Walking straight, walking on the mountain listening to The Times They Are A Changin’ I saw nothing, neither the trees nor the rocks, neither the shadow nor the light, and just kept walking ahead. Mountain talked, I didn’t hear, until I bent a little. It said, ‘you will reach your destination, you will, for sure’, and happily I smiled, crossed my hands behind my back and continued walking.
Swiftly I moved forward, there was no stopping me. Dashing ahead I crossed jungles after jungles, I played with the shadows and the light, I didn’t even wait for the wind. Like a curse, definitely a curse, a disaster hit me – I started panting. It never happened all this while, why now? Then I remembered faintly of what the mountain told me… I pleaded it to guide me again, the mountain listened. It said, ‘know patience, know the truth and its power’, I bowed down and stopped walking. I stopped for the first time in my travel; I learned the art of deep breathing. Ages passed there; then I left in search.
In search of what I was looking for. I was looking for what I was in search of.
Familiar with the pace of the trees canopying me, stopping and listening to the rocks and their untold gathas, attuned with the shadow and the light, I kept walking when I reached near a ferociously musical river. It carried along ocean’s depth and waves’ nimble notes… ‘will merge with the ocean, I do not wait for anyone’, replied the river to my question – can you please let me pass.
So I changed my path and followed the river. Who said you can’t? Change… change and move ahead.
Right where the river met the ocean, where it all seemed to end, where trees, rocks, shadow and light all disappeared, music stayed by my side and showed me a narrow, slippery way to cross the river. I stepped in, the water was cold, but shallow and so I could cross easily. It was shallow for a reason.
Shallowness exists for a reason.
With joy and cheer I continued along, I danced on the way, I slept peacefully and then walked leisurely. I sang, the tune echoed. My mind envisioned a valley of flowers and pink clouds when suddenly I tumbled down. I was hurt. My dream shattered and cold winds bruised me badly. It started hailing. I shouted angrily for snatching my peace. Who knows at whom?
The weather opposed me and pinned me down, I accepted defeat. I kept lying half dead for the time to change… when it did, I woke up and saw as the fog disappeared that there was a huge mountain standing in front of me. I couldn’t stop smiling, a new journey was going to begin. Climbing the mountain I listened again to Dylan’s The Times They Are A Changin’. I didn’t know it, but I was free.
I have always been free.
