Rationality Weds Junoon  (Joyous Madness): – A Tale of Transformation

The story of rationality wedding  Junoon 

Incredible story indeed!

Also the story of my second birth, which transformed me into a twice-born person

Let us begin the story:

Here I am

The Tsunami of rationality is over

After the tsunami of rationality did its job

There was a strange calm

Nothing old, decadent, and hateful in me escaped the wrath of rationality

Everything that was evil was deconstructed

Narrow identities like Caste, tribe, race, ethnocentrism  male chauvinism, fear of death, fear of the unknown,  Herd mentality,  herd morality, narrow identities,  got washed away

And nothing remained untouched

Only I stood like a rock

With my humanity intact

And with my morality anew

Now I belong to no caste, no tribe, and no race

I am what I am, a species being

A seemingly independent autonomous node of a great social network called humanity

A node embedded in a great web of human relations in which and through which I manifest myself

I am a part of nature

At the same time, I am apart from it

I am part of society and at the same time apart of it

Without me, society or community is like a ghost.

You are not the other; it is me out there, one of my unique copies

I no longer feel a sense of separation from nature

I can listen to the cries of my mother earth calling for help against capitalist leviathan raping and mutilating her

I see acid rain as tears of Mother Earth

I listen to my daddy, the sun, ridiculing me for depleting the ozone layer which can harm beloved mother Earth and her children 

I am a new man

Whose social being does not conflict with his species being

I can dance with a butterfly like a kid

A dance that is a celebration of its existence

A dance that fills my heart with joy and happiness

Passing through so many appearances, a long toil and labor, so many stages,

 Butterfly attains freedom.

Saving itself from dangers and threats of its predators right from its birth as a larva

When it was most vulnerable

Now it can fly, enjoy freedom, and manifest its essence

 Like a butterfly, I too toiled very hard to reach this stage,

And  saving my soul from poachers and bagpipers, secular as well as religious

When I attained awareness, I could see how my parents, missionaries’ teachers, and clerics acted like poachers, predators of my soul who tried to capture me and turn me into their cage bird.

Freeze me in a particular social mold treat me as a social category reduce me to a slice of myself dissect me and kill me

They filled my heart with hatred of my fellow human beings; they tried to kill my creativity, my dreams, and my imagination. It fills my eyes with tears and I could not stop weeping and crying.

I was like a kid

So innocent and full of trust and love and respect for my parents

 Who betrayed my trust; they degraded me to the level of a parrot, to a helpless lamb

Much lower than even to sub-human primates

Abusing my childhood and degrading my species being

I could see now

How my parents behaved like merciless shepherds

With a hot iron rod, they tried to mark me by their religious identity forever

This fills my heart with pain and anguish

Organized religion is a crime against humanity

Soon I awakened; I understood I was a hostage to organized religions

But Rationality made my escape possible,

Rationality became my savoir

It was not so easy

I had to undergo a torturous and painful process

I had to confront my own self and the other including  my loved ones

After Tsunami of rationality cleaned my heart from hatred of fellow human beings

Something strange happened

My beloved, Junoon, came to me for a kiss

She was not alone

My inner freedom was with her

I kissed her and that changed everything

Love overwhelmed me

  I cried with joy

I am in love with humanity

 I turned mad with joy

Love turned into little Junoon

Little madness

Earlier I was feeling senselessness and purposelessness in my life

Now she is my reason to live

She is all my reason

She is the reason I am

 To serve her is the purpose of my life

She is as near to me as my juggler’s vein

Now   understand   the role   of   love   and   altruism   in   human   relations

When you love someone you love yourself

Now I have   fallen   in   love   with   humanity 

Fall   in   love

Fall   in   love 

Fall   in   love

Love   is   the   kernel   of   human   life

Love  alone makes   death   un-threatening

Love keeps the flames   of   life   alive 

Love   alone   survives   death 

Without love, a rational   person   looks   like   a   Skelton   or   a   robot   

Love   alone   gives  me   flesh   and   a   human   face

 Rationality was patiently listening to Junoons cries of joy

Junoon   requested some space from rationality in my consciousness

The request was immediately granted and Junoon was  nested  in my consciousness

Rationality was overconfident in itself

Soon rationality felt uneasy and beseeched Junoon

Please do not kick me out

It is I who saved him from poachers of soul

Otherwise this time he would have been a dead man walking

Junoon replied

Without me, he would be merely a calculator

Without me, he would be only Dr. John Nash’s ummah

Cold calculated and callous

Isolated and alienated individual

I alone can transform him from a  part to a meaningful full whole

A loving, lovable, and a joyful human being

It is because of me he can enjoy inner freedom

On listening to this Rationality got emotional and ridiculed Junoon

How can you enjoy inner freedom  without being free from the outside

You alone cannot be free while your fellow human beings remain in chains

There can be no inner freedom without freedom from external oppressive forces

The problem with you is that you are in haste in declaring your own freedom

And you think freedom is an end in itself

Without the freedom  of your fellow human beings, you cannot be free

In their freedom lies your freedom

Your freedom is incomplete unless you have outer freedom

Till then your inner freedom is an illusion

Freedom means freedom to grow to evolve to become complete to unite

Ability to overcome any hurdle in your way

You always need me without me you cannot attain true freedom

Junoon meekly agreed

And said

Now I understand that the basis of human society is love

There is no good which is bad for others

There is no good which you cannot share with others

There is no freedom that you cannot celebrate with others

Our social life is a grand festival  a grand celebration

Rationality which was my only guide had rival

Junoon

Little madness

Now I perceived Junoon everywhere

In electrons of an atom, in clouds, in falling snow, in mountain rivers

I felt that sense of liberation as a butterfly feels after it first time flaps its wings

I felt as if I am free like predictably unpredictable clouds 

I can now appreciate the joyful dance of Snowflakes, proud of their uniqueness, dancing and falling on my face

Snowflakes proclaimed we all can have little Junoon, you are not the only one

 The very moment the snowflakes made this statement, these ceased to exist as if these were their last words

I am a mountain river making its own course

Overcoming myself and any obstacle in my way

Overcoming anything that stops me from uniting to completing myself, my spiritual journey

I am a river that does not tread a fixed path

And never in a straight line, never remain dull and never stagnate

I am non conformist Oppositional but joyful

Not dull like the old rivers of plains like Nile, Tigris, Ganges,

 The rivers which did not change their course for centuries

At times these create misery in the lives of human beings when they are in a rage

Instead, I am a joyful mountain river that creates amazing waterfalls and miracles

I am a miracle of rationality

With Junoon in my head

I cried

Hey I am in love

Now I love you

Whosoever you are

Whatever your religion or race is

Now I love Jews

Now I love Buddhists

Now I love Christians

Now I love Hindus

Earlier I used to hate all of them all

Now for me, there is no permanent other

We are all children of this mother earth

We are all earthlings

All divisions whether racial, political, ethnic, or national are arbitrary and secondary

I no longer feel loneliness and alienation as love helps me to relate with my fellow human being meaningfully

As a dignified autonomous individual

Without herd mentality

Without subsuming myself in a crowd

My love for my fellow human beings embed them within myself

They cease to be the other

They cease to be strangers

They are my friends, brothers and sisters

When I took my beloved in my arms she cried

Mujay kia hoa hi tere baho manin

Janat dekhaia

(What has happened to me when you took me into your arms? It was like paradise)

On hearing the word Janat (paradise) rationality smiled

Said nothing

All along Rationality opposed the concept of Janat and life after death, as a false hope, vehemently

To tease rationality

My beloved had a cheek-to-cheek dance with me

She cried, I am in heaven

It made rationality laugh

Rationality said if you want to make the earth a paradise with your love and by living in peace

You are most welcome

Art and literature, Imagination and dreams are what make man different than animals, different than a machine

your Junoon is an act of freedom   deep-rooted moral commitment for the good of the humanity

It is an intense faith in her creative powers in her being and in her becoming

Your Junoon is not madness, I call it radical subjectivity

Your Junoon creates

While religious madness destroys

Organized Religion breeds madness

Religion kills dreams

Religion kills creativity

Religion bans imagination

Religion is the scum of the earth

It fills human hearts with hatred

Talks of the permanent other

 Talks of perpetual war

Breeds fear in the hearts of its believers

Fear of unknown

Fear of death

Fear of the other

Fear of truth

Enough is enough

Organized religion is the scum of the earth and should be put into the dust bin of history

After this Junoon and Rationality kissed each other

It turned me to tears

These were tears of joy

Seeing the union of yin and yang

Seeing the union of East and west

It gave me happiness

After this, I lived in peace with myself and with my fellow human beings

 it was after rationality freed my heart from hateful religion that love could make its nest in my heart

It took a long time to reach this stage

I imbibed Western thought and I got rationality

From great Iranian traditions

I got Junoon

it taught me

az harchi aqal kul  shudi

be Junoon mabash ( Even you possess absolute knowledge, keep joyous madness with you)

I call Iran Kishouwri aashiqani admaiyet (lover of humanity)
I am so mesmerized by the greatness of Iranian traditions 

I would call it my Mecca

and Al Hallajs Iraq my medina

Great Indian traditions

Great sons of the soil

Buddha, Nanak, Kabir, and Mahavir taught me

Koai nahi haai geer

Koai nahi haai geer
(there is no the other)
 ho sab ka bala  sab kay baly main ho mere bala
(wish good for all; seek your good in the good to the other )

These are Indian intellectual traditions

Chinese intellectual  thought taught me

Dialectics of nature the yin yang concept

It  taught me  change is the essence of everything

It taught me the other is embedded inside you

 I learned from cybernetics

That Observed is embedded inside the observer

Both are related to each other through feedback

Thus if A caused b and b causes c but through feedback, c causes a, a essentially causes itself

This is exactly what Persian poet Rumi has said

This world and yonder world are incessantly giving birth

Every cause is a mother it effect the child

When the effect is born it too becomes a cause

Gives birth to wonders effects

But it needs a very well sight eye to see the links in the chain

It helped me to understand what Jesus Christ has said

love your enemy

If someone slaps you offer the  other cheek

Now I can understand what he wanted to tell us.

He wanted to tell us not to be like the other like your enemy

When  a person  hates you

He wants to make you a hateful person

Hate is inside his mind

By slapping him back he wants to make you like himself is

But if you offer him other cheeks  that will be a statement that you refuse to be like him

And you affirm that he is wrong if he thinks that you too hate him

By doing so you remove the hate inside him

You will win a heart and fill it with love

If you slap him his self-fulfilling prediction will come true

You will prove him right

He wants to determine the terms and conditions of engagement

By slapping him you cease to be an actor your response becomes reactive.

Now I no longer fear death

Now I no longer need to have false hope of life after death

I am unthreatened

I am unfettered

I am fearless

Because I have understood myself who am I

I am not only my physical being a standalone individual

I am a part of  the human population

Neither there is a ghost inside me called soul or spirit

I am a social as well as biological being

Say a biosocial being

Death at the micro level physiological level, or organism level  might seem the opposite of life

 But  at the macro level, at the level of population,  Death gives life to the whole population

Renews it makes it healthier and better

Socially my death will give space for a better human being

Thus humanity will evolve to a higher degree

Either you evolve or get eliminated.

This is my philosophy of life

This is a new Version of the above Peom

Please write in the comment which one you like the most

The Wedding of Reason and Passion

In the heart of the world, a wedding took place, 

Where Rationality took Junoon as its bride, 

A tale of wonder, an unlikely embrace, 

Transforming me into someone twice-born.

The storm of reason swept through my mind, 

Destroying the ancient, the hateful, the blind. 

No caste, no creed, no narrow divide, 

All washed away in Rationality’s tide.

I stood alone, a being reborn, 

With humanity intact, from the old self torn. 

Now, no tribe claims me, no race defines, 

I am just a node in humanity’s lines.

Connected, yet free, in nature and society, 

I found my place, in life’s great entirety. 

The fears and chains that once held me tight, 

Were shattered by reason, by its cleansing light.

But as the waves of logic began to retreat, 

A new force emerged, wild and sweet. 

Junoon, my beloved, came close to me, 

Whispering of love, of joyous insanity.

We kissed, and my world turned anew, 

Filled with purpose, with passion, with you. 

Mad with joy, I danced with the world, 

As love became the banner I unfurled.

Rationality, my steadfast guide, 

Now shared space with Junoon inside. 

For without madness, reason is cold, 

A machine of logic, heartless, old.

Together they dance, in a delicate balance, 

Each giving the other a chance. 

For in love lies the truth of our being, 

A reason for living, a reason for seeing.

No longer do I hate, no longer do I fear, 

For love has made all my fellow humans dear. 

No more the other, no more the stranger, 

We are all one, in this life’s grand wager.

Now I walk in peace, my heart set free, 

Loving all, as they are loving me. 

With Rationality and Junoon by my side, 

I embrace the world, with arms open wide.

For in this union of mind and heart, 

I find my true self, my truest art. 

A soul unshackled, a spirit reborn, 

Dancing through life, in love’s perfect storm.