When You Know ‘yourself'…. You Not There To Know It! Poem by Maitali Khanna

How do you know, you know yourself!

Through the spectacles of the audience
Those words not from your guts
The heresies not from your rationale…
And you are defined!
Interjections that stun…

What do you say, you are?
Thought within?
What you caught? Yourself?
Which self?
Every moment of introspection
Sprouts a new You. Then…
What do you say, you are?

Are you the self that changes?
Or are you the Change between the selves?
Since, the Change seems the sole permanence;
The Change that keeps you moving -
Movement is your nature,
That's your life - you are, then, the Change!
The Change that leads you to the Unchanging,
At that Unchanging you cease to change.
And be the Unchanging yourself.

You are thus the Change…
…till you cease to change
And become the Unchanging One!

When you know yourself…
You will not be here to know it.
The moment you know, you cease to live,
Since, you live only to discover yourself…


Life and Change be the things
Always by your side
Ask them, who you are at that moment…
Lest you must be the life
You must be the Change.

To know the Absolute you -
Imperative it is to know and experience
The every momentous you,
Good or bad, both are you -
Any ‘momentous you' if left undiscovered,
Delay the change to make you Unchanging…
Give away yourself…
Not to the ‘he' that observes you
To the Change that makes you meet your own kind
To the life that guides the change towards your varied selves
Deluded you must not get
By the scrutinizing eyes, words or thoughts
Guiding light is within you…
Hold on to it and know yourself…

The moment one claims to have known ‘his'self
Be sure ‘he' is yet not known to ‘him'self.
You cannot live to tell who you are,
That's being the very purpose of life.
Once you become what you ought to
You become no'body' in the world of ‘bodies.'

Thus, when you know yourself…. You not there to know it!