The big Question ?

When I am indifferent to my existence,
Does it really matter that you think I should continue to exist ?

Srividya Srinivasan
[Ramblings]

Expansion or reduction ?

Do you narrow the circle until you come to the dot or do you expand it so much that you merge into nothingness... Are both the same? Finally is it ultimate expansion or ultimate reduction... both are infinite and have no end ... A particle in the wave has to have some clue ... It can't just ride the wave...

Is the answer in expansion or reduction ? There is no middle ground.

I need to know... NOW.

Waiting at the crossroads...

i am lost.
i have no clue where i am.
i have no idea where i am headed.
Looking back i realise i am
where i thought I should be.
But...
it is not how i wanted it to be.
Or thought it would be.

Sometimes, driving your destiny
listening to your inner voice is insane.
And, reading divinity into synchronicity madness.
Sometimes, wishing for something is the ecstasy
and getting it is the agony.

I look around
and every road ahead fills me with fear.
Which road should i take ?
On what grounds should i take it?

I stand there pausing
breathing hard, legs trembling.
I cannot make a mistake and
take any road and then traverse back.
My legs are too weary.
My spirit too broken.

I wait at the crossroads.

Maybe someone would come by,
retracing their path to tell me
that their road is not worth travelling.
Maybe someone would come by
with the energy to take me along
even on a bad road
where the road may be bad
but the journey good.

I look back thinking I have come far
I realise I have just been going in circles.
I haven't moved at all.

I wait at the crossroads where so many roads meet.

I wait.

Just being.

I cannot follow you ...

I am sorry.
I have no role model.
No gurus.
No companions to hold my hand.
Yes, I can read about your journey.
And the journeys of the Buddhas and the sadhus.
The pious, the agnostic, the rationalist and the intellect,
the profound and the profane,
the free spirit and the disciplinarian,
the madman and the seer.
But in the end you see,
It is your journey and theirs, not mine.
Within me, only I can journey.
How can i ever comprehend the quality of your journey?
How can i but not question the credibility of your truth ?
It is not my truth.
It is not my truth until I can feel it in my bones,
until it stems from the very core of my being and belief,
until it rules every conviction of mine,
and goes past that to overpower my very existence.
My journey and only my journey matters to me.
My truth and only my truth can be the truth for me.
I exist only in me.
I can think you exist.
I am even sure you do.
But you see,
you exist as what I can see you as.
You exist as a reflection of my truth.
Of my comprehension of you.
You exist as how my life has taught me to see you.
Go your journey dearest in search of your truth if you will.
But do not ask me why i have no role models.
Call it my arrogance or your ignorance,
Be shocked at my honesty in only acknowledging my truth as the highest.
Or the fact that my truth changes as my perceptions do.
My truth will be MY highest as only I can stand by it.
You are free to stand by your truth.
But, do not be angered because I can believe harder in my truth
and that I am neither overpowered by yours nor willing to bow my head to it.
Instead raise your conviction of your truth to match my conviction in mine.
So that our individual truths can set us free and light a flame in the other.
Together we shall then walk hand in hand.
Two free individuals sharing our varied journeys.

-- Srividya Srinivasan - 6.7.2010

Who are you I wonder?

You are a face without a form
A voice that laughs, teases, supports, scolds, and pampers.
A fixed picture on my screen and my head,
Sometimes blurred, sometimes clear, but always there.
In the same spot, right when I need you.
You are the silent spectator, the broad shoulder, the avid listener.
You give me new hope, a higher courage, a return to trust.
Will we meet and when we do,
I wonder how it would be.
What are we to each other that we care so much?
What is this relationship born amidst this nebulous fragile digital space?
And, when I look at your smile and kind eyes,
The questions disappear and so do the definitions.
Am happy to just let things be.
Happy just being me. And letting you just be.

How long I wonder I can hold on ?

How long I wonder I can hold on ?
What cruel test should I continue to pass ?
There seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.
No hope or promise of the morrow.
How fair is it to continue the test
when one is so ridiculously unarmed ?
I have stood my ground
and by the truth,
with courage and faith,
spoken my mind and
believed my heart.
Is it that I have
failed you, my lord,
in not believing in you
longer and harder
and daring to question the test ?
Or is you who have
failed your precious child
standing with bent shoulders
and tears in her eyes
ready to give up?

---- Srividya Srinivasan

The big question

How can we comprehend the
mystery of what happens before birth
and what happens after death,
when we haven't even learnt
to understand ourselves
in between those two?

----------- Srividya srinivasan, Feb 8th 09

The journey

There are levels to be reached
where the mind cannot go
where words lose their meaning
where thoughts cease
where silence rules
and oneless prevails.
It is an experience
that can only be felt.
there are no parallels.
no 'like this', 'like that'.
only 'neti' - None of all these.
With what does one come back from the journey?
How does one ever narrate the journey?
With words?
that would be twisted for their meaning?
or checked for their syntax?
If it can be shared,
let it be in silence.


---------------- Srividya Srinivasan Feb 8 - 2009

A strange thought!

Why is it when we can understand that the image in the mirror is an illusion, we always think we are real in some way? What block in the mind prevents us from seeing the temporary and illusionary nature of our own self ?

Afternoon Ramblings [ Srividya Srinivasan]

The Cosmic Cycle

In the Cosmic Cycle,
How would I ever know
if the current is a result
of the past
or it is the cause for
an effect in the future ?
How do I use
my free will unless
I know this ?

- Ramblings -
Srividya Srinivasan

Is Adwaitha really possible ?

Is Adwaitha really possible ? Truly ? For even that tiniest fraction of time if it does, would not it be the most magnificient phenomena as all dualities merge seamlessly right from the largest to the tinest i.e the proton and the electron to the entire cosmos that is held in balance due to duality losing itself ? Pralaya.What a thought !!

Srividya Srinivasan
[ Midnight Ramblings]

The resultant is everything or nothing!!

When the individual consiousness merges with the supreme consciousness,
when dwaitha merges into adwaitha,
Would the resultant be nothing ?
or everything ?
is it nothingness cos no properties exist or everythingness as all properties are merged ?

Srividya Srinivasan
[ Midnight Ramblings]

I feel ...

I feel happy.
The sky looks a little bluer.
Some one smiles at me a little wider.
Colors seem a little sharper.
I see fashion.
I see beauty.
I see hope.
I see love.
I see gorgeous hunks and beautiful women.
I see laughter and the gleam of teeth.
I see kindness.
I see romance.
I see innocence in a child.
The world seems to be in me.
And I am right in the centre of it.
The sky seems grey.
Someone died.
Some one cried.
Someone is fighting there today.
I see red.
I see pain.
I see tears.
Someone is grouchy.
Someone is touchy.
I see a child with a broken toy.
I see two lovers fight.
I read about a bomb blast.

Did the world change?
Or did I ?
Or did I change my world?

Elegy to the living dead!

If I have known a nicer you,
If I have known a kinder you,
You, that loved me
And, if you are a beast now
Does that mean you exist now
and died before ?
Or that you never was
and hence do not exist now?
Is the past an mirage
and the current a reality?
What am I to you?
Do I mourn your death?
Are you the fake?
Or I the fool?

- Srividya Srinivasan

Intimate Strangers

We shall meet ... another day, another time.
A different you, a different I .
For a moment in our lives we shall pause...
pause to linger over past memories ,
and try to recapture the spirit of .. a younger you and a younger I.

Our memories shall be tinged with nostalgia ,
as we try to recapture the magic of lost youth.
We will not realise that golden memories
of silly fights,laughter and shared sorrows
are but of another life.

We shall wonder at what we have become ,
look back on what we were
and what we wanted to be.

The moment shall pass and we will move on...
with the lingering doubts as to what the bond was..
We shall move on , carrying with us this precious fragile
meaningless link of a bygone youth,
You , your way and I mine.

Srividya Srinivasan April 1994

Black Magic

When does the magic enter one’s eyes?

The promise of love and pain, laughter and tears enter one’s soul?
When does a familiar face become a dear visage?
When does every natural movement invoke a sense of awe?
When does one become so tuned to another’s scent and shadow?
To another’s frown and smile, yearning and sorrow?
When do two twin heartbeats resonate as one?
When does the music so slow between souls become heartwrenchingly beautiful?
When does one wait with bated but sure breath for that single look?
When does a mere footfall have all one’s pulses racing?
When does distance seem a mere statistic and no place too far away?
When does the promise of a fairytale seem achingly close?
When does the magic die and the curse begin?
When does the reality of hatred and pain, tears and loneliness pierce one’s soul?
When does a dear visage seem too distant to caress?
When does a familiar movement begin to irritate?
When does familiarity breed contempt?
When does music turn into cacophony?
When does the single look become an ugly mask of confrontation?
When does the hand raised is not to caress but to strike?
When does distance become a statistic between two minds?
When does no place seems far enough to run from one’s tears and fears?
Whence this curse? 
Whence the lifting?

- Srividya Srinivasan 13.11.2005