While this one reaches you riding on your strong cup of morning beans, it’d already be a few hours since 2008. Okay, so hold on, turn your neck to catch the goings-on with your bedside alarm clock. So have the seconds-hand washed and worn new clothes? Or did you see the pendulum on that wall clock tick itself happy at the prospect of a brand new Time?
Or is it your head?
Is it your head with that tick-tock - first working up a rhyme, then a song, then a tedium, then a noise, and then, the same chaos of routine. Waking up, walking 45 minutes (or 4 kms – whichever explains your health or absence of it, best), the bath-breakfast-work-lunch-friends-dinner-cell sessions-and-back to bed rigmarole… So where went Time? Or does it matter…
It didn’t matter to one man. The Time. So he flowed, in an unlearning, wise sort of way, a twig in the rivulet, dashing against rocks, down the waterfalls, into whirlpools, dipping, slipping, losing, finding and then back in the flow… It didn’t matter to him – The Time. And so the tick tock was never music to his ears. In fact it was nothing to his ears. He didn’t live by the years. Or days. Or deadlines. He lived by NOW. Now, ‘now’ was a problem. Even as all the masters spoke of ‘now’ and only ‘now’, nobody was listening. They were being born, and what next was suddenly ruling their lives. Now what next? School. Which and where. What next? College. Which career and what for? What next? Job? What next? Marriage. What next? Kids. How many in how many years? What next? Them. All about them. What next? House. When and where? What next? Kids’ marriages.. What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next?
And our man, who lived by completing full circles of experiences, sniffing his way through with his soul as the radar, the words turned deafening and then they all started sounding like alarm bells. The folks said they wanted him to do this and do that by this and that time so that they could be ‘liberated’. Liberated of responsibility, they added. Responsibility they had themselves created.
And this man of ours was buried under alarm clocks, transgressing his own lines of destiny and just about short-cutting to destinations at the ‘right’ time as they decided.
Today as this reaches you, riding on your morning cup of beans, strain your senses a bit and you’d listen to the cries of that man buried under time clocks. Pierced by a seconds-hand, knocked down by the pendulum, hanged to death at 12 o’ clock. Time killed him. Because he defied it, to live by the soft song of surrender to the river.
Happy New Year. It’s 32 minutes past 8 and it’s time for meditation.
Jan 1, 2008
Or is it your head?
Is it your head with that tick-tock - first working up a rhyme, then a song, then a tedium, then a noise, and then, the same chaos of routine. Waking up, walking 45 minutes (or 4 kms – whichever explains your health or absence of it, best), the bath-breakfast-work-lunch-friends-dinner-cell sessions-and-back to bed rigmarole… So where went Time? Or does it matter…
It didn’t matter to one man. The Time. So he flowed, in an unlearning, wise sort of way, a twig in the rivulet, dashing against rocks, down the waterfalls, into whirlpools, dipping, slipping, losing, finding and then back in the flow… It didn’t matter to him – The Time. And so the tick tock was never music to his ears. In fact it was nothing to his ears. He didn’t live by the years. Or days. Or deadlines. He lived by NOW. Now, ‘now’ was a problem. Even as all the masters spoke of ‘now’ and only ‘now’, nobody was listening. They were being born, and what next was suddenly ruling their lives. Now what next? School. Which and where. What next? College. Which career and what for? What next? Job? What next? Marriage. What next? Kids. How many in how many years? What next? Them. All about them. What next? House. When and where? What next? Kids’ marriages.. What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next? What next?
And our man, who lived by completing full circles of experiences, sniffing his way through with his soul as the radar, the words turned deafening and then they all started sounding like alarm bells. The folks said they wanted him to do this and do that by this and that time so that they could be ‘liberated’. Liberated of responsibility, they added. Responsibility they had themselves created.
And this man of ours was buried under alarm clocks, transgressing his own lines of destiny and just about short-cutting to destinations at the ‘right’ time as they decided.
Today as this reaches you, riding on your morning cup of beans, strain your senses a bit and you’d listen to the cries of that man buried under time clocks. Pierced by a seconds-hand, knocked down by the pendulum, hanged to death at 12 o’ clock. Time killed him. Because he defied it, to live by the soft song of surrender to the river.
Happy New Year. It’s 32 minutes past 8 and it’s time for meditation.
Jan 1, 2008
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