Saturday, July 15, 2006

The Cross We Have To Carry.

Every now and then, I am hit by waves of despair which are so overwhelming in their impact as to be rivalled only by the emotional tsunami that engulfed the life of the young Buddha as he came to grips with sickness, old age, pain and death. I do not in any way attribute these paroxysms to the be-your-brother's-keeper configuration of my social milieu in which what affects the eyes also affects the nose and vice versa, but to a congenital biochemical constitution hardwired to my DeoxyriboNucleicAcid.

Every time I take a look at the socioeconomic landscape, I see it dotted with men and women who have sunk into the mud of precarious existence while trudging through the valley of the shadow of death without any prospect of ever reaching the promised land. Homelessness, joblessness, starvation and destitution metastasizing into abject poverty, are the skulls and cross bones that must perforce be dragged along on the journey to Golgotha.

My sense of righteous indignation is aroused when I see humanity on the brink of apocalyptic suffering without any justification. The Great Provider has in His infinite mercies endowed mankind with virtually limitless resources to sustain and maintain each one of us according to our needs. But because of the myth that more is better and that he who dies with the most toys wins, a great abyss now lies between the handful of arrogant multimillionaires who wallow in filth and luxury, and the millions of working people who constantly live on the verge of pauperism. There is no gainsaying the fact that nature is indeed a zero-sum game. Every acre of land you occupy elbows out somebody else. Every cow you slaughter for your family is one less for somebody else's.

The erroneous and condescending statement that many are called but few are chosen cannot be used to palliate the excesses, ostentation and conspicuous consumption of the so-called chosen few--our celebrities and the super rich-- who erect edifices in glorification of Mammon and indulge in wanton primitive capital accumulation. Given that almost everybody shares the same basic innate talents, objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the predictable must invariably be taken into account.

It is however not every wealth that is the result of organized, protected robbery, just as it does not also translate into the fruit of labour every time. Prosperity or wealth is supposed to be a teacher bestowing upon its recipients the noble virtues of humility, compassionate conservatism, prudence and altruism. As it were, the most difficult character in life's drama is that of the sagacious, and he must not be wealthy to play that role because prosperity has already pampered his mind. Privation, on the other hand is a greater teacher, training and strengthening the minds of the underprivileged who cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. To obtain the aforementioned which in a way constitute the basic necessities of life, a lot of people are forced to take on two or three jobs, and paradoxically, they have nothing to show for their hard work except an avalanche of unpaid bills.

Some of us are overachievers, while some are underachievers. If the overachievers among us adduce their success to ninety-nine percent perspiration and one percent inspiration, it is only logical to deduce that the dismal performance of the underachievers could be attributed to ninety-nine percent inspiration and one percent perspiration. Inspiration on its own is a positive. It is the locomotive of ambition. Inspiration is ambition in motion. Ambition is energy and determination. But it calls for goals too. People with goals but no energy are the ones who wind up sitting on the couch saying "one day I'm going to build a better mousetrap." People with energy but no clear goals just dissipate themselves in one desultory project after the next. Add to these factors the element of risk and it becomes clear to see why and how there are overachievers and underachievers, for risk is the precondition of rewards.

Understanding this great divide and becoming aware of alternatives could be instrumental in getting around the problem posed by the characterisation of nature as a zero-sum game. The ultimate alternative lies in the Law of Unity which is the basic law of life. It is our ignorant or wilful infraction of this law that is responsible for our groping in the inextricable darkness of the problems it has raised. The Law of Unity is best exemplified by the one reality in which every pair of opposites is ultimately an illusion. And so, we find inspiration and perspiration dissolving into a synergy or symbiosis. Everyone becomes truly inspired to perspire more for the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pains for every other. Every life becomes equipped with inescapable turning points, opportunities, epiphanies and breakthroughs. And as the hitherto poor underachiever finds its material weapon in the heretofore rich overachiever, so the latter finds its spiritual weapon in the former.

Friday, July 14, 2006

GOD HAS NOT FINISHED WITH ME.

You have kept me in a prison
Awaiting deportation
But as long as my faith is
unshaken
Jah remains my salvation.

You have kept me behind bars
I cannot escape
But when I gaze up at the stars
I know Yahweh will make a way.

Though I'm kept incommunicado
By friends who think I'm finished
The same God who has brought
me low
Through His companionship
I'm strengthened.

My jailers feed me night and day
With something quite akin to food
But I'd be a fool to complain
When I have the Bread of Life
for good.

I could be here for eternity
But what they don't seem to realize
Is that a thousand days in Köpenick
Are like a day in the sight of El-Shaddai.

I am afraid of the oncoming winter
The frost bite and snow could be my
doom
But God says to me in a whisper
My son, I have not finished with you.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

TIMELESS TRUTHS.

1. Mankind shall never know peace until the philosophy which holds one race, sex and religion superior and another inferior, is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned.

2. The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

3. It is a familiar irony of history that the movement of the oppressed against their oppressors is always of the oppressors' own making.

4. The present age is the age of liberation and the civilization of the modern age is the civilization of liberation.

5. In the beginning of humanity, women, who as mothers, were the only definitely ascertainable parents of the younger generation, were treated with a high degree of consideration and respect.

6. There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountain tops of our desires.

7. He who does not allow himself to be criticized during his life time will be criticized after his death.

8. Hungry men have no respect for law, authority or human life.

9. You don't starve a man who has the food in order to feed the starving man.

10. Man cannot live by bread alone.

THE FIVE LEVELS OF TRUTH TELLING.

1. Begin by telling the truth about yourself to yourself.
There is only one journey. Going inside yourself. Undertaking this spiritual journey is a preparatory step to looking into the mirror with a view to communicating with your alter ego. In the basement of human life, illusions are the truth we live by until we know better. When you tell the truth about yourself to yourself, you are indulging in soul-searching, the purpose of which is to personally identify and acknowledge your fears, self doubts, weaknesses, negative traits and the other little secrets you have never communicated to other people.

2. Tell the truth to yourself about another.
This involves seeing your fellow- creature as similarly endowed with a share of the divine, for both of you were born to work together like the upper and lower rows of a man's teeth. When you tell the truth to yourself about another, you are affirming the fact that the earth was made for both of you to inherit through peaceful coexistence. Each time you are critical of another person, turn within yourself to see what it is that triggers this reaction.

3. Tell the truth about yourself to another.
This is basically the same thing as the second level of truth telling. It involves honestly sharing your weaknesses. When you reveal your failures, feelings, frustrations and fears, you risk rejection. But the benefits are worth the risk. Opening up relieves stress, defuses your fears, and is the first step to freedom.

4. Tell the truth about another to that other.
Here, you will be embarking on an evangelical mission of getting the truth disseminated. In the process, you have to be ready to don the toga of blindfolded Justice, complete with swords and scales. While operating on this level, you try as much as possible to remain impartial, non-judgemental, and a good keeper of other people's secrets. Encourage and praise openly, criticize and advise privately, and advance the cause of universal brotherhood.

5. Finally, tell the truth to everyone about everything.
The Creator in Its infinite goodness permeated each particle of creation equally, and the same divine spark animated life in all its forms. We have to live our lives not oblivious to the sense of perfect harmony with the universe, of perfect harmony with another person, and of perfect harmony with the self. Every star is an annoucement. Each leaf a reminder. The glaciers are megaphones, the seasons are chapters, the clouds are banners. This is God's truth. The truth we are required as It's creatures to live habitually, subconsciously and consciously.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

GOING UNDERGROUND.

The bowels of mother earth
We burrow through toiling
Night and day round the clock
Eking out a precarious existence
The voluptuous snake
In whose pouch we ride
Halts intermittently
Disgorging a prince
Or swallowing a princess
And as we pass by each other
Winks, nods and hand shakes
And the black power salute
Reinforce our solidarity.

From my unshared space
I could espy a brother
Dreadlocked and sitting all alone
Just like myself
And even though the iron snake
Is creaking from overfill
We both have enough space
To stretch our tired legs
Because hypocrites do not
As a matter of principle
Suffer pariahs like myself
And natty dread gladly
Veritable hewers of wood
And fetchers of water.

We exchange glances
Glances that are pregnant
With a tacit understanding
Of the African experience
In the subterranean world
Of iron snakes and their charmers.

From nowhere appears a priest
Reeling from teutonic testiness
And as he approaches us schwarz schafe
A thousand white necks are craning
For a glimpse of the imminent spectacle
Of African schwarz fahrer and sinners
Hey presto, natty dread flashes a ticket
My uniform is my open sesame
The priest blesses both of us
But amen sticks in my throat
As I heaved a sigh of relief
We have done our race proud.

I must now make my exit
No sooner have I stood up
Than a pack of white hyenas
Scrambled for the sacrificial lamb
That my space provided
Underground.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

I Am The Truth.

Quid est veritas? What is truth? said jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer. Truth is an expression of a particular kind of life and being which has, in you, ventured to assert itself. My experience is that I am a fragment of humanity awaiting enlightenment, not perfection. And the truth I live everyday is to give my life a meaning by becoming a better human. My past preoccupations with emotional dramas, anger and revenge are gradually been replaced by self-actualization, empowerment and forgiveness. And I would be delighted beyond the limits of human expression if my life included a forgiving spirit, an adamantine willpower and peace.

Wherefore did I confess my weakness? Because the weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths which must be kept from it. Today, I lack firmness of purpose. Tomorrow, I may be as resolute as resolutoin itself. I am the truth.

Monday, July 03, 2006

UNEARTHING THE RACIAL QUESTION

At an hour considered
unearthly
Lying wide awake this
earthling
Seeking to know why
unearthing
This cankerworm is
unhealthy
The lion sleepless in
limbo
Watching his dream
crumble
Was once the pride of
Africa
Morphed from prince to
pauper
How art the mighty
fallen
Tell it not in the city of
Berlin
The capital of the
empire
Where blacks sit on kegs of
gunpowder
And are racially
profiled
Justice and equality
denied.

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