The Mighty Pen

In a part of the world, where fiery rhetoric is often put to deleterious ends, a woman showcased her poetry to give voice to her principles. 

Saudi Arabia still imposes draconian rules on its women, but it’s also a land that lavishes the kind of adulation on poets that other countries reserve for pop stars. Home grown versions of the popular U.S. based T.V. show ‘American Idol’, have sprung up in many countries. Saudi Arabia’s is called ‘Million’s Poet’, and in April 2010, the Arab world saw a woman, Hissa Hilal, dressed in traditional niqab, challenging on stage the invidious authority of clerics who promote religious extremism, discriminate against women, and bring their faith into disrepute.

Defeat fear and conquer every frightening cave,

Do not live life with one eye looking behind.

Hissa Hilal’s words won her the support of millions of fans…and the predictable death threats. 

Her courage and her poetry were praised by the judges, who placed her third, awarding her $800,000. The 43-year-old mother of four hopes to spend the money finding better medical treatment for her autistic daughter, and perhaps, a new home for her family. To her, winning wasn’t the most important thing – “I’m happy. I said what I wanted to say. I reached what I wanted to reach. Maybe the girls and ladies will say, ‘nothing is impossible’.”

Wonders and Mysteries

“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your Philosophy”

-         -  Shakespeare

“The final mystery is oneself.”

-        -  Oscar Wilde

“Uncertainty and mystery are the energies of life. Don’t let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.”

-          - R.I. Fitzhenry

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

-          - Albert Einstein

“Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.”

-          - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

As soon as Man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.”

-          - Albert Schweitzer

“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.”

-          - Neil Armstrong

“Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes – The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”

-          - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Nirvana Shatkam by Adi Shankaracharya

Note: In Hinduism, Nirvana is the supreme state free from the individual suffering that is caused by identification with the Body-Mind-Intellect complex. Nirvana is the natural element of the Atman/Shiva. This  8^th. Century composition by Adi Shankacharya is alternately known as ‘Atma Shatkam’.

Neither Mind, nor Intellect; Neither Thought, nor cognizing Ego am I:

Neither am I the sense organs of Sight, Hearing, or Taste.

I am neither Sky nor Earth, neither Fire nor Wind:

I am Formless Bliss-Consciousness – I am Shiva, Shiva am I.

Neither animating Breath, nor the five-fold Vital Airs;

Neither the Five Organs nor the Five Sheaths;

Nor the faculties of speech, action or movement:

I am Formless Bliss-Consciousness – I am Shiva, Shiva am I.

I know neither aversion nor attachment, nor delusion,

I covet not, not do I have pride or envy:

Driven not by obligation, selfish urges, or desires, nor yearning for Liberation:

I am Formless Bliss-Consciousness – I am Shiva, Shiva am I.

I am beyond Virtue and Sin, as also Pleasure and Pain;

Needing no holy chants or sacred pilgrimages; neither scriptures nor rituals;

I am not the one who experiences, or that which is experienced, or the experiential:

I am Formless Bliss-Consciousness – I am Shiva, Shiva am I.

I know not Death, nor division of caste;

I have no father, nor mother, nor even birth;

Neither kin, nor friend, nor mentor, nor follower:

I am Formless Bliss-Consciousness – I am Shiva, Shiva am I.

I am without thought, without form;

I am all pervasive, beyond the reach of the senses

I am neither detachment, nor salvation, I am immeasurable:

I am Formless Bliss-Consciousness – I am Shiva, Shiva am I.

Oneness

Buddhism

“He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.

-          The Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha

Christianity

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to hope when you were called.

One Lord, one faith, one baptism;

One God and Father of all, who is over all, through all and in all.”

-          Ephesians 4:2-6

Hinduism

“The truth is that you are always united with the Lord. But you must know this.”

-          Svetasvatara Upanishad

Native American Wisdom

“Humankind has not woven the web of life.

We are but one thread within it.

Whatever we do the web, we do to ourselves.

All things are bound together.

All things connect.”

-          Chief Seattle

Sikhism

Now are for us no entanglements or snares,

Nor a bit of egoism left,

Now is all distance annulled, nor are curtains drawn between us.

Thou are mine, I thine.

Guru Granth Sahib

Sufism

“O Thou Soul who art free of ‘we’ and ‘I’,

O Thou who art the subtle essence of the Souls of men and women,

When a man or woman unites with Thee, Thou art that One; when their individuality is obliterated, Thou alone art.

Thou didst contrive this ‘I’ and this ‘we’ only so that Thou might play the game of worship with Thyself,

So that all ‘Is’ and ‘Thous’ should become one Soul, immersed at last in the one Beloved.”

-          Rumi

Taoism

“He perceives the oneness of everything, does not know about duality in it.”

-          Tchuang Tzu

Crossing Over

The body is but a boat for crossing the sea of Samsara (worldly existence) that you have earned through the merit of many lives. When you have crossed the sea, you realize that the Lord is the indweller of the body. That is the purpose of the body. So, when the body is strong and skilled, the intellect is sharp and the mind is alert, all efforts must be made to seek the Dehi (indweller) in the Deha (body).

-          Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor

On the morning of December 10, 1996, Jill Taylor woke up with a piercing pain in her head which accelerated rapidly, diminishing her physical and cognitive abilities. It was some time before Jill realized what was happening to her - she was in the process of experiencing a stroke. Her reaction:

“Wow, this is so cool!”

An atypical reaction, but then Dr. Jill Taylor happened to be a neuroanatomist who was on the staff of the Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry. She had spent most of her adult life trying to understand the intricate functioning of the miracle that is the human brain. She also served as a member of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), and advocated the value of brain donation to assist in research that would benefit the psychiatrically distressed.

What happened to Jill following her stroke was as awe-inspiring as it was awful. ‘My Stroke of Insight’ chronicles that experience.

The book is well-written, and Dr. Taylor writes with the awareness that most of her readers have neither her academic background, nor a very accurate idea of the workings of the human brain. She explains with simplicity and clarity, in language that both moves and inspires.

Jill’s stroke occurred in the left hemisphere of the brain – the area that predicates logic, language, memory, ingrained responses, likes and dislikes, awareness of time as divisible chunks – in short, the area that is “the home of your ego center.”

This left her at the mercy of her right hemisphere that is the seat of intuition, imagination, and awareness that the time is always now.

“The present moment is a time when everything and everyone are connected together as one. As a result, our right mind perceives each of us as equal members of the human family. It identifies our similarities and recognizes our relationship with this marvelous planet, which sustains our life. It perceives the big picture, how everything is related, and how we all join together to make up the whole. Our ability to be empathic, to walk in the shoes of another and feel their feelings is a product of our right frontal cortex.”

Dr. Taylor lost the ability to walk, talk, read, write or recall any aspect of her life. It took eight years for her to completely recover all her physical and mental abilities. But what she gained in the process is immeasurable.

This book highlights both the fragility of the human body that is dependent upon a mind which can disintegrate with devastating suddenness, and, the invincible power that sustains us from within and without – orchestrating life, or its termination.