The Unknown: a haiku

Fear not the Unknown 
Do what is needed of you 
Subsist with the Source!

by Ramlas
aka The Prophecy

Phew! Must do what is to be done. To tell the truth, my heart is rather in joy.

Fortitude!

Don't Turn Around!

Well Prophecy!

What did I tell you? Listen to your heart EXACTLY at the moment when it speaks! :) Do exactly as it says! You missed again, woman! How unlearned!

You did not pay heed again, right? None of your signs shall come from the outside. You *must* live your principles NOW and in entirety. DO. NOT. BE. FOOLED. BY. THE. RELAXATION. THAT. IS. GRANTED. TO. YOU. You will end up amongst blind fools, banging their heads against walls within which they shall find themselves confined! Do not be fooled at all. This time calls upon your highest ethic, your sacrifice of self-interest, your avoidance of that which is convenient and tempting. Do not be fooled at all. All lies are to come to an end. Very soon, you shall see.

Listen. Listen closely. What did I tell you? You must see the flaw: you are asserting the principles that you are not living. The key is to live your principles! For your own sake!

Listen! The doors of the Source are closed to those who do not integrate. In fact, the door is created out of dis-integration! Layers of your SELF are the thresholds! Do not split, do not scatter yourself over space and time. Fear not, desire not! Do not be amongst the fools. Do not be misled.

Listen! Hold on to the rope of Allah. Hu alone is the One Who shall not disappoint you. Do not forget Hu as your purpose of being.

What did I tell you? I told you, look not to the back. There you shall see a closed Universe and finished business. It is sometimes helpful when wants to reflect, but this is catastrophic as a habitual perspective. Look, rather towards the vast, unformed Universe that is waiting for you to become a question for it is your answer! You felt comfort and liberation in the thought, but then there you went off to the familiar!

You have very little time left. Have sense, have foresight, and quickly move away from here. Trust Allah, trust Allah's Benevolence, and open your heart up to reception from The Source itself.

Have fortitude. Have greatness of heart. Let things and people be. Let the Truth be as it is and wish not against which Allah has ordained for you. Have conviction in the benevolence that has so far guided you. Trust yourself. Love your self. Honor your self. Leave, and do not turn around or else you will become the mythical stone forever etched in pathetic misery. What is to happen behind you is not a matter for you to indulge in!

This is a gentle but last warning. The signs around you are so quite you shall not know what happens, how fast, and when. Do not play with Hu's limitations. Hold on to the rope, and distinguish the rope from the long leash that the fools are on.

Be wise!

And yes, Happy Birthday!

The Bearable Lightness of Be-ing

Dear Providence,

Thanks, I had a good day today.

• I woke up with a fresh heart today, feeling that I can forgive myself, and even the foulest of wrong-doers - of course, foul from my perspective. Tonight, before sleeping, I will perform my own forgiveness ritual, and not leave the Presence (consciously) until I have forgiven all who I had ill will or grudge against.
• The morning brought me what I realized was sign #2 of 3 that I asked for in order to make a decision. My faith is shaky, so some wondering is inevitable, but I will work out a way to reconcile my intuition with the Truth, insha'Allah.
  
• I worked with a friend-mentor to understand the role of expectations in destruction of relationships; and in contrast, learned about values and contribution.
• We also talked about duties above rights. (Reminds me of De-serving? Or Serving?.)
  
• We both discussed about youth mentoring, coaching, and talent/potential realization. We worked out tools and techniques and teachings. To be refined.
• I then had an opportunity to learn by serving... I counseled two grown men along with their family: talented, but trapped in their minds. What drama can being sucked in the past can create was just shown to me in its acuteness. I discussed a cure for the spirit - an affirmation to released from the grip of Time. The more important task, however, was to create a positive action space. Most people go mental not because something is wrong with them, but because what's right for them isn't happening. There are many reasons for that, which I shall share later, insha'Allah. They got into a conversation, and felt both resistance and affirmation. I am not sure what the outcome will be, but it's a start; and an opportunity I am grateful for.
  

I shall sleep well tonight, insha'Allah. My heart is not heavy, only it pines for the Sought!

Part of the Way

Dear God:

I am the daughter of Adam & Eve - peace be upon them - who sought Your refuge from Your displeasure, and forever set the path of return to the Garden for their children. They were the first of Your messengers.

I am the daughter of Mohammad - peace be upon him - who lived with integrity. He is the last of Your messengers.

So far, I have only traveled part of the Way; in between the method of the first of them, to the method of the last of them.

My reclamation is not complete, but faith is to not know. It means, to be unsure... to have hope and to have fear. Which is only a reflection of the fact that we have learned to live with the fluidity, the originality, and the ecstasy of this existence.

The Memory of Eden and Beyond

Dear Prophecy,

I am usually so harsh on you. My expectation is ever a little ahead of you - wanting to "bring out the best," so to speak.

Eh, that is my flaw. I can not bring out any better than who you are at any given moment. I apologize for my handling of the affair - or for handling the affair at all. My job is simply to watch you, and marvel... sometimes that gives me the illusion that I govern the entire affair.

So. I am no authority in myself, and no certificates issued by me mean anything eventually. But since my only job is to watch and to name things, I allow myself to say this:

You are brave, you are very brave. Your actions may be flawed, but your intention is not malignant.

I don't think, in the recent course of events, you behaved in error. It's the human mind that has a way of interpreting and analyzing the entire Existence to its maddening death, and skewing the analysis. You are agonized by this, because you are not identifying with your mind any longer, but neither are you yet fully conscious. This is necessary - why we don't delight in the matter could be an outcome of our nurturing... so we leave it here.

In matters that have been concerning you lately, you could not have behaved in error. There is no error in the scheme of being! A mistake is what reveals the deep truth of a situation. It is a mis-take on a situation. If your mis-take revealed to you the room for growth in your spirit, it also revealed the same in the Other. So for the moment, things aren't desirable. Let that be.

But believe in the slow work of God. Do not let yourself, for a moment, entertain the belief that you have been wronged, and that you wronged your self. In fact, you did the very right thing... at that moment.

They say, "The one who knew their Self, knew God."
I feel, "The one who doubted their Self, doubted God."

If, in a previous moment, you doubted yourself, then that moment is not your present moment. This very second is all what your life is. The persistence of memory cannot limit us from seeing the vastness of our own being - the enormity of the potential that we are.

We are not small and insignificant, when we look from within. We are the Universe, the galaxies, and the stars. We are dust and we are gold. We are beings of doubt and eventually of faith. Later we realize, that the dust is gold, and doubt is faith.

Remember Shaykh Fadhlalla said something on the lines of: "Doubt is very beneficial. It leads you to find answers."

So you have faith, right now, my friend. What you are afraid of is nothing but not having faith. You are a being whose existence depends on faith. Because you are conscious, you are alive, and you have glimpsed at your own Code. The gifts aren't easy to handle, eh? :)

This is what I have written to your teacher on your behalf:

"I've also realized that the Universe is not against me by doing a complete turn of events within 3 weeks - rather, I was fortunate to have glimpsed that it is favoring me, a few days before this challenge was to begin. There has to be a reason why we start with the Garden of Eden at all: to have its memory guide us on The Path to the Unseen."

... As I write these words, Prophecy, I feel a great wave of calm and relief inside. It is never the matter at hand that matters, but how we perceive it, and what we do with it. You have the heart of a Lover, but the soul of a Warrior.

Warriors do not pity their own mis-takes. They fight.

Get up, again, and fight for what is yours in this world to take! Have no shame, have no fear, have no pity, have no grudge! To love is to love unconditionally, and without attachment. This means that love does not prevent us from being who we are, and certainly not from knowing who we are! Love reveals to us the essence of our being, which we manifest through our good fight.

You look happy? I know you are.

So you walk the Path of the Unseen.
And you remember that you have seen the Garden of Eden.
And that you are a Warrior enough to leave behind the memory of even Eden, and travel to that where it all began.

.

The Heart That Walks The Line

All right, you are not going to rest, I know. Sigh! OK, I am here. Let's work this out, eh?

Now, I'll read you a few passages from the introduction to The Alchemist:

"Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle [on the path to live our legend]: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path. We who fight for our dream suffer far more when it doesn't work out, because we cannot fall back on the old excuse: "Oh, well, I didn't really want it anyway." We do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier than any other path, except that our whole heart is in this journey. Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.

I ask myself: are defeats necessary?

Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for our dream, we have no experience and make many mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.

So, why is it so important to live our personal calling if we are only going to suffer more than other people?

Because, once we have overcome the defeats – and we always do­­ – we are filled by a greater sense of euphoria and confidence. In the silence of our hearts, we know that we are proving ourselves worthy of the miracle of life. Each day, each hour, is part of the good fight. We start to live with enthusiasm and pleasure. Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our soul, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives."

Coelho goes on to conclude:

"But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here."

Please know that logic, reason, and proof are not the way to get ahead on The Path - which is the path of faith - which, by definition, is the path of the Unseen. That means, that which we haven't seen. Logic, reason, and proof are about what lies behind, not what lies under our feet or ahead of us. This Path is the path of the heart, which is about only being sure of not being sure. Remember, you - ah! I have respect for you so I withhold my tongue from calling you names! - you were taught that faith is to not know? Can I pull your ear and remind you? No? I have no parental rights!

Anyhow. Being anxious and protective of one's self makes us indulge in a behavior where we have to "watch out" = watch + out. Look out of the window, not stay conscious of the within.

That's fine on occasion, but you can watch out much better from staying centered in your "room" - in your internal space - because this is room for you... this is your benevolence. Though the truth is that even from here, when you love, when you follow your destiny, then you are certain to have your heart involved...

SE's message for you is:

To be alive is to have a heart, and to have a heart means on occasion to get bruised.

Darling, being selfish is to attempt to not get bruised while also trying to be on your destiny's path. Not possible!!

Yet what does make tremendous sense is that yes, you aren't exactly tasked with smashing your heart to bits either or allowing malignant circumstances to do it. Your task is to carry your heart through the path to its destiny. That I understand. The way to do that, however, is to focus on yourself, and to stay gathered in the room of yours, which Providence has provided for you.

Prioritize your Self, and your perception will open to you. Gather your self within the room... experience the magic... let shine yourself through the window... do not block it to prevent your own light from flowing out, lighting up the vastness of the Universe beyond.

And then leave it all to chance!

.

Through the Looking Glass, Troublesomely

My very troubled Prophecy:

You have put your face once against so close to the glass, you no longer know you are looking out a window... that you are in a room which is enormous, and full of mystery, and in which you experience the magic of being. When you are in the room, that is.

Where are you?

I am no longer amused by your condition - right now, I am downright concerned.

As long as you keep putting your face against this window, you will keep being moved by what's beyond you. You know this is what troubles you; as, indeed, does it trouble any - but some are unconscious of their condition. Then again, why do you speak of others? Do you not have matters to handle of your own, at this moment?

The Other-ness is You-ness, unperceived by you. You begin with you, and you never end.

...Let's come back to the matter at hand.

You are your own project, and your project is you.

Please do not be foolish enough to take upon your shoulders to calculate the moves and matters of others in this world. You will never succeed with the utter madness this will present to your perception. And if you indulge in the affairs of others, no wonder you'll have to keep looking out the alluring window, and miss the magic in the room. Besides, how do you know the meaning of all that you see? Seeing could be blind believing, but it is experiencing that matters - and you only experience your own experience.

Step back.
Step back, and see within the room.
See the Now.
What do you see?

Why are you troubled with the past - which has a way of resurrecting itself that you have not yet gained a control over?
Why are you troubled with the future - which is a product of your fertile imagination with an immense power to create?
Do you see the connection?

Break all these connections - allow yourself the true independence of being - which, my troubled dear me - is the freedom of being you.

You have a right to be in this world, and to experience it - not just the sorrows, but also the joys. Who ordains you to prevent the flow of your being?

Your Ego.

Remember, it's Ego that sustains on all separation, because ego is separation by another name. You will miss on half the Universe if you see just one side to everything. Joy = sorrow. And, forgetful human! you! - don't you see that there is but only a fine gossamer veil that separates you from the Land Beyond Joy & Sorrow?

I liberate you from the compulsion to trouble yourself, Prophecy. Be. Just be. Let love, which is connective, and not ego, which is separative, be you guide. Let even not my words manipulate you, for I am no wiser than what I allow myself to be, which is insufficient.

A heart that loves is also a heart that fears on occasion, Prophecy, because it is a heart that is involved in its own being. (When I am an established meta-physicist, I will work out what that means - but right now it is as roundabout as it is! :])

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Saving a Country's Dying Soul

It is time to sleep, but something has brought me back to my writing desk. I want to share this. Right now.

Before slipping into bed, I felt like practicing a calming ritual. I sat on the floor, put my forehead on the bed, and prayed like a child. Within a few instants, I felt that reassurance, the power that prayer has been giving me. Evermore since I have learned the true meaning of prayer...

Then suddenly something welled up inside my chest... something that has been there for some time, that I have been trying to grapple and understand. Up, and up, and up the feeling surged - until it broke away through my eyes as tears.

I cried for Pakistan.

I was not in the country to witness when the camel's back was broken with Benazir's murder and the ensuing riots and mass mania. But I've been there through the 2005 Earthquake, the Red Mosque Showdown, the former Chief Justice's ups & downs. I've been there seeing my family be the victim of violence, robbing, and harrassment - and feeling completely frustrated with the frigid system of justice.

Since I have returned from a journey of my personal transformation taken in Africa, I have needed time to let the mood of fellow Pakistanis as it is now, sink in. There is a visible, eerie silence. There is a tangible, fragile fear. There is a complete break-down of sense and sensitivity. There are lying and never-learning politicians and their blind worshippers. There are men and women of good intentions but deeply flawed actions. Then there are the clear messages in the voices of Pakistanis: it has ended. All has ended.

Isn't it strange how the currents of life seem to be synchronizing? The small and the big tides all travel together - in one direction - within one fathomless sea - towards one shore. I felt that in that moment of prayer, somewhere, my personal history just merged with Pakistan's...

I had bent my head to pray purely for personal reasons. I wanted to talk to Allah about my health, healing, my hopes.

Within a moment, the story of my life rose in tides of hundreds of images in my head, and broke on the screen of my consciousness.

In that story was a message for Pakistan.

More than three years ago, one night, I had written in my blog:

"I am afraid for the first time in life. Afraid of myself, afraid of life, afraid of past, present, future. I feel despair. But beyond the end of every limit lies freedom. If it's not passion that drives us to go beyond that limit in a leap of courageous faith, it's despair."

Miserable in a high-rise career that had trapped me, heartbroken by a lie of a relationship, carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, and unhinged by the general crumpling of my life and vitality - there came a long time in my life when I had no idea of why was I to live and how come I was still alive thinking and feeling. Nothing worked. Nothing stayed. Everything I held on to gave away. In those moments, I knew I had met and escaped some kind of death - but it touched me so deep I lost notions of what Life is.

It was at that time, that a will took control of me - I began to write. Each day, I would ponder over why was I "dying," what was the cause of my deep unhappiness, and, most importantly, was I going to survive? How?

This became a vast quest. One night, I broke up crying bitterly. After having a good birthday celebration in the day with close, caring friends - I tried to repair a broken relationship at night, and received a cold lack of response. That night, several things happened.

First, I cried my bitter heart out. Second, I made a pact with God to safe-keep my heart. Third, I asked myself: "Why would a person, who is so loved and cared for by many, seek to get the attention of one individual who makes it clear they dont' care?" I started counting my very good friends (recall having tallied at least 16 true-blue souls), and was actually surprised I hadn't been valuing them instead.

I made a note in my blog about that experience:

"[Last night,] I took my most precious assets - my heart - and entrusted it to God. He can safe-keep, until I can have it again, and He can have it again, and I can have it again.

Acts of faith are not easy, but they are part of the cycles of life. It is strange. For all eternity, humans have travelled towards an unknown future. What do we know? We only have theories of what lies ahead, and some stories and divinations that help along the way. What have we seen beyond this very second? Nothing. What do we have for the future? A little vision, and a tremendous amount of faith."

I learned that night that my heart is safe as long as I surrender it completely to where it belongs. That we get wrong answers as long as we ask the wrong questions; we meet the wrong people as long as we seek them; and that we can stay alive as long as we have faith - or when death truly comes calling to set us free.

Tonight, when I started praying, I realized with joy that I have friends who pray for me - who care enough to contact and let me know simply that they have thought of me and prayed for me. They touch my life unconditionally, even briefly, and I am bathed in a glow of love. What a contrast from the night - that endless, bleak night - when I couldn't understand why a pointless phone call wasn't being returned?

Tonight, when a feeling rose up and up in my heart, it was the heart of a Pakistani who cried for Pakistan. Three years ago, that night, I died in many ways. The death of deluded old me was imminent, and necessary. At that time, I did not even have the power or will to make a decision, or the foresight to make sense of what could happen to me.

I can't think of what's going to happen to Pakistan. Is it - the words that we dare not say - going to break? Will there be civil war? Will there be draught and inflation? Will there be more political assassinations? Who can rescue us? Why are we, the people and the leaders, all one nation, ending up in the wrong place? What's wrong with our seeking?

I don't know. Pakistan doesn't know.

But my heart knows just one thing. It knows that it's life was saved one night when I simply held onto the only things I could still see:

Faith, and Prayer.

There is nothing that is going to hold Pakistan together. There is nothing that gives a clue to what is going to happen in this country tomorrow. Yet there is something infinitely powerful still in the hands of people - something that no oppression or folly could take away from humans - the power of their prayer to transform.

A prayer is not a senseless uttering. At times of utter misery, it is a persons' encounter with Truth. It is a person's admission that their schemes aren't working and won't work. It is, paradoxically, also the staunchest form of promise that one makes to themselves - it is not a state of inaction. It is a word of honor that we give to ourselves - allowing the Universe to favor us.

So, despite all my lack of sight about my country, I will save its soul, in as much as God empowers me to do, with that which saved my own soul, and brought me alive on the other side - smiling, strong, vibrant, and alive.


I will pray for Pakistan.

Long live!

(Published on 29 December 2011, pulled up from a draft last saved on 13 Feb 2008)

As of Now: An Animal Enlightenment (2 of 2)

Continued from Part 1
From my personal diaries, January 29, 2008

Animal Consciousness

It was in the Kruger National Park, away from any person I had known all my life, alone in most senses of the word, that I put to practice what I had been learning earlier in Africa. I decided to see without looking. The whole obsession of spotting the Big Five – elephant, rhino, leopard, lion, and buffalo – was frustrating. Early the second day, stretching our necks and darting our eyes over the landscape in the hope of spotting an important animal, I remembered that as a child, I would have been ecstatic simply to have been in a jungle! There I was, in Africa, in the wild, with animals nearby most likely hiding in the tall summer grass, feeling thoroughly ungrateful and tired having spotted yet another impala.

Then I took stock of my situation, and undertook a few actions. I thanked my life for preserving itself; I thanked my Lord for giving me life at all. I thanked all favorable chances for bringing me to the jungle, amidst the trees, surrounded by the possibility that wild animals will cross my path. I allowed myself to feel the hidden-ness of the animals, the scent of their proximity. I bowed lightly to the trees, acknowledging their graceful presence. They shivered in response.

I asked my consciousness to travel in all directions, instantaneously, to let the animals know that there was someone amidst them who loves them. I am not going to stare at them. They are not objects. They are alive, swift, agile, wild! They are in touch with nature! They are animals!

I want to behold the raw energy of their presence, to allow myself to feel those parts of myself that resonate with their energy. I have respect for my animal self, which was me before I became me as I am.

I resign to the fact that no animal was ever sighted because a human was looking and staring in their direction. Rather, the animal was there, and the human chanced to have looked at that place just then; or the human was an agile hunter who had anticipated the animal's behavior and plotted to cross their path. This is how things happen. This is the duality. My set of eyes produces no animals. In half, I depend.

On the other half, the animal depends on me to hold it in awe, for it to be, relatively, an “animal” – wild, raw, powerful and dangerous – indeed.

An unlikely large number and variety of animals – including the Big Five – appeared on our path during the tour. In particular was the leopard who loitered about nearby, and didn't go until we had the fill of our sighting. Rather, we got a little fatigued by the wearing off of novelty, I admit. I joked to the guide that I had prayed for these extraordinary sightings. But the truth was that I had submitted to the wilderness; with the general satisfaction that my life was no longer out to get me.

So far, it was I who had been getting my life, holding it by its poor throat and chortling it to produce my self-created end or else die!

I gave that all up.

Then, The Submission

I gave all that nonsense up – as wholly and unconditionally as I could.

By the time of the miraculous leopard sighting, I had come to believe that life is at once smaller and larger than I. And it is benevolent to the extent that I am benevolent to myself. There is no other Secret other than “I am.” In those moments, whatever remained in me of false hopes and expectations – I gave up.

I took my memory out of me, and blew it back in the direction of The Universe.


--
Note: All photos were taken by the blogger "The Prophecy" in the Kruger National Park. Not to be re-published without permission. For the interested, there are more animal close-up shots and videos - especially of the Leopard. Please email inquiries. (Email address on the blog A Quest for Beauty; a Lust for Life!)

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As of Now: The Absence of Memory (Part 1 of 2)

From my personal diaries: Jan 29, 2008


I am possessed by the strangest of sensations: I feel like a woman who's lost her memory. Last week, I knocked into someone who I have known like the color of my nose. I knew her – she is the sister of a close friend with whom I have seen some ups and downs of life. We've been together, I can tell. But for the life of me, I couldn't then and I cannot now recall her name. Who is she?

It's just one of those many things that are completely gone from my mind.

I don't, for instance, feel as though I was there, two weeks ago, watching wild animals in Africa. I look at the photos I took, and they give me an eerie sensation. As if I know them – but then what am I doing here? Sitting in the bleakness of Karachi, with no idea of where I have come from, and where I am going to. Do I belong to the world of animal sightings and roaming the wilderness? Do I belong here, staring at my laptop which, partly due to its uncooperative operating system, seems unfriendly and unfamiliar? Do I belong to neither a place?

Aye, that seems to be the root of my very pleasant cluelessness.

The End of Being

I only know that in the year 2007, I had reached the end of my being, as it was then. The year carried forward a series of spectacular what-shall-I-call-them? – losses – all around me. Gold turned to dust, yet I was still untouched by the death of all things that I owned, or things that owned me. I stayed put in the eye of the storm, watching its destructive wave unfurl around me.
I remember losing the least bit of interest or anxiety. I recall I had realized that nothing of my doing was going to work; and that my heart would set on immediate fire if I went in any but one direction.

And in that one direction I went. Without thought. Without plan. Thought with a degree of uncertainty and with some fear. Yet in my inner heart, with absolute certainty, I walked into the Uncertain.

I left what I called my home, and went to where my heart was going. I went to Africa.

Oh, Her African Odyssey!

There were some vague notions in my mind of what could happen during that sojourn. And with those notions was a laughter at them, for I knew nothing will be like I could design or expect. The safest was to ensure the mundane: take care of travel arrangements, buy clothes, buy a camera, buy a PDA, put them all into the rucksack I had acquired earlier only to remind myself that I am born to wander.

I took the invite of my host – and decided not to ask any questions. Who are you exactly? Where do you live? What kind of facilities will be available to me? What do I need to bring with me? What shall I do once there? Why have you invited me, by the way? What do you expect of me? What should I expect of the visit? What shall I do afterwards?

None of these questions I asked. Why should I have?

In my previous life, I had had the opportunity of examining some liars and psychopaths at close proximity – that is to say, experientially. Which is to say, they exercised their craft upon me. And I knew what they were up to, but didn't ask them a question. I always felt I need to ask myself why do things happen to me the way they do? Why, indeed, are things happening to me at all?

In an even earlier life, I have never felt that things sort of fall upon my head somehow. Good, bad, sudden, distinct, funny, absurd – I used to know what was going to happen, and took it as it was. I used to possess an instant knowledge of where I was and what to do.

When I left for Africa, that fluid life was part of my knowledge bank, but nothing I was experiencing any longer. I had vague feelings that I wanted to reclaim that past – and on the other hand the sad realization that there is no such thing as “reclaiming the past.” Many fine people have fallen into this trap and I didn't want to be like them.

I didn't want to be like anyone – for all my heroes and goals have appeared short the instant I have reached closer to them. All my definitions and dreams are pygmies. They're like too short clothes that I don't wish to be restrained by, certainly not forever.

And thus, I asked no questions about the one thing that my heart had felt so very sure of in a long time. I felt safe. I felt secure. And I honored my feeling by tainting it with no logical, reasonable doubt.

I went to Africa, all judgments and expectations suspended. I pardoned myself from the self-created necessity of always having a goal. I submitted to life as it appeared – vast, tranquil, still, and deep – on the horizons of my perceptions. I left the shore, and floated into the Sea.

To quote my Teacher, then onwards, all experiences made me feel “I knew that I knew!”

Without “doing” too much or too many varied things, I felt a vastness of experience and of being-ness just encapsulating me. I felt the past and the future of Africa in its air; but I was curious about neither. I felt the incredible diversity of human race and class, of strife and resolution. I felt unconditional love too.

Above all, I did feel the not-feeling of that certain consuming fire which had been making me sick and insane over the past few years. The painful sickness that had driven me near my physical death suddenly left me one night. I became a free woman.

It was a New Year the next morning. I woke up with an emptied heart, feeling light. Feeling as though I had no memory, only an intellectual recollection of events I had been witnessing. I could as well be talking about someone else.


~~
Continued next.

The Very Imminent Death of a Country {a poem for Pakistan}

Only because the Truth shall set us free.
A poem the time for which has come.

You are dying
as you are.

And though I was
once a part of you,
I no longer
identify you
beyond a name
and a shape
on ordinary colored paper.
You're a map upon a map -
all about to disintegrate.

You are no longer the country
that gave me my identity.
Before you rob me
of who I could be
- a human,
a free, alive human -
I shall go.

And though now
I shall not
have a home
that I call home,
perhaps in your destruction,
your inevitable, obvious, fast-approaching, complete annihilation,
I shall learn a lesson.

That though I have loved you
with infinite passion,
with selfless abandon,
and with little bits of service,
it
ultimately
is neither about foolish love nor emotion.
That we, human colonies, create nations
and change maps
to allow our human selves
to be free.
That is the aim of a state.
Any state of being -
to be
must be
an inching towards human freedom. Remember!

Yet you
have housed
too many caged hearts.
You are not,
as we imagined,
our Land of Purity.

You are the Land of Lesson.

The lesson that land maketh, but not really maketh, the Man.
That land, indeed, is a manifestation
of Man.
That names are essential, they have power,
but not above and beyond Man's deepest intent.
You are no Land of The Pure.

You
have housed
too many ill minds.
Who thought
that hiding beneath
your beneficial cloak
was sufficient.
Who thought
that robbing you
and hurting you
will pass unnoticed
by forces that are greater
than both you, and I, the Human.

I will watch the imminent death
by destruction
of the sick intentions
of those
to whom 5000 years of history
taught nothing.
Alas!

Yet, you know,
you are not
above
and beyond
the will of a Human.

You are
the will
of everyday Humans
solidified as Earth.
In your destruction,
your imminent, unavoidable, on-the-horizon, complete annihilation,
the illness of many sick minds shall die too.
You will burn, completely.

But not forever.
You will rise, again
with fewer
yet more enlightened hearts.
Wounded by Truth,
they didn't see in time.

On that day I shall return.
I will embrace your new, raw self.
You a new country,
on the way to becoming
what you were meant to be.
Not dark and evil as you are
right now.
I will return
and embrace you.
For that day,
you shall have
gone through
the alchemical
transformation
that went incomplete
at your birth.

I shall have burnt with you, away from you,
Homeless waif,
all this while.
For you were and you are
meant to be
the realization of me:
The Human
The Free
The Heart of the Pure.

- RA
January 28, 2008

Absolute Justice: After thoughts

1. When One comes across the Other - each must remember that if the world is just, then One to Other is Other, and Other to Other is One.

I.e. I am "me" to me, but "you" to someone else. Both have a right to choose a strategy and to assume that their way is better.

Then, of course, is absolute truth - i.e. which way is really better? Given that One and the Other are both smaller than the larger truth, each can see it. The one more familiar with the truth is tasked with the responsibility of enlightening their self, and then the other. Having reached the point of decision, the one who knows the truth also has the responsibility to protect the truth.

In that entire process lies the area of Mercy.

2. Absolute Justice would destroy the world. Which is why, our legal systems are always bound by the doctrine of the necessity of continuation of existence. There is no absolute, neutral, odorless, colorless, and tasteless justice out there - as some try to seek it. It does not exist in human design. Seeking it is self-destructive.

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You will be lost if you haven't read:

Absolute Justice... and a Little Mercy - 3: Justice Destroys

Absolute Justice... and a Little Mercy - 3: Justice Destroys

And at that day, waiting for my colleague, I saw in my mind's eye how the next worlds are being created on the simple principle of Love & Mercy.

We are going from one moment to another on the basis of trust, hope, faith, love, giving, and forgiving others. We would stop driving to our offices - I realized - if the human mind did not understand the principle of having hope - in reaching the office at all. We would stop running the business of life as the store would not let customers touch merchandise - because buyers hadn't paid! Isn't it unjust, I thought, that people buy first, pay later? And there are at least seconds between these part of the transaction?

Why would farmers plant seeds? Why would parents raise children? Why would we employ workforce? Why would we give our hands in marriage? Why do teachers teach? Why do people start journeys? Why would we start a conversation?

Why would we start all transactions essentially by giving or offering ourselves or our possessions - and standing the chance of being cheated or taken away from? Why, when such consequences do happen - we forgive and move on?

That day, I understood the very meaning of the metaphysical phrase "establishment of the Day of Justice" and why, should that day exist, every thing and being would essentially have to be destroyed. I understood the Arabic roots of the word "Qiyamah" - known as "Qiyamat" in Urdu. Essentially, "qiyamah" is "qiyam" - a static state, establishment, equilibrium, full stop.

For as long as Love & Mercy lives, there can or must never be absolute justice, nor absolute destruction.

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Complete conversation:

Absolute Justice... and a Little Mercy - 1: Conversation with a Lawyer
Absolute Justice... and a Little Mercy - 2: Why I'd Rather Not be Treated Justly