The Starry Night

Silencing the glitter

of the stars —

night rain

Confined at home because of the freezing cold, I could think of nothing but this beautiful haiku of Uko. Haiku are meant to be interpreted and comprehended according to each one’s understanding. They are like pebbles in the ocean, reflecting the nuances of the surrounding. When he wrote this haiku, Uko must have been sitting in his small hut looking at the night stars glittering, and then suddenly...it starts raining.

The stars are there, they are shining; the rain comes, the clouds come and the stars disappear, but they are still there. The clouds or the rain cannot take them away. Your divinity is just your inner glitter, your inner luminosity. Rain comes and clouds come, but they all pass away: your interiority remains untouched. Your glitter is not the glitter of the stars that can be taken away or that can be erased even for a moment. Your glitter and your silence is so deeply rooted in you that there is no way to avoid it.

We have been avoiding, everybody has been trying to avoid our Inner Self. Sooner or later we will get tired of hiding, of running away from ourselves. Sooner or later we will sit down — silently and peacefully, and suddenly: it explodes! Then there is only a showering without the cloud in a starry night.

Attempting to relate the painting, Starry Nights, a masterpiece of Vincent Van Gogh with this haiku.

Hope you enjoyed this :)

Chopping Wood; Fetching Water

I love haikus, especially when remembered in my aloneness.

Sitting Alone

- Room mates vacationing the Thanks Giving long weekend

- Declined the offers to join them

- Declined couple of invitation from friends and relatives to visit their place

- Unusually favourable weather - replica of the summer of Kodiakanal

- Neither interested nor motivated even to take a walk

- Wondering on my reluctance to go around, in spite of being the most out-going person at home!

- Attempting to unwillingly finish the tasks willingly unfinished and ignored at work

- Peeping into Kamzpuff and Kavimusings when work becomes work

- Wading through a few pages of Passions of the Mind whenever laptop turns disgusting

- Van Gogh or Michaelangelo or Freud, Stone is amazing!

- Imbued in the divine creation of Ilayaraja when Freud is not at his best

- Occassional cooking of the aromatic sambar, learnt from my room mate Satish

- A double Jack Daniell's or Black Label on the rocks, when everything around sucks

- Finally, remembered the haiku .........

Chopping Wood; Fetching Water;

Before enlightenment.

Chopping Wood; Fetching Water;

After enlightenment.

No Contradictions

Perceiving the sun

In the midst of the rain,

Ladling out clear water

From the depths of fire.

I have always been fascinated by Haikus and here is a beautiful one from the Zen. Let me try to understand this one!

We are surrounded by the clouds, mist, fog and the rain. Remember yourself ……. Not to get lost.

“Ladling out clear water from the depths of fire”. It is an impossible thing to ladle out pure water from fire. But howsoever impossible it may be, it happens. This is the mystery of existence. Here, fire turns into water. Here, the dance of the rain declares the sun. There is no opposition in existence, no contradiction. Everything supports everything else. Alas! The irony is that, we live in contradictions, with others, with nature and with ourselves.

We are blessed with a child

Kabir said to his son Kamaal " Kamaal, I'm going to leave this body soon. Before I leave, I want to correct one of the lines I've written. I have written,

" The dew drop disapperaed into the ocean".

Please correct this as,

"The Ocean disappeared into the dew drop".

Kaamal said, " I was always suspecious about this line. See, I have crossed it in the book."

Kabir was amazed and realized that he has rightly named his son as Kamaal - A miracle.

What am I arriving at?

Here it is.

A life has appeared as a dew drop. We are blessed with a baby boy. The baby was born at 7:44 AM on 26-Feb-2006.

A life has appeared as a dew drop.
The dew drop disapperaed into the ocean.
The Ocean disappeared into the dew drops.