Perpetual Now!

Pukar Dhital

Oh wise men across millennia:
Would you care to give me but a moment!
I have a few things to ask and an unfathomable yearning to calm;
For thy wise words can only soothe my ever-arising queries!

Tell me, oh the awakened ones!
How we are but placed in time?
Or is it time that is placed in us?
Is it time that makes moments or moments that make time?

I sense that I am here and then I am not
I feel the pain and the ecstasy and then they pass away
Things are in my grasp and then I clutch to nothing
I am with my beloveds and then I am lonely
And much worse, I have realized; these have been the unending cycles
Now and then, then and now—these never ending swindlers!

I see flowers bloom but why then they wither?
I see life thrive but why then they perish?
I see the world in merriment but why then they mourn?
And I have seen ages come then why do they go?

In all these fleeting moments, why have I come and where do I go?
I am here and yet I am not, yesterday I was born and tomorrow I shall die.
I lay wondering watching my beloved sleep sound next to me—
So close; so intimate and yet so afar!
I live this dayand by the time I slumber—only memories do I take!

I then fall into my contemplations:
I see thoughts come and go like wandering clouds in the sky,
But from where do thoughts come and where do thoughts go?
What conceives them and what vanishes them?

And in all these perplexities—I see only now
It is now where I exist but then I am not
For when I sense it, it is gone; it is past
And when I think of it, it is future,
The illusive now—
It was now,the day I was born and it will be now when I shall die!

It is now the life expands and so does the universe
It is now that we breathe in and breathe out
And in this now the consciousness thrives;
For it is in now, the past, present and the future mingle.
Like a river from the source to mouth;
And in what way can you separate the two?
She looks detached, divided and deceptive
Yet she is a whole, bound to meet the ocean!

So tell me and teach me, oh enlightened ones through millennia
That how is it that I get to live in the present?
Andforever live in this perpetual a moment—now
So that not death becomes I but I become death
So that not I become life but life becomes I!

[A teacher of English literature for the past eight years, Pukar Dhital is a student of philosophy, literature and international affairs. An avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction, he writes in various genres as a freelancer and profoundly adheres to the principal of independent self, and lifelong learning.]