Conflict

I have been talking about poetry to a blogger friend and that has put me in the poetic mode.
As topic, I am choosing to write in verse, something I had painted in oil a few years back which I had titled conflict..It depicted a conflict between reality and ideals and how it can feel like two forces are pulling you to two opposite directions, each demanding that you believe in them and not the other. We want to believe in ideals but reality keeps pulling us to the ground...
These two(reality and Ideals) are more often than not... poles apart. We have to close our eyes to the reality so that we can believe in Ideals.
This poem comes to terms with these two mutually excluding phenomenon. Accepting that they rarely come together...

Conflict

Dreams fly and soar,they are wings fluttering free
Truth grounds and floors,it is earth rooting me
Am I flying am I rooted, or ‘conflict’ in entirety!

Oh the sky has its pull, but the roots have their hold
Yet mind is never still, though the past put in mould
Yes, there are the wishes....then there is the practicality!

I move to a future, then move back to a past
I am pulled, I am held, I am tearing apart
Oh I stop the striving, ‘Pull apart to a rarity!’

The light shines on me, but darkness doesn’t leave
In my hands there is joy, but inside there is grief
Bright..are the ideals, untouched...reality.

Dead End?...

I usually avoid thinking about the environment, because whenever I have thought of it, my thinking process reaches a dead end.
Yeah I did my Masters in Environment Science and I guess I am expected to read and think about the environment and be up to date with the statistics..What for?

There has been 12.8% increase in GHG emissions by developed nations in 2007 compared to 1990 levels as per the reports. There is increase of emissions dispite all so called measures! But there has been no dearth in concern and conventions and the blame game. The only thing that is not there is reduction in the emissions.

What can I do about it apart from reading and keeping track of the conventions and the figures? Can I stop going out on pleasure trips because I have to use a vehicle to reach there..Should I be thinking about how my vehicle helps to escape to natural environments or do I worry about how it is responsible for polluting the environment.
Should I avoid going to supermarkets because they have not found an alternative to plastic covers. I have racked my brain often and have not been able to think of a better alternative than plastics. It just doesn't seem possible...Should the supermarkets give us our purchase in synthetic cloth bags and charge a little extra from the customers? Anyway what unnatural product doesn't cause pollution at some stage;during manufacture, use or disposal? And what natural product does not get depleted or lead to a depletion in some way when extensively used or produced? Say how much of land has to used for the cultivation of crops, the non edible oil of which can be used as a bio-fuel, to produce a fair enough supplement to fossil fuels?(Fargione et al. (2008) estimated that the conversion of rainforests, peatlands, savannahs or grasslands to produce ethanol and biodiesel in Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia or the United States of America releases at least 17 times as much carbon dioxide as those biofuels save annually by replacing fossil fuels.) So is it really a feasible alternative? Inexhaustible resources? Solar Power? Doesn't cost put us off when we look to harness the inexhaustible resources on a large scale?
...Don't we always end up at a dead end?

But I am an optimist or maybe I want to be an optimist..and so I hope it is my limited intellectual capacities that make me unable to see that there is actually a way out and that it is not a dead end.

The human mind has solved a lot of problems over the centuries. But solutions sometimes brings other problems as side effects.. Yeah, I really DONT blame man for pollution!
Man found solutions to how to travel fast and faster, how to fly in the sky, How to operate without causing pain, How to prolong lives, create immunity, how to clothe ourselves better, how to create more supplies of food, how to keep away mosquitoes so that we can sleep well. . Can we do without these developments? If we can't , we also can't grumble about the side effects can we?

Man has noticed very well the enormity of the problems that some of his solutions have created and so is working on a solution(hopefully... side effect free)

I trust in man's unique intellectual gifts and have been waiting and am waiting for a smart brain to come up with the right answers...

And till that happens...I don't really want to know the statistics.....

PS: I am beginning think (hope I wont be sounding depressing) that the universe is not just intended to have been created and sustained for eternity. Maybe the cycle has to end with destruction and a new cycle has to begin (as all scriptures have always been saying). Well, why am I suddenly thinking so? Because just ponder..is man not a part of nature? Is his intelligence not nature's gift and if that intelligence is causing imbalance in nature leading to the possibilities of destruction ...then isn't actually nature doing this to itself?!
Of course we cant end on that note..Maybe we can just say that it is up to Man to work out a longer 'sustainance' possibility

THAT WHICH GOD has united....

When I read of really bad marriages, like where the man beats his wife regularly and the wife finally kills him...or where the man abuses the self esteem of the wife constantly by saying she is not worth even looking at and then ends up one day being burnt alive by the wife..., I wonder, wouldn't it have been better if at a right moment they had said 'no' to the torturous relationship and opted for divorce!

I shouldn't be the one saying this...Wasn't it only last sunday that I heard the sermon where Jesus tells the people that Moses allowed for divorce because the people's hearts were hard. But the truth is that if a man or woman divorces and joins another, the person is guilty of committing adultry. He says that, 'What God has united, let not man separate.'

But still I am the one saying this because, after that sermon I have been repeatedly rallied with related informations, that make me conclude for one that.....

...The statements I heard in the sermon also mean that, opting for divorce is, opting for the lesser evil, when one or the other of the person involved in the nuptial bond has a 'hard heart'! (Hard heart has to be a heart not open to God)
When a marriage shows posibilities of worse consequences than divorce, isnt it better to opt for the lesser evil!

The sermon on sunday (the 4th of october), had put me in a contemplative mood for some time. I wondered about the implications of the words. Two days later I opened the CD on chakra meditation by shri shri Ravi Shankar that I had brought in the art of Living class. While doing the meditation, I remembered of the book on REIKI that I had in which there was a study on the seven chakra's in the human body and so took it out and read it again.

The very next day on 7th of oct, I read of 'The Divine aspect of an Ideal Relationship'(Yogi Ashwini) in The Speaking Tree, The Times of India, in which the ideal relationship was supposed to be a bonding at the levels of the seven chakras(energy centres)of the body! Bonding of only the lower chakras implies that the purpose of the relationship is lower like sharing belongings or sexual and selfish purposes.Bonding of higher chakras implies that the purpose is higher like selfless love and spiritual purposes. It said that 'How long a marital relationship lasted would depend upon the evolution of that relationship. The higher the purpose, the longer the union would be.'

That would also mean that two people at different levels of spiritual development, if joined in marriage may never join completely! It can be because of the lack of willingness to be influenced by the other partner to bring the relationship to higher levels of bonding.

So my other conclusion is that..What is actually ununited at the level of God, goodness and selfless love is not really being separated in Divorce (at social or emotional level), it just always has been that..'ununited'!

The social function of marriage is not the only thing required to call a union as facilitated by God. What GOD UNITES cannot be just a social or surface union, it has to be a complete union.

Therefore, that bond which is also(or at the heart, one is aware of it's potential to be) at the level of the energies(chakras) of God, goodness and selfless love, is a union by (and in )God, and under negative influences or circumstances the selfish man inside should not opt, to separate.Also it is important to remember the quote "Everyone in your life will hurt you sooner or later. What you have to decide is what is more important, The Pain or The Person" It is very rare that a sincere heart would want to give up on a person one has spent years with, the person that God might have assigned to help grow spiritually. If nothing else works to unite at all levels,sincere family prayers included into the routine might work towards bringing in the complete union.


WHAT GOD HAS UNITED, let not man separate....
THAT WHICH GOD HAS UNITED can not be or atleast never stays an incomplete union
THAT WHICH GOD HAS UNITED has to be a complete union....

Wonder

I am amused by something that I am guilty of!! I have spent quite a few years of my life hitting my head over contradictions in spiritual teachings and now.... I am guilty of often contradicting my own statements!

I wrote, that I believed in fate but I also wrote that thoughts can create our future! I wrote about the effect of planets and I also wrote about free will! But I am not really being unsure, I am just observing the truths in life and 'wondering' loud in my blog. I realise finally that seekers are only stating their 'wonder' and readers see 'contradiction' when they look at the different writings but fail to learn directly by looking for themselves at the object that inspired the writings or statements.

Sure there is the 'Karma' that determines the future of an individual, and definitely there is also the power of prayer and power of God that can overcome all and any influences on destiny. The truth that we experience everyday in life is too compex to chalk out in black and white. We can only open our eyes in wonder at each new discovery a day brings and the next contradicts! We can just understand all the various influences on our life as we understand light. Light is composed of many colours/wavelengths, in the same way the influences in our life are many. In the morning light seems red because the red component is more dispersed. In the day time the blue colour is more visible. Similarly in our life at different points of time some of the influences may be more prominent than the other. When it is night there is no light just as when the soul, the higher self is in control of the body, physical influences recede in importance.

Even relationships are too complex to be tied in a law. It is great to write out the do's and dont's, the right and wrong but difficult to follow it through while living with the dynamics of relationships. There is the option of looking into the rule book or the option of looking directly at what might have inspired the writing of a rule book. Finally again when the soul, the higher self is in control of the body, there are no rules to be followed, just the will coming from the depth of the heart is to be followed.

I feel that there are really no laws or rules that are absolute and which cannot be proved to be breakable, if the powers that rule us decide to prove it to us! Even the Titanic sank. Even our will or our purity or our perfections can sink under some unforseen impact or impacts. Is it even really true that will, purity, perfections or even ships should never sink, should never falter should never fail! The truth amuses me, makes me laugh like a child seeing the joke in what as an adult I would be expected to cry over. There is nothing we can pride in. Can we take pride in our knowledge at least. How?, when even our knowledge is only the discoverer's wonder, not the inventor's genious

But yes, 'wonder' is the real state of knowing.