Laplanders regard with dread and awe-the icy howling wind- the wiiliwaw;
To Northern races like the eskimos, Hell is a place of eternal snows.
Tropical tribes fear the heat and light- their Hell is a place where fires burn bright.
I pondered over this tangled knot, was Hell frozen over or burning hot?
Why should we fear the afterlife ;think it an extension of fear and strife
If it is true that the soul is set free to adventure into eternity?
TEDDY
Mass of jelly in a pool
Water that was clean and cool
Eggs from which babies hatch,
Eggs inside the jelly patch.
Tiny fins and tails that swish
To swim away from hungry fish.
Out from an egg hatched one day
A babe named Teddy who loved to play.
But it was his strongest wish
Not to remain just — fish-ish!
He dreamt of leaping and calling out
Leaping on the land, hopping about.
Meanwhile he exercised, grew stronger,
His fins began to grow out, grew longer,
He could breathe in air, he found,
Then Teddy crawled onto dry ground!
His throat swelled and he croaked aloud
Now he was part of a friendly crowd
Of frogs that could live on water or land,
An amphibian, grown up and grand!
Wildlife is preserved in forest reserves,
Marine creatures in ocean reserves,
And now here’s the Hanley Dark Sky Reserve
A background radiation -free zone
A circle twenty two miles, the base of a cone
So that, even from far away stars, the distant light
Is not masked and blocked and lost to sight.
Ever dry and unclouded is the sky, which is why,
Astronomers may gaze at the night sky that is a-blaze
With a million stars and galaxies
At Ladakh’s Chandra observatory.
GB
Twenty nine countries have now collaborated
In the Artemis project to chart out ways
To create a Gateway and a Lunar Base.
Water and mineral resources abound
At the South Pole of the moon, (though underground).
In a decade or two, will it come to pass That the moon has become too crowded and crass
And adventurous souls will analyse and parse
Ways and means to settle on Mars?
GB
My granddad had a horse quite high-bred
But impossible to train, is what they said
For whenever he was harnessed to a cart
He’d make a quick u-turn and start
Off in the opposite direction.
But grandad solved the problem easily
By pointing his muzzle 180 degrees
Away from where he needed to go, and so
They got on very well. The problem with me
Is that I’m unable to deal with any idiosyncrasy
that I meet
At home or on the street!
GB
In my village old people still say
Take the north-eastern pathway.
They’re so attuned to the sun and stars…
I’ve settled in the city, come so far
From my roots, I need a Google map to see
Where I am, and where I should be.
Lost in a maze of streets and thought
It’s time I oriented myself…maybe I ought To be aware of my surroundings and my goal,
Pay more attention to the way forward for my soul.. .
GB
I am a time traveller, I can go ‘when’ I please
I roam all space, visiting stars and galaxies
Shape-shifter, I, clad in gold and red leather
Or black and white, or invisible as a digital avatar.
I provoke, I challenge, I gladden, I sadden,
I’m a melange, a collection
Of words, sometimes images, that you call –a book!
GB
Footprints in snow, footprints in the sand,
Show that, before you, someone walked this land
The snow-melt, the leaping tide erase all trace,
Leave the board clean for the next generation..
But can they cope with the scope
Of our present concrete monstosities and pollution?
GB
Cut down a tree and the stump very soon
Puts out new twigs and leafy plumes.
Most crabs can make up for any loss
By regrowing broken shells and claws.
Flatworms even when cut into four
Regrow, becoming whole worms, once more.
Tadpoles and lizards can regrow lost tails
I wish, for once, humanity fails
To regrow hatred and bitterness and then
Go on to war and again and again….
GB
Avudai akka
Fasting and praying with great devotion
Avudai akka sat near the Kaveri in such deep meditation
That the sand had compacted where she sat
And when a flash flood roared down,
It piled sand to form an island around
The saint, who sat there, unfazed
In a state of grace.
Later, the king gave her some golden leaves of Bilva-
The preferred offering that was given to Siva..
After the worship, the very next day,
The dry flowers and gold leaves she cast away
Seeing no difference between the dust and the gold
For she was an enlightened soul ..
GB
Inspired by Avudai akka -Brahmam Ekam-
A point of singularity in Nothingness
Is what we call Brahmam..
A single point source, projecting through Maya’s prism
Multitudes of multiverses. The substrate
beneath
Ours, five elements that also sheathe us.
Busy in our own sphere,
In the now-and-here, can we look behind
The obvious, sharpen the mind
Guided by great Gurus, let us find
An iota of that joyful peace
Beyond the veil of space-time
Beyond any mortal paradigm,
A miniscule glimpse of that Brahmam…
GB
Inspired by Avudai akka-aadudi maane–
Dance with abandon, O doe-eyed one,
Discard the clumsy ties that take away your grace
Differences of gender, of class, of race,
Tap into that eternal energy to find bliss
For you are part of that Consciousness that ever was, and is….
Find peace, mental stillness amidst your ecstatic dance,
And awareness of Bhrahman flash out from every glance
The inner nature of all….
GB
The flipping of the Sun’s magnetic poles will cause intense solar storms, which can “open up Earth’s magnetic field and allow much more energy and mass to enter through, and when that happens, then we tend to see all kinds of impacts,” said Boulder Delores Knipp, an engineering professor at the University of Colorado, …7 days ago
As the great body rotates,
The plasma and magnetic field inside
Twist and stretch and get so distorted
They collapse
The core of the rotating giant
Is plasma that’s molten and pliant
Creating its own magnetic field
That reaches out far into space….
But the rotation causes it to twist,
Stretch and collapse, and reverse, and this,
Once every eleven years
Leads to gigantic storms and flares,
A redux of the magnetic flux..
We do hope our instruments will cope
With the spreading range and scope
Of the impending reversal
Of the magnetic poles of Sol,
our Sun…this year…
GB
What we think is unchangeable-
The fixed Pole Star
Every twelve thousand years
Takes on a new Avatar.
Vega, bright blue-white, once indicated the North pole.
Now Polaris, the dull yellow supergiant, has taken on this role.
Do mortal forms rotate thus through my eternal soul
As the stars rotate across the sky which remains ever constant and whole….
GB
Sirius is the brightest star in our sky
Canopus the second..
In ancient India Sirius was Ardhra, associated with the Cosmic Dancer Siva
Agasthya with an old wise sage
The legends speak of Canopus going south
To never rise in the north again
Ancient Indians named the brightest star they could see
Arudhra, the effulgent form of Siva, or The Cosmic Energy.
The second brightest was Canopus, which they named after a sage –
Agasthya, the wise.
Known as “The Old Man”
In China and Japan
Invisible in northern lands above the 37th latitude,
Agasthya, they said, had permanently moved
South. They say Canopus was once the south polar star
And will be again, far
In the future…..
GB
Twelve billion light years away from us
(Thank God!) Is the most violent place in the universe..
A quasar or quasi stellar object, the brightest point of light
Originally classified as just another sun or star, just extra bright
Now we’ve found it’s a massive black hole
Swallowing a sun a day, swallowing them whole!
Material smashing together at ten trillion degrees C
Lightning storms and winds so fierce, they can be seen
From a far distant galaxy… .
GB
Distorted by the mirror of Maya
The Mage whose magic created all..
Is reflected, an Image, with
An ‘I’, a speck of dirt, added-on,
Short-lived, now there, now gone…
This tiny dot on an external surface
Thinks it controls eternal
Time and space,
Magnified by Maya,
The I becomes man’s Ego..
Though truly -less than a cell in vivo …..
GB
Here is the ultimate paradox
That one can say “This is” “or “This was”
But never, never, can one deny
The existence of any entity.
For in the multitudes of possibilities, the infinite, sublime,
Endless permutations of atoms in space-time,
Whatever can be imagined, and much more
Will come to life, or could have existed before
We became aware of our miniscule sphere
Of which so much is yet unclear
To our understanding….
GB
Evolution
Ermine and mink sport designer-wear, Orang-utans are draped in orange hair–
Rhinos charge in their coats of mail,
The peacock struts his fabulous tail:
Hedgehogs have spines, porcupines are quilled;
Toucans and puffins are gorgeously billed;
Some animals are striped, some are spotted,
Feathery, leathery, all-assorted–
Only Man needs clothes – all zippered and pinned:
Because, poor thing, he’s naked-skinned!
As man evolves, shouldn’t his clothes, become smart,
To monitor his body, keep him cool or hot?
Artificial materials that monitor his heart rate
Built-in sensors to remind him to eat, exercise, meditate,
Cushion him so he can sleep on time, awake,
Prevent him from committing any error or mistake!
Settling Down, or Not?
I lost the freedom of roaming with my band-
When I , a nomad, started farming the land.
When my baby developed a very big brain
I chose to stay with him ,to teach and train
Him, and this took so long, I built towns and cities
And developed quirky eccentricities….
Roaming the streets, unloosing my mind,
Or losing it? For now it’s difficult to find —
The peace I once knew…
GB
Every seventy one years it appears without fail,
The comet Pons-Brooks, with its horns and a tail,
Erupting horn-like jets of gases
And this year, as it approaches, and passes
Us, it may photo-bomb some beautiful pics
Of the eagerly awaited April’s solar eclipse.
This Devil Comet may attract many an eye
From the total eclipse- that rare wonder in our sky.
GB
We’ve heard of maps of the earth and skies
But now we’re mapping our insides..
Genome projects to map mutations that exist
Only in specific districts, and some mutations that resist
Certain medications. The latest Indian genome study has found
That there are 4500 population groups around
In our land, and though only 10000 people were chosen
For the project, we hope we’ll soon have a clearer notion
Of how best to heal and grow better……
GB
My name is an identity. When you call, I say “Hey, that’s me!”
Daughter, mother, sister, wife,
Pliant, protoplasmic life…
Carbon and nitrogen synthesized
Forged from fusion in a star’s insides..
Star-matter infused with a spark of consciousness that dreams
Of spanning spacetime and swimming in starry streams….
GB
In the Hall of Mirrors, reflected, re-reflected,
A hundred thousand “me’s”…
From various angles, different images- so many realities.
Foreshortened, tall, short, lean, wide, but in the centre of them all
I thought myself as being the true entity, the only Real One in that Hall!
….Or maybe not??
GB
Five sheaths cover the soul, our ancients said
Flesh matter needing to be comforted and fed,
Next, the flow of fluids including blood, water and air,
More intangible still, the ego, thought and will,
And then the last sheath-the intellect questing, quivering, aware,
When these four are peeled away, what is left is the bare
Membrane that lies between the spirit or soul
Separates it from its substrate, the whole
–of the Creative Energy…
GB
Here, volcanic eruptions mesmerise,
For this is a land of glaciers and ice
Iceland, named for ice, land of fire
Here, where scientists now aspire
To harness the fiery magma reservoir
To supply clean energy and enormous power.
Drilling down to the underground monster
To harness it’s awesome geothermal power
At the Krafla Magma Testbed.
GB
I do not dwell on, grieve or sorrow
For that which I was yesterday
And for the one I shall be tomorrow
I do not dream or pray …
For I’m a stream of changing thought
Evolving speeding past my many egos to what
I cannot
Even imagine!
GB
If what was an intangible spirit
Made organic life that could think,
And we, the organic life evolved
And are on the brink
Of creating machines that have started
To grow
What do you suppose AI powered robots will now
Do next?
GB
We thought demons, like dinos, were extinct and dead
The dinos disappeared, but the demons shape-shifted
And moved into my ego and head.
Laziness, selfishness, Indifference, Intolerance,
Have taken up a permanent residence, and are so difficult to dislodge!
GB
The day gone by saw the birth of our planet earth
Early in the dawn, if we assume that a day
Could last four and a half billion years!
On this cosmic time scale,
Dinosaurs lasted for ten minutes, a half hour before midnight,
And man has been around for eight
Minutes and a few seconds…
Soon this day will be done, will we see a new dawn?
Or will the earth just go on
With some other species?
GB
In the silent night I once asked
“God, What are you?”
A low Voice answered, “I am Energy, matter,
And their substrate, too!”
Then I asked, “Where can I find you?”
“In the core of the sun, in the cool drop of dew,
I am everywhere.”
I finally asked, “God, Who are You?”
In that silent dark, only an echo answered,
“You..You…You…”
GB
For thousands of years, proudly upright
Has stood this tower of grey granite.
Intricately, profusely, shaped and sculpted
By skilled artisans and artists who exulted
In their divine art.
How lucidly the tower tells it’s tales,
Defying the ages, earthquakes, and gales,
Tales of battles, love and loss,
Of miracles, of legends, that were amassed
In our collective consciousness.
That inspire and awaken a glad delight
Awing us with that tower’s might
Where in that rarefied height
The capstone glows in bright sunlight
Or is robed in silver starlight
In the dark..
GB
The European Space Agency’s Gaia telescope,
Carrying the largest-ever digital camera into space
Has made significant discoveries which trace
The origin of galaxies.
Twelve billion years ago two mighty streams of stars
Twining and twisting together, were interwoven, merged,
To become the foundation of a galaxy that emerged
With a central core and spiral arms….our own Milky Way.
The streams were named Shiva and Shakti,
Containing everything we see- all matter all unseen energy
Together eternally joined
in the magnificent dance of Creation!
GB
The solar eclipse this year will last for a few
Minutes, the lunar, maybe an hour or two,
But the darkness when humans disown their kind
May fill the heart, overcloud the mind,
Forever…when we are stubbornly blind
To the possibility that the divine spark exists in all
Men, women and children, the great and small….
GB
Brain waves oscillate and dance
In frequencies of alpha and theta
One rhythm for safe storage, the other
For retrieval of data!
This one way traffic, this choreography
Prevents most mix ups , accidents,
Then why do I keep forgetting where I parked my keys!?
GB
With a fountain of fire
Grindavik in Iceland
Reached up to the sky
Where the aurora danced
In the geomagnetic storm…
When a tendril from the mighty sun
Is stretched towards the earth in fun
And the earth responds with glee
Human ego becomes a collateral causality ….
GB
The Big Bang is a whistle- it signals the Great Game-
Creation , then Chaos, Creation, once again–
Civilizations rise and fall , humans remain;
There are cyclic patterns of joy and pain:
Our lives are lived out on a Mobius strip:
We live out our lives to the start of our trip!
As we grow older, helpless, childish, weak,
Our minds are still eager- we seek
New perspectives.
Are we the brain- the thinking organ of matter
The cosmos, every planet and star
Are we collectively the self-awareness of the Universe
Is that Who we are?
GB
Every eighty years or more, a red giant star,
T Coronae Borealis, swerves, veers too far, near
A white dwarf star, and its outer layers sheer
Off, this collision is seen as a Nova, a great
Burst of light, but then, both stars return to their own state!
Five months in our future, or, for them, three thousand years ago….
When the Nova happened and the glow
Started to travel the three thousand lightyears
To reach our own skies to dazzle the mind
The effect of a close encounter of the Cosmic kind!
GB
When the earth’s heart warms, sea levels rise
Coastlines shrink, men are divided by deep seas
When the earth becomes coldly hostile, in each ice age
Sea levels drop, continents at this stage
Become one.
Do only catastrophes have the power
To bring men together?
GB
As forked lightning split the sky
Rain churned the mud last night
But, lighter than a dewdrop,
The soft morning light
Falls on sleek shiny fur-
My cat snoozes in the sun.
Each winter my city renews her romance: with the Spirit of Music and Dance!
Dhoti-clad men braving the cool morning air,
Women in silks with jasmine in their hair,
With tinkling cymbals, and clapping hands,
Recite bhajans-( melodic chants).
The concerts start at four, the crowds are packed tight-
And the performances go on till late at night!
Unique to Chennai,
Most cells in my body are renewed
within weeks or even days
but for forty years, the same heart muscles remain
And neurons are the longest lived…the cells in my brain
And because these cells are thus designed
I find that leaving my loves behind
Or readily changing my mind
Is the hardest thing for me to do
Gita Bharath
Stretching, bending, twisting
On my yoga mat
Centred in my core..
why is it that
I’m reminded of an expert in this field,
My self-contained, though, loving, cat?
Gita Bharath
At the first hint of thunder,
I fling off my clothes
I vibrate, I dance, I thrill to the rain;
And after the storm, I regain
My balance
For my poles hold me firmly in place again,
Gently and thoughtfully I slowly swing,
Wearing only a glittering string
Of droplets shining soft and bright
Am I just a clothesline or….
Turbulent Lifeline?
Gita Bharath
The ancients, to teach young ones astronomy
Wove fables around scientific theory..
So the sun, moon, planets and lunar nodes
Became the nine lesser gods.
(These nodes were the points where the moon’s orbit
Cuts across the ecliptic –
the sun’s path across the sky)
And, as the nodes had no form or shape,
They were personified as the head and tail
Of a sinister snake.
A snake that could swallow the whole
Sun and moon, and even your invisible soul.
The legend of the great snake, Svarbhanu
Was a tale once every student knew:
The sly Svarbhanu once sneaked into the hall
Where the nectar of immortality was being given to all
The virtuous ones.
He sat between the sun and moon, who glowed so bright
That, though he took the nectar, he was hidden from sight.
And, though he was decapitated, he could not die
For he had imbibed immortality.
His head became the North, his tail, the South
Lunar node, but each of his halves had a great mouth.
And the sun and moon, who’d failed to notice him,
Were eaten every so often, eclipsed and grow dim.
With great precision our sages could foretell
When heavenly bodies would fall under the spell
Of Rahul and Ketu, to be eclipsed.
The knowledge of math was lost over the ages
And only the legends now live on as images
In our collective consciousness.
Avudayal Akka
Wed at fifteen, widowed thereafter
Estranged from colour, love and laughter ,
In widow’s weeds she left home one night
Her spirit shone forth, glowing bright
In verses she extolled the Unified Theory-
The One
Energy that spins the electron and powers the mighty sun
That resides in all- Indivisible, the Advaita-
And people revered her as Avudai Akka…
GB
*Akka- loving elder sister
Inspired by Avudai Akka
I try to visualise Omnipotence
Through what I see and sense..
Elephantine strength and intelligence
The beauty of art, the musical cadence
of Vedic chants
I focus outward, forgetting that it’s the pure grace
Of the Primal One that through the prism of nature
That manifests as multi-hued rays..
I visit holy places, examine my relationships to find
The wholeness and peace that are present in my mind…
The essence of Reality.
GB
Inspired by Avudai Akka– mountain —
These rarefied heights are pure and clear
The cosmic energy of great spirits live here
No profanity can make this giddy ascent
Even Death is defeated, sent
Back to the valley below
Where only the faintest roar
Of the vedas can be heard…
GB
Inspired by Avudai Akka -the mind-
Ever restless, distracted by the senses,
The body wanders, sheathed in ego and skin,
A disguise worn by the questing mind,
That’s focussed outwards, instead of within…
Performing duties and rituals by rote,
Imagining that the world without
Is the ultimate reality.
That’s why true happiness is so often sought
In the material world, in emotions, in thought,
When, it is only to be found deep inside
In the silence of an alert, emptied mind…
GB
Inspired by Avudai Akka – taste-
The fruit of worldly success is sweet
But the happiness in one’s mind tastes sweeter.
Time spent in forest or farm, the fatigue that lingers
In constantly chasing wealth that slips through the fingers,
May be used in developing the mind, may be spent
In one’s own sphere, palace, house or hutment,
Meditating on Rama’s name as one performs one’s chores;
To lift the soul above the sea of illusion
To reach the far shores
Of enlightenment….
GB
Inspired by Avudai Akka- Folk dance
Clap your hands and tap your feet
Swirl around to the rhythmic beat
This is your role, and it’s what you do
Everyday in the life that’s been allotted to you.
But never forget that your soul’s inner light
Is as the lamp in a shrine, coruscating bright
Illuminating the whole temple, reflecting the grace
Of the Energy embodied in the Icon, whose blaze
Powers the universe….
GB
Inspired by Avudai Akka’s- parrot song
Parrot on my shoulder, here you perch
For a moment, then fly off in search
Of sweet fruit.
I,too, chasing something better on this earth,
Am caught in the revolving door of reincarnation, rebirth,
I yearn for the sweet taste of liberation–
Freed from this fate
Evolving to a higher state
of consciousness…
GB
Inspired by Avudai Akka’s- moonrise-
In the darkness of night, filled with rage and greed
The light of the rising moon has freed
What was for long years, earth-bound.
The differences in men, in scriptures, in words
In all that I have seen and heard,
As the insurmountable, only truth
Has become insignificant, smoothed
Flat, in the light of the Cosmos
Without beginning or end ..
As my spirit now soars in flight
I see, with my newly cleansed sight,
Inside me, the spirit that’s alight
With the silver glow of the divine…
GB
Inspired by Avudai Akka’s- Initiation-
Who came to my threshold radiant in rags
Claiming that he was Bhrahma?
Laying his palm upon my head, proclaiming, “That thou art!”
Striding away to the old banyan tree…
Just a glance from those fathomless eyes
And I was drawn along in the wake of that Power …..
In a second, that searing glance had stripped away
All cloying emotions and the material world
Vapourised all grief and sorrow,
Was the contemplation of the Absolute
In the clear dawn of a new morrow….
GB
Inspired by Avudai Akka’s–echchal–
You grimace with disgust at death and birth
At what you consider impure on this earth..
The blood of the womb, the pyre, the tomb
You think the silks you wear are grand you think honey’s pure and sweet,
When one is from cast-off cocoons and the other pollen from the feet
Of the bee mixed with regurgitated nectar
Wouldn’t it be better to accept the circle of life
With equanimity?
GB
All planets spin anti clockwise
As they revolve in their orbits
And this is immutable because
Of the eternal gravitic laws.
And anti clockwise on their axes
They all rotate except for the captious
Uranus, that, lying on its side, rotates,
And maverick Venus, who abrogates
Its responsibility, unafraid,
And as the slowest of planets, Retrograde
It rotates on its axis!
GB
RIFT
Sixty million years ago
Inexorable, though slow
India’s continental plate crossed
The ancient Tethys sea
To collide with the Asian landmass.
An oceanic plate would have slid below
a continental one
But both these were continents, and so
The hard edges folded up forming the mighty Himalayan range.
Earthquakes still occur here, causing geologists to wonder,
Whether the rift will split again, under….
The plateau of Tibet….
GB
How cheerfully the warbler chirps
As she rebuilds her storm-torn nest..
Is it because I’m human
That I am obsessed
With permanence?
GB
Lava path- Arenal, Costa Rica
A raging red-hot river had run down
From Arenal’s tall crater-crown…
Now where this lava had once flowed
We walk up the tree-lined, grey-dust road…
GB
I have reached the lofty seniors’plateau
And have paused to look back
I see behind me what I once thought
Was a thorny, difficult track.
The craggy hills seem shorter now,
The deep valleys smooth and greener
Has the world grown much smaller
Or my vision grown sharper, keener,
To focus on the grandeur of life
Instead of vicissitudes of petty, daily strife?
GB
Marghazi day 1.
Inspired by tiruppavai
In the long night of ignorance in the soft moonlight
Our silks and jewels shone out bright
Then in the eastern sky there came
A golden nimbus, like a lion’s mane
What had once been valued seemed inane
Sunrays like spears heralded the dawn
Blood thrummed in our veins…
The dark night was gone.
GB
Marghazi day 2.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Ever active, permeating all
Though seemingly quiescent,
Is the cosmic energy.
A concept so hard to define
That minds must be prepared, aligned,
By decluttering the material
Ignoring the trivial
Disciplining, polishing the self
To glimpse a reflection of the divine….
GB
Marghazi day 3.
Inspired by tiruppavai
The worlds and their mighty ones pale
When measured on the cosmic scale.
Yet disciplines self-imposed
On commoner and King alike,
Enable fresh cool rains to fall,
So red paddy stalks stand tall
Fish sporting amongst their roots…
As yellow striped bees hover over lotus ponds
And from grazing in green grassy fields
Cows give record yields
Of milk,
These are treasures that cannot be weighed
The true wealth that does not rust or fade…
GB
Marghazi day 4.
Inspired by tiruppavai
In endless cycles the water flows
From sea to cloud to earth,
As the Primal Energy source
Moves across death to birth,
The thousand petalled lotus blooms
As lightning flashes and a great conch sounds
It’s clarion call.
Showers of blessings fall
On those who aspire
On those who try to rise higher..
Seeking the undying eternal.
GB
Marghazi day 5.
Inspired by tiruppavai
It’s impossible for mortal minds to realise
Omnipotence, infinity, the stratum that underlies
All.
The waters of the Yamuna
Where the Cowherd once sported
Are just as pure and cool
As those of the Vaigai near which great kings ruled.
In a Mother’s eyes, the light
Of love is as golden bright
As any glowing flame.
As is the remembrance of the Cowherd’s name
That burns away all sin
But all that we can offer Him
Are our praises and flowers ….
GB
Marghazi day 6.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Heralding the dawn, denizens of the air,
Calling on high from the rarefied atmosphere
Echo the resonance of a great conch..
Dispelling the darkness of ignorance
Awakening, stirring every sense,
Sounding a clear, though subtle alarm,
Signalling that evil comes in many forms.
Warning that only a mind that’s calm, at peace,
With an image of the Creator at its core
Is a truly mystic Yogi…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 7.
Inspired by tiruppavai
The brisk milkmaids with flying braids
And tinkling ornaments churn
The butter as fork-tailed drongos sing in turn,
The young girls singing in the street
Add their tones, all high and sweet…
The soul opens up, become receptive,
To the Primal Energy, the creative
Force that underlies all…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 8.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Eastern sky aglow, harbinger of day
Silver heralding the gold, lighting the way
Of slow bovines
To dew drenched grass.
So are sleepy minds awakened to the play
Of the cosmic energy that slays
Sloth, greed and anger.
That omniscient fire answers the call
Of the small sparks below
And this synergy powers the universe…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 9.
Inspired by tiruppavai
In the dark season
Bereft of reason
Their potential lost, lie supine
Many-faceted minds..
It’s only when a single beam-
From the light of the Supreme-
The Creator- refracts inside each mind
That each coruscates and realises its true splendor….
Rainbow arrays of light, the fragrance of incense
Break the spell of indolence
That holds even the awakened soul in thrall…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 10.
Inspired by tiruppavai
A moment of carelessness
A small slip of the tongue,
And a strong man’s wish for power
Came to nothing.
Indrasana, Nirdevatam
(Indra’s throne, the devataas’ death)
Became Nidrasana, Nidravatam)
(A bed, and deep sleep)
Became his life…
The honed edge of an arrow struck,
And it was then he awoke
To a truer understanding…
May we become aware
Of Something purer and higher
Through service and prayer…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 11.
Inspired by tiruppavai
How prolific the output of the innocents than those
Wiser, more mature
Occupied with the world’s worries and woes….
Like the golden creeper or the peacock in its habitat
Beautifully confident…
But when they become aware of
themselves as part of
The magnificence of creation,
Creation itself will bestow
It’s strength to let them grow
Even greater….
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 12.
Inspired by tiruppavai
In the security of her wealth and
Overflowing prosperity,
She sleeps in peace
Her senses unaware
Of the glory of the cosmos
Whose tendrils knock urgently
On the front door
Calling her to partake in its glory…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 13.
Inspired by tiruppavai
All demons vanquished,
The time for weighty matters is done,
Jupiter has set, and the creative feminine one,
Venus, arisen. the deer and birds
Frolic as lotuses bloom.
It’s time to meet and together, greet
A bright blue energising dawn of understanding….
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 14.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Blue-black night has fled
The dawn’s energetic red
Has woken the saffron of wisdom gained
Through burning to ash the dross
And pearls of wisdom gleam across
The path, lighting our way
To where the conch resounds,
The flash of the spinning wheel of life
Calls us to where the wide arms
Of the Cosmic energy wait to welcome us….
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 15.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Though the intonation and cadence are sweet
This is but a repeat
Of what has been memorised, not internalised.
For those who are like parrots to become
truly wise
They must experience the world outside,
And realise the vastness and omnipotence
Of the cosmos….
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 16.
Inspired by tiruppavai
A high-flying banner marks the place
Where the great door stands closed
Ornamented, gem-studded,
Leading to the only true, sapphire blue,
Cosmic Consciousness.
Sentry, open the door,
Guide, lead us inside.
Like the parai, the frame drum
May our hearts thrum
As we catch a glimpse of the Formless…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 17.
Inspired by Tiruppavai
Beyond the limits of our gated consciousness
Lies the realm of the Universe.
Through its Stars it synthesises all matter
All that men could ever need, all provender,
Beyond divisions of gender
Beyond relationships,
Generosity beyond imagination…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 18.
Inspired by Tiruppavai
The immensity, the raw strength of the Cosmic spirit
Cannot be directly approached with our limited senses
We must grow, look up from the earth to the sky
To where the birds sing on high.
Only One who is Enlightened must teach us the way
One to whom the world is like a ball of clay-
One who has transcended the mundane,
Like a lotus blooming,
Rising through the mud
To the stars…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 19.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Fuelled by the oil and sweat of striving
The flame of intellect burned
Till, having merged with the Creator,
Lies, lulled and dormant,
Supported by elephantine wisdom
And the softness of patient endurance,
Forgetting that others await guidance
From One who has blazed the trail…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 20.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Spirits of earth, water, air and space
Are supported, protected, nurtured by The seemingly quiescent Creator of all.
Mirroring that majesty and beauty is the Divine Feminine
A Projection that humans identify with compassion and love
For mortal understanding has yet to mature
To awaken to the spiritual realm…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 21.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Just a realisation of the Cosmic Energy
Makes mortals overflow with effulgence.
Not even the highest intellects
Can comprehend its immensity or omnipotence
Those most powerful pale and stand stripped
in its presence…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 22.
Inspired by tiruppavai
The crowned heads,
The great intellects are as nothing
Compared with the majesty of Creation.
A miniscule portion of the Cosmic Energy
In the form of our Sun
Is enough to drive away darkness…
Is this night of our ignorance gone?
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 23.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Dormancy, season of monsoon
When mortal energies are low
And grey skies weep
The Creator,
Unlike the beasts who sleep
Dispels the dark
With just a ray, a spark
A drop of His effulgence…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 24.
Inspired by tiruppavai
We try to measure the immeasurable
Using the yardstick of our comprehension
How miniscule our understanding
How all pervasive the energy
That can move mountains and traverse
The realms of existence…
The multiverse …
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 25.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Given a form by many mortals
Though intangible and hidden,
Belonging to all,
Gracefully, calmly,
Facing malevolence
To restore the cosmic balance,
Dousing the fire
Of greed and desire
With overflowing love…
Gita Bharath.
Marghazi day 26.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Infinite blue of sky and sea
Green of the auspicious banyan tree
Quiver as cycles of life and death pass by.
Only the ancients’ wisdom endures
The steady discipline of body and mind
Passed on through the war drums’ resonance, the light
Of the nacreous conch, the glowing bright
Lamps, the Vedic chants,
As souls are drawn
Upwards in the dewy dawn.
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 27.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Through scepticism to understanding
That the Cosmic Energy cannot be comprehended, realised
By limited mortal senses, the wise
Know that the Energy itself must grant clearer sight
Keener hearing, muscular might
So that mortals may ingest, assimilate
A miniscule portion of that great
Omnipotence…
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 28.
Inspired by tiruppavai
Inseparable miniscule part are we
Of Krishna , the Manifest Energy.
Ignorant of all but a narrow sphere
Of existence – the now-and-here…
Yet we know that all life, both high and low,
Is connected to that pervasive divine glow
The Consciousness that’s spread
Like the warp and woof of thread
Underlying the entire universe….
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 29.
Inspired by tiruppavai
We have reached the foot of the mountain
It’s peak lost in cloudy mists
We’ve just begun to comprehend
That we’re part of All that exists
Mighty stars and galaxies obey the same laws
As atoms in their orbits and this has come to pass
Because matter entwined with energy
Is the basis of all, and you and me …
Gita Bharath
Marghazi day 30.
Inspired by tiruppavai
The catalytic cosmic energy
Created, the primordial ocean
And churned it…
To manifest all grace and beauty…
The thousand petalled glowing lotus
And speech, poetry and song
To raise human imagination
To exalted heights where it may sense
The Creator’s omnipotence…
Gita Bharath
Nakshatra- Rohini
The vedic seers divided the celestial orb
Into twenty seven circle-sectors.
The Moon became the centre for twenty seven radial vectors
Each was named after the brightest star
In its thirteen degree arc in the sky,
To make this more lively, they later added this tale
That the twenty seven stars were Daksha’s daughters,
They all married the Moon, and he’d have to stay
With each star in turn for a single day
As he crossed the sky in his orbital pathway.
But because he took twenty-eight days to go around
He stayed twice in Rohini’s house, it was found.
All the other stars cursed him for his nepotism–
His silver glory faded, he became dark and dim.
The Moon repented, but some of the curse still remains
And that is why every fortnight he wanes
To become totally dark , then regains
His silver glow.
In western astronomy,
Rohini is called -Aldebaran (a reddish star in Taurus constellation)
gitabharath 