Body Poem by Madathil Rajendran Nair
Body
Watch, watch, watch
My limbs move
My body moves
I am neither the movements
Nor am the body
For am just the watcher
For I just happen to see
The body and its movements
Thanks to what nobody knows
"No, no, no
That can't be true"
Someone said
From inside me
Oh, what inside! ?
No clue where that someone is lodged
Yet, I know someone said
If that is someone and if I knew
I can't then be him
I am the knower in the game
A mosquito bit
On my knee
My eyes were closed
Yet, in my mental eye
I could see
My knee with the mosquito on
Even the colour of what I wore
But that had nothing to do
With my actual attire then
When what there really was
Only the experience of a bite
A flash or flowering
In the awareness that I am
Like a ripple in a lucid pond
My knee that was bitten
And the attire I saw
Were just an image
Gathered from the past
Down memory lane
The body is a thought
Never is it wholly felt
But only in bits and parts
Nose, eyes, ache or ease
Then as a whole conjured up
Like a group photograph
The knee thus I know
Is an unwanted add-on
On the singular flash
That was just a bite
An experience, a knowing
Flash of consciousness
Which I always am
Through all transactions
Which fools christen
The world or the universe
Of names and forms
May Consciousness only shine
Nay it is the only One that shines
Which I am
There is then nothing else
The world is Consciousness
A single whole
Perceived as impossible parts
The seer I am
Never different from it
What a tragedy then
That I am wont
To always see it split into parts
Diverse, different
Often as a looming threat
Highly philosophical....! We can feel Consciousness...... but hard to explain where it lies and what exactly it is! Great write!
A very philosophical write on the unification of matter and soul. We must see the universe in its entirety, not in pieces.
There is so much to think about in the poem like mind, matter, consciousness and soul, I, me and what I do and experience what's happening. Thanks for sharing a wonderful philosophical poem based on ancient Indian thought.
You have beautifully expressed transcendental experience of the human body like a a ripple in a lucid pond. Thank you.
Well posited and written. I often have the same internal conversation. What and where is consciousness? Is it a whole? Does it emerge like a field in space-time? (And can I stop being 'aware' of my aching back?) : -)
Your questions demand a whole book of explanation. I am planning one - but too lazy to even begin. All descriptions and spatiality are within Consciousness (because we are aware of them objectively) . So, questions beginning with What, Where and When do not apply to Consiousness. Neither does It emerge in space-time for the same reason. Your aching back is an 'aching' back because of your identification with your body. If you can succeed fully in witnessing your body as an object that has nothing to do with the real You, then possibly there can be no difference between an ache and ease - because then both would be understood as Consciousness. That is why we have recorded evidence of realized personages bearing physical pain with equanimity. It is said that once Ramana Maharshi underwent surgery for his sarcoma without anaesthesia!
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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9/24/2024 11:15:34 AM # 1.0.0.1119
Nice one Nair. Consciousness this aspect many dont realize. Thats the problem. Regards