Thursday, August 03, 2006

Dear friend, enemy

I am encouraged by Gaelin's appreciation of my recently posted poem "Awareness" to share another poem, written in 1997.


Ode to an Enemy

Dear friend, enemy,
doubly am I beholden to you:
for it was your ceaseless attack that drove me
to the depths of my being
to find my true self -
responsible, inviolable, precious.
But more than that,
it is through trying to find
your most compassionate and protective core
within the mist of your supposed enmity
that I am plunged
grieving, sobbing, breathless,
into intimate love for you
from which I emerge
unvanquishable,
having drunk of the elixir of life.
How then can I but be utterly at your mercy?
I shall suffer in silence -
not your slings and slander,
which were merely phantasms
of my own creation;
nor for missing your friendship,
for I have been and am one with you;
but this futile loss of precious life
flung cheaply into the bog of sloth
to be compacted and thrown into the flames of purification.
There shall you be, friend, friendless
while I, your enemy, grieve your absence.
For only in the fullness of all
lies my own.

7 comments:

Dan said...

Beautiful, Sri Rama. Thanks!
Have you been to Arunachala?

Bonita said...

Yes, we learn that our enemy is our best teacher. Best to approach, with love.

Sadiq said...

mail pai nai. amar blog check korben pls arekta email address er jonno.


regards,
sadiq

isaiah said...

Rama-

Thank you for sharing. I hope you do not mind that I have posted your poem at my blog and have linked your page to the poem.

Your words make perfect sense in this world where each of us looks to the other for definition, for semblance of sanity.

When we look- everywhere, we see our face staring back.

anonymous julie said...

Wow. Thank you.

(I found you on Isaiah's blog.)

Vincent said...

It is true that we have a relationship with our enemy. But what you have expressed goes further than I am able to go at present. Are you still able to be like this with an enemy, or was it a one-off?

rama said...

Thanks Friends. Yves - very useful point, that there's realisation in meditation, and there's life and the ongoing acting upon the insights and awareness of meditation.

This reminds me of another personal experience long ago, when I was wrestling with the anger and bitterness and pain and dejection from having learnt about a close friend having done something inexplicably nasty. Finally I saw the whole thing in a new light. He hadn't done me any wrong or harm, he had only been exquisitely kind, compassionate and protective of what he saw as my true essence.

From that and other similar experiences of arriving at a completely new perspective on a troubling problem - I learnt not to act in haste, to give it time, to sleep over it, to wait for a new outlook to emerge.

Yes, this specific poem was one powerful awareness, coming out of the inner friction from a particular encounter / relationship. But that did also take me away from getting embroiled in such conflicts. Yes, there have since been other unhappy, bitterness causing encounters and relationships, and in some cases I am unable to go so far as this meditation entails. That needs an openness and willingness, which is not just a thought or a decision, but an exercise of will against stubborn and unyielding inner pulls. It also takes time!