QUANTUM OF LIGHT
PROF. P. VENUGOPALA RAO
Obeying the word of Lord Brahma
I stood in front of the Great Power
Who declared that I should
Become an assistant to Lord Sun
To illuminate the right path
To the beings in the Universe
In the magnificent court of Lord Sun
Full of Golden rays of light
I stood in obedience to hear his words;
“We obey with pleasure
The command of the Great Power
Seven Horses, seven powers
Seven meters - they are the seven mothers
Know which one you desire
That shall be your mother
to give you a life and form.”
Never heard of any horses
Nor how many they are.
Recognising my discomfort
Lord Sun’s assistant, Anura,
Explained to erase
My embarrassing ignorance.
“The seven mothers are
For giving birth to you
Seven different flowing beings
Seven different electric beings
Gamma ray, X ray,
Ultraviolet, Visible
Infrared; micro and broadcast.”
Even as a desire rose in my inside
To be a visible aid to our Lord
I am in the womb of the mother, Visible.
Words of wisdom from Anura
Continue to reach me.
“This state of a photon-being
a quantum of light
Is a blessing worth having
What you do and where you go
Are the transformations defining
Being and becoming
Relax and wander
in the vastness of the universe
Nothing can travel faster than you
No state of rest for you
The words, space and time
Not part of your vocabulary,
Your frequency, your wavelength
The speed of your travel
They belong to others’ lingo
No need to pay attention to them.
What your mother gave you
With blessing of the Great Power
Is your special quality
What they all call electricity.
“Between the edges of
this endless universe
Your kind are the only messengers.
Between you and the beings
There is a life-like bonding.
The messages. you send into their eyes
Are their enlightening states
Every object you encounter
Scatters you with its signature on you
Touch anything black, you shall be annihilated
Touch anything white you shell be reflected
Tiny chlorophyll of a green leaf
Can swallow you totally
Human in particular
Can trap you in crystals
Stretch and change your colour
Make you do all kinds of things
they can rewrite your horoscope
In this entire universe
Only humans are like Cosmic designer
If you make a mistake
In this endless world
Variety of black holes abound
The worst that can happen to you
Is to disappear into one of them.
Avoid them at any cost.
Salvation must be your goal
Getting close to the Brahman
The supreme universal soul
To reach its abode
you must enter the eye
Of an enlightened human being
A brahajnani par excellence
Reincarnation
Born deep inside the centre of a hot sun
Where all elements burn and mix
Tossed around and tumbling
No space to move around
Tired is the quantum
Bumped by everyone
Amid millions of energy quanta
Buried and ignored
For a million years.
Pushed into the depths
thrown up into the edges
Lost in the whirlpools
Wandering endlessly
Without a warning suddenly
While everybody is busy
Through a magnetic doorway
It got out into the spate
dark unfathomable
Empty universe
Poor quantum of light
had a sigh of relief.
Nobody in sight
To take away its energy
Or deflect, its path
Paying no attention to anybody
With its divine yet defined speed
With freedom and liberty
Unending happiness
Unending Happiness
The quantum of light
Started its journey
Looked Here and there
To find if anybody is three.
Spinning and jumping
Carrying their own load
As in a pilgrimage
All kinds of quanta are moving
Electrons, protons
Fragmented nuclei in variegated states.
They are not its own kind
Their origins must be different
They do not deserve to be noticed.
This one is a pure quantum
unadulterated dynamic category
There are some neutrinos round
Travelling almost with the same speed
Appears to have a defect in birth
They keep changing their state.
Anura’s words came back
“There is nothing in common
Between you and the rest
You are perfect and pure
You do not need the company
Of odd balls of creation
The goals I set for you are noble and high
I am sending you out
into the world of mortals
Your salvation is in joining
The quanta of life.”
So said the great divine power
never minding what it meant
Carrying the burden of the message
Began its long journey; In the endless Universe
Dreaming about the living cells
That are waiting to unite with it.
Into which Brahmajnani’s eyes
This quantum will enter
No one can tell. What might be the end?
What is the wish of the great power?
Self Sacrifice
At last the end of its long journey
That lasted through space for ever The photon
of electromagnetic energy
Landed on the petals of a flower.
“Whatever distant star is your source,
Your energy is a gift divine
Blessed am I to be in union!”
Exclaimed a living cell in the flower,
Receiving the light quantum with pleasure.
The photon did not enter a brahmajnani’s eyes
To illuminate his mind with brilliance.
Its eternity was lost in an instant
in the middle of the particles of pollen
The self-sacrificing quantum of light
The fuel that keeps the eternal fire.