Beautiful Mind

I sit at the edge of the spiralling stairs, looking out into the sky. It is dense. Each patch of cloud merges with the other, to form bigger clouds. There is a playfulness of the wind and the cloud, where they play hide and seek, tugging, nudging and making merry.

I have had a long day, of going to the village, seeing government schools function in haphazard manner, curiously observing children who sit in the corner reading, or playing with mud, or just dreaming, looking at broken tiled roofs, torn shirts that the child wears with ease, endless sights, endless arguments that run in the mind, spikes of anger that shoot and then subside momentarily. I walk back to my room. Climb the spiralling stairs. Listen quietly to the neem leaves rustle. It reminds me of the waves cascading on to large boulders. Therapeutic. Peaceful. Calm.

I try to look at the arguments of my mind. I listen to it almost as an outsider. I see my mind clearly. There is a relationship of the mind and the heart like the great expanse of the sky and the stars and the clouds and the wind. I am in love with the present moment – to know that I have a heart and a mind that is capable of being beautiful - of being able to nurture the simple joys of life, of being able to step out of the critical, judgemental, evaluating and pronouncing the dichotomy of what is and what must be. I am in love with the present moment because I can suspend the arguments to see the contrast of each trace of thought. To be able to see that there have been several oscillations that churns the mind with arguments and counter arguments – sometimes that brings us down to the deepest of low and despair, and then to the greatest of hope and joy and exuberance, is often a game with endless loops.

To be able to tell myself, that my heart and mind are free for a moment – free from the gravitational pull of arguments, to tell myself that my heart is pure, liberated , settled such that I can feel the freedom of choice to help, to give, to know, to share beyond my restrained emotion is to tell myself, in a mild whisper that I love my heart and mind.
It is this mind that i want to nurture. It is this heart that I want to tender. It is this mind and heart that I want to hold close to me – for I see that there is love and giving and feeling the complete presence of my body, my soul , to the choices that I have made.

Knowing well, that there could have been a zillion other possibilities in another world that I belonged, I see a difference in the choices of the heart that I have made. The vast expanse of wanting to nurture a desire to change and create a world a little less unjust for the most battered, has allowed me the equanimity of being collected, unflappable, calm. It is through the choice of a free mind, that I have come to love very deeply. This I want to cherish. I want this moment to be frozen for a little while longer. As the wind blows the clouds away, and allows the moon to shine through, to bathe the lilting palm trees with its silvery rays, I am in love.

I will need to renew my vows, when I know that the human failings trickle the mind and the heart. The trepidations grip you and you resort to the habit of going with the gravity of occurrences without being mindful – then I will need to build a case, hold on to an un-fractured augment, tell my mind and heart that it is for me to hold on to the possibilities that lay ahead of me now and then, in being a good human being who has a beautiful heart and mind. I need to inspire myself from within the beauty of my being. I love myself, my heart, my mind and soul.

I hold on to this moment, a little longer in the wind, as the clouds churn through the ruffle, I feel little rain drops fall on my cheek. I close my eyes. I smile. My hair is delicately ruffled by the chill wind. I allow the moment of love to linger.

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