POEMH: Ghazal - Aashiq Hoon / Kya Hai

Ghazal

Aashiq hoon, ishq ke siwa kiya kya hai
Na kaho, ke tum faqeer ho, diya kya hai

Mehram bhi ho, haram bhi, haraam bhi
Ahraam baandhe hoon, ab haya kya hai

Aayega voh laut kar, phir mere hi paas
Zingdagi khel samjhe hai, jiya kya hai

Aashiq ka gribaan hai, kitne jatan karoge
Sau baar hi taanka hai abhi, siya kya hai

Tumhari hi chahat hai, baqi to bas hain
Aakhirat bhi chhod doonga, duniya kya hai

Sadqe tumhari pyaas ke yeh jaam surahi
Darya hi sukhaya hai abhi, piya kya hai

Hum se aashiq hain har dar pe hazaron
Tu na ho mehboob to phir naya kya hai

Sirf naam-o-izzat-o-daulat hi luti hai abhi
Jab tum ho saath mere, to phir gaya kya hai

Jaan, rehne do andhera kuch daer aur abhi
Saraapa noor ho tum, mujhe diya kya hai

Khudaaon ke Khuda khud ho, mujh se poochho
Masjid ko jaao kyun, tumhen khuda kya hai

Bhoolun main khudi ko, khud ko, khuda ko
Mujhko jo mil jaaye tu, to phir bachaa kya hai

Khushdil ki khataon ko muaaf kaun karega
Nafraton ka daur hai, yeh maajraa kya hai

-

(c) owais Creative Commons Attribution license

POEME: Masters and Slaves

Masters and Slaves

I,
Homo, s.

My surname, Homo,
now belongs only to me.
I have killed all my siblings.
Homo e, Homo n, Homo f.
And many more.

I have also killed
many more of my half-siblings.  And cousins.
And I am in the process of killing many,
many, many more.
My mother, doesn't anger easily.
But, I think, she is slowly losing her cool.
The other day, I heard her complaining,
to the perennially angry, Venus Aunty.
Hyperventilating, Aunty Venus advised,
"Gaia, you have given this one son too much liberty.
He is killing all your other children."

"No, Sister, he is not.
He is just too stupid
to know how he is being manipulated.

"See, he thinks he is an individual.
He thinks he is in control.
Of himself.
Of his siblings and half-siblings.
And of me.
But he is not." 

I was left wondering.
I take pride in my individuality.
But then,
am I really an individual?
Which parts of me
do not talk
to the other parts of me?
Which ones irreplaceable,
upon the pain of 'I' becoming non-'I'?
My liver
when it talks to my heart
upon my consuming alcohol,
ensuring it change its parameters accordingly,
it is not me, is it?
It does not do so at my command, does it?

Each tissue,
each cell in my body
is its own master.
Even the stories that
I tell myself are.

My genes,
or perhaps, the genes that I am the slave of,
dictate all my activities.
And they work with the stories,
the memes
that take away any sliver of freedom, that I might still have.
I, their,
genes' and memes' slave,
do their bidding.
Most importantly,
keeping them alive
with my actions, my speech, my thoughts.
I run and kill those
who are driven by rival memes,
so that my masters, my memes survive,
not the others.  And then,
I run and have sex, so that my other masters,
my genes survive.

And they have all kinds of arrangements
with all these other masters.
Memes of religion, nation, passions live on.
Between themselves,
they divvy me up.

And genes?
They even have truck
with their other sisters,
which I am told are my slaves.
But guess what, my masters, my genes
work with those of Triticum and Gallus gallus domesticus,
and together,
they ensure that I spend every living breath spreading them.
Triticum fellows need not worry.
Their value-add to my masters, my genes
comes only upon their having lived their lives,
and gifting away some of their seed.
Something akin to when I serve others
what they call a blow job.
Sad is the lot of domesticus 'individuals'...
just a few days of so-called life,
jailed in a coop,
and off to the butchers.

But seriously,
am I any better,
reproducing at breakneck speed,
only to eventually break backs and necks,
all in the service of Homo sapiens genes!

-

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).

POEME: Your Life; Your Choice

Your Life; Your Choice

I give you my money.
I give you my power.
I give you my forces.
I give you my resources.

All that I do not give you
is my heart.
And in my heart, lies my mind too.
So, apologies, no mind too.

And I will not give those,
until you bring, your heart to me.
For, though you are happy
giving your heart to someone
who does not value it
nor want it.
I cannot.

I am Krishna, dear Friend.
And my heart will await
and pine,
in every world
for my Arjuna.
My reason to exist, after all,
is to be Parthasarthy, my Dear.

I CANnot exist
without him.

You are welcome
to avail of my forces,
my resources.
I thought
that you were my Partha.
But you are only
his pale imitation, Suyodhana.
Until
you come to me
with your heart,
as your offering.

I will give you my guidance too.
But, merely what you want to hear.
Not what you need to hear.

I will agree with you.
But not fight you,
to guide you.

I will even love you.
But only in my deeds.
Not in my heart,
not in my mind,
not in my soul,
not in my being.

For I can do that
only to someone
whose heart and mind and soul
I own.

You choose your priorities.
You choose your side.
You choose your actions.
You choose your life.

And you do know what happened
in the Mahabharatha
five thousand years back. 

Choose wisely, Suyodhana,
now that five thousand years have passed.

In this world,
you can still be my Arjuna.
The choice lies with you.

As for me,
I have no choice.
I can only be what I am:
Sarvasukhsevaka.

I can only serve you all.
Work to make you all happy.
I can only love you all.
I can only present you all
with all my being.

What you choose
and what you leave
is your right.
That I have given you.

Only,
you will have to live with your choices.

-

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).

POEME:: 4AwfulTruths: Forget Everything I Said

4AwfulTruths: Forget Everything I Said

He said:
"I have the Truth".
He said it a few times more.

It morphed into:
"I alone have the Truth".
Then,
he said it again, a few more times.

It became:
"I own the Truth".

Many heard him.
Most laughed.
But he kept saying it.
Then one day,
another said: "I believe you".

Now,
both 'owned' the Truth.

Some more agreed: "We believe you".
Many, still laughed at them.

But they kept saying: "We own the Truth".
Upon hearing them, time and again, many more joined.
Many more said: "We own the Truth".
Now,
only a few laughed at them.
One of them laughed a bit too loudly.

They killed her.
No one laughed.
Those who owned the Truth, said:
"All is fair in the service of the Truth".

Some of the others became angry.

The two sides fought.
They fought again.
And again.
And again and again.

Who won?
The ones who thought they owned the Truth.
Not because they actually owned the Truth.
No one knows who owned the Truth.
Or, if the Truth was 'ownable'.
Or even,
if the Truth was 'knowable'.

Yet,
the believers believed it.
And, the disbelievers disbelieved it.
The believers won.
And the disbelievers turned believers.
They loved their skin far too much.
The believers ruled.
The belief ruled.

Why?

Because fiction
has greater power over human minds
than the absence of that fiction.
Fiction gives confidence to the believer.

Confidence kills.

Nazis kill Jews.
And many more.
Jews kill Islamists.
And many more.
Islamists kill Kafirs.
Which includes everyone other than the killers' brand of Islamists.
Cow-savers kill Muslims,
confident that they are all Islamists.
Muslims (and most non-cow-believers) kill cows.
All (or almost all) kill chicken.
All (actually all) kill habitats,
which kills non-humans.
And then, humans.
Homo sapiens kill Homo sapiens.
In wars, genocides, massacres,
slavery, manufactured famines, other-hate.
Politics, Mismanagement, Religion.
Not to mention,
women, who drink from their water.
Homo sapiens kill Dodos, Mastodons,
Homo neanderthalensis, Homo erectus,  Homo floresiensis,
Homo sexuals.

Confidence kills.

Fiction gives confidence to the believer.
Because fiction
has greater power over human minds
than the absence of that fiction.

The more you believe a fiction,
the more confident you become.
The more power it gives you.
The more you kill.

The more you kill,
anyone who disagrees with you.

Why?
Because your mind knows that
what you believe most fervently,
is actually a fiction.
And does not want you to know what it knows.
It speaks the Language of Truth to itself.
For all natural phenomena speak that.
And only that.
But it, your mind
speaks the Language of Fiction to H sapiens.
For all H sapiens speak that.
For all H sapiens speak only that.

Also,
because your mind does not want to die.
And if it talks to you
in a non-fictive language,
you will lose your confidence.

And then,
you will lose your power.

H sapiens became
the undisputed emperors of this Earth
upon the coattails of their
fictive cognitive power:
the power to create an owned truth;
a mass subjective truth.
A mass earnestly-believed delusion.
That power will be lost.

Our empire,
our power, our survival
is all built upon our ability,
our minds' ability
to speak convincing fiction;
to delude ourselves into believing, any convenient fiction.
To the extent of finding it,
our owned Truth.

Our individual minds,
our collective mind
lies to us,
so that it can help us survive long.
And then,
survive our death.

The Truth does not rule the human world.
Lies do.

If it were not so,
scientists would be emperors.
But no great emperor
has ever been a good scientist.
But always,
a story-teller, par-excellence.

Forget everything I said.

-

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).

POEME:: 4AwfulTruths: Realities/Stories

4AwfulTruths: Realities/Stories

You disagree with me.
I disagree with him.
He disagrees with her.
She disagrees with them.
They disagree with everyone.

They fight them.  They kill them.  They exterminate them.

Or wish to.

Why?

Isn't the World, the Universe
an Objective Reality?  No matter who I am,
I will still get an electric shock,
get washed away in a tsunami, get cut in half under a train,
if another human will, in the exact same situation.
Yet, men cut men in half
over religion, politics,
and a host of other bullshit.
Why?

Simple.

Because despite our bodies
living in an Objective World,
our hearts and minds
live in a Fictive world.
A world made of fiction.
Stories.  Imagined reality.  Subjective truth.

Each of us has our own stories.
Not deliberate lies.
Not mean-minded fabrications.
Only passionately-lived unrealities,
which are all too real for us.
Homo sapiens is a self-delusional species.
And so, because these stories gave us
our unparalleled power.  These stories are
our greatest strength.
And our greatest weakness.

We achieve because of them.
We get our drive because of them.
We strive because of them.
We survive because of them.
We thrive because of them.
We are today alive because of them. 

And tomorrow, we will die because of them.

Why?
Because we are now
far too powerful.
It is fine for a weakling
to live in an imaginary world.  All he hurts is himself.
But one whose writ runs on entities
other than himself
hurts all others when he
forces down decisions based on unreality.
Which is what
every Subjective reality is.

The only right way to live
is to be aware of one's stories;
of one's Subjective realities,
and keep them a level below
the Objective reality.  For only then does
the Universe back us
in our endeavours.
Those who prioritize their Subjective reality
over the objective one
are a threat to themselves
and to the World!

Further,
when the interests of two power centers clash,
unless they are both
based on Objective reality,
or on the exact same Subjective reality,
which almost never happens,
they fight.  And thus,
there is 'Collateral Damage'.
The greater their power, the greater the damage.

We, Homo sapiens
are on course to create
a lot more havoc, than what we are already guilty of.
Perhaps,
we are the secret agents of destruction,
created by greater powers that seek
the destruction of all
that we have ever held dear,
in order to create a new world.

Or, perhaps,
our universe is a mere video game
of a god-kid, who is trashing this play
since his mom wants him at the dinner table, forthwith.

In any case, it does not matter.
A human-driven cataclysm is written on the wall.
Nothing I,
or you, dear reader can do, will ever change it.
Humankind is doomed.
As is the Bountiful Earth,
what we have always known her to be.
That is my story.
I fervently hope
it does not turn out to be the Objective reality.

Epilogue:
The Real reality,
of course, being the
un-mind-mediated reality,
shall always remain the Known unknown.
And then,
there is the matter
of the Unknown unknown(s).

-

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).

POEM_: ODA 101 - Laws, and Laws

ODA 101 – Laws, and Laws

Asked the disciple:

“So, all things in Nature

happen, as per Natural Laws?

“No”, said Oda,

“They do not.

“Citizenslive”,

continued Oda,

“as per the laws of their land. 

And courts judge,

as per those same laws.

“But laws arebroken”,

concluded Oda,

“Laws are ordained

by the powerful human beings, which other

less powerful ones, sometimes

endeavour to work, in contravention of.”

“But”, the confused disciple

blabbered: “Aren’t the laws of Nature,

similarly ordained by Nature?”

“Not really”, clarified Oda,

“Everything, including humans

is Nature.  And everything in Nature

works as per Nature.  A contravention

is notpossible.”

Oh, Oda,

now we understand, what you are telling

your disciple: Human laws

and Nature

are categoriesapart –

laws are those that can be broken;

Nature’s working, is always natural –

no contravention is possible,

no matter how much

it seemsto be so.

Thus, Nature’s “laws” are not mere

laws.  They are

the Reality,

the Truth,

the Nature.

That, I do not understand

what isnatural, in what situation

is a testimony to my ignorance;

and the seeming contravention

of the Natural

is onlythe failure

of mydogma!

And my dogma

any dogma

can bea law; a law,

not the Reality.

Not the Truth.

Not the Nature.

We mustn’t term them laws:

the Realities of Nature;

for then, we begin to believe

that like the laws of the humans,

the Nature’s “laws”

are also “made”

and canthus be “broken”. 

And Nature, thus

can be at par

or inferior

to our dogmas,

springing out of our

infinitesimally partial knowledge,

and humungous ignorance.

-

owais

-

This is first being published here. A note on this poem below...

This poem is about how we get confused between Natural 'laws', and human laws: Human laws are conventions that we have accepted as supportive of quality in our lives, while Natural 'laws' are actually the way Nature works.  The fundamental difference is that human laws can be flouted by some, or even all of us.  However, Nature, or Reality works the way it does: the Sun never rises in the West, and when it will, it will do so perfectly naturally.  Nothing and no one can ever countermand the Natural 'laws', quite irrespective of the quantum of ignorance we have of those ‘laws’. 

Even the most uncertainty promoting principles of human knowledge, those of quantum mechanics primarily talk of the uncertainty merely in observation / knowledge.  There is no way it can be known for certain that everything is uncertain at quantum levels!  In fact, if things actually do function at random, then quite logically ours cannot be the only Universe, and by that token Reality is only an illusion!  What's worse, only an illusion out of infinite illusions!! 

It can therefore safely be said that Natural laws cannot be broken; not merely that we have never observed a natural law having been broken.  Thus, to call both kinds of 'laws' as laws is extreme idiocy.  It is this idiocy that has given sellers of various dogmas, especially the religious ones, a legitimacy which they can neither have, nor deserve.

This poem, which I have just written today, rues this blunder of ours.

--

POEM_: The Four Ignoble Untruths

POEM_:  The Four Ignoble Untruths

The Four Ignoble Untruths:

Dogma, Unreality, Suffering, Bondage

Why mustI

oppose dogma,

religious,

or secular?

Primarily, because

it opposes truth.

Does it?

How?

Merely,

by considering itself

inviolable. 

Irrespective, of whether

the evidence

– our only

arbiter of truth-content –

supports it,

or opposes it.

Or, currently,

is unavailable.

Dogma,

must always pretend

to stand tall.

And why

is truthimportant?

Because,

it represents reality.

And unless

we are rooted

in reality,

we suffer.

For reality,

happens anyway.

Irrespective of whether

we, and our dogma

want it to happen,

or not.

And if,

we realize that

we can work towards

correctives,

or palliatives.

Before-hand,

or after-the-fact.

Dogma,

rejecting evidence,

disempowering us,

leads us to untruth,

unreality,

suffering.

Suffering,

like most

Terrorism, War, Violence

Racism, Jingoism, Fascism, Nazism, Anti-Semitism

Misogyny, Homophobia

and even, the Ecological Imperative.

How can I not

oppose dogma:

the promoter,

numero uno,

of untruth,

of the unreal?

The root

of most human suffering?

I may still

desire the unreal:

like I may want

my dead mother back,

my lost youth regifted,

love from all

those that I loved,

who never loved me back. 

At least, not in a measure

I found acceptable.

There is no harm

in desiring all that. 

So long as I know

it is all my desire,

not reality.  For then,

the absence does not

morph into suffering.

If Hitler had known

that Aryans are no master-race,

but on the contrary

his mere belief;

and if his followers had known

or believed that –

we wouldn’t quite have needed

the word, ‘holocaust’.

If Christians had believed

that God is a mere figment

of their imagination,

they would have yet

respected the Earth, and not converted

to the new religion

of freemarketism, with its clergy

of noble-ordained economists

who, with their dogma of interminable growth

have brought us past

the point-of-no-return

to the Ecological Imperative.

And if this realization had visited

the minions of Muhammad,

they may have bestowed, some

peace upon us.

Religious, or secular,

how canI not

oppose dogma?

And how can I not

demand the freedom of expression

to uncover the evils of dogma,

the only real devil,

for that freedom is of nothing

but to pursue the truth,

the reality,

the end to most

human suffering?

How can I accept the bondage

that takes me

and myhumen

to suffering, unreality, dogma?

-

owais

--

 This is first being published here.

POEM_: In Danger

In Danger

Millions of Muslims

all around the globe

worry that

Muslims are in danger.

The theologians, and other

self-appointed saviours

of Muslims, however,

tell them, “No,

Islam is in danger”.

And Muslims chant,

“Islam in danger”,

“Islam in danger”,

“Islam in danger”.

Well, Islam

should be in danger.

As should all other

religions, dogmas: religious,

or otherwise.

Why?

Because dogma

has no interest

in truth. 

All it does,

like all other

biologically living

individuals, collectives,

and even cultures

is to fight

for its own survival.

And like all other

battles for survival,

shies away from no tactic

that promises it survival.

But truth fights no battles.

For it’s not merely

biological.  And its survival

can neverbe threatened. 

For truth is,

what is.

And was,

what was;

and will be

what will be.

Even time,

the power that vanquishes all

has no power

over It.

So,

truth fights no fight.

It even allows dogma

to pretend

that it isthe Truth.

And thus, dogma,

all dogma

is free to wear the pants

of the truth

and do all it sees fit

to survive. Even

fight the truth, itself:

a war, it mustknow

it cannot win.

However,

what dogma fights,

usually in the garb

of the truth,

is actually

other dogma.

So, all the Islams,

Judaisms and Christianities

and even, some

Hinduisms and Buddhisms

of the world, as also

the Communisms and Capitalisms

are the monstersthat care nothing

about anything, or anyone,

including their greatest worshippers.

All they wish to do

is to vanquish rival dogmas,

and thus, of course,

hope to survive

at least as long

as the human species.

But in the process

Muslims, and Christians,

and Hindus, and Buddhists

and Communists, and Capitalists

are hurt.  The humans

are endangered.

Yes, all dogma,

all Islam, all Christianity,

all Communism, all Capitalism

should be in danger. 

For only then, will humans

not be endangered.

Unfortunately,

it is not so.

---

© owais - for public.  (Everyone is free to use the above text without any permission from owais, the sole copyright holder, so long as the citation is done, and at least 25% of any profits generated are donated within 18 months of accrual to any organization working towards promoting Evidentialism).