Dose of Nostalgia

It was time for a story.

If You Can't Go To Sleep

If you can't go to sleep
My dear soul
For tonight
What do you think will happen

If you pass your night
And merge it with dawn
For the sake of heart
What do you think will happen

If the entire world
Is covered with the blossoms
You have labored to plant
what do you think will happen

If the elixir of life
That has been hidden in the dark
Fills the desert and towns
What do you think will happen

If because of
Your generosity and love
A few humans find their lives
What do you think will happen

If you pour an entire jar
Filled with joyous wine
On the head of those already drunk
What do you think will happen

Go my friend
Bestow your love
Even on your enemies
If you touch their hearts
What do you think will happen

-Rumi (:

Love; All I Want for Christmas

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated,
It is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
It does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians: Chapter13

...and a Happy New Year!

It's the night of Christmas.

The time for presents has arrived. For milk and cookies. Time of Christ and the Holy Mother Mary.

It's the time of roasts. Of snowmans. Of BBQ if you're in the Southern side of the Globe.

It's the time of hugs and kisses. Of red and green. Of surprise and gusto.

It's the time of laughter. Of warmth. Of love and forgiveness.


I wish you all a very warm Christmas and an excellent upcoming year. May all your wishes come true.

Please do not forget to smile at a passerby, lend a hand to an elderly, and donate a thoughtful gift to an orphan.

Merry Christmas!

Looking for Rumi's Beloved

I searched for God among the Christians and on the Cross and therein I found Him not.
I went into the ancient temples of idolatry; no trace of Him was there.
I entered the mountain cave of Hira and then went as far as Qandhar but God I found not.
With set purpose I fared to the summit of Mount Caucasus and found there only 'anqa's habitation.
Then I directed my search to the Kaaba, the resort of old and young; God was not there even.
Turning to philosophy I inquired about him from ibn Sina but found Him not within his range.
I fared then to the scene of the Prophet's experience of a great divine manifestation only a "two bow-lengths' distance from him" but God was not there even in that exalted court.
Finally, I looked into my own heart and there I saw Him; He was nowhere else.

Recommended Daily, Honey

'Imagine.'
-John Lennon

'Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.'
-Mother Teresa

'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'
-Oscar Wilde

'A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.'
-Henrik Ibsen

'To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.'
-Oscar Wilde

'I shall pass through this life but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness I can show, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it. For I shall never pass this way again.'
-Etienne de Grellet

'To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing it's best day and night to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.'
-E.E. Cummings

'If you're going through hell, keep going.'
-Winston Churchill

Liking to Love

I've always loved Sufi music. Be it Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Sanu Ek Pal, Tere Bin Nahi Lagda), his nephew (O Re Piya, Naina) or Kailash Kher (Allah ke Bande Hasde, Teri Deewani). Sufi poems kills me as well, particularly Rumi's:

'Dancing is not rising to your feet painlessly like a speck of dust blown around in the wind. Dancing is when you rise above both worlds tearing your heart to pieces and giving up your soul.'

So when I heard Tu Jaane Na in the radio [an Auckland Hindi air show that broadcasts throughout NZ], I fell in love with it. The new song by Atif Aslam from Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani is so serene and divine, if I may use that word.

The bit I love the most in the song is the beginning, the unity of all the voices. The brotherhood; the togetherness. It's beyond words, Masha-Allah.

Here's the link to the video clip of the song from the movie. I hope you like it as well. (:

-Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani (Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif)

Tu Jaane Na -Youtube

Who said that?

'Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?'
-Edgar Allan Poe

'We do not remember days, we remember moments.'
-Cesare Pavese

'It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.'
-Mark Twain

'Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.'
-Mark Twain

'It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.'
-Martin Luther King Jr.

'The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate'
-Oprah Winfrey

'A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.'
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

'I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.'
-Thomas Jefferson

'...but better to be hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie'
-Khaled Hosseini (The Kite Runner)

'For you, a thousand times over'
-Khaled Hosseini

'Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imagination, our possibilies become limitless.'
-Jamie Paolinetti

'The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.'
-Eleanor Roosevelt

'Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.'
-Schindler's List

'Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue.'
-Cesare Pavese

'The time has come, the walrus said. Perhaps things will get worse, then better. Perhaps there is a Small God up in heaven readying herself for us. Maybe many of us won't be here to greet her when she arrives, but if I listen very carefully, I can here her breathing.'
-Arundhati Roy

Sway of the Willow

The Willow is a lady. Her branches are her tresses; long, swaying in the wind. She stands tall and firm, come wind, come rain.

The Willow is modest; she houses many living things. She weeps silently; a lover long gone.

The Willow is beauty. The Willow is life. The Willow is memory.

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep - while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?


-Edgar Allan Poe

The Most Humble Lover

My eyes closed, You touch them;
Butterflies fluttering beneath my lashes
A little closer You move in; engulfing me between
Your arms.
I grasp a sigh, clasping it tightly in my palm;
Collision; Universes enjoin: swirls; speed; light.
Alas! Hold Your breathe, I whisper dizzily; my love
for You has tenfolded.
Open your eyes, murmured Thee;
what do I encounter forth?
Mercy; Love; Beauty; Wisdom; Bliss: a divine Being smiling;
Look!; lush green; vibrant blue; towering rocks and air;
creatures on thousands; hundreds; four or two.
Mersmerised, I stare; Hail, O Your Marvels!;
Despair; O! How do I know Thee, Lover!
You are I, and are Mine.
Thy words are Divine, by contrast petty I.
My eyes closed as You touched them; sigh freed from palm;
You whisper in my ear: Divinity is in Love, Love is in You; You is in Me. Opening my eyes, I understood; Divine is he: The Most Humble Lover.

I Wish I Were In Love

I wish I were in love;
With a man, fair and just,
Sweet, loving and kind.
With a man of good intentions, of daring courage,
a righteous, undefiled heart.
With a man of noble deeds,
of immodest simplicity.
With a man, a servant of the Lord,
a begger to dreams and love.
With a man who dares to hope
for untold, immeasurable happiness.
With a man who lives, yet moans for the dead,
for the needy, for the lost.
With a man whose silence speaks volumes,
like a heavy cloud swaying in our midst.
With a man, hurt and broken,
draggin' a bundle of hopes and dreams.
With a man who'll forsake all for me,
and readily, me for all.