Content Digest

Poems

1. How?, a pondering on self driven change.
   
2. Belong, to what?, on identities and belongingness.
3. Transitive Impressions, on changing perceptions of the divine.
4. The Race
5. The Crutches, on principles, ideals, beliefs..
6. A World for you
7. Words, on the need for words and their futility in expressing experiences.
8. Just another ego
9. Unbridled
10. The Eternal Wait
11. The End
12. Bore Dom, on a kingdom of boredom and the role of intellect.
13. A Destiny of your own choice

Short Essays

1. Words of proactive passivity, on choice and power of words.
2. A few powerful people: Bus Driver, on a kid's perception of a village bus driver.
3. A fore-thought on opinions, a thought before having an opinion.
4. An after-thought on transparency, on looking back at musings around transparency.
5. To Be, on where you are and where you are heading.

Translations & Reviews

1. Compassionate intelligence as a natural law, based on dharmawE jayawemba diwya mantra by Purandara Daasa.
2. Are you in the Illusion, based on nee maaye-yoLagO by Kanaka Daasa.

Ponder

How

Head into your existence crossing new horizons everyday,

Horizons within boundaries but beyond the bent of mind,

Surrender your siege and cease your confinement,

Look in, to reach out and reach out, to reach in.

Short commentary:
Keep stretching yourself beyond your comfort levels, beyond what you perceive yourself as. Whatever you are holding tightly, be it the principles, the ideals or the notions of right & wrong, all are actually holding you back.

If you intend to reach out and help others, look into yourself for your needs. The world out there is not much different. If you desire love give love, if you desire prosperity give prosperity and if you need comfort, give comfort. And if you actually intend to reach in to yourself and be in sync with yourself, just reach out and be of service to others, thus gaining the satisfaction and contentment of the self.

The self exists as a dual identity by the virtue of wanting to serve others and non dual by the virtue of understanding a higher self serving whom, contentment arises thus serving itself. "How" is a process of moving between these two states of the self, exploring the source and the destination of itself.

Compassionate intelligence as a natural law

Compassion and intelligence generally seem to be mutually exclusive. In a worldly sense, Intelligence might suggest manipulation and Compassion would suggest unconditional sympathy for another.

In this context, here is a poem which refers to the compassionate intelligence aspect of the divine and expresses the Dharma or the Natural Law as a means to victory. Even though the poem stands good on its own, an under current of reference to episodes of Mahabharata can also be sensed.

Below is the script, translation and transliteration of the poem "dharmawE jayawemba divya mantra" which means "Dharma is Victory, a divine mantra". This is written and composed by Purandara Daasa, well known as Grand Father of Carnatic music.

Please note that, to retain the essence of the poem post translation, a few Sanskrit words which are now well established English words have not been translated. These are words such as Mantra or Dharma, which carry a vast amount of knowledge in their original form.
However, To satisfy your linguistic or literal curiosity, I would suggest a peek into wikipedia. But, beware they will open the flood gates of information on these words.

Sample meanings:
Dharma = Natural law
Mantra = Instrument of Thought
Tantra = Methodology
ShaDrasa = A wholesome food of six tastes => a concept of ayurveda
punDariikaksha = lotus-eyed => conveying unity of divine compassion and divine intelligence

Translation:
Dharma is victory, a divine Mantra,
we have to realize its magic and design the Tantra,

To someone who poisoned us, we should feed him with food comprising of ShaDrasa,
To someone who hates us, we should provide our patronage,
To someone who spoils by lying about us, we should sing and bless them,
To someone who has deceived us, we should keep his name to our son.

Those who criticized us behind us, we need to continue greeting them,
Those who imprisoned us, we need to mix with,
The house of the enemy who has killed, we need to walk to,
Those who are plotting against us, we need to befriend them.

Those who take us away and bash us up, we need to sing paeans of them,
Those who cannot tolerate our presence, we need to call them,
The lotus-eyed Sri ViTThala(The Lord) of Purandhara(The Poet), paeans of whom we need to sing and thus become fortunate.

The Kannada script


English transliteration:
Here are a few notes for the transliteration:
* The song can be sung in Raaga Saaveri in Ata taala.
* ||pa|| refers pallavi
* ||a|| refers to anupallavi

Title: dharmawE jayawe0ba diwya ma0tra

dharmawE jayawemba diwya mantra||pa||
marmawannaritu maaDalubEku tantra||a||

wiShawikkidawage ShaDrasawanuNisalu bEku|
dwESha maaDidawana pOShisalu bEku||
pusiyaaDi keDisuwana haaDi harasalu bEku|
mOsamaaDuwanhesaru maganigiDabEku||1||

hinde nindiparannu wandisutalirabEku|
bandhanadoLiTTawara bereyabEku||
konda wairiya manege naDeduhOgalubEku|
kundeNisuwawara geLetana maaDabEku||2||

konDoydu baDiyuwara konDaaDutirabEku|
kanDu sahisadawara kareyabEku||
punDariikaakSha shrIpurandarawiTThalana|
konDaaDi taa dhanyanaagabEku||3||