After making myself sick last night, yes only we have that power for none else can disturb our peaceful frame of mind if we don't allow them to, I went home and called up a friend and talked all night. We usually talk to get reassurances about our own stands and to get "sympathy" about our own misery, thus making the whole thing more worse.

However a wonderful thing happened. Instead of paraphrasing the questions from my point of view, he started asking questions from the diamaterically opposite point of view. The most important question he asked was this, suppose you encounter a situation in which a person claims to love you but either you don't that person as much or you are simply in no position to love that person, will you give up your freedom and acquecise? This question made me realise the wrong angle from which I was asking questions: I was asking "WHY?" while I should have been asking "What if I was required to make such a choice?".

Viewing the situation from this viewpoint made me realise how silly I was most of all day yesterday, berating myself and reducing into an emotional wreck. I also enabled me to practice forgiveness for given the circumstances maybe I too would have acted or reacted in the same way.

We also talked a lot about the ideas that seem to hold relationships vs relationships in an arranged marriage social setting. One critial idea that became evident was when people marry, mostly through arranged marriages in India, what essentially happens along with the marriage is that families are in a way "marry" into one another. While arranged marriages may have their own drawbacks, the biggest plus is that families which still give a solid basis individually, by virtue of pseudo merging end up acting as the secondary glue to the marriage. Such a larger social net acts as a balance against the "I" and "myness" that seems to be to a major factor in the fragility of relationships here in the US. Besides sucessful relationships have always been about that, balance of individual wants and urges vs common goals, needs and aspirations i.e my good vs the greater common good.

The side effects of concentrating on "My good" or "My gain" or "My desires" lead to great discomfort when required to make compromises(invetiably however well matched or snychronized two people may be, there are compromises that have to be made), negative energy that comes from such a dissonance and lack of a deeper perspective on human nature.

We discussed this as one of his labmates was going through a divorce just after an year from his wife who was his girlfriend of 6+ years based on a percieved loss of freedom. While being an advocate of freedom and emphasising full rights in making our own choices, I think sometime we should pause and see if the choice we are making is really going to contribute to our long range happiness. Now what is the use of freedom when such a possibily false freedom will make us feel miserable anyway!!! I think good freedoms in the most fundamental sense are those that enable us to exercise our talents and enable us to better ourselves. And we should fight for these freedoms if any relationship endangers them and prevents us from developing our potentials.

However freedoms that simply involve jumping from a frying pan into a oven, in search of stuff usually some version of highly idealised romantic mumbo jumbo, are not freedoms at all but instead bondages for gratification of some(usually unrealistic and self centered) desires. While desires are good, afterall human life wouldn't have survived if there wasn't the desire for self preservation, we can be dangerously stuck in a Palavov's dog loop, wherein our minds become so conditioned by our desires that pressing a button causes us to salivate and switching off a button causes us to howl in pain. This is exactly what my desires did to me yesterday evening.

And then, atleast I have to admit to this, gratification of a desire necessarily doesn't mean our happiness level will increase by leaps and bounds for we still can be as miserable as we were before. This has happened to me and probably has happened to a lot of us. So the moral of the story is reduce the desires to a minimum and direct the thoughts towards happiness rather than allowing thoughts to drive us towards the good old Palavov's dog loop of desires, which both fullfilled and unfullfilled can leave us in the same miserable state as before!!

And as I read through this I realise I have done nothing but very directly understand Buddha's Four Noble Truths:

1. THE EXISTENCE OF IMPERMANENCE Nothing lasts forever. Understand this and be not attached to what you are experiencing, otherwise you will experience suffering. When you experience happiness know that it is a reaction to circumstance and it is not a permanent state. Conversely, when you are suffering know that it shall not be eternal.

2. THE ARISING OF SUFFERING BECAUSE OF CRAVING Craving sensory stimulation, craving existence, and craving non-existence give rise to the continuity of being, and with it its attendant suffering. Attaining a state of non-craving should be part of your daily effort.

3. THE CESSATION OF SUFFERING One can end eternal suffering by ending the craving that leads to the continuation of suffering

4. THE MIDDLE WAY, or THE NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH Ending the craving that leads to the continuation of suffering is brought about through living by the ideals of the Noble Eightfold Path. It delineates a plan of self-discipline regarding ethical conduct, mental discipline, and wisdom. The Path avoids two extremes--the pursuit of complete and ultimate sensory pleasure, or the pursuit of utter self-denial

Thank you MJC for your sleep time. Our conversation helped me to instantly become sane and in the long run perhaps a little better person that who I was.

Love and joy to all.

Walking up Ponce I am behest by winos and whores, some ask me for a couple of quaters to get drunk and some ask me if I need a hit of cocaine. My feet hurt from walking too much all afternoon, the sky is red, the blood is red and the usual symbolisms for love are red. But the sky will change soon, it's already changing as I write this, beyond the hill I see the quater moon and a star to keep it company. That star makes me feel cold, that star makes me jealous of the the pair of cats "in love" I saw today, makes me jealous of the guy who was following a whore with sagging breasts into a seedy hotel, his ten dollar bill in her hand.

I try to forget by beating my body into a pulp, my legs vibrate wonderfully like violin strings, a tiredness raises up as a convective current, it tries to sing "La la la", a lullbay to ease me into sleep, so that I can wake up again tomorrow morning and begin screaming in the bathtub as super hot water scalds my skin. I know I shouldn't punish myself, I know I should take it easy, but I don't know how I should begin to put up legs on the table or how to snag easy dates that will later take me home, feed me with their hands and put me to sleep. Maybe I should call the hotline to Dr Death, "Hello hello, how much does it cost for the injection and how much does it cost for the pill or super fun dates that involve zero commitment?"

FLASH BACK

And then in the Borders bookstore I stopped by, I know I know it's a wrong place to have gone into even if I was dying of thrist, for from all the aisles arose a digre composed by Pablo Neruda, "Oh asshole,don't you know love is so short and forgetting is so long? And if you don't buy a book of poems I wrote." Everything is sold these days, sales pitches. I am so and so, I have this piece of paper that says I am the Lord, my Father in Heaven gave me this degree so I am super expensive and no you don't qualify enough to be loved. I stand there and try to have a conversation with Pablo, he is a bald guy and maybe because of that the light reflects off his head and gives him a halo. I say, "Motherfucker, you are such a poor glue and such a pathetic waste of money. I can't believe that I once imitated you and drank you like wine, maybe it was the post coital bliss that scrambled my brains into surpy mush and made me exclaim that you are a genuis!"

Now when each of my veins burns as if they are atom bombing a thousand Hiroshimas and a thousand Nagasakais, I see the easy contrivance and the blinkers that covered my eyes. I used you like a cheap condom to belive what I wanted to belive then. But then why am I fighting you? For aren't we in the same esteemed company now, on the same side of the fence, ready to be put away, to be given a number by the Nazi Love Police and set up to be fried in the ultra modern oven called USA? Don't be afraid it's not that bad, see these scars just beneath this skin, I was done rare the previous time, then the Allies came in and hauled my ass out of here. But really they weren't Allies, they were phantoms, say shall I sing songs from Phantom of the Opera? "You alone can make my song take flight. It's over now, THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT." The curtain falls after this, I know dammit, I know, I saw this. I will sing this song as we are both swiftly purged and archived. What will be the file number, five six or seven? Who knows? There is enough junk in the world already, take me for example, a disposable. Take you for example, an old guy whose sales increase around Valentine's Day and now long dead.Very much disposable. So can your fucking digre and let me be. And no I will not visit that aisle where I sat one rainy night reading you, I prefer reading MAD today as I slowly go mad myself. I will laugh and scare the chicks who sit around reading "Yoga for Dummies" and similar junk.

Present

JesUSAves. Keys covered with blood. Goodnight.

1) The first condition for love is forgiveness. I can't love if I am incapable of forgiving.

2. The second condition for love is trust. I have to earn trust. It's not a given.

3. Love is not a need or a demand that has to be met or filled. It's something that comes but rarely like unexpected rain on a burning summer day.

4. I will never fear the loss of love for love is what the soul is made of and I will have my soul as long as I am alive and even after.

5. I will to love others unconditionally first. Only then will I receive love unconditionally for the greater the conditions that have to be met, the harder is to go to a loving state. Love doesn't like fences.

6. I will never be shy or afraid of expressing my love. I will say, "I Love You" often and joyously.

7. Love and control are opposites. Love is expansion and control is something that stops this expansion. I will not mix up these two.

8. As much as love enables us to see the world in with a startling clarity I will try to look at love as clearly for a lot of other emotions that usually masquerade as love fool us.

9. There can't be total love unless there is love in all aspects of the living, in what I do, in what I think, I what I write, in what I say and in what I express. If there is a lack of love even in a single aspect of life, that will drain away love for the other aspects. A boat with a hole can't stay afloat for long.

10. I will show love concisously towards each and every person I meet, no matter who that person is.

11. I will not judge as I don't want to be judged. The instant I judge I know that I am setting into motion a process in which I shall be judged likewise eventually. What goes around comes around is true.

12. I have realised that I will even get those things that I don't want. Such is the power of thought.

13. Love is a monotonically increasing function of time. Lasting love becomes lasting only becasue it has lasted in time. Love is not instant chicken soup for the soul.

14. I will be deeply emotional towards everything and everyone I love and strongly analytical about the actions I perfrom to manifest this love. This will prevent mistakes and bludners that happen when the emotions are on lukewarm and the action sloppy.

15. Love is a gas, even a little love occupies all available space. So I will be greatful for all the love I already have in my life, for no love is little.

16. Love that comes from an angle of lack is not durable for I can't give what I lack. But love that comes from an abundance is something that will never go away. So I will love with an attitude of abundance rather than one of lack.

17. I will take frequent stock of my love garden. I will check if there are parts of it that are not getting enough nutrients: communication, laughter, spirit or if parts of it are being attacked by pests: fear, anger, jealously. I will take action without delay for love is highly sensitive.

18. Love is like clay. To shape into a beautiful form takes malleable hands. I will strive to be flexible and skillful.

19. I will never criticize or doubt love for it goes away the moment doubt or criticisim come in.

20. I hold this to be a self evident truth: Love is the greatest thing.

2002:08:09 23:30 Atlanta

I wrote this last night after I sat down and analyzed what I have learned from all my experiences in receiving or giving love. The above statements may not be wholly true forever but I belive that they are totally true at this point of time.

I end this with something I read in the New Testament that pharaprases the manifesto the best:

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.

And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I dole out all my goods, and if I deliver my body that I may boast but have not love, nothing I am profited.

Love is long suffering, love is kind, it is not jealous, love does not boast, it is not inflated. It is not discourteous, it is not selfish, it is not irritable, it does not enumerate the evil.It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth. It covers all things, it has faith for all things, it hopes in all things, it endures in all things.

Love never falls in ruins; but whether prophecies, they will be abolished; or tongues, they will cease; or knowledge, it will be superseded. For we know in part and we prophecy in part. But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded.

When I was an infant, I spoke as an infant, I reckoned as an infant; when I became [an adult], I abolished the things of the infant. For now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know as also I was fully known.

But now remains faith, hope, love, these three;but the greatest of these is love.