To love or to like ?-- that is the question !

THE FOURTH IDIOT .. AND FIITH AND SIXTH...
COMMENT ENTERED ON SHOBHA DE'S BLOG WHEREIN SHE SAYS SHE 'LIKED' BUT DID NOT 'LOVE' THE HINDI FEATURE FILM 'THREE IDIOTS'.


Ms. De, if you could only explain to us what you believe is the difference between "loved" and "liked"! Anyone who is unduly concerned about being unable to "love" a movie which he or she "likes" perhaps needs to know that movies or stuff such as that is never meant to be loved -- except if you happen to belong to a yuppy class who "simply loves" a certain brand of perfume or a pizza or a pepsi or a motion picture. To us Godforsaken folks, Ms. De, it is obvious why we would like your or anybody's writing without having to love it -- and yet mean no offence.
As for three idiots -- which i haven't seen as I haven't many other movies which may be "likeable or lovable" -- all I can hope is it continues to divide our country as all trivial things do, providing chatters and pen-pushers opportunity to show case their occult art of splitting non-existing hair. And I pray that between a Chetan Bhagat and an Amir Khan falls a shadow(shadow-boxing?)which may be infinitely more engaging than the movie itself - at least for those who insist that a movie is good only if they are able to 'love' it; simply liking wouldn't do. And forget that one can immensely like Shakespeare and Tagore and a film called Guide without having to love anyone of them in order to invest them with greatness. Is there a word in the English language spelt as " w a f f l e"? And what does it mean ?

Said the sun to the traveller

There is anguish in your voice and there are dark shadows around your eyes. This voice was given to you to sing songs of love and of joy. These eyes were your windows to boundless glory. There is deadwood where your heart was meant to be. These are the left overs of a life fatigued in chasing a mirage. Your legs are weary taking old mirages for new and endlessly chasing the vanishing panorama. Come, sit in thy own shade. There is no tree here but one that in your own heart has begun to sprout. There is no shade but thine own. With your own sacred blood will the plant of your life be watered. You chase love and think that you are falling in it. All chasing ceases once you fall in love - fall in love; do not fall to desire. But your eyes are tired and your head is heavy. It is, you feel, the begining of a long night. But do not despair. There is a season of flowers that waits for your soul to become a bed. Lilacs will bloom where the carcass of your empty dreams now lie. And light from the dawn of a fresh daring will fill the darkling crevices in your soul's valley. Plant a little sapling of a love reborn - of love that grows on the other's happiness, and of love that is happy to be. On your bosom will blossom a million chrysanthemum. And each flower will blossom into a million dreams. Each dream will free you from the desert chase. Put your trust in your dreams. Dreams are the only stuff worth living for; there is nothing to life except dreams -- dreams fulfilled and dreams unfulfilled. Anyone who shirks his dreams shirks his life.

Snake and the nightingale

Said a nightingale to a snake: "There is a little poison in my heart. When its pain stings sharp, I sing and feel light as a feather. Why do you never sing?"
A cuckoo heard the nightingale, smiled and said, "Snakes have no ears and he can't hear your words."
The nightingale became pensive and said to hersel,"How sad he can't hear my songs. There is no music in his life." And she wondered if that was why the the snake had to live with so much poison in his soul. "I must find some way to help him sing," she said, and the melancholy in her song filled the valley.
The snake slithered into a dark hole. This saddened the nightingale even more. The valley reverberated with her pain all night. In the morning, the sun searched every branch, but the nightingale had disappeared. Said a little flower to the sun,"She has gone to some unknown valleys to get some music for the snake who lives here."
"Amen !" said the sun, and went about his work.

MEERA BAAWARI !

CHAT WITH MEERA
JANUARY 8, MORNING 2.00 AM

(EXTRACTS FROM A CONVERSATION WITH MEERA, THE GIRL WITH THE NIGHTINGALE'S HEART: LYRICAL THOUGH LACERATED

Never will a foot-hill stone experience the glory of lofty peaks


MEERA: I am amazed at how you accept pain! ... So easily.. so welcoming... as if you wait for it to make you go beyond yourself ..Pain, like you said, is the doorway ... and "Don't get stuck in the doorway, though, " you had said.
ME: Yes, pain purifies, but having purified, it must leave our spirit feeling lighter. Pain is a welcome guest who must always be loved with an open heart and be welcome with open arms. As a good guest, pain must inspire us to do up our home and then leave us without overstaying its welcome. I already find that you have discovered new depths in your pain and that is why your love has become an incense using up your blood to burn longer to lit up brighter the darkest corners of your soul, your life and your whole universe
MEERA: Yes, you are right. I talked to that man yesterday… that was after several months. He was exceptionally rude … .... For the first few minutes, after I put the phone down, I had a very strong urge to kill myself. .. Then, I don’t know from where I heard a voice telling me that this is not something I am hearing for the first time. All that he said I had already known… He has merely given it words .. I also heard myself telling me that my love had nothing to do with the behaviour of this person .. and that I am only being “threshed” like Rumi said we are threshed….. I have sent what I think are some good, positive messages …I do not care how he receives those. I think I am on the path which will make my love totally independent of him
ME: I am saddened but not at all surprised at what you tell me.. One shouldn’t have to reach happiness through so much pain. But that’s how it is and that’s how it must always remain. Your love is all yours; it has nothing to do with whom you love. Its object is a mere accident of time or history in your life. You have so much love in your heart you were never going to carry it back with you to another world . It had to lose itself on some lucky son of God or the other here. And you are no one to decide who that son was or is going to be. It happens to be this one and you think it is because of something about him ; it might as well have been someone else, someone just the opposite of him. And that would have made no difference to the intensity of your love. The clouds have to unburden their bosom; the landscape that receives the rain is a mere accidental beneficiary. Your love , I repeat, is all yours and its object a mere accident.. The object is always much smaller than the range and sweep of love that gives it relevance. That pitiable fool will never get you because he is merely a stone you have chosen to step on to reach sublime and dizzy heights within yourself. These are heights he is destined never to see, much less climb; and never will he regret his loss because never will the foot-hill stone experience the glory which belongs only to lofty peaks. We love the stones – you and I – and we should. But march on you will towards the peaks that playfully beckon you from afar. Do not tarry. Shed a tear for the stone because you could not take it with you to the peaks. You were never meant to take a stone , however beautiful , to the peaks, because it will only be a burden and will slow down your journey to your destined heights. Reach the peaks and then turn to cast a glance at the stone. From those heights, it will look so tiny and petty . And you will pity it for it knows not what it feels like to tire one's body to experience heights. You will pity the stone, but you will thank it for being a stepping stone in your pilgrimage. This gratitude is the fruit of the love that sprouted in your bosom. Now it has become a fruit. You can not reject the fruit just becasue you loved the flower. To bear fruit, a tree must sacrifice even the most charming flower it proudly brings forth . And a fruit is a mere shell for a seed. They all go so that the cycle of life is not halted. Said Shakespeare : 'Ripeness is all.'

THOUGHTS COME A DIME A DOZEN BUT FEELINGS AND INSTINCT ARE NOT UP FOR SALE.

"I was busy living all the while, and living with a fire in my heart and in my belly that roared unabashedly in broad daylight in public parks and squares-- a fire that lit up my whole horizon. It is still there though the red flames are now turning blue and even white, an indication perhaps that the fire in me has reached the extremes of temperatures and can only transform into a superior form of energy from here."

EXTRACTS FROM A CHAT WITH AN OLD INTELLECTUAL FRIEND (Name of the friend changed to hide his identity as this is being posted here without seeking his prior consent)
11:16amS. P. G.
It is such a pleasent surprise to see your name on my screen board!!
11:16am Harcharan
I thought i was there for sometime now. good to see you here.
11:17amS.P.G.
I never expected you to be approaching me for any corrections as between us whatever we do is always correct !!~
11:18am Harcharan
just that i wanted to make sure you do visit the blog. but what do you do these days, apart from your profession?
11:18amS.P.G.
Any way, after gaps for long, there are ways of finding excuses to reconnect !
some reading, some thinking, and less writing !!
11:19am Harcharan
Gaps never divide good souls and no excuses ever unite bad ones.
11:20amS. P. G.
very wellsaid !
11:21am Harcharan
I am excited about this thinking stuff. how do you manage to do this. i have tried and failed for nearly fifty years.
11:21amS. P. G.
still the gaps in time and space have to be managed !!
I never tried ! That is one reason that I co0uld never fail;
You got into using your thinking skills in the public domain, you did it very well ! I have always respected you for doing it so well.
11:24am Harcharan
I must say you are lucky that you did not try. I tried because i was never satisfied with the thoughts that came to my mind. Finally I gave up. and found that feelings and instinct are more reliable as friends than thoughts could ever be.
11:26amS. P. G.
I was always in the public domain in a manner of speaking, but remained an individual, maintaining a distance. I think that worked well for me.
11:28amS.P. G.
You are very right, instincts and feelings precede thought and survive thought, the only trouble is that all articulation and sharing takes place in thought !!
11:30amS.P. G.
For example, we are together because of the feelings that we have shared and sought to bring us together for long, in many ways unspoken and unsaid any where !
11:31amS.P.G.
May be I am getting nostalgic about the moments that we spent together !
Are you around ?
11:32am Harcharan
I have enjoyed being in the public domain because it never involved any thinking or giving even one percent of me to the job. It is so hollow and meaningless that any class ten student can do it with eyes shut, and i did that too. and enjoyed it because it left nearly ninety percent of me alone to myself. And I used that as I wanted to. I always believed that no one had a right over my sanctum sanctorum, my spirit and my free-wheeling persona. And I was never willing to surrender my right to think freely even if I knew that my ability in that direction was not worth much. Thinking was never important to me but right to think always was. As for articulation, who really cares as long as one can afford to live through instinct. i have never laid much store by things like intellect, thoughts or their articulation. They come a dime a dozen in the market. There are sellers and there are buyers of that stuff all over. But feelings and instinct are not up for sale.

I was always overawed by your learning and intelligence and always thought it fit to place my offerings to your gifts without entering that awesome temple. One reason for this could have been my own lack of education and learning and the other my knowledge that sharp intelligence was not one my assets. Nature had endowed me with a heart that throbbed at the sight of every flower and I knew then that I was born to live my life out in the garden, drinking its fragrance, living in its stunning shades, walking through it to the eternal forests and to the inviting mountains, singing as I walked and walking as I sang. I did that to my heart's fill and cannot thank god or nature enough for the grand pulsating drama that life has always been to me. I had really no time for thinking and even less for articulation. I was busy living all the while, and living with a fire in my heart and in my belly that roared unabashedly in broad daylight in public parks and squares-- a fire that lit up my whole horizon. I am still there though the red flames are now turning blue, an indication perhaps that the fire in me has reached the extremes of temperatures and can only transform into a superior form of energy from here.
I believed with all my heart that it did not require much intelligence for anyone to pass for some sort of a success in this world, intelligence just enough to make both ends meet and satisfy the vanity of some of those I was destined to live with. I am glad that I have been able to do that and have still not lost the gift of laughter. I have laughed my way through life and cried through it. Unbearable pain has been as much mine to share as has been unspeakable happiness. But in both cases, I have felt blessed that I could travel the whole distance from extreme to extreme. And were I to die tomorrow and confront God on the side of the horizon, I would have no complaints, no regrets, no desires left unfulfilled; just plain gratitude and bliss. Gratitude because this world is so full of goodness and of wonderful people; and bliss because finally the journey has not left me tired and bored. I knew at the beginning of my career that politics was not my cup of tea, but I knew too that it would make no demands on whatever little talents I had. The very little that I had would suffice, and it did. I am grateful that it never insisted on being a jealous mistress. If it had, it would have been terribly disappointed, for like Einstein, I was never born to be horse for a single harness. Unlike Einstein, though, I did not have the firepower to change this world for better or worse. But then, I am not sure if he, with all his supernatural gifts, was a happy man in the end for having made the difference that he did. He spent the last years of life trying to undo much of the "change" he had himself earlier allowed his work to bring about on this planet. This is not to imply that Einstein was not a God, but I would rather be a happy human being than a distressed deity.

Words are the choreography of dreams

WE HAVE MEMORIES THAT WE DO NOT TRUST; MEMORIES OF MISTS THAT HANG OVER THE OCEANS OF SHORELESS LIGHT

"The lover always knows best, always has more insight than the combined wisdom of the saint and the scientist because his knowledge is based neither on dead detail nor on mere perspective. But respect a saint whose religion is love -- a Meera, a Nanak, a Jesus , a Gautam , a Mansoor. They have known love as we have known love but, unlike us, they have also known what lies beyond love. Beyond love lies a bliss to which only love provides access."

Words always romance a dream and they dance to the choreography of mind of a writer and his reader alike. Words are like children, born of mother but playing their childhood out with father. You are as much a part of dance as the dancer is . And a hand, like the one that sent out un-ending reams of cloth to a Draupadi in distress, always sends out invisible commands on tendrils of light and energy to the dancer and the writer. The same tendrils connect a writer and his reader, and a dancer and his inspiration, a flute and its tune, a Meera and her muse. We are all little ponds of glow that have broken away from an ocean of shoreless light. And we have memories that we do not trust, memories of a mist that overhangs these shoreless oceans. Our breaking away from those oceans must been wrapped in some mysterious pain. The pain of breaking away or the sharper pain of internminable separation becomes an urge for re-uniting; that urge is the force of gravitation that pulls everything towards everything else, and everything to the centre of the universe. (Quite another matter though that no one knows where the center is, and also that the centre is where you happen to be standing at any point of time.) The whole universe is a mere play of that urge of fragments to reunite. Call it gravitation, energy or force, or what you will. That awesome urge can not contain itself and therfore keeps breaking itself up into parts, a full-glorious playboy at Brij Dham and a sublime Meera drunk on high romance being just two of those fragments. They yearn to merge back into each other and then together into the vast ocean of light from where they emerged, and then sink to its center, there to swim blissfully for ever, till another breaking up sends them out on a new sojourn of discovery of what they already know. Life and the whole existence, this whole universe that we see or the energy that we do not see --all this is a mere montage of yearning taking diferent forms , an endless yearning expressing itself in countless and countless forms. That gives the whole self-contained panorama an appearance of motion whereas , at the heart of this motion, is peace and stillness -- peace, not death-like but peace that is pulsating and happening -- because things are moving as much away from the centre of the universe as into it. Every scientist who has observed this universe will tell you this, and every saint who has had a vision of vastness of life will tell you this too. But anyone who has ever been in love needs no saint or scientist to come and tell him or her this. The lover always knows best, always has more insight than the combined wisdom of the saint and the scientist because his knowledge is based neither on dead detail nor on mere perspective. But respect a saint whose religion is love -- a Meera, a Nanak, a Jesus , a Gautam , a Mansoor. They have known love as we have known love but, unlike us, they have also known what lies beyond love. Beyond love lies a bliss to which only love provides access. The pangs of love are sacred; even more sacred is the bliss that flows from understanding which only love can bring. Blessed are the blind who can love without wanting to be loved back. Blessed are the blind because only they know that it is not necessary to know someone in order to fall in love; it is necessary to love someone in order to know someone. But even knowing someone is not the reason we fall in love. The only reason to fall in love is to fall in love -- as if there could indeed be any other reason for losing yourself into so noble and divine an experience of living as only love can give us ! Love is proud to be irrational, proud to smile at the petty vanity of reason. Love knows no reason, or needs to know none.
The dance and the divinity of words flow from the vision of one who is willing to be blind in love. Those who insist on seeing, on ‘checking it out’ can not be lovers; they can at best be traders who must have the value of their goods exceed or at least equal the price they pay for it. Love cares not for the price tag, for it is willing to stake all without wanting to take all. Love’s candle feeds on love; the more it burns the more it illumines, and the more it illumines, the more it renews itself. The candle of love feeds on its own light; more the burning, greater the light, and longer its life. A loveless heart knows neither light nor joy nor the dignity of pain, while a lover’s heart seeks out pain, and in doing so conquers pain. In conquering pain, it enters the realm of bliss which those afraid of pain dare not hope for. Do not enter the kingdom of love if you are not willing to pay its taxes – I said it before and say it again and will say a million times again – but do not pay love's taxes if you are seeking royal favours out of doing that. Pay taxes anyway, and you will have peace and you will have bliss.

The candle of love feeds on its own light; more the burning, greater the light, and longer its life.

INCOMPLETE POEM !

MILK MAID ATOP A HILL

As the rivulet danced down the reflective hills,
And soft breeze blew quietly through the love-lorn trees,
She bounded up the hill
A million prayers aching on her half-open mouth,
Her lips drenched in songs dropping from clouds,
A million dreams danced across her somnolent eyes,
Dreams that carry memories from far-off landscapes,
Mists of melodies round her waist weave a wreath.
She is the valley’s own daughter, reared on autumn’s early fruit,
Ripe, succulent, like her.

Expectations others have of us are a burden to the weak, but an impetus to the brave.

Love may not be God,

but it’s the only language He speaks.

(INSPIRED BY THE COMMENT BY CHITLEEN TO THE PREVIOUS POSTING)

This kind of response can only help one be aware of the vast gap between the expectations one's words can raise in others and the strength one needs to meet those expectations. But looked at differently, the expectations others have of us are a burden to the weak but an impetus to the brave and the gifted. The days to come will unfold which I category I belong to. For the moment though, I must confess to an experience of being equal to God ( which all of us are) and of being transported to heights from where even God can be smiled at patronizingly. I can not lay any claim to saintliness but, yes, I am Love - every bone, pore and breath of my being. And so is everyone I know, and everyone knows it, except that ( may be) love enacts its own playful and naughty games before it blesses you. Those who think there are things in life more important than love are yet to be blessed by the glow of life. Even a grave, if it could speak, would refuse to accept a man with a loveless heart for a grave a resting place only for those who have toiled, sweated and enjoyed the sweet labour of love. A grave is the final abode of the living, not of those who were always dead.

But then, there is no such thing as a loveless heart on earth; there are only those who are afraid to pay the wages of love. And they are afraid because they have not experienced the joys of endless giving, the greater joys of being able to make fools of themselves, of being cheated with willing consent. Do you think the saint who pretended to be asleep while his guest stole his only blanket at night was being foolish ? If yes, I pray to whatever power there is above us to grant me the courage to make a fool of mysel like this. Giving is the music that love produces at the merest touch; and love itself is the symphony of all creation. Love is God and his Creation lost in a duet. ( Okay, not love but energy, and not His creation but simply matter, if you prefer !) Love may not be God, but I do not anything else that is. And love may not be God, but it’s the only language he speaks. Love -- boundless, untrammeled, unconditional, unspoken yet sung aloud: that is the language He speaks. Said Guru Nanak :"Bhaakhia bhau apaar" (Only Love that transcends all limits is the language He speaks).
And do I need assistance to write a book? A book is the collective energy of the writer and everyone and everything he has known and experienced. A writer is like mother: his pregnancy is through someone else -- some "one" or many others. But if I produce a book at this mental age, wouldn't I be a child mother! Don't I need to grow before I can have a progeny clinging to my bosom for milk of life!

TRUTH IS A CHILD, NAKED , TRANSPARENT AND THE ONLY REBEL THERE EVER WAS

We are all greater than what we know, Chitleen, and those whom we consider great have merely proved it before us. But obviously , they did not do it to prove anything to anyone. They were perhaps trying to give an expression to the limitless volcanoes of love or life that their little bosoms could not contain and had to release. There is nothing to do in this life except love. Everything else is merely an infrastructure of lthis grand feeling; everything else is there to facilitate love to perform its eternal play which goes on every moment around and within us. But love for one man or one woman or one or even several children or things is merely a glimpse of the profound mystical surge experienced by the likes of Jesus, Nanak, Kabir, Meera, Buddha or Bulle Shah. And as for greatness, look at yourself. Or look at your comment posted here. Did this not require great courage to be saying this in public? Are you not committing yourself to something that others may mock at , at least at this juncture? But have you cared? That’s the whole thing about truthfulness. Truth -- or the way you feel about life -- always revolts against sanity or prudence or fear of public opinion. Truth is the only rebel there has ever been; and the beauty is that it has nothing to rebel against except itself. Truth is like a child --always transparent, naked and engaged in a mock battle, playing from both ends of battle-line. Sometimes, we also do the same thing, enact the same mock drama at a game of cards or in computer games, playing ourselves and our enemy at the same time. Did the man who drove that chariot in the fabled battle-fields of life say something like that. I think he did; but if he didn't, it needed to be said anyway.
That said, a million thanks for saying all those kind words which, coming from a person as talented and as much in pursuit of truth as anyone I have ever known, should be enough to inspire any man to heroic deeds. I promise to try. Stay in touch.

Lord and Lover of Vrindavan and the Charioteer's Vision

HAPPINESS IS AN AGE OF ETERNITY AND DARING: HAPPINESS IS LOVE.

Eternity is nothing but an hour after future, or a day before past.

I have gone beyond the need to wish you a happy new year, or happy anything else. For I know happiness resides in me, and in you, and it is there and will be there forever. The "aura of light" doesn't recognise the need for a calendar, as life does not keep a calendar; I am timeless as are you. Happiness is an age of eternity for it is an age of daring, of acceptance, of the knowledge that I am not larger than nature and God, nor smaller than either or even both of them put together. I am the life of God, the spirit that moves Him ( I wish there were a word for God which would be neither male nor female and yet living. But how does it matter if there is none so long as you and I understand what we mean by God, which is me whole and you whole. Do you think I am a male only? And do you look at yourself as a female only? May be you do some times, just to buy the luxury of harmless masochism .Why does one have to be a female only to have exclusive licence for Indulgence in self pity or even self laceration ? No sentiment is only and entirely male, nor could it be only and entirely female. I bestride all feelings, passions, thoughts, experiences which the entire human race has gone through. And not just human race; i have experienced the ignoble greed of a lizard, fox or a wild hyena ; and I carry in my bosom a thousand million fires that rage between earth and hell, the painful flames of female longings or hot saliva of the hunger that haunts a man's groins. And I have also nursed in my warm bosom the nobility of selfless love, love that seeks nothing but peace and happiness for the beloved. And I have experienced, and still experience the sublime dignity of a saint's all embracing love and kindness. And I have been a mother's heart to every suffering soul in the universe and a Father to all who need support, direction and shelter. I am the Lord Krishana of Varindavan and sit in the vision of the Charioteer in the blood soaked fields of Kurukshtra. Me too the anguished uncertainties of a soul riven between a vision he cannot deny - a vision that transcends human love as humans know it -- and a love and loyalty he cannot deny nor fail to rise to the peaks of his own vision. Do I need to remember dates, days, months or years? Is Mahabharta a a rainbow that appeared yesterday leaving no traces on the rain-washed sky? Is Mahabharta a story that is yet to be told but fragments of which have flashed across a half remembered dream ? Or is Mahabharta the rhythm of life that thumps against my chest each time I try to silence it in order to make peace with my dreams? Or is it a loop over locking itself into yesterday, today and tomorrow, all sucked in by something like a black hole to race forward to the past or back to the future. Images flit and fleet and flash before the broken memories that do not belong to the past. A vision is nothing but a memory of the things yet to happen, and memory is only past rolled forward into the present. You are the only synthesiser God has ever created to condense time into throbbing dot on a vast vacuum , the throbbing blob we call present. You and I and all those we know and do not know, all those who have ever lived - man, bird, fish or beast- or will ever live. They all spring from the blob which we call present. Which we call present because our eye is stuck too close to this dot of the present moment to see that the past and the future have no life beyond the present. Happy new year was yesterday, the day before and the day after the day after the day after today. And happy new year today, because the cycle of time has neither a beginning nor an an ending point. and the cycle of time is merely the present going round and round in endless circles. If you look ahead from where you stand, you look at the future but if you keep looking far enough over the cycle, its line will the starting point from behind and the future will end up joining the moment just passed. Just as you can reach a point placed half an inch behind you by travelling the entire planet in the opposite direction. If you merely look back, the farthest point of future would be where the the nearest point of the past is, and that the point of your most distant future would be the point of your immediate past. So you can reach the past by travelling the whole distance into the future, or you can reach future by travelling the whole distance into the past. I am the slain prophet who rose from his ashes to come back to the point in history which had thus crucified him. I am also the tyrant who persecuted the prophet because I could not see that the future already belonged to my past and there was nothing new i could do. We force events to happen because we believe that this is the only way to move time forward. No event, no movement, and therefore no future. Do you also think and feel this way? You don't because you have already looked far into the past , or enough for the past to join up with what looks like future if we only turned our face in the opposite direction. No you will not be tied in knots of past present and future because you already know the history of your future, which is nothing but your past a day after future.. Just as you can anticipate your past because anticipation is nothing but future seen a day before the past. You know that the only reality of time is love, and the only reality of love is timelessness. And no one has to be an enlightened visionary to see that there is no difference between time and timelessness. One only has to be in love to know that neither does time move nor does it stand still. It is, so to say, always moving into itself and thus going nowhere. Meera is one of your histories and Helen of Troy is another. And every woman to be born from this moment would be your other histories. You are the mother of the mad man from Nazareth in one direction and you will be his prostitute in times after the universe as we know it will have come to an end. The universe as it is never comes to an end just as it never could have begun. Changing shapes and changing forms, yes, but never beginning nor ending. How could it, how could it at all have begun? For it to have a beginning, there would have to be something before the beginning . What could that be if there was no universe before the beginning of the universe? For it to end, there will have to be something after the end. And what will that be if there is to be no universe after the end of the universe? Universe is like God --always present. Universe is like you, matter to mind, mind to matter, in rapid-fire and endless interplay of forms. Never going anywhere, never coming from anywhere. Never coming forth from a past, because for that it would have to have a beginning, for which again the universe would have to have a universe before its beginning. Nor going forth into the future because it can not have an end. To have an end, there will have to be no universe after the end of the universe, and that is not possible. So you don't get to fathom the full length of time, the full volume of space , the all measure of events. But there is one key: love. For if you are in love, you are one with the whole. You measure the whole with your being which is absolute. Only in love can you see the timelessness of time. Only in love can you spread your body across the length and breadth of space without end. Love is God because love neither ends nor does it know its beginning, because for love to begin, a heart will have to be loveless before falling in love. A loveless heart can never fall in love. And for love to end, the heart will have to turn into heartlessness. That is not the nature of heart. Yes, a desire can begin and a desire can end. But there is no such thing as "a love." There is only love. Love on. Every moment will be a happy moment. Even pain would be priceless for through pain alone will happiness be felt. --