to see beyond the perceived mind

Not firm, but not absent either

Though vague, it was always there

The passion, the drive

My purpose of being alive…

Had it since I don’t remember

Acting as a friend, my best ally

Holding my hand, giving shelter

Guiding me through difficult times

I never knew though its location

Didn't know my energy source

Got lost several times… in trying to find

Something that was always mine

The situations, the circumstances

Rules, regulations, results of sick fate

Lost people, numb and blind

Amongst all these, where was I?

I too was one of them, comatose, not awake

Drowned in ocean of my pains, hopeless,

Miserably waiting for some help

Studded with frustration, waiting for a change

As I had made the mistake

Thinking my core, all this could shake

Had got lost in battles and wounds

Thinking they've destroyed my soul

It turns out, I never knew it

Core of my heart isn't a weak thing

Leave apart tiny stabs and burns

Even missiles can’t breach its verve

It isn't numb, a sensitive feeling

Even a tiny change, won’t go unnoticed

Leave apart roses and daisies

Even grass flowers are capable of arousing it

Maybe it’s a rose itself

Oozing fragrance, no matter the circumstances

Or a fire, inextinguishable

Immune to highs and lows of life…

Is it that we come in layers

And what we see are just covers

Thick, tender, painful with ugly patches

Only to cloak the spring inside?

Pain anxiety stress anger or fear

Lessons of life, of those painful years

Memories of being cheated or of left alone…

Are too feeble to alter the weather

Clouds may come, so do typhoons

Vision gets hampered, we think life’s blurred

The dust just falls from outside,

Has nothing to do with the core inside

Don’t know what opened my eyes

To let me to see beyond the perceived mind

Flooding radiating flowing or oozing

There’s nothing else but pure joy…

sorry dear restrictions, you can’t last

Nope… I can’t hold on; sorry dear restrictions, you can’t last.

Through years I had gathered you,

Spending my tears, and unfulfilled expectations

Shocks, cheatings and mediocrities…

It’s not that now I’m in heaven,

It’s not that I’ve won some big shot

The world is as it was before

Why shall I listen to my foolish heart…?

I don’t feel like queen of the world

It’s just me… but glad

It’s as if I stepped into some time machine

And I’m a curious happy child

The wounds, open and unhealed,

Marks by failures, and battle scars

They’re still here, but silent and numb

How are you fellows, have you lost your life?

The negativity, the pains

Doubts suspicions and useless efforts

Gifts by torture, and shocking past

I’m afraid… dear companions, we’re getting apart

Had thought of you as partners of life,

Binding me with shackles stronger than my mind

What happened, where is the bitterness?

Has your poison lost its taste?

What is it… some strange flower

Bathing my mind in sweet fragrance

Or is it some sort of blast

Giving energy to keep on?

I did nothing, it just happened

Decisions, actions and even beliefs

Beautiful, mediocre or even ugly ones

I know nothing is in our hand

I’m not immature to take pride

Still humble but thankful… don’t know why

Instead of weeping or being serious

What is it that’s making me to smile…?

It’s something… ah, I can’t define

Vague to the extreme, can’t see its form

Powerful, I can’t resist

Still trying to find what it is…

Searching for the reason, the cause the agent

Maybe it’s some feeble ray of hope

But it’s glittering with some strange light

Alas, can’t see a thing beyond the joy…

Wisdom surely has its place

Consciousness is surely not useless

Experiences are meant to teach

Every dream can’t be the truth…

Or maybe it’s an afterthought

Consciousness may just be a part

Incomplete, and insufficient

To understand the activities in mind’s heart

Getting tired in trying to interpret it

Whatever it is… I just can’t stop it

Can’t guess, can’t understand

Can’t decide, can’t even hold on

Here I give up, accept my defeat

Oh strange feeling, I lose you win…

Surrendering my wisdom and pains of ages

I live as I always have… but with a feeling of being alive

I’m alive, yes I am

The dull dead end seems to be gone

What is it making me so popular…,

Plenty of actions waiting to be carried out?

No serenity, no peace

The restlessness strikes again

I must do something

Here… I start feeling again

It’s as if the coma has ended,

So have the darkness, deafness and loneliness

I breathe and feel like breathing…

From where I got back my senses..?

I know it may not last

Joy can be followed by a depression attack

No brain… you’ve lost the charge

Now give up your skepticism and follow my heart

to allow the heart to take over the brain

Don’t know whether my eyes ore open or are closed

There’s darkness; can’t see a ray of hope

Once acting as an energy source

Why I find myself now searching for some sun

Maybe this place is empty with nothing around

Can’t even hear voice of my own

The loneliness so thick that even memories can’t penetrate

And so prolonged that I don’t know how it is to be accompanied

It’s not that my path is untaken in the whole world

But it is strange for those who were in my world

My world was big initially, endless, having no boundaries

Now the boundaries are so thick that the world outside is foreign

It’s not that I was ignorant to the reality

But I did have a vision to see beyond it

Till I found that the vision was illusive

And the world being one is a crazy misunderstanding

Everything matters, your origin and your status

Soul is less important than your appearance

Decision making is a big joke

Life is nothing, just integration of chance events

Knowledge is supposed to make life better

Then why knowing the facts let the heart to shatter

Maybe the heart is old fashioned

Embracing the ideas no longer real

There is passion, there is zeal

There are cravings and even dreams

Foolish, enraged and thoughtless

The heart is ready to flood the world with tsunami of efforts

The boundaries won’t last its force

The world will become huge again and will be one

There won’t be loneliness and depression

“We” being a preferred term to “I” in that lawless world of love

But I’m confused, still holding my breaks

How wise is it to allow the heart to take over the brain?

Ah it's life...

More irrelevant than baby’s blabber, stupid causeless like actions of some toddler

Or meaningful predetermined and thoughtful, set of events leading to a destined outcome

Complex serpentine leading to nowhere, full of mirages where nothing is in real

Or simple straightforward and accurate, where arrow has no option other than hitting to its target

                 

Haphazard unpredictable and lawless, where every event is ruled by the chances

Or calculated strategic and formula driven, as if it’s created by some mathematician

Ah that’s life, a series of strange events, has no meaning but still sets the stage

The moment we think we’ve figured out the plot, everything changes to make us to feel lost…

Lost in a jungle, fierce and cruel, the only real emotion we might feel is a sense of competition

Angels may come, suddenly from nowhere, but we can’t be happy as they may not be real

Fickle volatile and superficial, some relations evaporate like oil floating on the river

Some are like the sky, always with us, no matter our location no matter the status

The sky may just be an illusion, picture of the past—a memory hitting to our vision

Vision of the mind might be accurate; the gut reaction only sometimes fails

Comedy tragedy thriller or mystery, jumping across the genre without any warning

A strange creation by some awful stubborn poet, ah that’s life, we can’t love or hate…

Covered with thorns or flowers or both, it’s a bizarre path to walk on

With Flowers capable of turning into thorns, and thorns capable of becoming our allies

Ambition focus work and efforts, may or may not bear the fruit of success

Sometimes just letting go is what that is required; sometimes it might hit the face

Sometimes faith saves the day; sometimes it’s the cause of death

Nihilists might just embrace some cause; devotees might get divorce from their god

Ah it’s life, maybe it’s not meant to make any sense; what surprises me most is the drive to sustain

Maybe it’s the hope forcing us to keep on turning pages; maybe it’s the curiosity for what’s next

Where it’s going, directed or flowing or is it stagnant this being my ultimate destiny…

I’m waiting to see, dreaming hoping and living, just as a main character of some awful poet’s script

the scientist in my mind

Hindsight is faulty, I remind myself, every time I find myself mulling over my past decisions and their outcomes... I'm not a very important person, thankfully, with many lives depending for their directions on what I do; but certainly, at least for some lives, for those lives whose I am a purpose of life, my decisions do matter, and so their outcomes. It wasn't an exam, there wasn't fear of failure, the only conditions were strong determination maybe reaching to the levels of stubbornness, a commitment of not leaving or not changing the pathway, of sticking to the decision and tolerating whatever the consequences might be, suffering everything without surrendering to the situation while keeping the morals alive breathing with unadulterated mind, while keeping inner desires alive and the passions burning—without suffocating because of lack of hope or chance or stimulus... Joy had left my mind a long ago, there wasn't fear of being devoid of it, there wasn't fear of pain—my mind always bathing in it; tolerating huge ugly surprises offered by the destiny, I used to think I couldn't be surprised any more. There wasn't expectation of someone understanding my situation, everyone including my loved one's judging the situation with their own viewpoints, distant, far away, far far away from me, and far away from my feelings.

I loved research, wanted to explore some questions in my mind, a chance to search for the answers, to check my viewpoints and the viewpoints mentioned in my books; tired of searching my answers in books of religion and philosophy and in my own uninhibited mind and in minds of others, I knew, to take me closer to the truth science was my ultimate option. Every voyage in ocean of science for exploring the answers introduced me to a new set of unsolved questions, burning, calling my attention, waiting to be solved, so interesting that I could spend years living on their Iceland... it was like some addiction, like some drug, some hallucinogen or stimulant bathing my neurons, making me to forget my identity, it was my joy—capable of killing me without making me to feel bad for my lost life.

Life isn't just a journey of adventures in some fantastic ocean, the destiny wanted to teach me, with mundane deserts and banal landscapes occupying some of its span, life is something more than just a burning desire. Typhoons came, or tsunamis, or black outs... I got lost, living my life, trying to keep my wish alive, trying to survive in pure 'no science land', mute, as shouting was not allowed.

It was a world of mark oriented students, and teachers teaching nothing but how to gain marks... I, stunned, stunted, suffocating tried my hard to pass this zombie zone, but blind, as there wasn't light, landed into something more horrible, into a world of profit and loss, money seeking people, immoral, corrupted, harmful and even threatening to life and career if their demands left unfulfilled... I was by law forced to spend one year of my life in this managerial branch in area studded with toxic people, or people made toxic by the situation, by the filth of lack of knowledge and lack of desire for getting knowledge, the only desire they had was money, and ways of getting more money, science wasn't in their lives close to their list of joys, mocking me, harassing me for what a dumb strange alien creature I was... for my loved ones it was period of honour, for I was a medical officer—a gazetted officer and a doctor with a staff of more than thirty working under my supervision; for me it was a dark period with me struggling to get out of my intellectual and emotional coma, crying when alone, always counting the remaining days of my bond period.  

Days passed, months went away, years passed, and here I find myself, alive, striving again near my starting point. More than a decade has passed in my efforts, and here I am, still trying, stubborn, with increased passion, and with a bunch of certificates, some money and a degree allowing me to write a prefix 'Dr.' before my name and a license to practice medicine, some nightmares, dull dark memories, some scars, some unhealable wounds on mind, some altered beliefs, lots of pain, unbridgeable loneliness, but stronger, tougher, more informed, and aware that I still can be surprised... It feels good to be conscious again. Maybe Phoenix isn't just a myth, maybe it's a symbol of the scientist in my mind.

helpless cortex

Accurate calculated precise timely, my intelligent cortex envies machines... motivated, disciplined, hardworking, racing against the moments, it hates me wasting my time in useless things. Rational, always thinking of the outcomes, calculating gains and losses, it thinks it knows how to get the best of everything. Careful planner, futurist, it believes in its independent existence...

And there's a wild creature, living somewhere deep, fun loving, free, limitless, hating boundaries... stronger, younger, even more intelligent than the planning elderly. Passionate, addicted, mad for some maybe trivial thing... the king, it rules every act of the conscious mind... Odd creature, has odd philosophy that my cortex can't digest... for it giving up is the best way of getting; losing everything offers more joy in some cases than gaining something. An unruly kid, it knows that certainty may be boring, searching joy in being uncertain. Constant, never getting tired, it's as stable as the existence.

I get confused, to whom shall I listen... then I give up, allowing the mad being to take control. My cortex starts planning, ignoring the fatigue, working like a machine, only to satisfy whims of  my untamed mind... partial, I don't help it.

is consciousness a curse

There's no difference, I feel sometimes, between some mindless tiny organism—trying to do it's best to survive, to protect its life cycle in some environment it has no attachment with regardless whether it's neutral or nourishing or hostile, indifferent, dumb with no capacity to peep into the future and no desire—and me, once a native of dreamland, workaholic, ambitious, confident... now just a caricature or carcass of my past, with unconscious dreams, comatose, unable to communicate with my consciousness, with hopes though shrunk resembling constructions of a grandiose mind—stubborn, alive even when the reality is in sharp contrast.

Maybe the tiny organisms are not mindless, thinking deeply, curious, trying to solve puzzles posed by nature on their minds, loving them, trying to tend them while trying to sustain... maybe they're more complex, intelligent, understanding the meaning of life, the purpose of being alive; maybe these brainless existents are born with the knowledge of  mind; maybe they're mature, grown up beyond the concept of me and mine, looking beyond punishment and reward; maybe they're huge, spiritual beings, too big to be confined in boundaries of plasma membrane and cell walls, selfless and polite, thinking of themselves just as a 'part', or they might be infinite, endless, nothing but the universe itself... maybe they're not conscious as we are, their consciousness being the existence itself, their world being 'real', not polluted by senses and feelings—just some 'impression' of the world as in our sensitive, deceptive and fool  minds.

Our world is different, subjective, limited, selfish, it's not even real—getting transformed into something different with even a slight change in perspective attitude attention or information, making us vulnerable, confined, lost in consciousness... it's worse than other animals with simpler joys and straight forward punishments; our joys are complex, punishments are strange, we lose even after winning, sacrifices can make us happy; weak, we can get lost completely—searching happiness while sacrificing our aliveness, planning, cheating, suffocating ourselves in polluted worlds created by our polluted minds; imprisoned in boundaries created by wrong thoughts, scared, insecure, suspicious, we can act as a big disease to ourselves...

Is consciousness a curse, a drawback, neurons being some powerful parasites ruling us making us mad—getting lost in illusory fake worlds existing only in our minds, giving us a false sense of being intelligent independent farsighted, enslaving us, making us to do what they want, while confusing us, deceiving, hiding information from us, masking the reality...

Whatever they do, neurons make us 'conscious'; we've no choice but to be conscious, except for some exceptional glorious moments of intense pleasure as in complete surrender during meditation or devotion in religious spiritual doings, or as in some forms of epilepsy or instances of intense human bonding what we call orgasms, there's always a boundary separating us from rest of the universe, it's hard to feel blended or a 'part'... it's hard to imagine an identity without being conscious, or a different identity— huge eternal encompassing everything; we're not that huge, our brains tell us most of the times—the times when we're 'sane'.

But they're not that dishonest, giving us a chance at least to suspect to wonder or to imagine that there's a world beyond our consciousness that's real, same to every eye; maybe we'll never evolve to have that objective perspective, to peep into reality to that extent... we've science, we've statistics—very strict measures to overcome our subjectivity; we bend the rules, overlook statistics, our world still being affected by slightest changes. We're not machines, not intelligent beings thinking in terms of statistics and math, even statistic experts being non statistic thinkers, we humans  are just unable to stop being affected by stimuli either relevant or irrelevant.

Maybe neurons make us powerful, the creators—authors, poets, artists, mechanics of our own worlds, the power in fact being just a perception, the world in fact being a mirror image of external world, the image depending upon the angle size shape texture and cleanness of the mirror, changing with any change in the mirror, the mirror being unstable—modifying itself, getting adapted to the perceived mirror images, changing its capacity to reflect, in addition to searching its own place in the reflection; maybe our brains are mirror houses, the mirrors changing themselves constantly, making us dazzled, puzzled, short sighted in order to keep us from getting mad, it being disturbing to know that the reality may not be 'real'...

I give up there, feeling too naive, too small, like a mindless tiny organism—trying its best to survive, to protect its life cycle in... , hoping that one day my human race will come up with the knowledge of mind, will break the bonds of me and mine, will be selfless, everyone feeling sense of being a 'part', of being responsible; feeling unrealistic as unable to think of any plan any way to reach that situation, my consciousness starts suspecting my mental status, and I—dreaming to be a realistic dreamer—shift my focus to present and near future, to my own personal subjective world without suspecting whether it's real.