Poem: The Invisible World

 

The Invisible World

 

Half of life taken up by sleep

Much of what is left

Spent dreaming of possibilities 

The invisible world has a hold on us 

More than we can ever concede

 

It toys with emotions, feeds our fears 

It is the source of joy, base of consciousness

The spark behind knowledge and intelligence

It determines our actions

Being just a step behind thought 

Yet we are programmed to ignore 

Think it is superstitious lore 

 

When the going gets tough

When friends are lost 

When the world seems dark

We withdraw into its recesses

Numbed by events unexpected

Overpowered, innards cry for help

 

It provides us strength 

We pray to the invisible 

Or if atheistic, we assure 

Things will go right 

The darkness will pass 

 

The scientist basks in glory

He rakes in the accolade 

But within he knows 

The flashes of intuition

Innovations that surprise 

Comes from regions 

He has no control of 

 

The invisible base

of the phenomenal world

Beyond activity, beyond concern

Throws open its treasures

To those who seek

It works and alone is

The ego takes the credit

 

The kinetic energy

Has its potential base

The potential emerges

From a world no one can see

 

The invisible world rules 

Like the iceberg whose bottom

The cause of many a shipwreck

Travelers wary

Skirt around the unseen

More powerful than the seen

 

 

The invisible is open 

To those who shut their eyes 

Surrender to the silence 

Let go their inhibitions 

The world vanishes 

Darkness becomes the path

Reveals the light that always is

 

Anxieties diminish

Fear of death recedes 

The finite fails to engage 

When the infinite stirs

Makes itself felt

 

The visible world with all its splendor 

Seems a mere shadow

Floating in the haze of a light 

Intensity of which consumes all

Objects lose their form

Become specks of energy floating free

Meaningless soulless entities

Have no value, no reality

 

Matrix revealed, past shows itself 

Future is as clear as the sky 

Events roll according to a plan

The ignorant mind plays along

Deceived by the game

 

The matrix is a possibility

Of infinite paths, of infinite worlds

Not all are to be desired

Not all can be the goal

 

Sticking to the path travelled

The knowledgeable know and teach

Traveler is insured from worlds

Where pain and misery

Wallow in the mire of falsehood

Intense agony in its tortuous bosom

 

The path survives

Only till it is practiced and revered,

Kept open for future travelers

Seeking the truth, tired of endless drama

Nothing is gained nothing is lost 

The perspective changes revealing it all

 

We witness the world

Where change is constant 

Fear is when we think it is real

But it is the image on a screen 

 

The witness is all there is

From the invisible comes the visible 

The visible ends in the invisible 

The invisible remains constant 

Even as uncountable worlds

Merge, emerge, function and go

It does not gain, it does not lose

Remains the same, unfathomable

 

The invisible is the repository

Of countless worlds that await to be

Of all knowledge that exists and beyond

Of energy that knows no end

Creativity that boggles the mind

Composed of love beyond comprehension

Peace that passeth understanding

Waiting to be tapped

The means forgotten, buried in time

 

Illusions do not take up space 

They are a mirage, forever untrue 

Seeking truth while bound to its rules 

An exercise in falsehood 

The world is kept busy

Doing nothing, much ado

 

The ego that binds 

Makes the illusion possible 

It is the greatest trick

The magician has up his sleeve 

Being untrue in itself; whatever happens

Is false by association 

The irony of it all

 

Invisible is where our identity lies 

Our migration is the deluded mind 

The conjurer becomes the identity 

Leading to pleasure and inevitable pain

 

Remaining the witness ever free 

Watch the movie unfold 

Whatever happens on the screen

Raging fires, floods, and quakes 

Does not affect the base 

Only agitates the mind 

Source of everything untrue

 

Seeking the truth the only aim

Jolted by events remember your home 

The movie is unreal 

So is your role 

 

There is only one, no two to play 

None to criticize, all is you

When the realization dawns,

The game ends, the arguments stop

The tumbler is full, the path vanishes

Silence reigns, ignorance ends

The visible disappears, troubles no more

Invisible extends to eternity and beyond.

 

Jagannath Chatterjee