Life is like the cyclic four seasons. Irrespective of anyone’s preference, each season emerges when due giving way to the next like thoughts in the human mind where the cessation of one is immediately succeeded by the emergence of another. During the cold, nature shrinks; in autumn, it sheds; in summer it expands, and in the spring she blossoms.
Seasons we dislike seem to last longer. Flowers bloom in springtime and it rains in the monsoons. The temperature drops in the winter and mercury rises in the summer-like consciousness that is affected by the state of prana in your breath. It is all pretty set, almost like a put-up-or-shut-up system.
Similarly, we all experience life’s various colors. Depending on what time of the year you are born, you may experience spring before autumn or vice-versa. And depending on where you are born, you may enjoy pleasant sunshine for most part of the year rather than bitter cold all year round. You learn to cope with weather conditions. You layer yourself in the winter and the opposite in the summer. You get yourself an umbrella during the rainy season.
In some regards, it is like always running away from what is at hand. We are always trying to save ourselves. Being one with nature means to experience and enjoy absolutely everything it has to offer. While you should save for rainy days, you are not exactly a squirrel – are you? Go, wet yourself in the rain sometimes — it may well be grace that’s trickling down. Experience the cold — it will only make you stronger.
When the sun of adversity is shining hot on you turning the warmth of life into scorching heat, you find unbearable, you may consider moving to a cold place. When life looks listless like the naked trees of departing autumn, you just need to be a little patient. Spend your waiting period looking at pictures of the spring or move to that part of the world where fall it is not.
Change is constant; it comes in small, immeasurable units just like even the heaviest downpour is materialized by tiny drops of water. That may not be the desired change, however. To seek the change you want, you have to make decisions accordingly. In fact, you have to become the change yourself. A radical decision means a leaping change and a more conservative one brings about safer change.
Or, the other option is to simply turn inward and know that experience of all external phenomena is merely a short-lived experience of the body. The eternal bliss, percolating drip by drip, within you, is now looking like an ocean.
You are safe, happy, and blissful inside — completely protected from all heat and cold. While you can see the beautiful colors of fall, it is always spring inside with countless varieties of beautiful flowers dancing of their perfect glory to the mellifluous notes of the gale of bliss (Anahata nada); just the right temperature. No muggy weather inside; no bitter cold — only indescribable beauty.
Go on, have a vacation! Take a trip to the quiet seaside of bliss within you. I can help you with the one-way directions. For, I am confident, you will not feel the need or the urge to return once there.
Peace.
Swami
Editorial Note
Our life has phases which are like the ever changing four seasons of nature. Whether we like it or not, we will experience the metaphorical winter, summer, spring, rains and so on…
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Here are a few questions worth pondering over for a smooth spiritual seasons of life.
What are the 4 seasons of life?
Have you ever wondered why we offer flowers in worship? It’s not just for colour and fragrance. If it were just for that, we could offer many other beautiful things. We could smear our deity in beautiful colours; we could spray him with perfumes and scents. But why flowers? There is a very real and beautiful reason behind it. You see, a flower is a living thing. It has life and with time it withers.
Buddha clarified further, addressing all his monks but looking at Mahakashyapa, “Everything is there, Mahakashyapa. Everything is just there. Nothing needs to be done. All you have to do is enjoy the beauty of this flower, with the mindfulness that this flower is not going to last forever – this will one day wither.” Same is with life. All the seasons of life are going to go by.
Japanese texts say that the first Zen sutra uttered by Buddha was Hana Wahraku, Ben Koku Na Haru which means that a single flower blooms, and throughout the world it is spring. Read more on seasons of life.
How to enjoy the 4 seasons of life?
When you are experiencing rainy days, take an umbrella or sit tight, be patient, clear days are just round the corner. If you always want a clear sky, you may have to live in the normally inhabitable deserts. When life appears dark like the sky on the night of the new moon, you can settle your gaze at the glimmering stars. When the sun is spewing fire, do not stare at it. Let it be certain in your mind that all the colors of the sky are only the most temporary phases. Your true nature like the blue sky is unaffected by all internal and external phenomena. Read more here.
How do seasons influence human life?
We are a part of Nature. Our nature (disposition, proclivities, habits …) is an extract of Nature. This is not a metaphorical statement but a scientific truth. For, the foods we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, all these were outside us once, they were in the Nature. Once we consume them, they are in us. They become us. We are made from them.
It is important to understand our own prakriti, constitution, so we may know what will suit us from prakriti, the Nature. Read more here.
Why are seasons important in our life?
Just like the sky can’t always remain blue, life can’t just have one color. Like the colors in the sky, the colors of life are temporary too. The dawn always follows the dusk, summers are greeted by the winters, days follow nights, but, these all are ephemeral expressions of duality; expressions of the conditioned mind, and an interdependent phenomena. Read more here.
Can seasons affect mood?
When the sun of adversity is shining hot on you turning the warmth of life into scorching heat, you find unbearable, you may consider moving to a cold place. When life looks listless like the naked trees of departing autumn, you just need to be a little patient. Spend your waiting period looking at pictures of the spring or move to that part of the world where fall it is not.
A GOOD STORY
There were four members in a household. Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. A bill was overdue. Everybody thought Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it but Nobody did it.
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