In The Autumn of Goodbyes…

“When you knew that it was over, you are suddenly aware that the autumn leaves, were turning to the colour of her hair….” 🎶

These beautiful lines from ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’, a beautiful award-winning song, brings to light the actuality of our living. Alan and Marilyn Bergman, the authors of this song, beautifully highlight the churning of our minds circling around like a windmill. Where, oh where, are we led to?

Listening to the song, composed by Michel Legrand, a French composer, causes a flutter from within, and as much as I want to reproduce the whole song, here, I restrain, for then my efforts to arouse your curiosity to listen to this song might go in vain.

The circles are on and on as they churn in thoughts every second, lasting a lifetime, and when the last autumn of our life appears, what is it we recall? The brilliance of life, or the events which appeared faintly as we perceived them.

The brilliance of life, was it ever known, or was it hidden in the face of our perceptions? May I ask myself, am I giving justice to the cause of my birth? If so then the brilliance of it, is in the living, in the joy of seeing all as it is, in the joy of knowing no want, in the joy of enjoying abundance, without the fear of losing it, in the joy of finding abundance in scarcity.

Can I be like a child, whose life is an open book, where abundance and scarcity are just 2 sides of the same coin, whose life is now, whether he is bird watching, catching a butterfly, or missing out on the chocolate he so much wanted to have?

The feeling of joy and sadness, bring in the real blend and culminate into what is actually life. Knowing so, wading through the ocean of life, is when you experience its actuality. When a part of it is not accepted, then we struggle within ourselves churning within, the mind’s windmills, and reach the autumn of goodbyes, cheated, as we never ever tasted the essence of true life.

As you go round like a circle in a spiral, and a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever spinning wheel (these lines are from the song), when is it that you can stop? How busy are we in our ever-whirling lives to really stop and feel, to look around this beautiful planet, we worked hard to get a visa to? Coming on to Mother Earth with an intention to experience and grow, and stuck in the whirlpool of ripples in a stream, where are we heading to?

Yes, we are heading to the end of our journey, blindly, circling only round and round like the windmills of our minds. Wisely as the great sages had observed, you can observe the universe from within yourself, when you observe as an observer does. However, when you look within, your intrinsic characteristic and perception marks your world.

The other day, Ganga, an acquaintance, came up to me and told me that her life had come to a standstill, as her children had settled abroad, and she lived alone with her husband with nothing much on hand to do. So to occupy herself, she socialised a lot and depended on friends and relatives to pass her time. She kept herself busy with worldly duties, and felt that this was the best thing she could do to keep herself busy, as she was so scared to be alone and with herself, that she worked hard all day long to please others to survive being in the world, avoiding loneliness at all costs.

When I heard this I was shocked. Wasn’t she too in the line, to get a passport and visa to the world? What was she doing? Did she not know that to pause and look around, she could pick up those lovely moments of life, which are necessary for blooming and growing?

Today understanding yourself, and being within has become a luxury, and so entangled are we, that as we get into the tunnel of life, which opens into a tunnel of its own, and there we go from a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone? (Again, quoted from the song).

Do we want to come out of our deep tunnels, and experience sunlight? Then we need to get out of the groove, we are in, of running and chasing things, and as we do so, the windmills of our mind too will stop circling round and round, and then, like the hands of a clock sweeping past the minutes on its face (again, from the song) will stop. Yes, time will stop, and will let you stretch your moment to eternity.

So the next time, you do something impulsively, stop, pause and do not do it then. Instead observe, and you will smile, when you know that this is it, the action was due to the churning of your mechanical mind, and when the action stops and you let be, then consciousness draws you towards what is to be – slowly, peacefully and then all that prevails is joyous. A love that is divine takes over and there you are, you have justified your entry here.

So enjoy your trip here on Earth…