Beloved

Khabaram raseed imshab

Khabaram raseed imshab ki nigaar khuahi aamad;
Sar-e man fidaa-e raah-e ki sawaar khuahi aamad.
Ham-e aahwan-e sehra sar-e khud nihada bar kaf;
Ba-umeed aanki rozi bashikaar khuahi aamad.
Kashishi ki ishq daarad naguzaradat badinsaa;
Ba-janazah gar nayai ba-mazaar khuahi aamad.
Balabam raseed jaanam fabiya ki zindah maanam;
Pas azan ki man na-maanam bacha kar khuahi aaamad.

English Translation.

Tonight there came a news that you, oh beloved, would come –
Be my head sacrificed to the road along which you will come riding!
All the gazelles of the desert have put their heads on their hands
In the hope that one day you will come to hunt them….
The attraction of love won’t leave you unmoved;
Should you not come to my funeral,
you’ll definitely come to my grave.
My soul has come on my lips (e.g. I am on the point of expiring);
Come so that I may remain alive –
After I am no longer – for what purpose will you come?

Amir Khusro

Fear confronted!

22.07.2016

Last month I said something about fear and how one should avoid some of the fears that stop’s one from growing. Here are my thoughts on what I think about it now.

As I tried that method I realised there are some fears that needs a lot of time and preparation to face and maybe even sometimes help from a trusted person. And there is this other kind of fear that you get addicted to, addicted to how it makes you feel and how it cripples under your skin every time you feel the fear rising. That is the kind of fear I was talking about in my earlier post. In this one month I tried my best to give my that kind of fear words or a voice. But I have to say it was one of the most of difficult thing I have done for myself.

What I did was, when every time I felt the fear rising I wrote the time, what I did earlier and all the possible points of how it could lead to wake my fear. At the beginning it felt stupid and I couldn’t get myself to write it or say it out loud but within couple of weeks I got the grip of it and I was writing and recording smoothly. I started seeing a pattern of thoughts, situations and habits that lead my fears to come up. After knowing this I confronted myself and my fears. As I was doing this I felt my heart tighten and my whole body sweaty and I let myself imagine the worst possible thing that could happen to me. This was the turning point for me as I imagined the worst, I felt less scared and reasoned with myself about how much will be the possibility of something like that to happen and it was less than 10 percent. After doing this couple of times I felt better each time but in a funny way I felt empty, I felt like I am missing something. Then I realised I have been addicted to my fear. As it is with every addiction I let myself find a substitute and I am still looking for it. I wouldn’t say I am completely over my fear but I feel more comfortable and I am not afraid to confront it.

„We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light“. Plato

 

Fear

21.06.2016

Everyone preaches not running away from your fears. I have heard it from so many well-wishing sources that you have to go face your fears, not turn your back on them. Yes, that is absolutely true according to me. But there is also a whole bunch of stuff you ought to turn your back on. See, fear is like a demon on your shoulder that gets more and more powerful the more you ignore it. But there are other demons on ankles – anxiety, insecurities, counterproductive thoughts, boxed patterns of behaviour, clingy painful memories, constricting rules, stupid comparisons, expectations – yours and others, symbols and signs that you create, self-doubt, judgments etc. and most importantly your ego. All these demons grow with attention. The more you pay attention to them, the stronger they get, they expand, bloat and magnify and ultimately make you trip and sometimes they grow so big that they block your view of the future, blinding you from the path ahead and the task at hand. Most often, you can tell when something is pulling you back. So instead of stopping and letting the quicksand suck you in, walk away. I am definitely going to experiment with this realization, I urge you to try as well.