The Vast Empty, an anthology of poems by Turiya (pen name of author Mamta) awakens the reader from their wakeful slumber. Some poems read like haikus and others like short stories. It celebrates the sense of infinity available to us in every waking moment, which goes beyond the confines of our understanding of space and time. Turiya hopes The Vast Empty will give people the comfort that their questions and experiences are more universal than they thought.
The word Turiya refers to the fourth state of pure consciousness in Hindu philosophy. It transcends the dreaming, waking and dreamless sleep states. In it, the self becomes one with the unlimitable vastness of the universe.
The Vast Empty explores the idea of being and moving between the spectrum of wakefulness and sleep; is what we think sleep, a rebirth? The poems are reflective and take you to different places of aching longing, love and timelessness.
Turiya draws inspiration from nature and the inimitable Rainer Maria Rilke. For her poetry is a means to take people on introspective journeys of their own life and help them explore their truth, and perhaps capture in words those preeminent feelings and questions that remain unformed and unasked.
In her poem Wander Deep Turiya writes:
“Each time you breathe
You get closer to the deep
The closer you get
The further you reach
Till you bridge the chasm
Between you and many lives
And across time and space
When you travel everywhere
By being still
And in one place.”
Turiya’s fluid words gently hold the reader’s hand and lead them with simple words to deep ideas of our infinite iterations in time.
By acknowledging the presence of the everyday, the poet examines the idea of the metahysical. Turiya paints a comforting and familiar picture in her poem Perfume,
“A strain of music wafting from an open window on an early autumn evening,
The mystic blue of the sky at dusk as it converges slowly into the inky black of the night,
The muted yellow glow from an upstairs window filled with hints of intimacy
Evidence of everyday life.”
Who among us has not experienced moments that fill the soul with the peace of waves gently lapping into the seashore?
Turiya effortlessly braids moments of self-awareness, an understanding of life and the spiritual into verses. The result is a collection of elegant poems conceived and written without artifice.
‘The Vast Empty’ deserves to not be categorised into any genre. Its poems deserve to be savoured one by one. The oscillations between ideas and feelings and the beauty of the words and the thoughts they represent must be enjoyed.
In a post-pandemic world that confronts us with questions of who we are and our significance, it is an oasis. The poems prompt us not to lament our limited time but to be fully present in each moment with a light touch and an open heart.
