Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Where Time Loses All Meaning...


This poem was truly inspired. I am not very happy with the last few lines. Anyway, tell me how you like it.

Where time loses all meaning
And space is all that remains

Where emblems of eternity
Lay strewn like pebbles by an ocean

Where your eyes see more clearly than ever
But your mind becomes devoid of perspective

Where for the first time, as you drink water
You know for sure, your thirst has been quenched

Where, even as you stand engulfed by absolute silence
A bell of solemnity resounds within you

Where you will, at last, find all the answers
And the eternal question will take birth

Where all superlatives become powerless
In their exertion to eulogise

Where worries about the “self”
Become ashamed of their insignificance

Where, you undertake an odyssey
To prostrate before a mother who gave you life

And as you stand before the glacier of Gaumukh
You find yourself witnessing the birth of that mother!

Where the focal length of eyes adjust involuntarily
To view the towering mountains and faraway skies

And all objects small and nearby
Become unworthy of notice

As they take a bow and retreat silently
From your field of view
Wishing not be a barrier
In the great union between you and the faraway mountains

As if they read your mind
And at once understood
The need for your privacy
With the Devdars and the Pines

There your mind will attain freedom
There your heart will find solace

There you’ll experience silence and solitude
There your search will come to an end

For that’s where the Gods live
In each river and each mountain
Each droning hill and each roaring fountain
In the valleys and peaks of the great Himalayas


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

:)well, well, if you are not happy with you own poem how do you expect readers to like it?...Not that bad, indeed its a good one!
~B

Atanu Banerjee said...

Good one....the style reminds me of 'Where the mind is without fear'....

Satish said...

A well written poem, capturing the essence of what one feels when one visits Gaumukh..... another popular verse which comes to my mind is

hasatoma sadgamaya
tamasoma jyothirgamaya
mrtuyoma amruthangamaya....

niravana will truely be attained

Sowmya Chakravarthy said...

A small correction...

Its Asatoma & not Hasatoma..

Thanks for liking my poem...

Unknown said...

"Where you will, at last, find all the answers
And the eternal question will take birth"

Awesome, that's what they call realization, isn't it? I still don't know. lol

Sowmya Chakravarthy said...

Welcome Anoop,

This poem was after the Himalaya trip...

I dont know if it was realization or even a spiritual experience... but as I have said in the poem.."All superlatives become powerless in their exertion to eulogise"... likewise, I dont have a word/phrase in my vocabulary to express what the experience was to me...

Unknown said...

So far as this poem of yours is concerned, I have nothing but whole hearted praise, Sowmyaji. Thematically it is very much rooted in the Indian tradition. “Where time loses all meaning / And space is all that remains” – this is one of the best lines I’ve ever read. The space that is not delimited by time is the one that is free space or eternal space, ubiquitous, quite symbolically referred to as Akasa in the Brahmasutras. And this space or Akasa, as the great Sankaracarya explains, characterises Brahman, the highest reality (Akasa-sabdena brahmanah grahanam yuktam, cf. Sankaracarya’s commentary on Brahmasutra, Akasastallingat, 1/I/22). And the rest of the poem seems to be a nice poetic recreation of the teachings of the Kenopanisad, as it were. And the next best part of the poem is its conclusion. You say you have no words or phrases to express your realisation. Recall the Taittiriyopanisadic dictum: “Yato vaco nivartante aprapya manasa saha” – “Whence speech turns back, along with the mind…” Probably you had a glimpse of that SPACE. Excellent poem! Regards, S. Munsi