The choices we make, the cakes we bake, the decisions we take, the nuances we fake
All like little mudhills around a lake...

She said, "I dreamt I wore a Mulberry hat."
He said, "You should be a beginner to life always."
She said, "I prefer lilac, though."
He didn't say anything.

Juxtaposer™

IwillalignIwillattachIwilltouchIwillfeelIwillsmellIwillseeIwillhear
IamtheJuxtaposer™

Dhrupad "Nuances"

Yesterday was quite transcendental. I went for a lovely Dhrupad concert organised by my friend Yogesh in Ramakrishna Ashram, open air, under the moon. I am getting the flavour of this wonderful soul. Its like an open sea of the slightest nuances in voice. God bless India.

As Much As You Can - C.P. Cavafy (The Canon)

And if you can’t shape your life the way you want,
at least try as much as you can
not to degrade it
by too much contact with the world,
by too much activity and talk.

Try not to degrade it by dragging it along,
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties,
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.


Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992)

Thanks, J.

Bringing in the light through the back door,
Limiting the shift of the paper I tore.

Untangling the night from the timid sun,
Developing negatives on the run.

A day of strange serendipitous events...

About yesterday...
So, I got to Aum Cafe as usual in the morning. Marcela was there, her hearty laugh, her positivity, her all-black clothing. Such a wonderful happy soul. We chatted for a bit about this and that and then finally when she scribbled her full name on a piece of paper, I found it strange that her surname was Rossiter and the first four letters of her name Marc. So, who is Mark Rossiter? He is a very good friend of mine in Dubai. He was the protagonist of my film Look here, Kunigunda, back in 2006, all those mad black and white days in Dubai trying to jump off that corporate machine, those lonely days in Ogivly... I needed that outlet. Anyway, so we spoke of the possible genealogical connection and there was Ludwina there who apparently is a psycho-analyst which then made her interested in the film since the film is about the wonders of the subconscious mind. Somehow three of us were connected, informally, though "formally separate". So, they are coming over to watch LHK today...

In the evening, after a few j's and a cookie I made my way to Hayat to meet Gael and friends. I got there, we all connected, it was very peaceful, a few good laughs with Gael, spoke to his friends. I don't remember their names, though. I also had a lovely chat with Mohammed, the Jordanian who runs the restaurant and discussed his love for Oum Khalthoum, her beautiful voice, her different expressions of love, the soul in her music... Suddenly I got a text message from Mohanettan (Paris Mohan). He is dead broke, apparently vomitting blood, no food. Ten minutes later, Gael's friend asked me if I knew Paris Mohan since we were on the subject of tribal life and the films I made in Kerala. How strange. She knows Mohanettan quite well and we connected through that. I wonder how these things happen. Strange connections, funny grids, patterns, all merging into the universal one, the law of nature. Dharma, totality and beyond...

An Introductory Note

Just as industrialisation began to take over, Dara Okat began planting the seeds of Earth-Realisation, a 14-volume, 150,000-word document on the consideration and the understanding of our mother earth and the wonderful harmony of its existential elements. These detailed descriptions and handdrawn sketches of his artworks titled Schema-Livitus were displayed at the Okat Lab, circa 1955, and were conceived on a windy night in December when Okat was stranded at the Paris Convention on sustainable societies.

It was around this time he began with the conceptual drawings of Hinterland, a place, according to him, "for everyone and no one". Alongside he started writing his second full-length thesis on the emergence of a new consciousness. He titled this work The Psychograph of Dara Okat. In his initial studies and research, he developed the floating room where he conducted exhibitions and talks with imminent philosophers, activists, musicians, filmmakers and dancers. These sessions were documented by The Vision Controller in detail and an analysis of current scenarios was archived in analog and tape format at Arc-Eye.

Hinterland, figuratively defined as an area lying beyond what is visible and known, was a place that Okat saw as a collective of kindred spirits. The make-up ie fabric of their internal textures were cut from the same cloth. They wore Vision Controllers, a silly metaphor to the ever confined lives of the others, those in externalities and personalities. The essence of these things was baffling to the human eye. The island, the sun-eye, was the heart of Hinterland. People visited, walked the visceral path* (originally sketched by Dara Okat, circa 1950), bought the funny gadgets of H10,000/-, tried out the DaraOkatSubliminal T-shirts from Quro, sampled some fresh basil at Tea Tree, walked the "D" bridge cross Alpha Channel and unto the wildernests that followed.The Ellipses was the communion of three friends, film, music and architecture.

Tangent, sometimes also called Transition, was Okat's den. He projected messages from his ethereal room in the trees. He would come down dressed in a beautiful bear costume monkeying around looking for honey. These were the little signposts in his cave. His tavern, his carnival, his terra.

His remote-controlled channel Okat TV projected those flickering images of the cult superseries "The Moons of Randox 12". Those still images of a nape bearing the fruit of Okat's brain, the seeing eye. I wont forget those last hours we spent at Arc-eye sifting through videos and still images, analog feeds from The Vision Controller, a post-modern eye-videocamera that comes in three models - black, white and mirror. Discreetly becoming the nemesis of the seeing eye, the antithesis, the antagonist. Eyeless, yet witnessing everything, documenting everything, live feeds right into the nerve cells of the heart of Arc-Eye. That ginger tea Okat sent us at sunset was unforgettable. I wont forget the strawberry specially hand-picked by Okat, like he quietly sent us a bit of his energy, a sneak-peak of the oracle that he is. Kingsize.

I'm the sky's hidden tears, the sun's hidden fears...

disTEMPO

Click, clack, three-four, waltz shfting to a sevenish rhythm, breaking into a major vacuum, lost in Bflat minor, drifting over keys, aimless, like tip-toes on water, cling-cling tinkling, tip-top-tip-top, drop...
The second movement is a flutter, shifting to another mood, pulling the beat past time, before time, never in time, challenging the nature of things, aligning itself to the void, breaking the parameters of sound, sleeping in silence, awoken in the freshness of that warmsound, the sound of the new day. Apparently, the sun is up.
The leviathan of the outro, the enormity of the progression crushing like the hardwaves on rocks, forming clusters, plaza's and coves, the progression denotes a dip in the psychograph, a trough after a peak, a low after a high, lost in that last joint made with the night's unfriendly hands...
End-image appearinggg...

Fivefiveseven

Dead stov' on the ground
Right hand underground
Six two one oh! bound
Foundlostfoundlostfound

Break three in its knees
Head lost blown to squeeze
White mouse after cheese
Me's, you's, me's, you's, me's

Cry the pillow off the bed
Fight the fellow in my head
Kill the yellow in my red
Bite the hello in my bread

A Pole
brought in
A December Soul Caught in November

Hinterland

Dot above the eyes
Sitting in tangent
Transmission,
Open.
Never shuts
Sees,
Never blinks,
Listens,
Never thinks,
Breathes.

Dot above the eye
Like the last sentence
In a seminal work
Existential and
in silent oneness with Her
Like a thoroughfare
Stretching out into a wistful dream

Dot above the eye
Placed like a door
Open door, oceandoor
Never shuts
Open,
Since the dawn of man.

You are here, we are open.
Like the dot above your eyes.

Possible Preface to "A Hopeless Man" by Nic Holas

Any2 for ribbed Shackle Toe?

Through the realms of Sardine Village;
From the burden of yesterday's meat defeat
comes "Swift AL" and his pointless and scattered collection of weapons, soft socks, branded folds, pre-smile jokes and not forgeTTing his / her partner in crime "BolloX McBollox" a deeply clean, clean shaven, beard of a twat.... See More

Together they work alone sorting through enormous, yet reportedly too expensiV to see "lost dead knee helicopters" with zero intent.

buTT it is that thYme of year when 89th Ventricle Street becomes the newest monster of aLL, so no wonder AmbiDextor IV is hanging about pining for his gorgeous wife with her 5.89 million nipples.

Yes, after careful farting with smelly bell shaped after meal grins, these wankers are best served with metal shaped poo from Mickey House.

Smell?

Five, three, two

Five seconds later, five decembers back,
Five things on the bedside table,
Three switches to the right,
Aluminum conditioning, a repository of defeat,
Two words in my head, two colours in my bed,
Pulling the chord from the ceiling
...into the stages of my psyche.

Tulips by Sylvia Plath

Tulips The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.
They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.
My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.
I have let things slip, a thirty-year~old cargo boat
Stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.
I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free -
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.
The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.
Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.
Before they came the air was calm enough,
Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.
The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.

Time

Its 11:17, I have no idea what that means,
Its Wednesday, I have no idea what that means,
Its February, I have no idea what that means,
Its 2010, I have no idea what that means,
But I do know that...
Its the time for colour and a curious love, a time for corduroys, a time for elephants and turtles, a time for two R's, two N's, two L's, a time for a breathing heart.
I might know what this means.

It has to begin somewhere, end somewhere.
Okat thinks, Okat lives, Okat says,
"Hinterland is everywhere, Hinterland is you. All you have to do is look."

The Transmigration: Sunbirds (Wildlife analysis)

Step 1: Research

The sunbirds and spiderhunters are a family, Nectariniidae, of very small passerine birds. There are 132 species in 15 genera. The family is distributed throughout Africa, southern Asia and just reaches northern Australia. Most sunbirds feed largely on nectar, although they will also take insects, especially when feeding young. Fruit is also part of the diet of some species. Their flight is fast and direct on their short wings.

The sunbirds have counterparts in two very distantly related groups: the hummingbirds of the Americas and the honeyeaters of Australia. The resemblances are due to convergent evolution due to the similar nectar-feeding lifestyle. Some sunbird species can take nectar by hovering like a hummingbird, but usually perch to feed.

The family ranges in size from the 5-gram Black-bellied Sunbird to the Spectacled Spiderhunter, at about 45 grams. Like the hummingbirds, sunbirds are strongly sexually dimorphic, with the males usually brilliantly plumaged in metallic colours. In addition to this the tails of many species are longer in the males, and overall the males are larger. Sunbirds have long thin down-curved bills and brush-tipped tubular tongues, both adaptations to their nectar feeding. The spiderhunters, of the genus Arachnothera, are distinct in appearance from the other members of the family. They are typically larger than the other sunbirds, with drab brown plumage that is the same for both sexes and long down-curved beaks.

Species of sunbirds that live in high altitudes will enter torpor while roosting at night, lowering their body temperature and entering a state of low activity and responsiveness.

Sunbirds are a tropical Old World family, with representatives in Africa, Asia and Australasia. In Africa they are found mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar but are also distributed in Egypt, in Asia the group occurs along the coasts of the Red Sea as far north as Israel, with a gap in their distribution till Iran, from where the group occurs continuously as far as southern China and Indonesia. In Australasia the family occurs in New Guinea, north eastern Australia and the Solomon Islands. They are generally not found on oceanic islands, with the exception of the Seychelles. The greatest variety of species is in Africa, where the group probably arose. Most species are sedentary or short-distance seasonal migrants. The sunbirds occur over the entirely of the family's range, whereas the spiderhunters are restricted to Asia.

The sunbirds and spiderhunters occupy a wide range of habitats, with a majority of species being found in primary rainforest, but other habitats used by the family including disturbed secondary forest, open woodland, open scrub and savannah, coastal scrub and alpine forest. Some species have readily adapted to human modified landscapes such as plantations, gardens and agricultural land. Many species are able to occupy a wide range of habitats from sea level to 4900 m.

Sunbird are active diurnal birds that generally occur in pairs or occasionally in small family groups. A few species occasionally gather in larger groups, and sunbird will join with other birds to mob potential predators, although sunbirds will also aggressively target other species, even if they are not predators, when defending their territories.

The Transmigration: Blue Jays (Wildlife analysis)

Step 1: Research

The Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) is a passerine bird, and a member of the family Corvidae native to North America. It belongs to the "blue", Canadian or American jays, which are, among the Corvidae, not closely related to other jays. It is adaptable, aggressive and omnivorous, and has been colonizing new habitats for many decades.

The Blue Jay measures 22–30 cm (9–12 in) from bill to tail and weighs 70–100 grams (2.47–3.53 oz), with a wingspan of 34–43 cm (13–17 in). There is a pronounced crest on the head, a crown of feathers, which may be raised or lowered according to the bird's mood. When excited or aggressive, the crest may be fully raised. When frightened, the crest bristles outwards, brushlike. When the bird is feeding among other jays or resting, the crest is flattened to the head.

Its plumage is lavender-blue to mid-blue in the crest, back, wings, and tail, and its face is white. The underside is off-white and the neck is collared with black which extends to the sides of the head. The wing primaries and tail are strongly barred with black, sky-blue and white. The bill, legs, and eyes are all black. Males and females are nearly identical except that males are slightly larger.

As with other blue-hued birds, the Blue Jay's coloration is not derived by pigments, but is the result of light interference due to the internal structure of the feathers; if a blue feather is crushed, the blue disappears as the structure is destroyed. This is referred to as structural coloration.

Blue Jays have strong black bills used for cracking nuts, and acorns and for eating corn, grains and seeds, although they also eat insects such as beetles, grasshoppers, and caterpillars.

Blue Jays can make a large variety of sounds, and individuals may vary perceptibly in their calling style. Like other corvids, they may learn to mimic human speech. Blue Jays can also copy the cries of local hawks so well that it is sometimes difficult to tell which it is. Their voice is typical of most jays in being varied, but the most commonly recognized sound is the alarm call, which is a loud, almost gull-like scream. There is also a high-pitched jayer-jayer call that increases in speed as the bird becomes more agitated.This particular call can be easily confused with the chick-a-dee's song because of the slow starting chick-ah-dee-ee. Blue Jays will use these calls to band together to mob potential predators such as hawks and drive them away from the jays' nests.

Blue Jays also have quiet, almost subliminal calls which they use among themselves in proximity. One of the most distinctive calls of this type is often referred to as the "rusty pump" owing to its squeaky resemblance to the sound of an old hand-operated water pump. The Blue Jay (and other corvids) are distinct from all other songbirds for using their call as a birdsong.

Dial-Ogh

p.s.H.:
Did Yu hear about the man who was born with a shoe for a mind?
Well, for a while his best friend, Arnold "the", thought it 0.9% hilarious to pile on loads of weight to his 2 foots. No one will EVER know how this took place, but after 10.46 years in social solitude his 2 foots got so large (or extra big) that they becam...e "mind". He combined both 2 foots into one convenient mind and within this mind he placed his shoe. It became his mind.

The Vision Controller:
Mind then took a walk (with his mindless feet) to the otherside of the galaxy. He was so disappointed when all he could see were clones of himself, but badly reproduced, made in taiwan clones selling for six quid. Alas, he thought to himself, and retreated into the unbecoming glaziers in south of france. He was 4.6% less happier than he was initially...

Question: Instead of addressing heterogeneous crowds in many places and dazzling and confounding them with your brilliance and subtlety, why do you not start a community or colony and create a reference for your way of thinking? Are you afraid that this could never be done?
Krishnamurti: Sir brilliance and subtlety should always be kept under cover, because too much exposure of brilliance only blinds. It is not my intention to blind or show cleverness, that is too stupid; but when one sees things very clearly, one cannot help setting them out very clearly. This you may think brilliant and subtle. To me, what I am saying is not brilliant: it is the obvious. That is one fact. The other is, you want me to found an ashram or a community. Now, why? Why do you want me to found a community? You say that it will act as a reference, that is, something which can be pointed out as a successful experiment. That is what a reference implies, does it not? - a community where all these things are being carried out. That is what you want. I do not want to found an ashram or a community, but you want it. Now, why do you want such a community? I will tell you why. It is very interesting, is it not? You want it because you would like to join with others and create a community, but you do not want to start a community with yourself; you want somebody else to do it, and when it is done you will join it. In other words, Sir, you are afraid of starting on your own, therefore you want a reference. That is, you want something which will give you authority of a kind that can be carried out. In other words, you yourself are not confident, and therefore you say, `Found a community and I will join it'. Sir, where you are you can found a community, but you can found that community only when you have confidence. The trouble is that you have no confidence. Why are you not confident? What do I mean by confidence? The man who wants to achieve a result, who gets what he wants, is full of confidence the business man, the lawyer, the policeman, the general, are all full of confidence. Now, here you have no confidence. Why? For the simple reason you have not experimented. The moment you experiment with this, you will have confidence. Nobody else can give you confidence; no book, no teacher can give you confidence. Encouragement is not confidence; encouragement is merely superficial, childish, immature. Confidence comes as you experiment; and when you experiment with nationalism, with even the smallest thing, then as you experiment you will have confidence, because your mind will be swift, pliable; and then where you are there will be an ashram, you yourself will found the community. That is clear, is it not? You are more important than any community. If you join a community, you will be as you are - you will have somebody to boss you, you will have laws, regulations and discipline, you will be another Mr. Smith or Mr. Rao in that beastly community. You want a community only when you want to be directed, to be told what to do. A man who wants to be directed is aware of his lack of confidence in himself. You can have confidence, not by talking about self-confidence, but only when you experiment, when you try. Sir, the reference is you, so, experiment, wherever you are, a whatever level of thought. You are the only reference, not the community; and when the community becomes the reference, you are lost. I hope there will be lots of people joining together and experimenting, having full confidence and therefore coming together; but for you to sit outside and say, `Why don't you form a community for me to join?', is obviously a foolish question.

I'm touch-sensitive. :)

Hits of Sunshine (for Allen Ginsberg) by Sonic Youth

today i
said goodbye
to my conflicted goddess
her lush eyes
show surprise
at how we could
gather knowledge
the painting has a dream
where shadow breaks the scene
and the colors run off
blue is bashful
green is my goal
yellow girls are
running backwards
until the nextime
with six hits of sunshine
the lights will
blind up with blues
in haiku
the shadow has a dream
where painters look to sea
the colors burn out

now i know where
i once saw you
stepping into muddy water
john's reflection
decried perfection
now you walk him
through the gardren
waiting in the wings
painters shade their dreams
with falling colors
see me wave good
bye forever
happiness the goddess lover
hurry back re
member last time
the hits of sunshine
the hits of goldmine
i'll see you back tonite
where painters love the light
and yellow shadow girls

today i
say goodbye
to my complicious goddess
her hushed eyes
show surprise
and how we captured knowledge
i'll see you back tonite
where shadows dream of light
let's slip on outside

A Tale of Two Cookies

So, there is this story of the marijuana plant that probably was born somewhere in Bihar. The final step in its metamorphosis, in this particular story, was Bhaang (one of the many variants of Marijuana). This finally found its way into something everyone calls a Bhaang cookie. Two of these Bhaang cookies found their way from the government bhaang shop in Manikarnika Ghat, in Benaras, into the inside pocket of my lovely alternative looking olivegreen slingbag. It sat inside quietly waiting anxiously and wondering what its destiny will be. The bag got on to a train with me to Calcutta. It waited. It also made a trip to Shantiniketan. Still in waiting. Then the bag got onto a flight, still hanging on my shoulders. We reached Bangalore. After spending 8 days in Bangalore, it finally made its way with me to Prakash's house and on the evening of 27th January, 2010, was officially consumed. The effects thereof cannot be really condensed into words. All I can say is it was a wonderful planet we were on... Galaxy 7 Sector X33 to be precise. I also could see Interplanet Janet's kaleidoscope eyes, her checked shirt. We danced, govoreeted, chin-chined, bong'd out. The garden was fascinating, the world emerged in full format. We whispered secrets to the guava tree. And as I was installing my iMac in Prakash's house, the only two words that came out of my mouth was cookiecookie (the password I have been using for almost two decades). Is it coincidence or some kind of mystery that the cookies found their pixel counterparts? We have still not figured it out. Some sort of serendipity disguised in nine yards of existential fabric.

♥LetLoveBe♥

Garden-life

How fascinating,
They stand so motionless, yet so pretty.
A certain elegance.
No identity, no judgement, they just sway with the wind,
Happy, lost in the moment,
They listen to us talk to them,
And we constantly wonder what they are thinking
or feeling.
Oh how I love my wondrous friends of our earth.

Them, them

Those sounds of plastic and nylon, like digital pages flipped in 4/4,
Those syncopated rhythms, like armyboots hitting the ground in 4/4, left, right, left, right,
Those strange arrangements, like cactii in a lilac-coloured desert.
A combination of the senses, the heart and the soul.
A rediscovery of the lute, the art and the hyperbole.

(On the avant-garde jam at Prax's, baglama & nylon-string classical guitar)

She looked at me...

...and said, "there's a little emergency light that automatically switches on when the mountains go to sleep."
I said, "You have a nice immediacy."
She quietly looked at me. She didn't say another word for 33 years...

Just then...

...the earth shook.
Scarlet came crashing in,
Small window atmosphere.
Serif's dancing in unison
counting the descenders and making a face.
Just then the earth shook.
And everything was quiet, real quiet.
Like a feather brushing against cotton.
Real quiet.

Oh, and...

...those familiar images that continuously pop up on my Mechana Model A105, those syncs, and out of syncs. Flashbacks from those wandering times deep at night, hours after the 12.03 last. That flickering of communication breakdown, those blurry lines alternating from Alpha Red to Alpha Green, pixel to pixel, colourbars, that monotonous beep like human existence and robots.

I could not make out the colour of my consciousness. Its alright sometimes to see-saw between triphop and doldrums, its not alright to draw parallel lines on nature's progeny. I miss the clips of the sky, short films of flowers, proboscis tracking shots and, oh, the marvels of the earth, my new earth.

The castle is the pink freedom of society and her autumnal children. The diameter of the circle of sleep, like the last movement in the opera, the last kmph, speedometer destroyed beyond repair, hands and posture severing the half-breaks of that little thing we so fondly call revolution.

I'm so RGB, your so CMYK, I'm so method-acting, you're so breakbeat. Its like finding the fault in those milkshakes we often loved under those shacks, late afternoon, thinking of the sun, lost at sea, like rabbits in everlasting gaze.


- Excerpt from "Thoughtless Thoughts: A quiet afternoon, a quiet earth"

An Indo-Japanese Love Story.

Insignificance

Poverty, people living on the street, children, temporary life, the sub-strata of civilisation, the insignificant ones, the mechanical traffic cops moving their hands like robots, mechanical day in and day out, faces like stones, the lifeless dead.

Look and be simple

Surely, since you have burnt yourself in politics, your problem is not only to break away from society, but to come totally to life again, to love and to be simple. Without love, do what you may, you will not know the total action which alone can save man. "That is true, sir: we don't love, we aren't really simple." Why? Because you are concerned with reforms, with duties, with respectability, with becoming something, with breaking through to the other side. In the name of another, you are concerned with yourself; you are caught in your own cockleshell. You think you are the center of this beautiful earth. You never pause to look at a tree, at a flower, at the flowing river; and if by chance you do look, your eyes are filled with the things of the mind, and not with beauty and love. "Again, that is true; but what is one to do?" Look and be simple.

--

JK

Piano keys around his neck, turtle-neck
Eyes white.
No direction, no focus, no movement.
He wore AOTE Model 1 (Limited Edition).
----
XY177, Hinterland

I dreamt of a live show of two bands, Dholdrums and A Strange Arrangement.

Morning love

As I stepped out of my house on a really cold winter's morning, the old lady who lives next door said she has a New Year card to give me. Such sincerity. Its so heart-warming, suddenly the biting cold didnt matter anymore, I felt warm and fresh inside. She came running back with a postcard of Krishna & Radha I am presuming (my knowledge of the old Hindu myth is rather weak) and handwritten behind it in English "Happy New Year 2010" with 2010 double-stroke outline and all. :) Such love... suchness and isness: the wonderful serendipities of life.

The Sense of "I am" (Consciousness)

When I met my Guru, he told me: "You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense 'I am', find your real Self." I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a difference it made, and how soon!

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound.

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Postcards from Hinterland

So, I have started creating the Postcards from Hinterland. I hope to have about 12 atleast. Each of them have a note from one of the residents of Hinterland. They are all writing to Dara Okat, the founder of Hinterland. Unknowingly, they all speak, in their own words, of the same thing, a sort of awakening of the consciousness.

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From XX303, Hinterland

My name is xx303. I have made a discovery in Hinterland. I found out that the mind is actually like the earth, it can be excavated, it can be walked on, or it can just be watched from space. Personally, I prefer the third variation. It can also be archaeologically studied. An excavation of mental make-up so to speak. Jealousy, greed, lust, anger, hate and other silly things. This earth we call our mind is a complex piece of machinery. Its designed with a lot of care, a lot of thought. I seriously cant begin to express my inquisitiveness in this existential thing. Its the size of Russia. Up until now, until very recently, when I started looking at my mind from space, I found peace. Not peace of mind. Peace of no-mind. It was refreshing to be thoughtless. Like a sort of throughness, a nothingness. Nothing. Its a lovely little thing once it is understood and above all, experienced. It makes life a lot simpler.

Here in Hinterland we hear your name a lot. We have seen your artwork and read some of your abstract writings. I have been here four years now and I haven’t yet seen you. Your teaching to us has been very much a sort of in absentia type of spirituality. Somehow your energy has translated into the air that is in and surrounds this wonderful piece of earth. Mr. Dara Okat I salute you for translating air. I sincerely hope our paths cross someday because I would like to shake your hand and say,

"Thankyou."

Truth is in every leaf, every tear

God or truth cannot be thought about. If you think about it, it is not truth. Truth cannot be sought; it comes to you. You can go after only what is known. When the mind is not tortured by the known, by the effects of the known, then only can truth reveal itself. Truth is in every leaf, every tear; it is to be known from moment to moment. No one can lead you to truth; and if anyone leads you, it can only be to the known.

- J.K.

So, what can I call this?

Death in varanasi. Constant, continuous. The fire is on duty 24/7, 365 d-days of the year. Everyday vast amounts of energy, among other things, are expended in the Harishchandra and Manikarnika Ghats. My boatman calls Manikarnika Ghat the “burning palace”. Interesting image, that. Which is what Varanasi is. An interesting image which should be looked at like a mirror looks at things. Just observe Varanasi. Live in its time, in its faith, in its communion of Hinduism and you will enjoy the impact of what most people would call “Shiva Energy in Shiva City”. Its electric. Electric, since 3000 b.c. That sounds like a company. I should make a logo for that. The type within some sort of oval shape, electric in italics, b.c. In a beautiful serif with pretty edges at 5 pt. Yes. That is control. Ok, back to where we left off. Benaras. Today at Harishchandra I saw a set of very interesting scenes running in parallel. There was the respectable, well-loved person about to be set ablaze by his weeping son in white robes. He was holding onto three people and really crying his heart out loud. Face lost in a trance. The three or four people around his particular pyre crying into handkerchiefs. Man comforting another by holding him. So many emotions, cannot for certain say that all these were either genuine, heartfelt or the customised conditioning system of expected behaviour. But I am only observing and reporting. I dont really want to comment because all this is only opinion and opinion doesn’t really have much of a role to play in the bigger picture of, err, things. When you understand who you really are you will become a sort of throughness and a sort of thoughtlessness. Back to the scenes at Harishchandra, just on the otherside a baba carrying a trishul (a 3-headed spear) came and stood close to another burning pyre while standing on a rock. And just behind me a mother slept on a bench, her children running around under her trying to remind her to feed them. But they are also playing among themselves while trying to catch her attention. No time wasted there. Suddenly she smells something and wakes up and jumps off the bench and runs to sniff to see if she smells another dog in her territory. Pups follow. And on my way home, I stopped at dimly lit chai shop on I-dont-remember-which Ghat. Girl served me chai. A pretty thing, scarf around her head, English lettertype on red woollen sweater. Her brother and sister (I presume), about 4 and 5 maybe, making funny sounds of birds and randomness. Randomness and thoughtlessness are absolutely wonderful to see in this world of logic and opinion. Oh, just remembered I spoke to two gentlemen at Harishchandra Ghat. They spoke of Hinduism, about the children who take the little pieces of body, the ones that haven’t burnt out, to keep them burning till they turn to ash. They get a little fee for grabbing these pieces at the fag-end (no pun intended) of the burning procedure. One of them, a Marathi, spoke of how Bal Thackeray is useful because he keeps India from becoming a Muslim nation. Interesting perspective. I am not for it or against it. Just a way of looking at things, I guess. The other guy spoke of how large Muslim families are. One husband, four wives, some eight to ten children. A way to overpopulate the world so Islam becomes a majority and takes over once and for all. He also said that in his caste, death is a celebration. There is a 13-day party after the death where priests are fed. That was refreshing to hear. Atleast some of “us” hindu’s have celebration as a compulsory at some point in a man’s life , err, death actually. Oh, and the girl in the chai shop? It really seemed to me that Indra Okat was looking at me through her eyes. It was a strange, yet lovely feeling.

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Excerpt from "Thoughtless Thoughts"

THERE DO EXIST ENQUIRING MINDS, which long for the truth of the heart, seek it, strive to solve the problems set by life, try to penetrate to the essence of things and phenomena and to penetrate into themselves. If a man reasons and thinks soundly, no matter which path he follows in solving these problems, he must inevitably arrive back at himself, and begin with the solution of the problem of what he is himself and what his place is in the world around him. For without this knowledge, he will have no focal point in his search. Socrates’ words, “Know thyself” remain for all those who seek true knowledge and being.

LIBERATION LEADS TO LIBERATION. These are the first words of truth—not truth in quotation marks but truth in the real meaning of the word; truth which is not merely theoretical, not simply a word, but truth that can be realized in practice. The meaning behind these words may be explained as follows:
By liberation is meant the liberation which is the aim of all schools, all religions, at all times.

This liberation can indeed be very great. All men desire it and strive after it. But it cannot be attained without the first liberation, a lesser liberation. The great liberation is liberation from influences outside us. The lesser liberation is liberation from influences within us.

Excerpt from VIEWS FROM THE REAL WORLD by G.I. Gurdjieff

Empire of Worry

Your smiles have shape, they're walking apart, you see the world and war apart.
To see my life upon my shoulder, shutting down it seems...

Solo

Solo cello
A kind of drone
Enveloping time like molecules to a frame

Solo piano
A kind of peace
Absorbing air, pressing metal and wood

Solo guitar
A kind of flutter
Fingers and palms singing in absolute unison

"YOU ARE GOD", a graphic novel

A revolutionary begins a sort of experiment with currency. He starts spreading the word to followers of the concept of awakening to the new earth and the new man through money notes. The project begins with a website - yagoroued.com. There are concepts and ideas classified into numbers and letters, such as 12C and 1300F, etc. Each letter stands for a concept, like light, education, family, life, death, love, etc. 12C would be 12th discourse on C. These could be subjects, ideas, opinions - all signalling a sort of change to bring about a new man. So, over time these numbers would be written on the currency that keeps spreading. For those who know how to use the internet, the message “12c, yagoroued.com” is enough. And this goes on and goes bringing about a revolutionary sort of change to the way people things. Currency is the only medium which can reach everyone. This is a fictitious story of the start of a new revolution.

This commune of sorts is also involved in the publicity of their messages through guerrila advertising tactics. People basically come together to spread the concept of inner awareness, self-depth and a new consciousness.

Slow

I have slowed down time,
Real slow.
Everything is done slowly, patiently, meditatively,
Even if it is pouring mugs of water into the bucket.
Slow, real slow.
Time stands still.
To this very moment, to the present.
There is only stillness and a slowness to things.
Beyond that, nothing, absolutely nothing.

Who are you?

Atom-green, we are all that. Matter and inner-mind, body and soul. Self and no-self. There is a place where you can go. Everything is clear there. There are no covers, no curtains, no identities, no possessions, nothing. Just nothing. Here you can hear the silence of infinite space, you can feel the space of infinite silence on your fingertips as you move your hand along the waves of the vacuum. A spectrum of seven colours, a song with twelve notes. A moment of nothingness transforms and moves through this space like hours, days, years, centuries. All time is meaningless because the only time that is there is now. The moment. Past and future all illusory now, meaningless.

Where is this place? Distance-wise? It requires a second to go there. Maybe less than a second. Suddenly everything drops from your hand, your mind drops from you. You are then all in one, one in all. Moving, changing, from second to second. Every moment is new, every moment is you, without you. You are then not Mr. so-and-so, Miss so-and-so, Mrs. So-and-so. You are not your bank balance, you are not what you own, you are not what you know, you are not who you know, you are just an is-ness. You is. That’s all. You exist in the oneness with earth. You are one of the elements of life, a simple moving coloured-dot in the ocean of worldcolour. This is the door into you, into the centre of you. Who you are. Who are you? When you cannot answer that, you are finally you. Your central core. A nothingness beyond words and images.

Letters to (from) friends

The Professor Scarfman writes:

Dude, to be honest thyngZ are not so good. I cannot find work at all. My days are as random as anti-structure itself. All those promises to come viziT you in India. I am going through life openly saying I'll do this and I'll do that and it is not happening. It is not a good time for empire.

But I do have a Mac now, so that's useful for communicating wherever I want. Freed from the desktop regime. Remember at your place in Nott Hill when the upstairs bastar* banged on their floor cuz the music was too loud?

Well, our neighbour next is playing this bullshit carribean music at 6am and it makes me fuQQyn* sick. Never have I heard such shi* musiQ. Really. I thought music was about respecting and organising sound carefully, but this reggae-type stuff is just some of the poorest forms of music I ever heard. I thynQ I am culturalist. I cannot and do not accept West Indian music. Instrumentation, formation of rhythms and harmonies. Just really poor sounding indeed. It's worse than kid's chart stuff. It's like being asked to listen to the same song over and over, but someone else has it on repeat just at a time when you wish to rest and dream about imaginary swans and their cubes. It's sickening man. Life is about loving each other, but love is corrupt man, but imbeciles ruin the sophistos who know how to use their mental gifts in bringing joy to others. Not this asshol*. He plays this dreadful mess and it enters my perspective, destroyingwhat was a peaceful state of mind. One of life's most disturbing yet oblongular concepts Prem of Prem. Imagine being forced to watch the most disturbingly poor movie over and over again, watching the pathetic direction, terrible editing etc...This level of torture should be collected in a glass vesicle and sold as evil, cuz it's evil alright!. People don't have to kill or terrorise through destruction as reported by the evil media. Artistic distortion from a disrespectful mind makes me wanna hurl huge chunkZ of vomituous nonsense from my post digested history.

This concept of feeling love for all. I wish I could feel love for all. But all around me there is incompetence man or PREM. Sure, I might be the world's most undiscovered unrecruited circus performer, but I still get angry at human ineptitude. Constantly in my received perception day after day. Focusing on this supposed negative makes me feel so sad for the species Homosapien! Are we not supposed to be skilled, respectful of each other? Capable, intelligent? Yet, cretins exist Prem, whether it's there in your home town or here in mountainous yet villainous Brixton.

Not all is bad, just that a quality of life spans many dimensions of experience, no? Not just the creative and social, but the PEACE dimension!

Peace Premjit R aka DirectoR.

Would love to have a pipe with you man!
nic.K aka nic.K

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And I, the Deractor, replies:

Ouch to the creaturefoot of civilisation, this wondersoul does not bringeth joy. This rubbersoul brings pain simply cos its made of rubber and not love. Love bringeth love, hate does not dispel hate, only love can. :)

I think you should begin reading some OSHO. He is amazing. A brilliant new journey for me. I am still in Benares, I will be here for a while. Its real and very simple, I do not have running water, there is a bucket outside my room with water and I have to step out and fill my foam bucket with clones of water in order to fulfill the duties of my super son. Frugality at its best. Love it. Very meditative, like thoughtbuckets into the everlasting you of me.

I thought you moved to Swiss-er-land man? Why you back in London? I dont think London can give you any joy, only clones of cheap love found on soulmates and the like. Remember how we used to arrange dates and go on them, wow, those days seem so alien to me, now that I have taken the visceral path of the discovery of self, an awakening of sorts, like fruits, like roses, a blossoming out of time, out of words and messages.

Come to India whenever you can man, I will welcome you with open arms and brotherly love, guaranteed. I am very sorry for having told you earlier about keeping your brighton-esque mentalities aside etc, that was very childish of me. What you are, you are now, the past and the future mean nothing. You are now, you are love, you are all that you can ever be only in this one moment. So, do come and we will live like brothers discovering ourselves in this oneness of life on this new earth.
Love and lots of good wishes to you my brother.

The Deractor.

Welcome to Hinterland, Mr. Isaac Niemand. :)

I can safely say that I have found the centre of me. And I have never been happier. I am aware of every second, also aware of the uncertainty of the next. Every moment can be special, its all in your mind.