The world goes on because civilized men exist.
Without them it would collapse into mere dust.
Though their minds are as sharp as a rasp,
Men without human decency are as wooden as a tree.
-Tirukkural 100:997-8Excerpted from the Tirukkural, translated by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami.
Copyright Himalayan Academy Publications, www.himalayanacademy.com.
Existence is a sea; man’s speech its shore;
Letters its oyster-shells, pearls of the heart’s wisdom.
With every wave a thousand pearls of price
Scattered around, of knowledge, of imagery,
New facts to grasp, conclusions fresh to draw,
A thousand waves with every breath arise,
No less is in one drop than in them all.
Wisdom, existence, doth that sea contain;
Its outward envelope is speech and sound.
Here understanding halts; and more,
Save in a parable, may not be given.
— from The Secret Garden, Mahmud Shabistari, 13th Century Persian sage
Under the subcutaneous layer,
like the plasma-filled pulsing artery,
its subtle rhythm barely visible
to the non-discriminating viewer
life flows, filling the space between moments
in steady, subconscious affirmation
of possibility and cosmic change.
So few notice its subtle beckoning.
Most, recognizing only the echo,
their reactions delayed, must dance off-beat
to an unheard Music, not at all sure
that the choreography even fits.
Only a rare few dare to change the steps
to follow the rhythm in their own veins.
17 DEC 2002
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. – Oscar Wilde
