to define “right” and “wrong” again. But how can the upholder now be so perceptible to change – are our souls, conscience, Gods all only images of what we are comfortable believing in? Images of what we don’t want to question. Are we merely puppets of our own fears – soldiers of our own internal wars, the victims who lie on our own battlefields – the tattered soul, the resilient conscience, the child of an unconquerable God?
Or is good, evil and conscience just a thought of a mere mortal trying to give our actions, our existence some meaning.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Jokers Court
Why am I here again...
The deafening sound, the quiet embrace.
It all seems too familiar
Too eager to welcome me back
I can't be here again...
The tumbling walls know my failing grasp
The joker laughs at my fallen stature
The bonds weaken, the chains tighten
The questions begin, the answers run
But I am here...again.
Pain new, pain old,
Lines blurred, feeling slurred
The joker dances in the shadow of the flame
The shackles begin to melt away
The ashes beneath my feet
The molten scars across my ankles
I scramble to reach higher ground
Clutching my bleeding heart, I emerge.
Slowly I stand and greet the smoky sunrise..
I say, "Here I am. Again."
- R
The deafening sound, the quiet embrace.
It all seems too familiar
Too eager to welcome me back
I can't be here again...
The tumbling walls know my failing grasp
The joker laughs at my fallen stature
The bonds weaken, the chains tighten
The questions begin, the answers run
But I am here...again.
Pain new, pain old,
Lines blurred, feeling slurred
The joker dances in the shadow of the flame
The shackles begin to melt away
The ashes beneath my feet
The molten scars across my ankles
I scramble to reach higher ground
Clutching my bleeding heart, I emerge.
Slowly I stand and greet the smoky sunrise..
I say, "Here I am. Again."
- R
Friday, February 19, 2010
Liberation
Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate...
but that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.
And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
~Nelson Mandela
but that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.
And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
~Nelson Mandela
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