Being Poem by Praveen Kumar In Shobha Priya

You are not what others think of you,
You are not what others make you to be,
But, what you think and make of you;
You are you, be on hills or in dales,
You are you, be on the Earth or in air
Or on unending billows of turbulent ocean,
Like steel is steel in old cart or new car,
Or gold is gold in crown or ‘neath flames;
No crown makes gold, gold; no car, steel, steel;
Nor flames make gold, base; no cart, steel, wood.

Wherever you be, you, always you are,
Like sunshine on temple or burial ground;
Wherever you stand, you stand your own,
Like hills always in spring and winter;
It is, you make you and not where you stand,
Nor what others do nor how time contrives;
Lions, deep in dense wild oar on open land
Or in own dens or in circus rings, lions to the core;
No blood-splitting wounds turn them to hares,
Nor lashes of masters have dogs out of them.

You are as deep as your bone-marrow,
You are as stable as skeleton is,
Whatever posture you acquire for comfort;
Flesh may flex and tan tone may change
In weather that changes from time to time,
But, you are you, in all weathers;
No chill contracts and no heat stretches you,
No stress ever breaches what you really are;
You are you and your responses are you
That make you, you; distinct you.
Temple makes no flower holier
While death, no flower less and uglier;
For, flower is flower, wherever it be
And flower is gentle, whatever it does;
So, you are, what you make of you
And not what others make of you;
Be the wild fire that burns within you
And the warm fluid that creeps in heart;
Be the flash of spark that lights your thought
And the sweet strengths that meet the soul.

You may walk on horizons or sit on flames
Or split water sheet or dive to hell,
But, you be you, wherever be you;
Have diamond- hard stamp on whatever you,
Like holy, kind words of a saintly soul,
Or rhythmic, sweet melodies of classical song,
Or definite colour spectrum of distinct ray;
No diamond breaks or bends in hot fire
And no gold gapes open while raps fall on face
And no steel ever cracks weights on its head.

Iron may soften while red-got on flames,
Glass may crack while strokes disturb calm;
But, not you, if you are proud, real you;
You are you in wholes, splinters and dusts,
In solids, fluids and invisible vapours,
Who true to you, algate radiate you
In defiance to constraints to diffuse;
Every bit, you, in loud bangs,
You are you, in change, in resistance too,
In defeat, success and rise and fall.

No acid nor base should corrode you,
No termite of greed should eat up inside,
No madness to fly should lose you in heaven
If you love the warmth of being you;
Keep safe your temple from inside and outside,
Keep strong your kingdom against temptations
With walls of will, rising high upto sky
Lest base streams flow from all sides, inside
To alloy noble you to what you are not
And far baser, less warm and distant always.

You, as you, are like the king on his throne,
While you, not you, like the king in enemy's hands;
You are pure like gold and radiant like the Sun;
None dull your luster, none reach your land
If you root your Being in what you are;
The road may ascend or descend to a slope,
The route may turn East and west next time,
But, you reach your goal till you root in you;
No shocks of griefs and no despairs come,
For, you, in you, are strength and confidence.

No wind touches bird that is safe in its nest
Unlike birds lost in gale in open sky;
Light continues to light till parts from its lamp;
You light your lamp and find your path,
You light your lamp to uncover Being
And walk away in bright glow, in confident strides
Along the path on which you are doomed to tread,
Unalloyed, uncorrupted and pure as distilled water;
You must keep to you like water to its well,
Where, if one is lost, both are really lost.

It be cloud or sunshine, you steer your way
Or fall apart in your own way
Like thunder that breaks or dies in hissing whimper;
No butchering you and no dithering you
To bend on knees to the surrounding moods;
For, you being you, the only truth of you;
Where you are not you, there is nothing you,
Nothing to lose, nothing to gain,
But, death, more void than real death
And void, more deadly than real void.