In Stillness of Being, his sixth anthology of poems, Indian-American poet, Maharaj Kaul, describes the human conditions we all must experience.

In the poems:

Stillness Of Being

The World I left Behind

A Struggling Dream Never Complete

Hope Never Blinks

Life Is A Playground

Dreams

A Spiral Of Time

Music Of Earth Will Never Die

The Paradox Of God

Beloved

and fifty more, the poet reflects on the joys, dreams, suffering, and will to live a man experiences though the grand and mysterious process called human life.

From the poem Stillness of Being:

Mind plots revolutions,

But inner being wants harmony.

Life came with music,

But world moves by agenda.

Childhood was a pristine dream,

But wisdom turned that into a project.

Ambitions vault our existence,

Energy seethes from our pores.

But we came with a faith,

Our elements beckon tranquility.

There is a more sublime state than success,

World wants tumult but soul seeks stillness.

We fret and fume to no avail,

Life is awake-dreaming without a goal.

World puts many a cap on human face,

But the one that matters most is one’s soul’s.

Our doings are often protests against the world,

Our best moments when we are left alone.

Desires are gateways to ultimate freedom,

Dreams its blueprint.

Make me not a villain if I knocked some wisdom,

I was only trying to touch eternity.

Brotherhood the glue that holds us together,

Uniqueness of the individual our jewel.

Give me a moment you take the history,

Dissolution in an ocean is better than life at a beach.

What is happiness but a mood,

Liberation a permanent state.

Suffern, New York, May 9, 2019

www.kaulscorner.com

maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com

I do not know when I was born, my mother never told me,

Time the ceaseless weaver does not know its beginnings,

My sanguinity a creation of my ardor, my blues due to inconstancy,

Mornings delicate hesitancies, evenings surf-peaked.

I am the voice of epic defeats, unreconcilable compromises,

Vestige of a fallen colosseum, debris of unrealized plans.

Where are my dreams, what happened to my desires,

The insane mower levels the field, bleaching the colors.

World does not hear our songs, nature stands by mute,

The great cries of soul have no echoes to woo us back.

Long time back I had a tryst with destiny,

Life as lived enforces an agenda of its own.

My defeats are behind me, eternity the only refuge,

Biography of me a cruel joke, as time cannot read.

Suffern, New York, May 6, 2019

www.kaulscorner.com

maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com

In the beginning was the song,

Later world changed it to strife.

We must go to work

To quell stomach’s rebellion.

Life is an awakened dream

But the world turns it into a program.

Why this rape of inner poetry,

Why this squelching of God’s voice?

Conversion of soul for false designs,

Progress the ultimate illusion.

Is mind the antithesis of spirit,

World an evil invention?

World corrupts but soul demurs,

The struggle is human existence.

Between birth and death of a human is this interlude:

The slow mutilating of the cosmic dance.

Suffern, New York, April 17, 2019

www.kaulscorner.com

maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com

Large dark tears rolled on her cheeks,

But the world cannot read.

Purpose of life confounds us,

Its process eludes us.

Why is life so difficult,

A mysterious complex design of the gods?

Her grandmother never smiled,

After early widowhood swiped it.

For most humans joy is scanty,

Strife and anguish the breath.

God sees the truth but waits,

Fairness not his inclination.

We are punished but never know for what sins,

Justice is our chimera, destiny the ultimate excuse.

Life a concatenation of moments,

Forever searching for meaning.

Suffern, New York, April 10, 2019

www.kaulscorner.com

maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com

In the stillness of my being,

I wonder why the world did not read my poetry.

I belong to another age, another ethos,

My identity a fake albatross I carry around my neck.

I am in this world but not of it,

Success eludes me, loneliness my destiny.

Life is its discovery in progress,

Suffering its thread, humanity its glue.

Why this anguish, why this despair,

We must shut up and live.

My limbs are limp but my eyes still fierce,

Let my desires burn, I have the company of stars.

Life is a bridge, do not build a house on it,

A moment encapsulates eternity.

Suffern, New York, April 3, 2019

www.kaulscorner.com

maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com

World is bemoaning Harold today for his virtue,

Little knowing what he wanted from life and what he got,

Life is a relentless dogfight for fairness, honor, and reward,

But what we get is a trickle for our pains.

Tell everyone that life does not do justice,

But is a heartless reckoner and broker,

What we offer is blood and sweat,

What we get is strife and wounds.

For nine decades Harold sowed flowers,

But he did not always see them grow,

Today he is in eternity where there are no judges,

Everything is truthful and there is only God’s word.

What he suffered only he knew,

What he left behind is potent for humanity,

His smile and tolerance will linger on,

His rectitude and nobility will stay with us for a while.

Suffern, New York, March 6, 2019

www.kaulscorner.com

maharaj.kaul @yahoo.com

When in youth breath galloped,

Life was a carnival of jocund moments.

Ambition was the arrow we rode on,

Into a sanguine nameless horizon.

Success was a moody maiden,

Who demurred often sillily.

Then there were the absolutes of

Beauty and truth to be conquered.

But the world intervened,

Showed who was the master.

The lust for God hypnotized.

But pursuit was more rewarding than possession.

What is the meaning of life:

A dream without a narrative.

A time comes when there is no time:

Out on a limb to touch eternity.

Getting closer and closer to destination,

But always some more time remains.

Suffern, New York, March 31, 2019

www.kaulscorner.com

maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com

You were a flower who seemed to be ever in bloom,

Your enigmatic smile, your quiet ways,

Your consistency, your personal manner,

Unmindful of the galleries, unpretentious contributions.

In the garden of Cirque you were a blossoming hidden by a rock,

But your aroma wafted around and enchanted those close by,

In the cosmic history you may only be a blip,

But ah! what a moment you lived.

Suffern, New York, September 23, 2018

www.kaulscorner.com

maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com

Note:

This is a tribute written for Joanne Reinhardt, of 2 Fox Court, who left us

on September 17, 2018 at a mere age of seventy-one.

She emerged from the wavy and tranquil waters of the lake:

Glistening, limpid, sanguine,

It seemed that she had come for an interlude of fun,

Not in any disappointment with the world,

But with a vision of having fun with herself.

This is an aspect of a woman:

Self-involved, controlled, romantic.

God created man and woman in different images

To satisfy the design of life,

Man is an outsider but woman has roots in earth,

He is a challenger and a searcher,

She is an absorber and nurturer.

Man likes to explore,

But for a woman everything is a rediscovery of herself,

She is what she is

But he is what he would like to be,

A child is his mother’s extension

But his father’s reflection,

Woman possesses but man occupies.

In love woman does not give herself to man

But absorbs him within herself,

While a man gives a part of himself to her,

So when love breaks woman feels empty,

But man feels diminished,

Woman prays to God to absorb his message,

A man prays to become his message.

Life is not divided between absorption and radiation,

Between being and becoming,

Between reflection and action,

But it is a juxtaposition of many indispensable gems.

A woman endeavors to live within nature,

To her a lot of the architecture of politics

And business woven by man is irrelevant,

If it were left to her the world would be more peaceful,

Like a lake she is self-contained,

While man raids, she assimilates,

Her world is her universe.

If man is the searing energy of sun,

Woman is the soothing shade of an evening,

If man is the creator of the world,

Woman is the relief from its excess.

Time is till moist with woman’s tears,

In her bosom lie compassion and tenderness,

She is the long-awaited shore for her tempest-tossed lover,

A sane instinct for life over its destruction,

Woman’s genius for life has yet not been appreciated,

She is a ray of light which has yet not been given a chance to illuminate.

Suffern, New York, Oct. 14, 2010; Sept., 2018; March 16,2019

www.kaulscorner.com

maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com