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Dileep - Hatto: a follow up to the interview

 

Dialogue between poet and philosopher

To enter a dialogue with someone who is both doctor and the poet, and at the same time a world citizen, that is a reminder that art and practice not only can but should go hand in hand. Here the touch, there the imagination becoming responsible in terms of a poem. Dileep Jhaveri  replied to Hatto Fischer who had made some comments after having read the interview Dileep Jhaveri gave to Bill. Out of that resulted a first reply with many philosophical implications and a first chance to get to know the poems of Dileep Jhaveri. Indicative for his attitude is his reply to the question if he would mind if these comments to his poetic and philosophical statements would be made public on the website. 

Dileep Jhaveri answered:

"Of course I do not mind your public conversation with me. One has to accept the responsibility of what one says because the option of keeping silent was always before articulating one’s understanding  to a questioner since one has to answer one’s own self before speaking. That is how poetry is written. What a poet wants to say is not clear from the beginning, the poet is never perfect, the words have multiple meanings and the language with its abundance is indifferent to the intentions of the poet. The poet is standing before a mirror that reflects, refuses to reflect, alters or falsifies or enhances the image. Thus the relationship with the language is of hope and fear both. The poem transcends hope and fear in order to be and the being of the poem is liberated from the poet in the process. But the poet has to accept the responsibility of the poem without owning it. The reader establishes an independent relationship with the poem and the poet whether present or absent, alive or dead, speaking in the same language or different is  still responsible for his words and is subject to endless judgements.

A philosopher talking to a poet is no different from a butterfly conversing with a flower. A flower cannot deny a fluttering butterfly otherwise what was the reason to display the colours and fragrance and softness and hiding the nectar deep within the calyx while releasing itself in the sunlight. A poet can learn some more from an inquisitive philosopher even when unable to reply in the same style. The life is meant to expand the possibilities of existence, to feel spaces. Is it not what Rilke meant?

On my part I feel much humble and yet elated that you have approached to my simple and almost quotidian words profoundly and brilliantly. I have just begun to read your web site and haltingly because of daily work in the clinic and carrying on writing. But one thing is certain, with my limited knowledge of other disciplines I am no match for your accomplished intellect. However, your mention of William Carlos Williams was flattering. He was a great poet and an equally great paediatrician in the time when the doctors used to touch. I still remember the encounter with him described by Kerouac. Also, dropping his name to an unsmiling officer at U S embassy earned me a multiple entry visa for ten years with a beam! He had read Williams in the first year of his college. Yes poetry does take you somewhere, to Hatto with his net smiling like Simon!"

15.9.2012

The entire story and relationship with Dileep Jhaveri begins thanks to Gabriel Rosenstock. I wrote to Dileep to inform him about having read his interview.

Athens 7.9.2012

Dear Dileep Jhaveri,

Thanks to Gabriel Rosenstok who passed on to me the interview you gave to William Wolak, I could just read it now. That is quite the literary journey sketched in few words. One person comes immediately to my mind: William Carlos Williams. He too is both doctor and poet. And very important I find what you said about the rewards of being a doctor when treating people who cannot afford expensive treatments but who pay back more than what money can convey. There is the little girl who brings you flowers and where a hug with patient does more wonder than any medicine. Some of these observations you find as well in Solshenitzyn's 'Cancer Ward'. Naturally I was glad to read that Freud influenced you the most to adopt a scientific attitude. Yes, Freud was extraordinary when it came to question his own hypothesis. Of equal importance is Adorno's thesis in which he proved that the term 'unconsciousness' as used by Freud is a scientific one to which one cannot object.

hatto fischer

 

Response by Dileep Jhaveri (11.Sept. 2012)

        with comments by Hatto Fischer

Injustice

As a human being ignoring or accepting injustice is to invalidate the very existence. But one cannot be everywhere. One has to select what is possible for him. Even here also one cannot be perfect or consistent. Yet, one does not give up. Of course, in spite of any one or many trying to correct injustice it keeps recurring. If you ponder why it is so, you will realise that Nature has no notion of justice. Justice is a human concept like soul or God or destiny. What Nature intends for is Balance in a continuous flux. There cannot be any constant ideal for a process that is multidimensional and endlessly dynamic. What appears to us as irrational or a contradiction  (and thereby undesirable) is merely one of the myriad manifestations of Nature. This is where comes the Existential Choice. Regardless of the outcome do what is right to you. And what is right is appreciated by accepting all that is living to be as valid as you. This is so because you are a part of this totality and the totality is also within you. Ishavasya Upanishad expands this. This feeling of continuity in time and space both liberates one from Death since one continues to live in all.

Comment by Hatto Fischer

That is a novel thought: if not acting against injustice and violence, then it is like disputing human existence. In German the word 'leugnen' brings across this meaning coming close to a kind of betrayal. The latter is usually ascribed to someone like Judas and can be reflected upon further by reading Brendan Kennelly's epic poem 'Judas'.
Dileep uses an important word to affirm existence not only of oneself but of everything living, namely 'validation'. Towards the end he says that "regardless of the outcome do what is right to you. And what is right is appreciated by accepting all that is living to be as valid as you." Indeed, as valid as you.
Behind the use of such a word and act of validation there prevails his scientific attitude. In his interview with Bill he mentions that he adopted this attitude after coming across Freud. It means an open ended form of inquiry. The term is also used when incoming messages or information have to be validated in order to transform this into valid knowledge, that is into something upon which further actions and thoughts can be based on. If poetry is therefore a validation of life, it will express all what exists. 

When it comes to undertaking things, Dileep adds the realistic qualification that one cannot be everywhere and by implication do everything. There is an existential choice involved. Now here I wish before talking about the differences between choice, decision and selection undertake a slight departure from his thoughts. I trust this will be allowed even at the risk of making things more complex. 

About not being able to do everything and not be everywhere, my own favorite dual pair is 'Tun und Lassen': doing and leaving. It is like when walking: one foot is left standing while the other moves forward. Movement implies therefore the bringing together of what you leave and what you do. As such it allows one important correction as to what can be as well a pitfall, if the position is assumed that not everything seems possible. Naturally I cannot do everything at one and the same time. However, I can and must remember what I left undone and behind while moving on and retain memory thereof. This memory will allow me to return later and do what I should have done then. If there are two wounded persons, I can take only one to the hospital and if someone else is nearby delegate that person to take the other. Otherwise I must return and pick up the other. It is meant as an example to modify a bit the otherwise very realistic attitude Dileep wishes to convey. 

About not accepting injustice, something similar was expressed by Judith Butler who received the Adorno prize in 2012. In her philosophy she talks about the importance of fighting against injustice. When accepting the Adorno prize, she referred to a famous saying of Adorno to be found in his 'Minima Moralia', Aphorism 18 called 'Asylum for the homeless insofar as "there is no right life in the wrong one." However, Adorno's saying has to be interpreted as saying that 'there cannot be a true life within false structures'. Whether or not Judith Butler makes this distinction between life and structures cannot be ascertained here. Still a simple example can underline why it was crucial for Adorno to take that into consideration when interviewing, for example, a man working in a nuclear reactor. His answer will be pre-determined insofar if asked whether or not he likes his work, naturally he will say 'yes', that is as long as he works there. Presumably he will say 'yes' despite all the dangers inherent in a nuclear plant as demonstrated in Chernobyl and in Fukushima, because his existence depends, structurally speaking, upon this work. He could only express his dislike and recognize the full danger if he had drawn the consequence and quit the job at the nuclear plant. Taken further, it is impossible to contemplate a true life without thereby taking into account the determining structures by which one exists in society and thus many end up silencing themselves by no longer knowing how to get out of these wrong structures. That includes as well marriage and the going against one's better knowledge. This assumption that Adorno meant structure and not just life can be verified on hand of Klaus Heinrich, philosopher of religion at the Free University of Berlin. He reaccounts his experience with Adorno when the latter attempted to lay bare during a lecture in Berlin his subjective reflections. Despite making every effort Adorno still did not manage to free himself from these determining structures. In the end, Adorno had to admit that it was impossible.

When it comes to selection as to what is possible, what not, a distinction has to be made between decision, choice and selection. There is involved an ethical dimension as well and that means will the limits of what other people can understand be respected as a constraint in what one contemplates to do or does one simply go beyond those human limitations? It is said of Kafka that he followed with his imagination those scientists who started to go beyond human self understanding and therefore initiated experiments to gain still more knowledge. The fact that gas was used for the first time during First World War reflects that choice and decision. Andre Malraux describes what horrific scenes it created once gas was used for the first time and the wind turned, for everyone lost any orientation, ran back and forth, many carrying someone on the back regardless if alive or dead, friend or foe. So great was the confusion that people lost all self understanding and no longer knew the difference between war and peace. 

In answer to Existentialism, I used for my thesis the motto: 'les choisir est libre mais pas les hommes de terre'. Even if the choice may be free, it does not necessarily mean the people are free to make these choices. The difference between choice and freedom is related to what decisions entail: a way to exist but once that decision has been made only certain choices are available. Especially in our global society in which many potentials exist, it does not mean all people can take them. Indeed, we do have the technical means of producing a surplus, so that no one would need to live in poverty. Yet this is obviously not the case not only in India, but throughout the world. That would link up again to what was discussed at the outset, namely the existence of injustices. For now it becomes clear that there is a difference if a mere fact which exists throughout man's history or injustice is the result of certain decisions which limited the choices to the point of people being not even free to take up these choices even if they want to. Existentialism has always dealt with this question of decision; still, once individuals form a group and begin to determine a certain praxis, then things become predetermined. In science they are called paradigmas and are best reflected that things are done in only a certain way. 

Also I believe decisions and choices are influenced by the culture linking people to way things are done. Moreover culture acts like a filter in this selection process. Often we select what promises to have in the end some success. This orientation pertains as well to what has been validated already, and which may be linked to the prevailing wisdom in the past. Crucial is that such selection of what we do is linked to our self esteem and what we assume can be undertaken, what not to ensure our way of acting not merely in terms of sheer survival but in relating fully to life. There is after all that confession by Pablo Neruda that he lived. Obviously Dileep wishes to stress that point in all responsibility understood with a good dose of realism.
 
Naturally there are many more ethial and practical problems entailed in such an equation linking culture to selection. Here it becomes important to understand children. They distinguish themselves from adults because they take on their shoulders much greater burdens than what they can manage. They have a greater sense of responsibility and risk to overburden themselves as they have not yet this special selection screen of culture to protect themselves and their conscience both from failure and from the risk of being over demanded. Only after some cultural immersion do they acquire the abilities to handle selection in a way which can safeguard both their sanity and creativity. 

In society and political systems parties design programmes to give orientation and why institutions are set up to solve certain problems. If the problems become too big for the institutions to handle, they will break down. By definition, the state and all social institutions exist only conditionally and they can break down once over demanded. That limitation leaves many more outside and stranded while those on the inside will face a duality of a peaceful life but shall be chased by fears. Unrest in the streets reflects itself in unrestive sleeps. What makes things unrestive is if the inner and outer spheres of society no longer work on the injustices but instead perpetuate them. In turn that leads to all kinds of projections upon the outside world and will perpetuate false assumptions about people without work e.g. they are just lazy. The failure to show to others still compassion and give them the self understanding as human beings, that reproduces then the failure of the entire system. It can lead to all those people who are restless in the streets and who will want more and more something which no single state can give to them, especially not 'here and now' or on one single day. Biding times as often the tactic of politicians is then not an adquate answer but it seems that this is the case most of the time.

So it might sound reassuring that no matter what is being tried injustice will reoccur, and so poverty, for example, in India will remain now and in future a huge problem. If that would be the case, then no change would bring such decisions and choices so that selection process would work in favor of justice. That requires quite another consistency in order to work out the contradictions prevailing throughout society. 

If I may come back to the Ancient Greek poets and their reference to justice, they knew that it was no easy task to bring about a just society, but in knowing this, they had a measure as to what it takes to bridge the gap between the measure of justice and what has been often an unmeasurable state of poverty. To limit poverty and then to bring about social justice, this would mean in terms of democracy to cut the power of the rich and to limit the power of the powerful ones, so that different groups could articulate themselves and find thereby a way to ensure the passing of just laws. A real measure would allow a mediation between the ideal of justice and what can be realized here and now. Thus holding out this tension and not conclude that the bringing about of justice is impossible, it would make a difference in how poverty and wealth would be approached in society. If justice is desired, then it can be brought about as a consequence of such choices and decisions which foresee that wealth and power is amassed by a few, but is always redistributed and power questioned before it is too late to respond.
 
Wonderful is to read that justice like the term 'soul' is a human concept. Dileep does inscribe reality with some basic laws making something factural, for just as injustices shall reincurr, so nature has no sense of justice since in a constant flux. That is an assumption about nature I do not necessarily share as it is a way to overcome the duality between man-made and natural world. It cannot be easily said they are one or correlate in a meaningful way, but the two together can also not be easily subsumed under the term 'totality'. However, Dileep ends up there by saying man is a part of this totality and there is no escape from that. 

Thus more discussion is needed about his understanding of continuity of life as he implies with this a transcendence of death. He states this while assuming our self consciousness is constantly expanding due to this totality around and in us. 

 

 Good poetry - towards world Literature

Good poetry also transcends spatiotemporal boundaries. That is why a good poet is never a native of a geographical nation or chronologically defined period. The sentence about writers creating nationality and translators internationality was quoted by me actually from Gabriel’s article where he had quoted from Jose Saramago.

Comment by Hatto Fischer

Yes, that struck a chord when I read writers create national literature, translators world literature. When I said this to Katerina Anghelaki Rooke, both translator and poetess, she expressed her positive astonishment with a simple Greek compliment: 'kalo' - good! 
But there are two problematic terms in this position: transcendence and boundaries. In German philosophy there is a saying 'thinking means crossing borders', but of course before Hegel made this into a major theme, Kant had already developed his insights into a transcendental logic. Somehow such a logic touches upon the 'being' and if not the existence of the human being, then it takes on a dual form with here the body, there the mind. The latter is referred to even more so as the spirit or 'Geist'. This was a predominant thought orientation in the nineteenth century.
Today, in the twenty first century, I would have difficulties with such terms as transcendence while boundaries may remind of human limitations but also what have been drawn over time, namely borders. Things can go so far and not any further. To know the existence of these boundaries is, therefore, a matter of knowing how belonging or not is being defined not only by possessing a pass port but as well by knowing when it is better and saver to stay within certain boundaries. As a spatial concept it can suggest what is off limit if not for the self than for others, or vice versa. Hence I would be curious whether the definition given here as to what constitutes a good poem really holds. 
Somehow poetry does not confine to definitions made either a priori or ad hoc. More over if a poem is a feeling on which something like knowledge of the unknown can be build on or developed from, then these expressions are like intuitive guesses as to what makes up and shapes human reality. Important is that such a feeling grounds poems in reality. Would that make the poem then bad if limited and if it stays within very specific boundaries drawn up by even just circumstances? 
More thoughts need to be given in what differs from such a definition of a good poem. For instance, Michael D. Higgins would say when writing a poem you know when that poem is 'made'. Nothing more needs to be added or a word altered. He suggests that such a poem is like the seed a farmer throws out of his hand and where it falls, there shall come something to a fruitful expression. 
Others may prefer to cast out their nets into language and see what they catch!

 

Writing in a particular Language

 

Writing in one’s mother tongue or national language of a small country is actually a matter of convenience rather than an assertion of value-oriented pride. No distinction can be claimed by writing in any particular language. On the other hand, to preserve a language is not a writer’s primary responsibility. His accountability is to create art-poetry. The society that employs the language and those active in cultural ecology will have to take the responsibility of preservation.

Needless to say that the writer too will be a part of the venture, but you do realise the dimensional difference in his role.

For a poet writing in Irish is a matter of pride or a brave effort at survival as it would be for me to write in Gujarati. Can he not say ‘God bless my language’? I do not believe in God. Bill Clinton does.

America is essential to his identity. Even for a bad poet his language is essential similarly. One can have political differences with America and its leaders. One can have aesthetic differences with poets from the same or different or dominant or dying languages.

DJ

Comment (hf): Since Gabriel Rosenstok introduced me to Dileep, and given his vast experience as to what is at stake for Irish writers, it would be good to hear his opinion on this matter. I do not think it is one of convenience. You are simply born into a language. Naturally it depends then on how you grow up, what school teachers you have, who influences you the most along the way and what resonantes inside of you. Irish poets have always been locally based and they do create the agenda of the community. Alone if I follow the stories of Michael D. Higgins who narrated how he went bare footed to school and learned to look at the whole thing by a teacher taking their class up on a hill overlooking the entire village, so that he learned 'holistic thinking' even before the term was invented, then the uniqueness of language is what Jean Amery describes as a dialectic between seeing and recognition with mediation between the two being the meanings of words to be shared with others. This sharing implies an immediacy, one in which sounds within the landscape and way of pronouncing things - the painting of words and their meanings with a special sound mixture - not to be confused with the immediacy created by writing. These are two entirely different planes of reflections as was recognized Hegel who sought to negate the local dialectical bondage and instead help create the national identity brought about by recognizing the state as abstract entity but also as overall 'spirit' or 'Geist'. Thus Dileep is right in pointing out what it implies when Bill Clinton or Obama would say 'God bless America'. Such use of the word reflects a state ideology but Obama is an interesting case insofar as he relies as well to the refrains known best in the Blues and which gives meaning to the saying 'and he has come home' when a dead diplomat from the US embassy in Libya is brought back to the United States of America. For the term 'home' links soil with eternity and the ability to hold up high the head due to values upheld even if that means doing a service at the risk of having to give one's own life. In other words, such a refrain reflects the ritualized behaviour once duties to the state becomes a service in which there is also implied the readiness to risk and to sacrifice one's life in the line of duty. No questions are asked if that mission abroad whether in Afghanistan or in Irak, Libya or elsewhere is justified. It is a Christian faith made into a state ideology even Obama says again 'and he has come home'. Stochatic behaviour is one thing, saying something in such a tone suggests the freedom to do things while having secured it can be done again and so has eternal value.

 

Poetry, Fragility and Forever

 

It is true that man’s ardent aspirations, spiritual nobility, strength to survive in spite of suffering, vision of an order amidst chaos, love, wonder and many things have been articulated in poetry. But the value of poetry lies not in what it articulates. Poetry transforms the values in an aesthetic organization. That is how we in our youth understood the relationship between content and form. And the aesthetic joy is an experience for those who elected for it. They always are few.

All poets, including bad also, realise this paucity of readership and perhaps develop anxiety resulting from frustrated libido. They seek shelter in music (you should see the poets in our countries crooning their compositions in lyrics and gazals) or religion as it was in past.

DJ


Comment (hf):
Articulation stems from the parts contributing to the ability to address a crucial point which is on the agenda. Things are noticed rational within such a form of recognition. It is a given whenever people come together to form an assembly. It may be then that the voice of the poet is heard but that would be an unusual case. A bridge can be found to this distinctive otherness of poetry insofar it follows out of a transformation of values "in an aesthetic organization." That then leads back to a discussion with Carol Becker about what Herbert Marcuse left unfinished when contemplating like Adorno about a theory of aesthetics.

 

 

Ideology, creative acts and facts

 

Later on ideologies, state, commitment to various causes were sought for as sanctuaries by some, while others reposed their faith in various isms and academic lordship. But a good poet finds gratification in the act and fact of writing a poem. So even if outnumbered good poetry has existed always.

DJ


Comment (hf): Good to read these lines as it does touch upon a huge problem, namely people trapped in all kinds of ideologies or faiths. These days when the Arabic spring is being transformed into a mass rage, when an extreme Right Wing Party in Greece seeks salvation in upholding only Greekness while excluding all others, it is again made evident that ideologies are followed simply because they contain a kernel of truth. They cover up, however, all the other false aspects and that is why people get easily trapped as was the case when Italians embraced Mussolini as they believed in his vision of Socialism. Different from Germans, Italians reversed their original decision and withdrew their support as soon as they say Mussolini was prepared to go to far more extreme ends than what they were prepared to ever do. 
What can a poet do in such a situation when those pushing through a certain agenda linked to their ideological make-up silence the artists? Mike van Graan, playwright in South Africa, has written a lot about how artists are killed or receive death threats. It takes then courage to continue not merely writing but to raise ones voice in public. Naturally writing per say is not as of yet a guarantee of having the truth be heard. Even poets can become extreme. That is why Michel Foucault would advocate that we have to discover the places of silence before they are covered up by lyrical protests. 
Also the Polish journalist Kapuscinski has been criticized for confusing facts to be named by a journalist with literary ones, even though he did state when in Etopia and no longer knowing how to distinguish facts from fictions, that he resorted to literature in order to rely on his imagination in order to find out what was happening in reality. Naturally Michel Foucault warned about political lyric insofar as "we have to discover the places of silence before the lyrical protest covers them up." Already criticism of Rilke's poems being used by German soldiers during First World War when they wishes to express their emotions while writing home to their loved ones, indicates what difference there is between representation of emotions like a flag for a nation and authentic expressions of emotions reflecting what has a soul.

 

 

The Responsibilities of a Poet - on being just human

 

A bad poet transfers his responsibility of action to his writing. As an individual I would prefer to do whatever I can for suffering people rather that write elegies for them. From your response to my interview I feel that you have sensed it. Because poetry cannot correct injustice and right the wrongs orr change the world I feel free in poetry, in my relationship with the language. As an human being the same freedom is experienced when I advise the poor to educate their daughters, limit their family, de-addict, learn easy measures for better health and lesser visits to the clinic, give up prejudices against caste, religion or enemy nation, follow their faith sincerely, tell them jokes (naughty even!), banter them and so on. Ah, just to be human – what more can one want?

DJ

Comment (hf): Writing and action - the two combine in a way which requires some explanation. In 1972 Derrida emerged out of the shadows of Michel Foucault with his philosophical treatise about writing and the difference. Derrida went into the depth of language to seek an understanding how semantics emerge and therefore differences in interpretations. Around that time I was working on a philosophical treatise containing three parts: a) philosophy as a method to ask good questions in recognition of what Kant stated is the art to draw out somebody by asking him or her good questions, so that 'good' implies also the need of a receptivity; b) "the inner reflexion of the social being" was meant to cover the entire distance it takes before two individuals can enter a dialogue and reflect each other's imaginations before they undertake an action, and obviously this means 'before' actions are undertaken, it would be important to inform the other and ask for his or her opinion; and c) the extension of such a reflection is not the action itself but writing. Writing becomes then a second chance about which Adorno speaks of when in need to learn from the past while avoiding in the present and in future of doing the same mistake over again or a second time. If we use Freud's term of 'sublimation', then it means also investing in the mind before we undertake any action. Naturally writing has many other implications. It starts with a child writing in the sand with a stick and which reminds of the archaic logic which prevailed as long as there was still a connection between outer and inner world, and signs in nature meant something specific to everyone living in the community of man even if a primitive society as described by Golden Frazer in his book 'the Golden Bough' and which Freud used when writing 'Totem and Tabu'. 
So I would not agree that a bad poet is the one who transfers action onto writing, for it would make action into a fetish while not giving recognition to writing as a way to avoid making mistakes by not acting right away, but reflecting further what can be done. Also the terms 'good' and 'bad' can be used in such a way that judgement thereof makes impossible what Kant meant by asking good questions in order to draw out the best in any human being. Again that difference reflects what was said previously about 'what is' compared to what any human being can be, potentially speaking. One reason for this difference may be a philosophical attitude as expressed best by Adorno who links being with action by there being always something which makes that link possible. The usual philosophical positions, and it includes Heidegger, is out of wish to have negated the dialectic, they reduce everything to just 'being' and 'not being' and thereby leave out that 'something' which entails existence and can never be replaced by 'nothingness'. Nietzsche's mistake was to make nothingness into a dogmatic truth in order to undermine, indeed jeopardize the Christian version of truth, namely faith. It comes close to confusing real life with what appears to be the negation of life and death, insofar as Nietzsche ceased to live during his last ten years and just appeared to be looking back on life. It is well known in medicine a patient can only return to life if there is kept alive this tension between being sick and being healthy. If the latter is negated, then there is no going back to that active self considered to be a constitution (Aristotle) to ensure a body-mind tension which has to be held out if to stay alive. Of course, this means not having entered as of yet this terrain of responsibility. So it is most interesting that Dileep reflects here what it takes not only to be healthy but what he can do as a doctor when more often than not just simple things help and ensure a way to return to a healthy life or if never experienced in the past to develop towards such a concept of life. Above all, he articulates a most important measure, namely to be just human - for what more do you want?

 

 

That Other 'conciousness'

 

Still there is another area of my consciousness where reside a different kind of faith not limited to this human existence. It is the faith of being a part of this universal eternity. This universe of which I have very little knowledge or understanding is certainly not anthropocentric. Nor is it centred around Life. Just as we must renounce nationalism to love humanity it is also necessary to forget that we are a singular specie. Yes, our body and metabolism, endeavour to maintain existence and retain identity may limit our actions to pre-determined definitions. But the universe and our relationship with it are not limited by that. Like a plant, feather, gill, fragrance, breeze, carbon or nitrogen molecule we just Are. All that is here was and always will be there. This is my faith and it relieves me from ay guilt of actions and omissions that others put to judgement. Simultaneously this faith does not add in any way to my value as a person and certainly not any power. It just grants me freedom to be. This freedom is not mystic, spiritual vision , satori or any such metaphysical realisation. It just is.

DJ
Comment (hf): This other area where another consciousness exists may be called 'putting us human beings in place'. Here Dileep speaks as well as the doctor that he is and this with a very realistic eye. Man is a part of something greater and this world cannot be understood from an anthropocentric point of view. In plain view comes therefore just 'what is!' Naturally terms like faith have a religious connotation; also the preoccuption with eternity expresses something akin to life being premeated by religion or at least religious thoughts which seem designed to compensate for what we do not understand. This leaves poetry to become like a prayer or else as Adorno would advise in 'minima moralia' to the possibility of writing everything down that we do not understand. The latter would be like a reaching out in an effort to open up the self understanding to the unknown. As a mental practice it will seek a way to stay inclusive rather than exclude things a priori because they cannot be understood. Whether or not that would reciprocate in man as an alienated human being, and make him accept himself as the stranger he is, this is doubtful. Many exclude that possibility and seek to drive out instead the strangers in their midst. Explusion goes hand in hand with those who do not recognize themselves after having returned home from a long journey. Usually that is the case when such expression are used in which there is not given space to doubt. Presumably 'doubt' in the Descartes sense would be too rational a construct to start the mediation between what is and such a faith which Dileep calls interestingly enough 'the freedom to be'. Now that would answer the question as to why we aspire often to reach the other self, the real self by becoming not what we are right now but what we can become, potentially speaking? If that is the case the metaphysics of 'what is' would put much in disarray. It is so much akin to a doctor turned into a lawyer. He asked always while walking down the main street in Heidelberg, his medical book in one hand, a cigarette in another with a newspaper gripped by the upper part of his arm: 'what is'. Pawel came from former CSSR after there the Prague spring was crushed in 1968. He was curious if there was any important news and reminded with his curious eyes of what a lawyer turned doctor would make out of this case: the human being having gone astray!

 

More comments by other poets:

"I think poetry can sometimes change

things by revealing in a creative way what needs to be altered."

- Derry O'Sullivan

 

 

 

 

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