one comes to this place
text © Raj Arumugam, January 2008
…one comes to this place, to this view, at this scene quite abruptly…a long walk, a leisurely walk, yet almost breathless…one arrives and one gazes at what nature offers, at what nature presents before one…no, just what nature is on its own…
lonely, away from the world
one thought to venture further
and walked an uncommon path…
and breathless one comes to this scene…and just sees what is before one…it is not arranged or planned or ordered – but one just meets the clouds and the cold and the birds, and Mount Fuji…one meets without greetings or formalities; one is ignored and one is nothing here but another creature…
nature a geisha
who smiles and plays
and awakens one’s senses…
and one stands before the birds, and the fog and the fields and one’s self disappears…one’s self is meaningless here…one’s self is insignificant here…there is just what is here and one’s identity disappears…and one’s concerns disappear…perhaps here one sees what one is before one’s descent into the everyday world…here you don’t talk about your philosophies and you don’t bring in your religions and your atheism and your ideas; they are insignificant here; here you don’t bring in your quarrels and your victories and your memories: how wrong others are; how right you are….the clouds spit at your thoughts…here you are nothing…at this scene your are just a part of the scene……
an original self
not defined, not conditioned
but corrupt by one’s world…
but here like a stork, like a bird, like the cloud, mind clear and mind empty – unlearning in an instant – unconditioned in an instant – seeing the clarity beyond the concerns and needs and wants and aggressions and self-importance…nothing matters now…one sees….there is no one within…no self housed in this shell…just forces that come and interact in a world that loves the play and the illusion…
without self
without conditioning
all agitated forces stilled…
and one sees it all in this abrupt and unexpected meeting …and geisha nature says:
we have loved freely
without formalities
without rigidity of spouses
and in this illicit love one sees what it is to be free….go; it is time…one must return; one turns and one walks back…to corruption…and the conventions of the self that is in constant activity….but to this scene, this place, this freedom one may return again…the geisha will wait patiently…and here is true freedom…beyond all mental formations and beyond one’s conditioning…go in peace…
one comes to this place
text © Raj Arumugam, January 2008
picture: Mt Fuji from Umezawa by Hokusai Katsushika
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A beautiful thought provoking write..Nature has ever been our best friend, but we forget this friend some times.....Yash
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1) rmadhuri - the blog in which uncommon appears is a longer one and I have time to develop the philosophical angle and so the word uncommon was suitable there; the word narrow appears in the first verse of the shorter blog and I wanted to keep the reader in the physical world (narrow) before going into the more philosophical level...
I didn't want to make the very first verse vague by being philosphical; narrow is better in that context...Of course I didn't think about all this when I wrote...
2) Your haiku is excellent; do post it as a poem with a picture
title possibilities: Man and Nature / Green and Red/ Grass and Can
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lap of nature
ever refreshing
ever loving
fore ever caring
Great write up Raj Sir,
Yashasvi
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A very meaningful write up about nature... Nature has been written about and talked about so much, that it's hard to find something that doesn't give a deja vu. Yours has achieved the feat.
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AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!
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Beautiful! Me too an admirer of JK's philosophy.
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Mind blowing it is... awesome.
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Loved this one!! Although I noticed uncommon changed to narrow...Why is that?? I too have come under the spell of nature-geisha...
Human used to belong to this scene
Until he threw at it
One crushed Coke can...
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