Who do I serve?

It had been a beautiful class. It usually is when the subject is meditation and the teacher is a practitioner. It makes matters even better when the teacher is passionate about the subject at hand. I think the last part applies to all subjects. I have fallen in love with subjects just because of the passion with which they were delivered and likewise fallen out of them just for lack of the same.

"Soldiers are such great people, so sacrificing". The ears stood at end listening to the seemingly alien delivery. It refused to fit. People do same things for different reasons. By which, not everyone becomes a soldier because they have a love for their land and its people, it does not mean that they all give a darn or even understand the righteousness of what is at hand. Many are soldier because they found it easy to get in, because it came with great benefits, because it allowed legalization of the violence within. It was hard to cast instruments of war as a subject of compassion.

The group touched upon the PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) that the soldiers returned with from the battlefield. Their youth, their terrible experiences, their torturous memories, their un-erasable pasts, and their stained futures. All lost in the loud shouts of pride and honor, buried under the garb of patriotism. But after the outer din had subsided, after the calls to glory had faded, the inner voices still remained. Continuing to shriek in the night, scream through the day. When all who had cheered had disappeared, the cheered was left to face his own loneliness, sorrow, suffering, trauma, regrets, hurt, and unending pan.

Melting beads formulated on frozen compassion. Judgement cannot serve and service knows no judgement. To serve is to know the hurt of another and to be an instrument and available in its alleviation. Compassion does not inquire in order to judge but only to alleviate. Regardless of what brings about pain, where present, it needs tender tending, great attention, care, love, compassion. If one is left to suffer on account of being a cause of suffering to another, sooner or later we will all find ourselves alone and hurting in our lives.

Serve, love, offer, give, sacrifice, surrender. Do not let judgement stand in the way of love. Acknowledge, ignore, and continue to serve with all your heart, with all your love, with all your being. The other is us subjected to a different set of life events.

Here, There, Everywhere

I beat it up with fists, I fell into a fit
I fought that fight, with all my might.
I wanted peace, I wanted joy
This anger stood, in my way of life.
I took it all, unfolded on itself
It refused to sway, did not give way.

A blind person walked, towards an abyss
I forgot the fight, jumped to keep him alive.
He thanked me, tears in his eyes
The love that trickled, flowed too from my eyes.
The anger was gone, I was smeared in delight
Amazed by the man, who had just saved my life.

Protecting my tiny self, looking away from all else
Full of discontent, becoming anger without an end.
A tap on my shoulder, I turned around
"We all are in need", came the longing sound.
Anger paused, glanced around
Melting to compassion, as it hit the ground.

Standing in light, facing away from the Sun
I fought and I fought, but the shadows did not run.
I turned around with wounded eyes
to only be filled with wondering surprise.
What I was fighting, did not exist.
The compassion outside was the anger within

How often have I wasted, this oh so! precious life!
In fighting the darkness, when all that I needed, was Light

You are that who I am

I thought I was a rose
Until I pricked someone like a thorn
I thought myself to be a thorn
Until someone loved me like a flower

I thought of me as a Glacier
Only to see myself running like a river
I started believing myself to be a river
Only to behold my expanse as an ocean

I thought myself to be this
But life told me I was that
I started believing myself to be that
But then life whispered I was this

Moving constantly from this to that
Pushed ceaselessly from that to this
An endless battle became this life
Full of struggle, full of strife

A new day then dawned
Just like the days past
but life this day
Had something new to recite

You don't have to be this
You don't have to become that
You are the flower, you are the thorn
You are the glacier, and the ocean
You are this and you are that too
You are everything that I am

When you return home and rest
You know then that I am
When you arrive with nowhere more to go
You know then too that I am
When you surrender into my embrace
You will know for sure who I am
For you are none other than me
You are that who I am
You are that who I am
You are that who I am

Longing

What I read in her eyes,
her lips never spoke
What I traced in her tone,
her words never showed

The hand that reached out,
didn't find her there
The tear then trickled,
went searching everywhere...

Caterpillar

Seeking safety
Desiring freedom
Holding on tightly
Struggling to let go.

Turn into a butterfly,
I watched mesmerized,
A caterpillar
whose beauty I didn't know.

Did the caterpillar know
of the butterfly?
Or did the cocoon whisper
softly, that it could fly?

The desire of a caterpillar
a butterfly is not
It knows nothing of it
It is not its thought

Can I then be
Without wanting to be?
I am not that
Which I want to be

But I am a human
Not a caterpillar
I can think
Which wants me to be?

My surrender
Is just another thought
Another desire
Waiting to be

Whatever I do
Is to become
A dream it seems like
The possibility to be

Perhaps in the awareness
Of becoming, is the being
Maybe there can be freedom
From the illusion of the unseen

Endlessly, I keep moving
Thinking I will arrive.
Knowing not that reaching
Is nothing but the end of strive