I had a sort of painful epiphany this week….as the week was unfolding, I happened to come across this poem of rabindranath tagore’s, it’s called Rahur Prema:

I am your companion from the beginning of time, for I am your own shadow.

In your laughter, in your tears, you shall sense my dark self hovering near you ,

now in front, now behind.

At the dead of night when you are lonely and dejected, you’ll be

startled to find how near I am seated by you,

gazing into your face.

Where ever you turn I am there,my shadow sweeps over the sky and covers the earth,

my piteous cry and my cruel laughter echo everywhere,

for I am hunger never appeased, thirst never quenched.

I am always there, a dagger in your breast, a poison in your mind,

a disease in your body.

I shall chase you like terror in the day, like a nightmare in the night.

Like a living skeleton in a famine I shall stretch my hand before you

and pester you to give and give and give.

Like a thorn I shall prick you day and night,

like a curse I shall haunt you,

like a fate I shall follow you- as night follows day and fear follows hope.

Though Tagore wrote this with something else in mind, i took away something different.

Desire is a powerful thing. once it takes root in one’s mind, it’s hold multiplies and multiplies until the poor native withers under it’s vicelike grip.

it’s like a drug…the poor person does not even realize when he has become an addict. and just like in Rahur Prem, it creeps up on the individual- like a thorn pricking day and night, like a haunting curse, like a hunger never appeased…a thirst never quenched.

Desire is that demon that wrecks the life of humans. Caught in its vortex, the individual’s mind loses it’s peace- a constant state of frustration, anger, fear and desperation prevails.

Like I said…I had an epiphany this week due to some event that took place. And I recognized the demon of desire , Rahu , lurking in the inner depths of my mind.I was shocked by the obsessive control that Desire had over my mind and the little weakling it reduced me to, playing the games that it does.

No more, I resolved after the storm had passed and the calm settled in. I will be free of Desire…will be free from the obsession and the desperation that it brings….there are 50-60 years of this life still left…will not let myself be a puppet in the hands of this demon that has mincemeat of humanity since time immemorial.

I will seek release…. True happiness. Forge that impregnable state of spirituality where true and permanent happiness resides, impervious to life’s temptations and tragedies…..

That is the only way that this soul will dance in happiness at the joy of life rather than fettered for life by the bonds of Rahu’s dark love.

my dear readers…. I found out that Desire was choking my existence and so, in self defense, I murdered it.

Came across this poem, also by Tagore, that President Ikeda (whose writings helped me find the ultimate truth in this scenario) had quoted in reference to Gandhi:

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and inflow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
May that be the state of my life through the course of my existence on earth.