Settlements in time

“It was done three years ago, in 1991” I was telling a friend about a work I did few years ago.
My friend was little puzzled “In 1991?” she had a confused grin “That’s more than three years!”
It took me few seconds to realize the mistake. I corrected quickly “Sorry, I mean 2001”, an answer that tallied with the calendar.
But I knew there was some truth in what I said first.
Psychologically I felt 1991 pretty close, just three years down the line, 2001 felt as if it is less than one year down the line though I am living in 2004.
It made me ponder over what is happening in my relationship with time.
Initially I thought I have settled somewhere in 1994 like it happens to most people.
Maybe this needs to be explained.
I became acutely aware of the settlements in time when I read “Patterns of the present” by Georges Van Vrekhem. The book was published in the late nineties I guess. The information revolution, cyber culture and open source revolution were well on the way and I was eagerly looking for an aurobindonian perspective on what was happening. But it took me some time to notice that the centre of gravity of the time of the book lay in the revolutions of the 60’s and the 70’s. The book had very little to do with revolutions that were sweeping the globe in late nineties, he had not even really seen it. I told my self “perhaps it is a wrong title”.
It is common to find in Auroville people who live in 60’s and 70’s, they do not really comprehend 2004 except in terms of 60’s and 70’s.

As we grow up somewhere down the line we settle down inwardly, we fail to perceive anything fascinating beyond that point. Passion for life somehow settles around something in the past. We deal with the passing time but not as a participant but more as a wayside observer who is settled somewhere in the past looking at the parade. We no more live in present time, but stay behind in our settlements in time.
Living in the present has many dimensions; sensorial connection with the present is only its physical side, on the psychological side, where are we anchored in time?
From 2004 I can look at 1991 sitting psychologically in 1994.
This is what blew my mind.
Why 1994?
May be because that is the year I quit my profession and became a seeker and those perhaps where the years when I was truly alive.
We have plenty of dead people doing their rounds in Auroville; it is terrifying to see that I am dead since a decade!
I guess it is possible to be reborn without shedding one’s body.
Yoga, it seems is exact opposite of fashion, you go on wearing the same body but rapidly change within.
How does one take rebirth?
Past is like a cocoon, the egg shell.
One has to break it from within.

After my initial wanderings in this direction I realize that there is another way of looking at it.
Time surely is picking up momentum.
My personal time is nearly 3 times faster than what it used to be. So it takes 3 to 4 years of physical time to compose one psychological year!
Ha! That’s a better explanation.
At least my ego is happy.

Word Sacrifice

Words can melt you
Words can set you ablaze
Words can chill you to death
Means of immense power.

Effect of word is immediate
Bright or dark the face change
Mirroring the inner flame
The radiant power of being.

Words are let loose often
Into the altar unconsciously
Driven by ignorance
Leaving behind a dead flame.

Speech can be sacrifice
Not a struggle to win
Nor a weapon to blast
But fuel for the flame.

To know the art of sacrifice
The flame should be seen
In the altar of the other
And offer words as oblations.

It is by Word sacrifice is done
It is by Word the flame is lit
It is by Word the flame is grown
It is by Word we ascend.

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ps. The word 'Sacrifice' is used in the sense of 'Yajna' a sanskrit word for sacred fire ritual in which oblations are offered to the fire lit in an altar.