Samsara The Four Seasons Of Life

1. Childhood: The Warm Winter of Life

Winter corresponds to a person’s childhood, when he or she is a child embraced, provided for, and protected by the family and society.
Each child is exactly like a seed that is hidden under a layer of safe and warm soil. The seed lies there, accumulating the energy of heaven and earth, waiting for the day to sprout and grow out of Mother Earth.
At this time, the soil plays a very important role, and parents are like this layer of soil. Parents and the family atmosphere are the soil that nurtures the child’s childhood.

A lucky child is like a lucky seed that falls into good soil. Good soil is fertile and full of nutrients. Good soil will nourish and care for the seed, helping the seed to sprout beautiful and unique flowers for life. The seed contains all the potential within it — the soil is just the medium that helps the seed to blossom — the flower it contains within. The soil has no control and should not try to change the nature of the seed, no matter how good the intention. The rose seed will bloom a rose, the sunflower seed will bloom a sunflower. When parents try to force their children to follow certain ideas and expectations, they are unintentionally killing the potential of the seed.

The only thing the soil should do is to prepare itself well enough to provide everything the seed needs for its blossoming. The most important thing every parent should do is to prepare the best environment so that the child can be protected and freely explore all the potential hidden within itself.

Christianity has a beautiful parable about sowing seeds: “A sower went out to sow seeds for the new crop, some fell on the path and were eaten by birds, some fell on rocks and were scorched by the sun, some fell among thorns and sprouted but did not grow; and then some fell on good soil, where they sprouted, grew and bore a heavy flower carrying hundreds of new seeds.”

Children are the seeds that God sows in the field called humanity. The more seeds that bloom, the more humanity will bloom. The work of parents is very sacred and delicate, because they are not just soil, they are gardeners, God’s garden. Most parents do not realize that they hold in their hands the entire potential of humanity — and that potential is sometimes hidden inside just one seed.

One good seed will give birth to hundreds of other seeds. And from those hundreds of seeds will be born thousands, that is how everything grows, that is how a seed covers the whole green earth. The world does not need tens of thousands of geniuses, but just a few geniuses are enough to change the whole world. A Leonardo Da Vinci, an Edison, an Einstein, a Mozart, a Van Gogh, a Lao Tzu, a Jesus, a Buddha… They are the ones who have blossomed, have reached the peaks of existence and changed the way of life of all mankind. The most special thing that we forget is that they were all just a small seed.

“The mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it can become a big tree, where birds make nests and animals live under its feet.”

Every parent is not only a farmer but also a piece of land, a soil, so parents need to always be aware of their responsibility in creating the best environment for their children, especially during the period when the seeds are still germinating in the soil.

Just looking at the surface, most people will imagine winter as a dead season: everything is silent, covered with ice and snow, trees are bare and lifeless: no leaves, no flowers, no fruits. Animals hide to wait for winter to pass and even birds stop singing.

But that is just the surface, what you do not know is that without winter, spring is also impossible. Winter prepares all the necessary conditions for spring to be born brilliantly. Winter is the mother’s womb “pregnant” with spring.

In fact, winter is not as dead as you think, it is actually the season of life, the season when all of nature is nurturing itself. Autumn spreads ripe fruits to sow seeds into the soil. The autumn rains soften the soil, making it easier for the seeds to enter the ‘mother earth’. The leaves fall to save energy to nourish the plants during the winter and become a blanket covering the seeds. The leaves rot to create nutrients to nourish the young seeds.

Autumn passes. Winter comes.

In winter, all things enter a state of “meditation” to store energy, from animals to plants. We only see how useful this huge source of energy is when spring comes, trees sprout green, grass grows densely, flowers bloom, butterflies fly bustlingly, bees buzz, birds wake up and sing loudly across the sky… It is as if God has just woken up from a long sleep, put on his slippers, went out into the garden, waved his magic wand and everything comes to life. Could the wonderful scenes you see in spring happen without a long winter for the plants to store energy within themselves?

So winter is exactly the season of childhood, when a child is born and nurtured by the family. It does not need to do anything — just play. Of course, it also learns, but its learning is passive. It learns through playing, through observing, through exploring everything around it.
It has the right to be lazy, the right to be naive, the right to be irresponsible, the right to live without purpose.
The right to live a clean life — without attachment to the past and without worrying about the future.
A truly “heavenly” life.

According to the Indian way of dividing the seven-year cycles, the childhood season will last from birth until the child reaches about fourteen years old.
However, the first seven years of life are still the most important years, because they will determine the direction of the child’s life later on.
These seven years are like a seed still in its hard shell.
The next seven years are when the seed begins to break that shell, take root in the soil, and prepare to grow out of the soil.

Depending on each family’s circumstances, a child’s childhood is valuable — or not.
If it is born into a soil filled with nutrients of love, freedom, and respect, it is of course much better than a toxic soil without love, without freedom.
Then, depending on each family’s circumstances, the child will have a long or short childhood.

My childhood, my winter, did not last 7 years or 14 years — it lasted a full 10 years.
During the first 10 years of my life, I was a seed of freedom and happiness. I was supported to open my potential and interests in every direction.
During those years, I had no obligations or responsibilities to anyone, no duties or ambitions — a truly innocent and playful childhood.
What a blessing!

When a person lives a truly complete winter, that person will definitely have a beautiful and complete youth.

2. Spring: Youth, the Season of Dreams

When the seed boldly sprouts out of the warm Mother Earth and begins to live its own life, breathes the fresh air of the sky, becomes aware of another world outside the warm Mother Earth — that is the time when the spring of life begins.

Spring, or the season of youth, is the time for people to dream and experience life in every possible way. This is the time for people to live their lives in the most carefree and brilliant way.
At this stage in life, young people learn lessons through the journey of experience.

Youth — the color of spring is green, not only the green of leaves but also the green of the blue sky filled with hope.
Winter is white — the color of purity, innocence, the color of ice and snow.
Summer is the color of fire: the passionate, fiery orange-red.
And autumn is the yellow of leaves peacefully falling back to their roots.

Youth: this is the time when a person can live most vividly, most energetically, happily and freely — but this energy is very fresh and pleasant, just like the spring air.
At this age, people are ready to do everything, jump into life in every aspect, and constantly experience everything.
Spring people learn about life through experiences.

They are like people in love — full of dreams, full of hope and desire — and of course, they still have a bit of innocence left over from childhood.
And because of that remaining innocence, they do many things with a very playful, somewhat indifferent mindset.
They do not really see the pressure of life as a burden or a serious responsibility like adults in the summer.

I have experienced the spring of my life for a full ten years.
From the age of eleven, when I “left the protection of my family” to study far away from home, until the day I graduated, left the educational environment, and decided to pursue business by opening my first fashion store at the age of twenty-one.
Another “ten years”!
And I was ready… to fight.

3. Summer, the Season of Warriors: Ambitious, Determined and Full of Purpose

Summer is the season of blazing heat that fills the air. This heat is the heat of ambition, of the desire to shape one’s ego, the desire to assert oneself. This is the time for people to explode in ambition, work hard and reap success in both material and psychological life.

If spring is the season of blooming trees, then summer is the time when flowers begin to bear fruit. The more sunshine, the sweeter the fruit. A person at the ripe age of summer is often seen as a successful person, a typical example of youth, praised and admired by society. The more sunshine, the sweeter the fruit. The more determined and disciplined a person is, the easier it is to achieve great success.

The outstanding characteristic of a person in summer is the ability to live practically, sometimes pragmatically. They look at life with the eyes of a businessman, someone who does everything for the purpose of seeking benefits. They are not naive, nor do they have unrealistic dreams. If a Summer person has a dream, that dream will also have a specific goal and a clear plan. He is no longer as playful as he was in his youth, but sees entertainment as a way to relax and regain strength for new plans. Even his entertainment is tinged with practicality and calculation: who to hang out with, where to go, which friends to meet, who to give as a gift… Every action of a Summer person is practical and supports his ambition.

Spring people dream empty dreams. They dream and when they wake up, they forget their dream. Summer people wake up from their dream and will find a way to turn their dream into reality.

In short, Summer is the season of ambition, practicality, hard work and success. The characteristic of Summer people is heat: this heat is expressed in all aspects of life. They live in a hurry, live fast, live in a hurry, because there is so much ambition but so little time. Their energy is aggressive, even violent.

In a world where people see life as a war, then Summer people are real warriors. They learn lessons through “fighting” on all fronts.

If you are 30–40 years old and still dream a lot about life, full of desires but have no plan and do not work to make your dreams come true, then you are still a Spring person.

If you are old and still living a joyful life, without goals, without discipline and without any achievements to reap – then you are still somewhere in the Spring of life, no matter what age you are.

When Spring people have had enough of daydreaming and playing, they realize that daydreaming is useless, and they will take action to make their dreams come true. At that time, they become Summer people. A little achievement is what shows that a person has “ripened” in Summer and is ready for Autumn.

My Summer began at the age of 21 and ended at the age of 28.

For 7 years, I worked hard and achieved the results that I dreamed of when I was young. The cycle of 10 years of winter and 10 years of spring has now shortened, it only took me 7 years to complete this summer. From now on, I feel that life passes by at a faster pace and lessons are learned faster.

There is a reason why my Summer passed quickly, it is because my Winter and Spring were lived correctly. Living the previous seasons correctly supports the following seasons a lot. I realized this only after I had gone through it all.

It will take many people a lifetime, or sometimes many lifetimes, to learn the lessons of Summer – Harvest. Many people live their whole lives without achieving anything, and when you have not achieved anything that makes you happy, it will take you a lot more time to complete it. That is why many people are old, older, before they start to reap the successes of life, and only after they have reaped, are they ‘naturally’ allowed to enter the next season: Autumn.

4. Autumn – The Season of Letting Go, Letting Go, the Season of Rest

After going through the fiery summer, people are tired.
When people are tired, resting is an inevitable need.

In the Autumn stage of life, people become as cool and gentle as the autumn wind. They live a gentler, more peaceful life. Of course, they are no longer as dreamy as in their youth, and are no longer burned by the ambitions of the Summer. People have lived, worked, and harvested, and now they begin to feel burdened. The invisible burdens in their minds and souls make them learn to give and gradually let go of the things that make them tired: responsibilities, obligations, ambitions, and material things.
Even if necessary, they are willing to give up the so-called honor or dignity — things that were extremely important when they were warriors in the Summer war.

Autumn comes only after people have gone through a full Summer, have achieved their ambitions and successes in life, have gone through the days of partying, have tasted the “tastelessness” of success, and realized the burden of the ego.
Only after achieving it do people see its meaninglessness and begin a process of self-purification of their lives — just like the way ripe fruits fall from the branches and dry leaves fall from the trees.

Autumn is the season of giving, of giving. Society uses the word “dedication” to talk about people who have reached this season, but in their eyes, they do not see it as dedication. Dedication is a word used by people in the Summer — when they give, still full of calculation and will.

Autumn people do not see their giving as dedication. They only see it as something to do — and what to do is to “give back” to society what they have harvested, because they no longer have the strength to carry it any longer. They are willing to give without any conditions, just to make themselves at peace.
The giving of Autumn people is very beautiful — as beautiful as Autumn.

There is a saying about Autumn that I love very much: “The autumn shows us how beautiful to let things go”

Autumn makes people live a little slower, breathe deeper, notice things that they didn’t bother to notice before: the beauty of the moonlight, the rustling of leaves, the fragrance of ripe fruit on the branches, the sound of rain falling on the porch…
In Autumn, trees not only lose their leaves but also their fruit. The ripe fruit is full of mature seeds, preparing for a new season of sowing.

The tree loses its leaves because it needs to save its vitality and sap to nourish the things that are growing inside. Although Autumn people’s bodies may become old, deep inside, they begin to feel a new “being” forming. This “being” seems very sacred, very close, and also very healthy. This being is the seed of awareness that is growing strongly inside, making them feel like they are revived — or even reborn. Rebirth is a return. Rebirth is something completely new.

I started the Autumn of my life at the age of 28.
This year (2020) I am 30 and can feel time passing faster than ever.
I am enjoying the Autumn of my life slowly but very deeply.
It seems that the deeper I live, the less time it takes to learn the lessons of life.
The more aware I am, the more my intelligence blossoms, making learning easier than ever.

Autumn is the season of letting go and letting go.
Autumn people learn lessons through their letting go.

To have a successful Autumn letting go quickly, one needs to have the ripe fruits of Summer.
Otherwise, what do people give up? What is there to give up?

That is why there are many middle-aged people in society, but it is not right to consider them as Autumn people. They are old, and they talk about letting go, but they are still very greedy and calculating. They do not really let go at all. A successful, rich, and powerful person — but if he is still immersed in it, wants more, and does not want to reduce — then he has not yet reached Autumn. Many successful people are willing to give a lot of money to charity, do a lot of charity work — but the purpose is to beautify their name and business. Then this giving is simply business. And when people still have a business mind, it means they are still in the war. Being in the war means being in Summer.

Do not confuse age and success to mean that they are “ripe.”

Only when one is willing to let go freely, without calculation or purpose, then their letting go is beautiful: the true beauty of Autumn.

Like a leaf leaving the tree, with no regret.
Like a tree letting go of the leaf, with no lingering…