Flashing Beacon

(A collection of poems)

©By Chen Nagar

When no wind stirred and no whisper heard,

I encountered the moment of deep divine silence;

The deeper silence that never before have I heard

Until suddenly I felt she had taken birth in my heart.

When we logged on to the net and talked,

We both felt we were born for each other;

Even without knowing or seeing one another,

We received the subtle vibrations of our passion

That emitted ebullient love from each one’s heart.

Wasn’t that an exuberant and vivacious change of life

When we both had a cry of ardent desire to love and live,

When we spontaneously made promises to each other

Of stability, security, self-giving and self-sacrifice

To have and hold each one’s heart for ever?

We talked and chatted for hours and days together

To dig out the deepest being of our own;

And serenely we unlocked the very door

For the blissful heaven of love and care

That connected our heads and hearts; not as two entities

But made us One in love for ever.

Be it the Bible, Koran, Torah or Veda:

All claim God to be invisible & intangible,

They assert that He is love and light;

Then why we fight in the name of God?

Why we approve sense of discrimination?

Why not we love each creature then?

Do you wonder why we got lost?

Today we are many kinds of Christians--

Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox etc..,

We are Sheikh, Shiite and many more

In the name of Islamic faith,

We have as many faiths as people,

As the followers of Hinduism.

It’s time we open our eyes

And follow the scriptures

With love, faith and honesty

That will no longer divide this human race

Into so many fighting faiths:

Ponder over your faith, O man!

Kill not a man that God Himself created.

One day God flew by the earth.

Surprised to see the pollution,

And deforestation at large;

Amazed by so many divisions:

Boundaries, fences, walls and villas:

"Who polluted this Eden?

Who divided this paradise?

Why is it shattered into pieces?"

So inquired All-Pervading God.

"The man who you created in your image,

Whom you set free to rule........

He bruised and defaced this globe

To build the castles of his ego

And to distance himself from You,"

So replied the gentle breeze.

"This planet is your home, O man!"

Think deeply before you act;

Because you know not how it was,

You feel no shame at your destruction!

You know this earth was built for you."

I have heard of many great nations

That rose and fell like sand-mansions

Many great empires were built

And inscrutably ruined in a single tilt.

Be it a Golden Horde or Byzantine

Either Roman or Ottoman line

Whether weighed in billions or dime

All fell in the clutches of time.

I have heard of many great wars

And what they left behind scars

Gallic Wars and War of Devolution

Baron’s war and War of the Bavarian Succession

Then we hear of the World War one and two--

All they brought was nothing but woe;

Why talk about civil wars waged in all lands

Either fought by militia or guerilla bands,

By heroes, warriors or traitors

With scuds, bombers or Jet fighters;

The age of science thus upgraded the fights

To either cold war or the conflict of rights;

While the losses of wars not yet forgotten

So many rulers will probably be rotten

In the battlefield of science and trade war

Leaving us all to either make or mar,

And if we still happen to survive

Just wait for the cyber war to arrive.

When one wavers with "to be or not to be",

When addictions and cravings take him over,

When he finds his mind weak and shaky,

All these are silent but clear indications

That tell him how he let loosen his mind

And made himself helpless, strained and restless.

Oh, no! This is a game played by his fickle mind

Making his senses and body scapegoats.

If the human body is compared with a chariot,

The mind is the reins and the horses are the senses

Reason is the charioteer, and his self the lord

And the roads they follow are the objects of senses,

Being conveyed upon them is the lord of the chariot.

When the chariot is drawn by wild horses

That are not being restrained by the reins,

The horses will gallop on the rough terrain

Where the chariot can overturn any moment.

Clever is he who keeps his horses under control--

He is a good driver with well-trained steeds;

But a careless charioteer can’t control his horses

As he steers poorly and his team runs wild

And his chariot suddenly swerves into the ditch.

Steady and balanced is the state of such a mind

That serenely uses the saddle of reason

And the stirrups of discipline and self-restraint

And fastens the reins to the bridle-bit of intellect;

The horses of his senses will ride away at a gallop

And the mind and its faculties will be in harness

To steer the chariot well to his destination.

My eyes stayed at a "NO SMOKING" sign

That glittered in big, bold letters

Overhead the counter of the Post Office

In a town named Pond Eddy--

The town that spread over two states:

The Keystone State and the Empire State

Divided by the ever-flowing River Delaware

And linked by an old wooden bridge.

Finding the room filled with smoke

I gazed again at the "NO SMOKING" sign;

Suddenly I blinked my irritated eyes

And restrained my breathe for a while;

As I pinched and pressed my nose,

I could see the smoke streaming down

From the Post Master’s hand at his desk.

Startled I stepped out of the room

And exclaimed with an abrupt laughter:

"Hm! The rules are made to be strictly followed

By each and every visiting customer

With the exception of the Post Master alone."

Stress is an epidemic

That plagues us all in a way;

Stress alarms us, alerts us,

And then alters our bodies and brains;

It grips us in its clinging clutches

Changing us .... aging our cells and bodies.

When this malevolent stress takes over,

It assaults and maligns us from within

Penetrating to the core of our being.

Watch those profusely blooming roses

Bursting with laughter on a thorny stalk,

Serenely smiling and shouting with glee

That their strength was never on the wane;

No matter what hardship they undergo,

They will fill the earth with their fragrance.

Think of the moms that undergo throes

And pull through to see a baby born;

Can there be any pains more painful

Than the pangs of a child-birth?

I thought Destiny had been hostile to us

Causing nothing but anguish, grief and distress;

Not knowing that struggle tests resiliency

And gives us great endurance and strength

That alone can take us to the shore of success.

Strange but mighty is the world of words--

When thoughts are conceived

And feelings born and bred,

A baby of hotch-potch words crawl within

Donned with awareness and experience

They flutter desperately to a new firmament

Only to be communicated and reciprocated.

Suddenly they shoot their target

Piercing through another hearts and heads

Where they carve and design their own images

So powerfully inspiring or instigating,

Sometimes bolstering or intimidating

That they create a world of love or loathe.

Words are the sole cause and reason

For all creations and destructions:

Be it a family, society or nations

Either marriage or any other relations.

Watch carefully and mind your words,

To create a world of peace and harmony;

And see how joyous you and your world shall be!

Spring, the season that Nature brings

Birds, beasts and all beings fulfil their dreams

Singing, dancing and smiling merrily

Cheerful voices hail It as their king verily.

Decorated with jewels and gems of exotic flowers,

The earth-canvas is tinged with colors and showers.

The Nature alone utters in a whimpering voice:

"I deliver you your King so pretty and nice

But you, O man, pay Him in cruelty,

By polluting its face, you ruin its novelty;

Spring, my offspring, nourishes you motherly

And yet you set Him on fire with wars regularly."

A devil in disguise has several names;

With various faces and numerous masks,

He may pose himself as a stalwart saint

As selfless and wonderful as green wood

That gives shade, shelter and food,

But when his skulking actions are traced,

He cunningly uses his sword of faith

To shut others’ mouths and seal their lips

As tight as a spacecraft’s door

That won’t let lose the air of a heart’s desire.

When his faults flourish and bloom profusely,

He cleverly shifts the blame to other shoulders

Who, in turn, may be trapped and tried

In a binding court of their own religion,

Where the innocent may be banged and hanged

But a devil may escape and live for a while

Like a chameleon to match his surroundings;

Until he is unmasked and justice restored,

He may remain an undisputable charmer,

Life was never born nor would it die

Neither plague nor death can take it away.

Then who was born and who died?

Who was that seen in cradle and grave?

It was "I" and "You" who rose and fell

While life remained ever unchanged

"We" were born and "We" would be dead

Even death may die its own death,

And yet life will never come to an end.

At last God created his masterpiece, the first human,

He then secretly whispered into his ear:

"My son, listen to my last sermon,

Have no more in your mind unhealthy fear;

I have bestowed you with unique intelligence

So that things you can make and create,

Either to gratify your body, mind and sense

Or to give you the power beyond fate.

Your seeds will invent and explore high,

Serenely the marvelous mystery of nature,

From diving in the sea to flying in the sky,

From protecting and saving to killing any creature,

From making and keeping to breaking their families;

Soaring high they will even clone My own creation

And make beings of Lilliputian or gigantic bellies,

Soon the population of clones will rise in every nation.

Clones then will wage wars against their own creators,

Marriage will be abolished, and love will die,

Machines will rule and the clones will be dictators;

My child, Just wait and see but mind your eye!"

Just as the earth comprises North and South Poles,

And as a day contains light and night,

Similarly life is made up of two opposite forces–

Birth and death is what constitute a life;

Joy arrives where grief and sorrow departs

Pain is born when pleasure dies

Loathe flows as the feeling of love dries

Amity turns into enmity in no time

Attraction and repulsion each take their turn

They come and go like day and night

With no beginning and no end;

Just like the two poles of a magnet

These opposite pairs are the parts of life

Divided and united by the span of time;

They grow on the very field of a heart

Like a rose and a thorn on the same stalk–

This very thought of these gay and gloomy forces

Fuels the lamp of life in my heart and mind

That keeps me going with a great smile.

Poetry is the unique land of lunatics and lovers

It diagnoses, it treats, it cures and heals;

All those who immigrate to this wonderland

Are treated with great honor, fit to the kings

It intoxicates them with the bliss beyond imagination.

When a heart is filled with intense passions,

Overflowing emotions and resounding recollections,

The mind echoes a rhythm to assimilate those vibrations:

These fluctuations now flutter to be released, to seek freedom

Riding the horses of galloping rhymes and words;

There they come with fuming force as captivating illustrations.

Mellifluous to the ears and endearing to the hearts

They attract, they enchant, they captivate and rule;

It is a great release to those who sing and those who hear

These words cluttered in the syntax of natural structure

Qualifying you as naturalized citizens of the kingdom of poetry.

Strange but patterned is the scheme of nature–

It tells, warns and cautions us of all ensuing tales

And that enables scientists to forecast and predict

The following disasters, catastrophes and events.

Before God created man on this earth,

He had carved his face on a towering mountain

Of Franconia Notch Park two hundred million years ago,

Resembling an old but never aging man

Whose steady face from chin to forehead

Measures about 25 feet wide and 40 feet high,

With His distinct plan and a high hope

That humans would fill the earth and enjoy its dominion.

As this stone face is made of five separate granite ledges,

Likewise a human body is made of five elements:

earth, air, fire, water and ether; all in proportion,

That predicts the nature’s plan of keeping humans

With the same five compositions and five senses

That would rule them as long as they live on this globe,

And the moment they overcome their five senses,

They would live as firm as this pre-human man for ever.

The mind is the reins and the horses are the senses

Reason is the charioteer and his self the lord

And the roads they follow are the objects of senses,

Being conveyed upon them is the lord of the chariot.

When the chariot is drawn by wild horses

That are not being restrained by the reins,

The horses will gallop on the rough terrain

Where the chariot can overturn any moment.

Clever is he who keeps his horses under control--

He is a good driver with well-trained steeds;

But a careless charioteer can’t control his horses

As he steers poorly and his team runs wild

And his chariot suddenly swerves into the ditch.

Steady and balanced is the state of such a mind

That uses the saddle of reason and the stirrups of restraint,

And fastens the reins to the bridle-bit of intellect;

The horses of his senses will ride away at a gallop

And the mind and its faculties will be in harness

Steering the chariot well to his destination.

That we more than men do love our animals:

We love them so much from the very heart;

We tame them, we pet them and we rear them

We always show so much pompous pride.

For animals we haul and roar our care and concerns;

When someone ill-treats them or hurts them anyway,

We show our sympathy and voice our concern

(Not knowing that apathy and vanity is insanity

Until we put our contentions to a fair trial);

And yet how many of us stick to our guns

To see that all animals are loved and cared

With no discrimination and difference of species

Because all life in any form deserves survival.

As the proverbial dust in the wind, we must

Hence comply to the dictates of that pristine spirit: ‘love for all’

We must neither eat their flash nor wear their skins and furs

To show that our love is not for only specific species alone

But to all creatures that are the part of this wondrous creation;

Only then will our sense of respect be fixed, firm and fair.

Peace is a word like a light across the tunnel

Where darkness, ignorance and restlessness come to an end;

Be it a heart, mind, family, society or the whole world

Peace is a death of riots, wars, famine and fanaticism.

Nationalists amputated its wings to see

If it flew away from their national ring

And then they tied its tongue with an iron string;

Even if it is to die, It won’t flip its fluttering lips.

Military dictators hit it so hard with the butts

That it forgot its true name and shape

Even then citizens eulogized its grave-like-calm

And soldiers trumpeted its solitary confinement.

Call it mir, selam, shanti or peace

That communists ordered a postmortem of it

To find whether it could have survived

Had the concept of God not been in man’s mind.

Oh, peace we have tried to choke you to death

But the United Nations keep pumping in your nostrils

The oxygen that would keep you somewhat alive

Until all nations come together to release you from their cradles.

Five-fold are the mind’s mysterious activities--

Some call them fluctuations or modifications

Yet others assert they are transformations;

They are nothing but the flow of vibrations

Emitting like the rays of a star from one’s mind---

Either pleasurable or painful they can be.

Experience, perversion, delusion, sleep and recollection:

These fluctuating five-fold vibrations

Are said to be the mind’s infinite activities;

I call them five abstract channels

That pass from mind to the senses--

Each channel flows with strong current

Functioning as one of the five-fold activities.

One needs to stop the waste of this current of vibrations;

Prevent them from flowing, from the mind to the senses,

By recycling these modifications of mind

And transforming them into introverted waves

Which will uplift you to the very height

Of spiritual attainment--supreme bliss and joy of life--

And you will have thus made your life worth living.

I often wonder why I am in this world,

Why things happen against my will,

Why I either rejoice or sadden,

Why my mind wails and wavers,

Why my senses graze abruptly,

Why my thoughts keep changing,

And many more such questions.

Some say the happenings at present

Are linked to my past actions and intentions,

Others say this life is the fruit of my karmas,

Some claim they are the outcomes

Of my surroundings, circumstances and culture,

But I feel and find them to be

The fluctuations of my own impressions

Recollected in my mind from time to time;

These very impressions govern me--

My mind, my senses and my body,

Which I call them the wonders of mind.

Experience, perversion, delusion,

Sleep and sense of recollection:-

These fluctuating five-fold vibrations

Are said to be the mystery of the mind;

Experience is based on cognition,

Inference, revelation or attestation;

Perversion based on wrong knowledge:

It is nothing but a false concept,

Contrary to what it may have been;

Delusion is the baseless belief

Conjured up in the mind with no substance;

Sleep is but a state of absence of objects,

Devoid of a sense of substance, yet fancy soars;

Recollection is the power of storing facts

Of being able to call them back at will

And not letting the drawn pictures escape.

I call them five abstract channels

That expand from mind to the world

Running extroverted, in spiritual term;

Each channel flows with strong current

Functioning as one of the five-fold activities.

You need to inhibit (transfer) these fluctuations--

By recycling them into introverted waves

Which will uplift you to the very height

Of spiritual attainment, the supreme flight;

When these extraverted fluctuations

Have been transformed and turned introverted,

They’d be recycled in the mill of concentration

Which will reverse the coils of your mind;

While this recycling process is going on,

You will rejoice in wondrous revelations:

And all heavens will be open up to you.

You will then cross all the paths

Attaining the state of enlightenment--

This is the state when you see

Nothing but love, peace, harmony and happiness

In man, birds, beasts and reptiles

On the land, on the sea and in the sky,

and you visualize man in God’s image;

Now He is you and you become He

As you’ve dissolved your Self in Him;

You will have thus made your life worth living.

Assumptions, presumptions, doubts,

Dilemmas and false beliefs can trigger us to stress;

People in unstable living and working conditions

Can easily fall prey to noose stress.

Stress is an epidemic

That plagues us all in a way;

Stress alarms us, alerts us,

And then alters our bodies and brains;

It grips us in its clinging clutches

Changing us .... aging our cells and bodies.

When this malevolent stress takes over,

It assaults and maligns us from within

Penetrating to the core of our being.

Once stress becomes fertile, it gives birth to anger

In turn anger, when it has inhabited us,

Brings forth dreadful, deathlike life.

Happy is the man that keeps on enduring stress,

Because on becoming stress-proof

He will live longer leading the life of love and joy.