Shunya and Drudgery

It is not unusual sometimes to be in a state of less or absolutely no self awareness. At that time one is not aware of people around and one feels as if one is floating. There are no aspirations, no competitions, nothing whatsoever. What kind of state is that? Perhaps, that is what they call Shunya in Buddhism. At times it frankly does not matter how much I learn or how people perceive about me. A lot of things do not matter at all. A lot of things seem pointless. Nothing really matters towards the end. All daily struggles, fighting hard to move ahead, etc. all seem pointless from a distance. Stillness of the mountains, flight of the birds, movement of clouds, freshness of air, freshness of visages, all of them appeal more and more to me. Also, pointless seems the efforts to gain self-importance, to hear from others’ tongues how wonderful a job we are doing. Why is acceptance of others so important?

All along the way, I met a lot of people (I still do) who enjoy complicating matters. There are a lot of ‘entry barriers’ created in almost all the diverse fields that we can come across. There is a deliberate and intense attempt to complicate matters, even when things can be kept simple. If things are kept simple, people believe, it is likely to be less important in the eyes of people. What ever the perception it still remains the same thing to the core. Why cant we concentrate on the core of the matter, the real substance?

A lot of people are not able to see through a lot of things and mistake a deliberate and craftily crafted illusion to be the ‘real thing’.

Seldom in our life do we look back to see what we are doing. We just try and live an ‘acceptable life’ -- acceptable to whom? If one watches things from a distance one will know how products are getting pushed to them, the things they do not need and can easily live without, or worse still, their life is better without those products; and also how the cash in their hand is being utilized.

No one explores whether there is a better way to live. We just keep living, working tirelessly to pay for EMIs, gadgets we don’t need, etc etc. We can’t stop and think. Who will pay for those loans otherwise? Creativity never thrives in drudgery. It needs an open field, a wild imagination. You can’t be a slave and be creative at the same time. A slave has no imagination, no will.