Essays and Reflections

In this, my older prose, you will see the passion with which I write and the articles that formed the basis of Imagine and my Poetry


6 Love Again

On the rebound from love and questioning everything.

Rhyme Scheme: Essay

Gonna Try and Love Again, named for the Eagles Song, Shasa, Sep 6, 2013

What baser need than hope? In a dichotonous universe, every question is a two edged sword. At the end of 'a river runs through it'^1, is mention of how very difficult it is to give loved ones what they need. We dont know how, and they dont need what we love, or dont know how to take it.

To be a successful giver, its a matter of changing perspective. Help must always be on the receiver's terms, else its only a case of bullying. And we all know that's an egoistic stance, and courting with disaster. How many steps from frustration to Anakin ^2.

Frustration and helplessness, borne from misapplication of good intent. But such is not to be our lot.

You may not be able to speak spirituality to one who is hungry, but what of food for the mind, something to warm the heart, and antidotes to all our poisonous thoughts? If we wait till the patient's hunger is sated, we may never be able to recover the fragile mind and the broken spirit.

So, coming back to hope! Where does it come from. How do you bring it back to one who has lost it, or, how do you explain it to one who has never had it, or who'se spent so long at the bottom of an abyss they dont want to, or are afraid to live again?

Just how far will we go for those we claim to love? As far as Beren Erchamion ^3 or his creator ^4?

If we believe in love surviving death into eternity^5, then what matters the personal cost? Is that not a trifle to be dealt with, instead of the excuse we cling on to in our fear to love? What fear? Of love unrequitted, or of requitted love that ends in calamity.

If loving is just another attempt that is doomed to failure, like the Noldorin quest of old ^6, then where does the grace come from? And in Manwe's submission to the purposes of Iluvatar^7, is there not the seed for a fundamental understanding of the ways of the world.

Running over the same old ground, have we found the same old fears ^8? So, when you try and love again^9, do you abandon past projects like a thermal sink^10? Or do you seek to become like its counterpart. Be anything you want to be, bring to life your fantasy! Do you want to be a soldier? Then fight for love^11

What do the scientists know of entropy? If you can be a vessel (or vassal) of love, then where is its source? If there really is sraf ^12 and it was made as a labour of love by such as Yavanna ^13, and as is said, the honey is already in your mouth ^14, then what stops us from tasting it?

Or, are we back to hope again? I guess there is no greater fear than fear of failure. And failure not to be heard, is one of those many fears.

How does one learn to express love ^15? By clearing the rubble away from shattered past incarnations, and rebuilding the identity from a fresh perspective. And to meet the thrown gauntlet with aplomb and grace. How can I become a force to be reckoned with?

By first shedding off the past skin and taking time for quiet contemplation^16. And knowing as Bagvan ^17 says, there's no result to be obtained, just a playing of the game. A removal of the clutter from the mind (as marble from the statue^18), until all that is left is that one unique swing we can call our own ^19.

For are we all not learners, doers, teachers^20?

^1 Film by Robert Redford
^2 Anakin - Star Wars hero who later becomes Darth Vader.
^3 Beren - character who dares wrest a Silmaril from Morgoth in the Silmarillion.
^4 JRR Tolkien - who went through World War I away from his bride to be.
^5 Affirmation - Savage Garden
^6 The Noldor Elves who left the garden of Eden and waged a futile war against Morgoth
^7 Manwe, Lord of the Tolkien Pantheon who accepted the price the Noldorins would pay for their fervour, though futile it be as being as per the designs of Iluvatar (the Creator)
^8 Wish you were here - Pink Floyd
^9 Try and love again - The Eagles
^10 Thermal Sink - a body whose temperature never changes no matter how much heat is directed to it.
^11 4 lines from Burn by Jo Dee Messina
^12 The stuff of consciousness in Philip Pullman's Dark Materials (Northern Lights) trilogy.
^13 The Goddess of the Tolkien Pantheon that made the lights of the trees whose seeds became the Sun and the Moon.
^14 Osho in Tantra Vision: The secret of the inner experience
^15 Chiang's last message to Jonathan Livingston Seagull
^16 play on Locomotive by GNR which says consolation.
^17 & 19 - The Legend of Bagger Vance. Loosely based on the Mahabharatha where Krishna the charioteer is in fact likened to the soul and conducts the body through life, back to the sublime.
^ 18 - Famous quote attributed to Michelangelo, made famous by Rambo III
^ 20 - Illusions by Richard Bach


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Musings Interrupted (thoughts on the way to Pondicherry in 2013 - spiritual pilgrimage)

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Short essay on Islam (not Atheism) as inspired by my own teacher.