Time to emulate the Jews, not hate them

 

I am troubled by the new hostility toward Jews I see in American public life. At times, admiration seems to give way to suspicion, and disagreement to hatred. Yet America has never spoken with one voice, and criticism of Israel or its advocates is not automatically hatred of Jews. The danger begins when we stop making that distinction.

AIPAC—the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—is a political organization; Jews are a diverse people with varied nationalities, beliefs, loyalties, and political convictions. Conflating the two is intellectually careless and morally dangerous. A Jewish neighbor is no more accountable for AIPAC than a Muslim neighbor is for every organization that invokes Islam.

I believe AIPAC’s political influence should be challenged and diminished through democratic means. Its own account describes work to elect supporters of the American alliance with Israel and defeat its detractors. Citizens have every right to question that agenda, examine political spending, and oppose candidates who support it. No organization deserves immunity from scrutiny because it associates its cause with a people’s security.

Scrutiny, however, requires evidence. Claims about wealthy donors should specify who gave what, and which decisions the money may have influenced. Vague accusations of hidden control can reproduce the prejudices we should resist. My objection is to concentrated political power and the influence of money—and it must apply consistently, regardless of a donor’s religion or ancestry.

The Holocaust belongs in this discussion because it helps explain why security matters so profoundly to many Jews. But history requires precision: AIPAC’s predecessor began operating in 1954, amid efforts to build American support for Israel. Its origins cannot be reduced to Hitler’s persecution alone. Understanding Jewish fears does not require endorsing every organization that claims to address them.

Political anger can also obscure an extraordinary human inheritance. Consider Jewish contributions to science, philosophy, medicine, literature, music, film, and the arts. Again and again, Jewish thinkers and creators have enlarged the possibilities of human life. Their achievements belong to humanity, even as their Jewish backgrounds remain part of their stories.

I would not turn that admiration into a competition among religions. Jewish identity can be religious, cultural, ancestral, or some combination of these; achievement does not establish inherited superiority. The better question is what we can learn from traditions of scholarship, argument, perseverance, and inquiry—and from the individuals who carried those practices into new fields.

The Nobel Prize has often served as my personal, if imperfect, yardstick for work that changes our understanding. I have particular respect for the prizes awarded in Sweden. Still, no committee is infallible: many deserving people go unrecognized, and an award cannot certify every opinion or action of its recipient.

I view the Nobel Peace Prize, selected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, with greater skepticism. Some choices seem political to me, shaped by the priorities of powerful countries. That is an assessment, not proof that every award serves a Western agenda. Credible criticism examines specific decisions; blanket condemnation is no more illuminating than unquestioning reverence.

Albert Einstein occupies a special place in my imagination. Sometimes I feel as though God sent him to offer humankind a glimpse of divine brightness. I mean that as an expression of wonder: Einstein revealed relationships in nature that others had not seen. His example makes intelligence seem astonishing—and deeply humbling.

Brilliance alone does not explain whom I admire; courage matters, especially the courage to question one’s own side. Among the Americans I most admire are Bernie Sanders, Noam Chomsky, and Norman Finkelstein, in no particular order. I need not agree with every position they take to value their willingness to confront power and withstand opposition. They all criticize AIPAC.

Their Jewish backgrounds also expose the absurdity of treating Jews as a single political bloc. Jewish disagreement is visible to anyone willing to listen. Some support AIPAC; others oppose it. Some defend Israeli government policies; others condemn them. An honest conversation leaves room for those differences instead of deciding in advance what a Jewish person must think.

When I say that Jews occupy the highest places in my personal gallery of admired people, I am expressing gratitude. My extravagant impulse is to say that my first ten people are all Jewish and the next place begins at fifteen. But affection needs no invented arithmetic. These individuals have shaped my understanding of knowledge, justice, and human responsibility.

To emulate them is demanding: read carefully, ask difficult questions, and value education beyond its financial rewards. Refuse to surrender conscience to a party, government, religious authority, or community. Examine evidence even when it unsettles a cherished conviction. Admiration matters when it changes our habits; otherwise, it is only a comfortable sentiment.

The same conscience must recognize Palestinian suffering. Defending Jews against antisemitism does not require excusing injustice toward Palestinians; defending Palestinians does not permit threats against Jews. Human dignity cannot depend on someone’s flag, scripture, or whose grief dominates the news. Our principles become credible only when we apply them across those boundaries.

If AIPAC’s influence concerns us, let us organize, vote, demand transparency, and advocate policies grounded in equal rights. We can challenge political influence we consider harmful through lawful persuasion and democratic reform. Turning that effort into hostility toward Jews would betray its moral purpose and target people who bear no responsibility for the decisions we oppose.

I am not Jewish. My admiration comes from what Jewish thinkers, creators, and dissenters have given me—and the world I inhabit. We have much to learn from their examples. Let us challenge power precisely, recognize achievement with gratitude, and meet one another without collective suspicion. Hatred teaches us whom to blame; wisdom teaches us how to become better.

Religion Is Good, Spirituality Better

 

A hungry child does not ask the faith of the person offering food. A grieving mother does not need to know which scripture inspires a stranger’s comfort. In moments of suffering, we recognize what our arguments can obscure: compassion crosses religious boundaries. This conviction lies at the heart of my interest in faith, human relationships, and the divisions we inherit.

When I say religion is good and spirituality is better, I am offering a way to measure belief: What kind of people does it help us become? Religion can offer discipline, community, consolation, and moral guidance. Spirituality tests those gifts in practice—in how we treat others, including those whose beliefs differ from our own.

My books—One God in You and Me, A Meticulous Plan, A Line in the Sand, and The Wound of 1947—offer different starting points for this reflection. Together, they explore questions that concern me deeply: the divine within us, the ways we live together, the boundaries we draw, and the suffering those boundaries leave behind.

Religion deserves appreciation for the good it makes possible. A place of worship can shelter the lonely, though sacred spaces have also been sites of violence. Prayer can sustain someone through bereavement. Fasting can teach restraint; charity can turn private comfort toward public need. Religious traditions preserve wisdom that individuals might otherwise spend a lifetime discovering. For many, spiritual understanding begins within these traditions and continues to grow there.

Yet belonging can become possessiveness. We may begin by loving our faith and end by assuming that God loves only people like us. We may defend a sacred book while disregarding the dignity of a living person. The danger appears whenever loyalty to a religious identity excuses conduct that our conscience would otherwise condemn.

One God in You and Me provides the simplest expression of the possibility I want to consider. If I seek God within myself, can I refuse even to consider the divine within you? Your prayers may sound unfamiliar. Your understanding of creation may differ from mine. Neither difference permits me to treat your life as less valuable.

This is a spiritual proposition, rather than a scientific claim. It asks us to approach another person with reverence before judgment. We need not agree about the nature of God to recognize the consequences of this attitude. Listening becomes easier. Cruelty becomes harder. The stranger begins to emerge as someone whose fears and hopes resemble our own.

In A Meticulous Plan, the lives of Hindu and Muslim families unfold amid private struggles and national turmoil. Across generations, love and self-sacrifice offer possibilities that inherited divisions threaten to destroy. These relationships bring a large philosophical question into ordinary life: can people make room for one another when history, family expectations, and communal loyalties encourage separation?

The answer must be lived. Caring for an elderly person, showing patience within a difficult family, and accepting someone across a religious divide require effort. Such acts give spiritual conviction substance. A person may speak eloquently about universal love, yet its meaning becomes clear only when loving someone carries a cost.

The title A Line in the Sand offers another image through which to consider this question. We draw lines to establish identity, protect belonging, and make the world understandable. Some boundaries are necessary. But a boundary becomes dangerous when we forget that people on both sides possess an inner life as complicated and precious as our own.

A line in the sand also suggests impermanence: what seems fixed may be reshaped by wind or water. Our inherited assumptions deserve similar examination. Prejudice can feel ancient and unquestionable until an encounter unsettles it. Friendship, love, or unexpected kindness can reveal how little we understood the people we had placed beyond our circle.

The Wound of 1947 brings the consequences of division into the lives of people who continue to bear history’s injuries. Partition becomes more than a date when its aftermath enters a family’s understanding of safety, identity, and home. A wound can survive through memories and silences, shaping relationships long after the original violence.

Ozma’s education and questioning raise a related concern: what happens when a woman’s search for understanding encounters religious authority and restrictive expectations? Faith should be able to meet an honest question. When questions are silenced through fear, obedience may survive, but understanding has little opportunity to grow. Spiritual freedom requires room for conscience.

Dr. Ali Khan’s care for patients who cannot pay offers a quieter expression of that freedom. A suffering person arrives, and the need for care becomes immediate. In such encounters, the moral worth of belief appears through responsibility. The hours given to another person’s pain carry a meaning that declarations of righteousness cannot establish by themselves.

Spirituality, however, deserves scrutiny too. Calling ourselves spiritual does not make us generous, truthful, or humble. It can become another flattering identity, another way to feel superior. Its value must be tested through conduct, just as religion’s value must. Are we willing to acknowledge a mistake? Can we respect someone’s freedom when it challenges our preferences?

Nor must spiritual growth erase religious differences. People can cherish distinct prayers, festivals, and understandings of existence while sharing a commitment to human dignity. Agreement on every doctrine is unnecessary for cooperation. We can build friendships, protect vulnerable neighbors, and resist injustice while still disagreeing about ultimate questions.

The task begins close to home: in how we speak to a spouse, answer a child, or respond to someone who offends us. These small encounters reveal whether our highest convictions have entered the ordinary habits of living.

For me, “better” names a direction of growth, not a rejection of religion. Religion can offer a home in which compassion takes root; spirituality asks how far that compassion can reach. The hope connecting these reflections is that our concern will extend beyond the familiar, toward people we have been taught to distrust. If we can recognize their dignity—and, for those who believe, something sacred in them—our convictions may help us become more fully human.

We experience this world through our physical bodies, but what happens when we lose them? Science has not settled that question, and spiritual traditions offer different answers. For me, the value of spirituality is not that it ends uncertainty, but that it invites us to live with humility, compassion, and hope while we face it.

Can’t Get Over the Guilt

 When I got home, I discovered my mobile phone was missing.

I searched my pockets, then searched them again, as though the phone might appear if I became sufficiently desperate. Panic gripped me. Somewhere between getting a haircut and returning home, I had left behind a small object containing an astonishing amount of my life.

A phone is no longer merely a telephone. It holds our contacts, messages, photographs, appointments, and information we expect to find whenever we need it. We carry this little storehouse so casually that we hardly consider its importance until our hand reaches for it and finds nothing.

Fortunately, I had a family tracker. Using my wife’s phone, I located mine at Great Clips, where I had just had a haircut. I called the salon. The woman who answered told me I had left my phone on the table.

What a relief those words brought!

I went back, collected the phone, and gave her twenty dollars as a thank-you.

That should have been the happy ending. The phone was safe. Someone had been helpful. I had expressed my gratitude.

Instead, while driving home, another thought arrived: I should have given her fifty dollars.

Since then, I have found myself returning to that moment. Considering how valuable the phone is to me, was twenty dollars enough? Had I been ungenerous toward someone whose simple act had spared me so much distress?

The phone came home with me. So did the guilt.

I began to wonder what, exactly, I was trying to measure. Was I rewarding her for keeping the phone safe, acknowledging the trouble she saved me, or trying to express the full force of my relief? These are different things, and no amount of money can represent them perfectly.

Had the phone disappeared permanently, I might have paid much more than fifty dollars to recover it. But does my willingness to pay in a crisis establish what I owe afterward? A person desperate for a glass of water may consider it priceless. That does not mean every person who offers water must receive a fortune.

Still, this reasoning does not entirely silence the feeling.

There is something uncomfortable about placing a dollar value on gratitude. We want our outward gesture to match our inward feeling. When the feeling is large, and the gesture seems small beside it, we suspect ourselves of having failed.

Yet I had not walked away without thanking her. I had given twenty dollars freely, without being asked. Nothing in what happened suggested she expected fifty dollars or considered my thanks inadequate. She had thanked me profusely. The accusation came from me.

Perhaps that deserves closer attention.

Guilt has an understandable purpose when we have hurt someone, broken a promise, or withheld something we knew was owed. It asks us to look honestly at our conduct. Here, however, I could identify no clear injury. I could only imagine a more generous version of myself and compare my actual behavior with his.

He gave fifty dollars. I gave twenty.

Naturally, he looked better.

But suppose I had given fifty. Would that have settled the matter? I might later have thought of a hundred. After all, the information on the phone was worth far more. And a new phone would cost a thousand or more. Once gratitude becomes a competition with an imagined better gesture, the finishing line can keep moving.

There will almost always be something more we could have done.

We could have stayed longer with a lonely friend, offered more help to a relative, donated more money, or spoken more warmly. Sometimes these thoughts teach us something useful. Sometimes they leave us unable to appreciate the kindness we actually offered.

I don’t want to dismiss my discomfort just because it is inconvenient. Perhaps I genuinely wish I had been more generous. That is a reasonable thing to acknowledge. I can learn from it without turning a twenty-dollar gift into evidence of a moral defect.

There is also the woman herself to consider. In my private debate over twenty dollars and fifty, I risk reducing her helpfulness to a transaction. She may simply have been pleased that the phone reached its owner. I do not know her thoughts, and I should not invent disappointment on her behalf.

Her act allowed me to trust, for a moment, that something misplaced could remain safe in another person’s hands. That matters beyond the price of a replacement phone. It is one of those ordinary experiences through which strangers make daily life possible.

How should I respond to it now?

I could return and give her another thirty dollars. If I chose to do that, it would be a further gift, offered because I wanted to give it. I would not need to describe the original twenty as a failure. I could also thank her again the next time I visited and tell her how much recovering the phone had meant to me.

Words can carry gratitude that money alone leaves unspoken.

I could remember this encounter when somebody else needs help, and offer the same consideration that was extended to me.

I still wish I had given fifty dollars. Perhaps next time I will. For now, I hope to remember the woman’s kindness more vividly than my dissatisfaction with myself.

She helped me recover something valuable. I would like to receive that kindness with gratitude and go home in peace.

Just Don’t Harm Because You Can

 

A deer grazes in a clearing. Somewhere nearby, a tiger waits. One survives by eating leaves; the other survives by eating the animal that eats the leaves. Neither has chosen the terms of its existence.

In the familiar Indian expression, some animals are “veg,” while others are “non-veg.” The distinction sounds almost domestic, as though nature were offering a menu. Yet behind it lies a troubling arrangement: for some creatures to continue living, others must die.

I sometimes wonder where the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” belongs in this world. Could we address it to the tiger? Could we ask a hungry predator to respect the life before it and accept its own death instead?

The commandment is addressed to human beings. A tiger cannot weigh a religious instruction against its hunger. We can debate the meaning and limits of the words; the tiger cannot participate in that debate. Its innocence does not spare the deer, but the deer’s suffering does not make the tiger a murderer.

Nature offers us no easy moral comfort. The predator needs to eat. The prey needs to live. Both claims arise from the same attachment to existence.

Our position is more complicated.

We belong to the animal world, though we often speak as though we stood outside it. Yet our power allows us to determine the lives of other creatures on an extraordinary scale. We breed them, confine them, buy them, sell them, protect them, and kill them. We decide which may share our homes and which will appear on our plates.

From their side of the fence, we must seem almost like gods.

We open the gate. We bring the food. We decide whether a frightened creature will receive tenderness or a blow. An animal under our control may have no escape from our temper, our convenience, or our indifference.

But what sort of gods do we become?

Power makes it possible to impose a rule. It does not, by itself, make the rule just. An animal cannot challenge our explanation of what we do to it. It cannot ask a court to reconsider its status or write an account of its captivity. That silence gives us enormous freedom—and leaves its interests almost entirely in our hands.

Then there are the emotions we encounter so readily when we choose to look.

A dog waits at the door for someone who has gone away. A frightened animal struggles to escape a raised hand. A creature gradually learns to approach the person who feeds it. We may not know exactly how such experiences feel from within, and different animals experience the world differently. Still, uncertainty about their inner lives should make us attentive.

It should make us hesitate before treating a living creature as though nothing happened inside it.

We understand this easily with the animals we love. We speak of a pet’s loneliness, excitement, jealousy, or trust. We arrange our lives around its comfort. Yet our concern can weaken abruptly when an animal belongs to a category we have learned to regard as useful.

The categories are ours. The vulnerability belongs to the animal.

This becomes especially disturbing when trust is involved. Once a creature has learned that our presence means food or safety, we have acquired a particular responsibility. Its dependence is real, even if it cannot understand the arrangement we have made for its future.

Can we accept that trust without allowing it to trouble our conscience?

The question does not produce one simple answer about every act of killing. Human circumstances differ. Hunger, available food, livelihood, and survival affect the choices people can make. A person with abundant alternatives faces a different decision from someone with very few.

But such differences invite honest examination. How much of what we call necessity is necessary? How much suffering continues because changing a familiar practice would inconvenience us? And how often do we avoid looking because looking might require us to act?

The tiger cannot ask these questions. We can.

That ability places a burden on our claim to superiority. If we take pride in reason, conscience, and compassion, those qualities must enter our dealings with creatures unable to resist us. Intelligence ought to help us recognize suffering beyond our own species. Moral imagination ought to reach beyond the beings who can speak our language.

Perhaps “Thou shalt not kill” also asks something of us before the moment of death. It asks us to examine the life placed under our control: the confinement, the fear, the handling, the opportunities for comfort. Even where people believe killing is justified, the animal’s experience remains a moral concern.

A creature can suffer long before it dies.

I do not know how to reconcile every part of a world in which life feeds on life. The deer’s terror and the tiger’s hunger resist a tidy conclusion. But human choice occupies a space within that difficulty. In that space, we can reduce suffering, question habits, and refuse cruelty.

To kill or not to kill is therefore a question about the living as much as the dead. It asks what we owe to a creature while its life is still in our hands.

If we are gods to the animals, our divinity is a dangerous one. They must live with the consequences of whatever we decide goodness means.

The least we can do is remember that they have a life to lose—and, before that, a life to feel.

Dems, enjoy your day, but don’t keep riding high horses

 

Democrats are on the moon today; I am not because I am not a Democrat. I am a Bernie Independent if you know what that means. I never hated MAGA; I sympathized with them. I understand where they are coming from, and I am totally with them. Their backs were against the wall. They saw their lives had been destroyed by the two corporate parties, so they took a chance on a conman; they had no other choice. The conman exploited them to bring the worst out of them, and fanned hatred and dissension to achieve his goal. He used divide-and-conquer, the simplest age-old policy, to enrich himself.

Republicans are honest; they work for the oligarchs and, in the process, serve their own interests, and they do what is best for them. So when the Donald man shed crocodile tears for them, they gathered under his umbrella. They had no other way. They had steadily seen their lives destroyed by the Democrats under shady carpetbaggers such as Bill Clinton. Make no mistake, even Bush Two was a far greater President than the Billy boy!

Even a man with morality, Barack Obama, had failed the American people. DNC had been instrumental in robbing the U.S. presidency from Bernie Sanders and handing it to the con man Donald. Dems are the junior partners of the corporate American Party. They talk the talk but never walk the walk. They share complete blame for destroying the America of the 60s, where one income was sufficient to maintain a decent middle-class life. But they were like sly foxes, serving their corporate masters and diluting people’s rights. Bill Clinton was the first playboy who insulted the dignity of White House by having sex with an intern in the Oval Office and later hobnobbing with Epstein, and he institutionalized corruption in the US political System.

Barack Obama talked about being shellacked when he got the beating in an interim election and lost a majority in both chambers, but he was not able to control his partymen. Being black was such a disadvantage that he never could play the role that he could have, or should have. But he was honest enough to admit his mistake. Expect no such graciousness from Donald, man. He has no mouth but two posterior teeth, and speaks from the gutter. He is the lamest of the lame presidents, but he would rather be a wounded fox than a lame duck.

I want to remind the Dems that people have done their job; they have given them one more chance. The conman has destroyed America; it is no longer the prime superpower; it is a distant second under the rising Chinese dragon. If Dems fail, this country will have no future. Elon Musk left California to make Texas home, and despite spending several hundred million, he could not overcome people’s rage. People have the ultimate power when they unite. I wonder where he would move now!

The Dems, the minor corporate party, shall come down from their high horses and see what’s ailing the ordinary Americans. They have their task cut for them. If they don’t reform, they will be crushed like the Donald man.

Notes on turning 76

My birthday has come and gone, though the month still lingers. I missed posting my birthday note this year, so I want to thank everyone who remembered me. Your warm wishes meant the world to me. They weren’t a testament to my significance, but to your big hearts—taking time from your busy lives to brighten my day. In truth, each message made me feel cherished, far more than I deserve.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

The greatest advantage of turning 76 is the gentle confidence with which I now greet new acquaintances with tumi. When I moved to NC at 72, I rarely met anyone older than myself. Now, even the parents of my young friends are much younger than I am. This passage of time connects me with others in ways I never expected, and I treasure these new bonds.

What is the best part of growing old? I believe that, despite my efforts to learn, I remain a student—an eager learner surrounded by wisdom. Every day, people whose kindness, insight, and experience enrich my life humble and inspire me.

My only regret is that time has not mellowed me; if anything, I find myself growing less patient—perhaps even more blunt. I excuse this by claiming I have no time for nonsense. But what, after all, is time? It is the one thing we never truly possess. Time is God’s grace. Each day here is a gift, and I am grateful for every sunrise and every moment shared with loved ones. In the grand scheme, we are insignificant—nothing—and that, as Sir Isaac Newton said, is for the best. For someone like me, I am not even worthy to repeat those words, but I am grateful just to be here, learning and loving.

Still, I have a role to play—to make a few waves, to share smiles and stories, and to spread a bit of warmth wherever I go. I promise to keep doing so for as long as I walk this earth. That is my heartfelt vow on my 76^th birthday.

ছোট্ট প্রশ্ন

 প্রভু, বড় মন চাইছে,

একটি প্রশ্ন করি তোমায়

এই অবেলায়

তুরাগ নদীর তীরে

সন্ধেবেলায়

তুলসী তলায়।

যখন একটা পুরো নগর

জনপ্রান্তর, পথঘাট

মসজিদ, গির্জা, মন্দির

সব মিলেমিশে

অবশেষে, নিঃশেষে

এক দেশ, গোটা দেশ

হয়ে ওঠে জাহান্নাম,

জ্বলন্ত আগ্নেয়গিরি,

তখন কোথায় আশ্রয় দাও,

কোথায় লুকিয়ে রাখ

তোমার সুসন্তানদের?

যাদের তুমি ভালবাস,

যাদের জন্য করেছ

অঙ্গীকার

বেহেস্তের নহর ধারা

অমিয় সুধা?

আমি চাই না, চাই না, চাই না

তোমার শান্তির স্বর্গ।

তুমি হাত পেতে

নিয়েছ যে অর্ঘ

তারই বিনিময়ে

আমি চাইছি

তোমার কাছে প্রভু,

একমুঠো অন্ন

একটুকরো রুটি,

হল যে অনাথ,

সেই শিশুটির জন্য।

সেকি এতই বড় চাওয়া?

স্বর্গ, মর্ত্য, পাতাল

সৃষ্টিকারী,

হে মহাবিক্রম-শালি

রাজাধিরাজ,

দিনান্তের অস্ত সুর্য

ঢলে ঐ তুরাগের বুকে

পাব কি জবাব?

যে শিশু ভূমিষ্ঠ

হল আজ রাতে

নির্মল, নিষ্পাপ

এল তোমারি

বেহেস্তি নুরে সিক্ত হয়ে

কেন তার হবে

অন্নের অভাব

তোমারি ভুবনে?

একটি কবিতার আশায়

 

কবিতা ঈশ্বরের দান

কবিতা কেউ কখনো লেখে না

কবিতা লেখা যায় না।

যখন শব্দেরা ইন্দ্রের সভা থেকে

উর্বশীর হাতের ছোঁয়ায় মায়াবি

সৌরভে সিক্ত হয়ে মর্ত্তে নেমে এসে

কবির অন্তরে প্রবেশ করে

তখনই জন্ম হয় কবিতার।

পদ্ম অনেক আছে রকমারি ছন্দে

কখনো বা ছন্দবিহীন

নিপুন কারুকার্য ইলোরার ভাস্কর্যের মত।

পাখির নীড়ের মত চোখ নিয়ে

সে তাকায় বনলতা সেনের রহস্যের কুয়াশায় ।

কিন্তু কবিতা? সে তো পাহেলগামে

পাথরের নূড়ির উপর বয়ে যাওয়া

ঝলমলে পাহাড়ি ঝোরা সোনারোদ মাখা।

তবুও পদ্ম কখনো কবিতা হবার প্রয়াসে

কখনো নিছক আনন্দ, হাস্যরসে, কখনো বা

বিদ্রুপের সহস্র অনুভূতি মেখে,

পাখা মেলে, হেমন্তের অলস দুপুরের মতন

আর এসে মাটিতে মুখ থুবড়ে পড়ে

মুছে যায় সময়ের প্রলেপে ।

আমিও তো সেই কবে থেকেই লিখে চলেছি

শুধু একটা কবিতা, বিদ্রোহির মতো

শুধু একটা কবিতা, তোমার সৃষ্টির পথের মতো,

যা কিনা আমার বুকের সমস্ত অনুভূতি নিংড়ে নিয়ে

পৌঁছে দেবে আরেকটি বুকের ভেতর

ভালোবেসে, নিঃশেষে।

রক্তাক্ত তুরাগ

 

একদিন এই মৃতের লাশ ডিঙিয়ে

আমি ঠিকই পৌঁছে যাব আমার সোনার বাংলায়

যেখানে বুনো হাঁস তার নরম পালকে

সোনা রং লুকিয়ে রাখে আসন্ন সন্ধ্যায়।

সেই মেঠোপথে আমি কিশোরীর সাথি হব

যার দুচোখে নরম স্বপ্ন তখনো ছবি আঁকে।

সেদিন রবে না সাথে রক্তাক্ত শরীরে মাটিতে লুকিয়ে পড়া নির্যাতিত ভাইটি আমার।

সেদিন রবে না সাথে রক্তাক্ত শরীরে মাটিতে লুটিয়ে পড়া ধর্ষিতা বোনটা আমার।

তবু আমারই চোখের জলের এই নদী আমাকে পেরতেই হবে।

তুরাগের বুকের জল আবার স্বচ্ছ হবে

কল কল করে বইবে জলরঙা নদী সেইদিন,

সেইদিন সেই কিশোরীর স্বপ্ন আমি স্বর্গের পুন্যভুমি থেকে

বাংলার মাটিতে নামিয়ে আনবো, আনবোই।

এ আমার অঙ্গীকার মাগো, হে আমার দূর্ভাগা জননী

আমারই রক্তবিজে জন্ম নেবে তোমার নতুন সন্তান

যারা দেশটাকে আবার সোনার বাংলা করে তুলবে, তুলবেই।।

Truth

 

There is one consciousness playing through the existence in the form of vibration, giving birth to everything that is manifest, dense matter, light, sound, and we are all part of it, dancing with different frequencies. The sense of duality arises from ignorance; when the realization comes, the veil of maya drops away, and the truth appears to us.

ভালোবাসা

 

পৃথিবীর সবচেয়ে অপব্যবহৃত শব্দটার নাম ভালোবাসা।

ভালবাসার নামে যারা চায়, করে অধিকারের আস্ফালন,

সে তো নয় ভালবাসা। 

ভালবাসা শুধু দেবার প্রতিশ্রুতি,

সেখানে না থাকে কোন চাওয়া, না কোন প্রত্যাশা।

ভালোবাসা ত্যাগের নাম,হৃদয়ে নরম ছোঁয়া,

ফুলের মাতান গন্ধ, বাতাসের ঠাণ্ডা স্পর্শ,

নিজেকে নিঃশেষ করে মিলিয়ে দেবার অঙ্গীকার।

ভালোবাসা এক আশ্চর্য অহংকার, এক স্বর্গীয় সুখ,

ধরা ছোঁয়ার বাইরে এক অপরূপ অনুভূতি।

Seeking God?

 I've never understood the fad of seeking God. You don't need to seek God—God is always seeking you. All you need to do is open your inner eyes, and there She is, waiting for you in all Her glorious radiance.

Mind The Limit

 

Stop running, take a deep breath, think.

We tamed animals on the land, the lions, the tigers,

Even the elephants, the largest of them.

Tamed animals in the waters, the whales, the sharks,

The fiercest of them, kings of their world!

Even the animals in the skies, the flying ones.

Trillions of bacteria that live within us,

The good, the bad, all of them we tamed.

Live they with our mercy, and die at our will!

Tamed the mighty rivers, the volcanoes,

Mountains stop us not; tunnel we through them.

The oceans stop us not; we go deeper, touch the ground.

Mighty are we, taming nature at will.

Can’t tame our minds though,

Meek and helpless, we surrender, like kids so weak!

Can't please everyone

 You can never please everyone. If it does no harm to anyone and gives you happiness, go ahead and do it.

Nothing stronger than Love

Wars that you win with swords last only so long as you are strong; wars that you win with love last forever, even if you become the weakest!