"is there, love cannot be. All that we call love is only desire, longing, passion and attachment; as long as ego is there, all these bind one. Transcendence means going beyond duality. Attachment means remaining within duality. Find ecstasy within yourself. It is not out there. It is in your innermost flowering. The one you are looking for is you. You are the traveler and you are the destination. In experiencing the ecstasy of your own being, you have achieved the final goal. Comparison is a very foolish attitude, because each person is unique and incompara ble. Once this understanding settles in you, jealousy disappears. Each is unique and incomparable. You are just yourself: nobody has ever been like you, and nobody will ever be like you. And you need not be like anybody else, either. God creates only originals; he does not believe in carbon copies. Life is a pilgrimage to nowhere, from nowhere to nowhere. And between these two nowheres is the Now-Here. To be alone is the only real revolution. To accept that you are alone is the greatest transformation that can happen to you. Meaning is man-created. And because you constantly look for meaning, you start to feel meaninglessness. Always remember to judge everything by your inner feeling of bliss. Abhi SharmaPage 139 Friendship is the purest love. It is the highest form of Love where nothing is asked for, no condition, where one simply enjoys giving. Only those who are ready to become nobodies are able to love. Don't choose. Accept life as it is in its totality. Life is a balance between rest and movement. Fools laugh at others. Wisdom laughs at itself. Zen is the only religion in the world that teaches sudden enlightenment. It says that enlightenment takes no time, it can happen in a single, split second. Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You can not be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it. Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence. Life begins where fear ends. My meditation is simple. It does not require any complex practices. It is simple. It is singing. It is dancing. It is sitting silently. The less people know, the more stubbornly they know it. If you are a parent, open doors to unknown directions to the child so he can explore. Don't make him afraid of the unknown, give him support.They say: Think twice before you jump. I say: Jump first and then think as much as you want! In the space of no-mind, truth descends like light. Abhi SharmaPage 140 wR Rabindranath Tagore Robert FrostBack to Content List Abhi SharmaPage 141 Rabindranath Tagore Men are cruel, but Man is kind. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, which was a new religious sect in nineteenth-century Bengal and which attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads. He was educated at home; and although at seventeen he was sent to England for formal schooling, he did not finish his studies there. In his mature years, in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with common humanity and increased his interest in social reforms. He also started an experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried his Upanishadic ideals of education. From time to time he participated in the Indian nationalist movement, though in his own non-sentimental and visionary way; and Mahatma Gandhi, the political father of modern India, was his devoted friend. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India. Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India's spiritual heritage; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution. Although Tagore wrote successfully in all literary genres, he was first of all a poet. Among his fifty and odd volumes of poetry are Manasi (1890) [The Ideal One], Sonar Tari (1894) [The Golden Boat], Gitanjali (1910) [Song Offerings], Gitimalya (1914) [Wreath of Songs], and Balaka (1916) [The Flight of Cranes]. The English renderings of his poetry, which include The Gardener (1913), Fruit-Gathering (1916), and The Fugitive (1921), do not generally correspond to particular volumes in the original Bengali; and in spite of its title, Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), the most acclaimed of them, contains poems from other works besides its namesake. Tagore's major plays are Raja (1910) [The King of the Dark Chamber], Dakghar (1912) [The Post Office], Achalayatan (1912) [The Immovable], Muktadhara (1922) [The Waterfall], and Raktakaravi (1926) [Red Oleanders]. He is the author of several volumes of short stories and a number of novels, among them Gora (1910), Ghare-Baire (1916) [The Home and the World], and Yogayog (1929) [Crosscurrents]. Besides these, he wrote musical dramas, dance dramas, essays of all types, travel diaries, and two autobiographies, one in his middle years and the other shortly before his death in 1941. Tagore also left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote the music himself. Rabindranath Tagore died on August 7, 1941. You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Abhi SharmaPage 142 If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars. Love's gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted. The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple. The small wisdom is like water in a glass: clear, transparent, pure. The great wisdom is like the water in the sea: dark, mysterious, impenetrable. Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time. By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower. We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us. Music fills the infinite between two souls. Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man. The biggest changes in a women's nature are brought by love; in man, by ambition. The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence. when you came you cried and everybody smiled with joy; when you go smile and let the world cry for you. In Art, man reveals himself and not his objects. Abhi SharmaPage 143 These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination. Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them. Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark. Do not say, 'It is morning,' and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name. Beauty is truth's smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror. The singer alone does not make a song, there has to be someone who hears. Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield,But to my own strength. Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,But for the patience to win my freedom. Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand with a grip that kills it. Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them. The fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air. My day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening. Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance. Abhi SharmaPage 144 Robert Frost Poetry is what gets lost in translation. Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874. He moved to New England at the age of eleven and became interested in reading and writing poetry during his high school years in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was enrolled at Dartmouth College in 1892, and later at Harvard, though he never earned a formal degree. Frost drifted through a string of occupations after leaving school, working as a teacher, cobbler, and editor of the Lawrence Sentinel. His first professional poem,"