ABSTRACT : Poetry is a remarkable representation of life in its vivid colours capable of forming a rainbow to overshadow all clouding influences. We should never allow our pure passions to be dormant. When grief takes over life we should act with aplomb to overcome it. We should stay calm in face of storming situations. One who sails away from the shore is prepared to face tempestuous tendencies during the voyage. One should stay unruffled when overwhelming odds test the tenacity of his temperament. Serenity is not an external entity but an inherently innovative idea nurtured with rapture.

Keywords: Optimism, Humanistic Vision, Inspiration, Harmony, Spiritual consciousness. 

INTRODUCTION : The poems included in my anthologies of the  ‘Soul Trilogy ‘-are aimed at inculcating in the minds of readers opulent optimism which enables the readers to iron out crucial issues concerning human life convincingly. Optimism acts as armour against all negative influences surrounding human existence. We should let life flow with a genuine glow accepting challenging situations with remarkable readiness. How one reacts and responds to crises in the passage of voyage assumes paramount prominence. We should deal with all issues with a positive bent of mind. Life is not smooth sailing but a voyage in turbulent waters. We should find peace when peace is broken into pieces. We should piece together peace to keep the mind at peace.

Poetry should broaden our humanistic vision. A purely prominent poet has prospective perspectives which broaden his poetic horizon with rapturously resplendent rainbows representing the scintillating splendour of sustenance. He should provide budding poets with the nectar of human life through his poetry. He dedicates himself to the tremendous task of holding the light of knowledge aloft to pierce the gloom of ignorance considerably.  Poetry should lay the ethical foundations for a consummately clean life shorn of arrogance and hypocrisy.

We are all children of the one Universe, of the One God, and the need is not to live in chaos, but to live in peace and harmony. It demands poets, then, to present vibrant, innovative, and viable alternatives. To be believable is to be soulful. Our poems must have as a mission, the salvation of the planet, the conversion of minds, the transformation of action, as we move from the mundane to the majestic, from the destructive to the constructive, from the haughty and hateful to the heeding, healing, and holy.

We are the people, imbued with power, the angels of mercy, our pens in play. We may invoke Divine Mercy, but the Universe demands that we do our part. Beyond the words, there needs to be action, but action is only possible if there is fuel to energize it. Our poems are the call to action and true transformation calls on the moral, emotional, intellectual and spiritual.

People need something to think about. No one is better equipped to make others think than the thinkers among us. Poetry is like a prayer, a means of communication to the creator and its creation through words. The thoughts are penned to make readers think beautiful things and positive things. Life-altering things and possible things for the welfare of humankind.

Inspirational literature serves as a medium to harmonise varying individual and social objectives into a narrative of national mission. As a means of individual self-actualization, it can have a therapeutic effect on individuals and an effective motivational force. And, of course, as the saying goes that to be effective & result oriented, a presentation should be long enough to cover the message and short enough to hold the fleeting interest of readers.

Inside each of us is an inexhaustible well of thoughts and feelings of our euphonium of consciousness. The incandescent beauty of luminous emotions and an orchestra of heartbeats of desires giving rise to lyrical or narrative prose of expression. We transfer our dream to a world of reality, a utopia of our fantasy full of unwavering and everlasting love. The personification of a glorious world that we imagine in our subconscious and idealistic heart of beauty abounding in the serenity of virtues. A poem is a quest that reverberates in solitude from the deepest alcove of my soul to connect with humanity from obscurity in the grand scheme of the Universe. 

Our quiescent minds encapsulate in poetic sentiments to create healing poultices to ameliorate our suffering from painful wounds. The multiple scars received by life in strife erupt in an evocative yearning for forgiveness to move forward by letting go of the past. Our life passes through the sojourn of experiences, fighting known and unknown forces, meeting unexpected ordeals as challenges. The philosophical mind awakens the voice of pristine wisdom of compassion and innate goodness which unites as a mystic spirit of the invincible soul. The ethereal soul rises in the magnificence of God’s grace of guiding light in the creativity of love.

Peace poetry addresses life from a spiritual context also: how can anyone claim to believe in God and involve themselves in endless wars, and what is war anyway, if not the ultimate failure? In poetry, it’s never winner-take-all, it’s about sharing. In 1989, the great peace activist and poet, Denise Levertov, wrote:

Making Peace
A voice from the dark shouted out,
“The poets must give us
Imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
Imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.”

But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid..

A line of peace might appear
if we reconstruct the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses….

A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
a mighty pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light – facets
of the forming crystal.

Peace, as Levertov, further noted, is “not there ahead of itself, but it must be forged in the “alembic” of our lives.
Peace poetry is not silent, but words, in fact, leading to action. But, to transform the world, we must also put ourselves on the line.

As Levertov wrote:

“When words penetrate into us they change the chemistry of the soul,
of the imagination. We need, in effect, to be the change we seek in the world.”

CONCLUSION: Unlike Abrahamic beliefs, where the Creator and creation are two separate subjects, in the Indian Brahmanical belief system, it is the play of the God in which He expands and manifests Himself as the cosmos, the elements, stars, planets and in terrestrial beings in myriad forms out of His love for the Self (The Gita 10/20 & 15/7). Thus the life upon the earth is a spiritual quest of the Self with the body as a vehicle of the Spirit.

The assurance that ” The Lord dwells in the hearts of all beings, causing all beings, by the force of His energy or Maya,…..” appears to make Sir Edwin Arnold sing  his

“The Song Celestial “
“There lives a Master in the hearts of men
Maketh their deeds, by subtle pulling-strings,
Dance to what tunes He will. (Gita 18/61)
Other scholars further explain”

“All mankind
Is born for perfection
And each shall attain it
Will he but follow
His nature’s duty.” ( Gita 18/45)

There is nothing prescriptive in this system but everything is open to question, option, and discretion. “…………………Meditate! And as thou wilt-then act!

Article by Jyotimaya Thakur

Jyotirmaya Thakur( retired Principal) is the author of forty books with many waiting to be published. Her work has been published in many global anthologies, magazines, tabloids, digital news-media, internationally and translated into many languages. Multi-genre award-winning poet of many accolades from literary and humanitarian organizations. She is an Indian living in the UK, reviewer, translator, promoter of International poetry, social and environmental activist. She is the first Indian origin woman as Vice-President of the parliament of the World Union of Writers and Poets, Italy. She serves on various prestigious Committees as International Ambassador and chief advisor in many literary and humanitarian organizations. She is the first Indian poet to be published by RVAW Publications, UK, and her poems are showcased by the Wolf International Poetry Exhibition group of the UK. She is invited to prestigious Literary festivals as a special guest. She has been featured as “A Woman of Essence ” by Dotism Journal, Australia. “Woman of Excellence ” and in the ‘Gems’ series by the World Pictorial Poetry forum, Daman. She has been featured in -‘ The World Contemporary English Poets’ anthology by Paschim Bangla English Academy.