CATCH THE PRESENT MOMENT

 

          CATCH THE PRESENT MOMENT 

‘Time’ is defined as what is measured in minutes, hours, days, etc. Another definition describes it as ‘the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present and future regarded as a whole “travel through space and time.”

Time is also mentioned as ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’.  To measure it in this way is not correct because time is eternal. It was, it is and it will be. It is endless. However, the dependable part of time is the present moment. The past cannot be called back and the future is uncertain.

A disturbing aspect of time is its memory of the past. It consumes a lot of our time at the cost of our present moment  when we are alive and are supposed to do what is relevant . Past is history, future is a dream. Present is a hard reality but it also becomes past in the split of a second.

  Wisdom requires not to brood over the past and also not to dream about the future. The English poet and philanthropist Adelaide Anne Procter (1825-1864)  has written a poem which she has called “Now” and begins with the lines:

Rise ! for the day is passing,

And you lie dreaming on’

            The others have buckled their armor,

            And forth to the fight are gone.

 

She goes on to say:

 

            A place in the ranks awaits you,

            Each man has some part to play;

            The Past and Future are nothing,

            In the face of the stern today.

 

The second stanza begins with the line:

           

            Rise from your dreams of the future,

            And ends with the lines:

 

Your Future has deeds of glory,

            Of honor (God grant it may !)

            But your arm will never be stronger,

            Or the need so great as Today.

 

The third of this four-stanza poem deals with the Past time and is most significant because it lays stress on the significance of the present moment for which she has used the word “Now” as the title of her poem.

 

            Rise ! if the Past detains you,

            Her sunshine and storms forget;

            No chains so unworthy to hold you

            As those of a vain regret:

            Sad or bright, she is lifeless ever;

            Cast her phantom arms away,

            Nor look back, save to learn the lesson

Of a nobler strife Today.

           

Finally, here is a famous quote: “Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.”

 

                                                **********

G.R.Kanwal

17^th January 2025

 

 

   

 

YOU ARE ALONE

 

          YOU ARE ALONE

‘You are alone’ is a reality. You have many friends, relatives, lovers  throughout your life is an illusion.

All friendships as well as relationships are transient. Those who love you today and get some reward in exchange may start hating you tomorrow. That is why we have a proverb : It is better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone.

            Indian mystical philosopher Acharya Rajneesh, popularly known as Osho (11 Dec 1931 -19 January 1990) said  in one of his lectures: On the road of life someone walks with you a few steps and then he parts company. All relationships are temporary ; you cannot say how long anyone is going to be for or against you.

Friends turn into enemies and enemies into friends in a split second. So a person who lives his life like a river makes neither friends nor foes; he accepts whatever life brings.

            Religiously, there are people who believe that they are never alone because God is always with them. According to them  God does not let down anyone of his devotees provided the devotee also maintains his loyalty.

            Sadly enough, the present age is awfully poor in the matter of loyalty. It is not an age of togetherness but of alienation. Not only kith and kin are extremely disloyal but also those who are members of a social or political group or the followers of a particular religion. We see leaders of one party  hating and causing damage to another party . They belong to the same state and country, yet are bitter opponents not co-operative comrades.

            The English playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) rightly says in his play As You Like It, Act 2, Sc. 7: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.

            Finally another extract from Shakespeare’s play Henry VIII, Act 2, Sc.1.

“Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels

Be sure you be not loose; for those you make friends

And give your hearts to, when they once perceive

The least rub in your fortunes, fall away

Like water from ye, never found again

But where they mean to sink ye.

********

G.R.Kanwal

16 January 2025     

 

                                               

 

WAR AND PEACE

 

WAR AND PEACE

War is defined as a state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country. Peace is the antonym of war. It refers to a period in which there is no war or a war has ended.

War is not okay because of its negative consequences. It kills or injures or cripples lots of soldiers and common people including innocent women and children. Many birds and beasts, too, lose their lives. Environment becomes polluted and poisonous. Economy is badly affected. Land loses fertility. Famine becomes a fatal threat. Enmity between warring countries rises, not dips.

The Indian poet Abdul Hyee, popularly known by his pen name Sahir Ludhianvi (1921-1980) wrote a very popular poem on war wherein he said: war does not solve any problem; in fact it is itself a problem. He prays for its deferment as long as possible.

According to the Italian diplomat Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527): He who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than vicious. ---War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows.

The English poet Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) observes: The practices of war are so hateful to God, that were not his mercies infinite, it were in vain for those of that profession to hope for any portion of them.

In the eyes of Former Emperor of the French,  Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) : War is the business of barbarians.

A German Proverb says: A great war leaves the country with three armies ---an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.

Scottish poet and playwright James Thomson (1700-48) thinks that peace is the happy, natural state of man; war, his corruption, his disgrace.

Finally,  this statement of the Italian poet Francis Petrarch (1304-1374): Five great enemies to peace inhabit with us: namely, avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride. If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.

                                                ******

G.R.Kanwal

15 January 2025    

         

 

 

FROM THE POEMS OF JOHN KEATS

 

          FROM THE POEMS OF JOHN KEATS

The English poet John Keats was born in 1795 and died in 1821 at the young age of 26, yet he earned a permanent place in English literature.

As a romantic  poet, says Edward Albert in “A Short History of English Literature”,  whereas Lord Byron (1788-1824) looked around and criticized;  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) looked forward and aspired; Keats looked backward into the romantic past and sighed.

Keats’s great search was for the joy that lies in beauty, and this beauty he found most easily in the past.

Physically he was a weakling, suffered from consumption, studied medicine, wandered in search of health and died in Rome where he lies buried beside Shelley.

  What follows are a few quotable lines from a handful of his poems.

* A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. ------From Endymion.

 

**Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter, ye soft pipes, play on,

Not to the sensual ear, but more endear’d.--------From Ode On A Grecian Urn.

 

***Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too.----From Ode to  Autumn.

 

****Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,

And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?

The transient pleasures as a vision seem,

And yet we think the greatest pain’s to die.

 

How strange it is that man on earth should roam,

And lead a life of woe, but not forsake

His rugged path; nor dare he view alone

His future doom which is but to wake.----From On Death.

 

*****Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow.-----From Ode To A Nightingale.

 

******Thou,, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral !

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’---that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. ------Last stanza of Ode On A Grecian Urn

 

                                                *******

G.R.Kanwal

14^th January 2025

 

           

MANY FEARS ARE BASELESS

 

          MANY FEARS ARE BASELESS

Fear is defined as: an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm. Some of its common synonyms are :  terror, panic, alarm, fright, dread, horror, phobia,  nervousness and timidity.

Fear is omnipresent. You are afraid at many a place  ---- at your home of some  perceived threat, at your office of some action against you, in your business of some  expected loss, on the road of some accident, near the river of getting drowned , of a weather condition causing some dangerous effect , during a journey about losing something, of separation from some beloved friend or relative and most of all losing your life sooner or later.

Most of these fears are imaginary. They seldom take place to destroy your peace of mind or happiness.

If you are law-abiding and afraid of displeasing God, you are a good deal safe from fears. Laws take care of innocents and God is as gracious as your father.

Fear makes you weak and cowardly. Fearlessness helps  you remain strong and courageous.

  Quite a few fears are transitory. They don’t have a long duration. A large number of them are no worse than phobias and have no enduring basis.

Here are some important thoughts about fear:

*Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize in the imagination, to raise phantoms of horror, or to beset life with supernumerary distresses. ----English author Samuel Johnson (1709-84).

** Good men have the fewest fears. He who fears to do wrong has but one great fear; he has a thousand who has overcome it. ----American author Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904) .

***It is only the fear of God that can deliver us from the fear of man. ---- Scottish-American  divine John Witherspoon (1723-94).

****There is great beauty in going through life without anxiety or fear. ---Half our fears are baseless, and the other half discreditable.----Bovee

            Finally, this quote: A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

                                                *******

G.R.Kanwal

13^th January 2025

 

LEAD KINDLY LIGHT

 

 

                       

 

 

                             LEAD KINDLY LIGHT

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet;

I do not ask to see

The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that

Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on.

 

I loved the garish day, and, spite

of fears, pride ruled my will; .

remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on.

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!

 

       The prayer given above is by Cardinal Henry Newman (1801-1890). Here the poet is praying to God to guide him to move forward  because his past life has not been as holy as it should have been, and the current one is full of darkness denying him requisite light to move upward.   

      

He uses the words “the encircling gloom”, “The night is dark, and I am far from home.” “The home” here means the heavenly abode where he wants to reach, not all at once but gradually,  step by step. Very humbly does he say: I do not ask to see the distant scene,---one step enough for me.

The poet has full faith in God and says: So long hath thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on, over moor and fen,over crag and torrent, till the night is gone.

 

The night symbolizes the dark night of present life. 

 

                     ****************

G.R.Kanwal

12 January 2025

 

 

 

TRUTH FEARS NO EXAMINATION

 

TRUTH  FEARS NO EXAMINATION

Truth fears no examination is a proverbial statement and has never been disapproved. A man of truth is a man of courage. He is brave everywhere including the biggest courts of the world. He is not afraid of punishment because he is always ready to die for the sake of preserving truth.

In contrast with truth, a lie has no legs to stand upon. It lacks both physical and moral courage. Its victories are feeble and transistory.

It is also a proverbial statement that God sees the truth but waits. A guilty person can cross many stages without being punished but not the final one where God is the supreme judge. It is therefore advisable for all criminals and sinners to remember  that they are being watched by God  

Look at the following eternal thoughts about crime , punishment and truth.  

*Society prepares the crime; criminal commits it.--Anonymous

 

*Heaven will permit no man to secure happiness by crime.—Alfieri, Italian poet (1749-1802).  

 

 *Whenever man commits a crime heaven finds a witness. –Bulwer –Lytton, English novelist (1803-72).

 

 * Fear follows crime, and is its punishment.---Voltaire, French writer and philosopher (1694-1778).

 

  *Man’s crimes are his worst enemies, following him like shadows, till they drive his steps into the pit he dug---Creon, ancient Greek writer.

 

 *Crime is not punished as an offence against God, but as prejudicial to society.---James Anthony Froude, English historian and novelist (1818-94).

 

*Every violation of truh is a stab at the health of human society. ----Emerson, Ralph Waldo, American essayist (1803-1882).

 

*If a thousand old beliefs were ruined in our march to truth we must still march on.---Stopford A.Brooke, Irish churchman and writer (1832-1916).  

 

*Falsehood is in a hurry; it may be at any moment detected and punished; truth is calm, serene; its judgment is on high; its king cometh out of the chambers of eternity.---Joseph Parker, English divine (1830 -1902).

     

Finally this quote: Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. ---Anais Nin, French-American diarist and essayist (1903-1977).

                                                *****

G.R.Kanwal

10 January 2025