Embracing “Nothingness”

Embracing “Nothingness”, Should there be a necessity always to create?

Can’t I just be myself and not a creator? Every one of us is on a journey, but we fail to acknowledge it. The thought crossed my mind while we were walking on the beach this week. As we walked forward, my son asked why were we going forward since we would have to walk back the same distance again.

I pondered over and questioned myself: From the reference point of my journey’s start, how long will it take to go back? The contemplation of my journey revealed a thought-provoking yet uncomplicated understanding of life.

We act out a drama on this planet, which is like a stage.

Throughout our lives, we act out a drama on this planet, which is like a stage. The kind of life you lead is entirely your creation. Like Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts”. We all are constantly building the script of our life plans, always planning the next step we must take. The constant movement forward.

However, prevents us from realizing we need to come back to achieve a blissful state of mind. As we go deeper into this drama of life, it takes longer to come back. But if we’ve exhausted all our energy moving forward, will we have enough energy to come back?

Further, I share the insightful yet straightforward perspective on life that I learned during the course of my spiritual awakening.

To experience a spiritual awakening in life, we need to acknowledge that it occurs when your life is running smoothly

The first step towards this new spiritual understanding is to realize that we can start our journey backwards when our lives are running smoothly, with minimal complications. We cannot focus on this spiritual understanding when faced with problems because they divert our energy. To experience a spiritual awakening in life, we need to acknowledge that it occurs when your life is running smoothly, and you feel content and satisfied.

You should also keep in mind that you need to take one step further every day. Just as when we cross one mountain, only then do we see the next – on your spiritual journey, when you feel you have ultimately settled down, you encounter the next dimension that needs your consideration.

You must remember that this confirms the steady progress of your spiritual journey! For instance, when I started feeling that the dimension of love- experiencing love, giving love and being in love, was an essential portion of the spiritual journey, the dimension of ‘nothingness- on being nothing’ surfaced.

Initially, I didn’t wish to leave the love dimension, which was intoxicating and made me feel vivified. Still, I wasn’t able to stabilize on the love dimension. Closing my eyes, I struck on “nothingness”, which gave me a feeling of unease, but I kept pursuing that feeling of nothingness.

During this nothingness, my thoughts transgressed over innumerable deliberations over various life dimensions and then returned to nothingness.

So, I just saw myself moving from nothing to these myriad thoughts over the different dimensions of life. That moment, I realized: we all are nothing, but then we are trying to be something- be something, become something. And to accomplish it, we keep creating something incessantly. We constantly alternate between episodes of “creation” and “nothingness”.

We all are nothing, but we attempt to be something, be someone, or become someone by striving for different things in life.

Looking at a group of people getting together for dinner, I observed that everybody in the group supposed that they were supposed to talk about something, be it Covid 19, real estate or the job market. How unnerving would it be if the group is asked to sit without discussing anything! Whenever we are expected to do nothing and say nothing, an uneasy feeling arises.

In get-togethers or discussions like these, it is common to notice that people at no point wish to take a pause, and a moment of nothingness seems like an awkward silence. To avoid this awkwardness, people keep the conversation going, responding promptly to the previous sentence spoken by someone, irrespective of its actual need.

However, in this process, most people are not listening to each other. The prompt and eager responses to every sentence that is being spoken signify the obsession we have to create something or the other. I call this inability to sit to nothingness as “creations”.

We are constantly creating one thing or the other as we build our lives, conversing with one another, going through different stages of our lives, meeting different sorts of people, and going to different places. As soon as we step out of this constant creation, we encounter nothingness.

Creation Versus Nothingness

During this journey, I felt a need to settle down to nothingness and be face to face with a void- I wished to see nothingness in me. I wanted to be comfortable in “nothingness”. But does this nothingness signify “hollowness”? or is this nothingness “complete in itself”?

Just take a moment and think about it.

Although we are all familiar with nothingness, there is a constant urge to create. During this period of nothingness, I ask myself: Am I supposed to create? Should there be a necessity always to create? Can’t I just be myself and not a creator?

I thought that if I became the creator, I would have to know the mathematics of creation to keep everything in balance. To be a creator seemed like I’d got all the cares of the world on my shoulder, and like the creator of this magnificent universe, it would be my duty to put everything in balance.

The nature around – the sun, the earth, the moon, and everything around us is in balance. I wondered that if I had to be a creator, I would need to astonish the world with the extent of my exemplary creations.

Our day starts with a period of nothingness as when we wake up, we sit down and marvel at the morning sun. However, very quickly we involve ourselves in the process of creation, engaging ourselves in doing so throughout the day. At the end of the day, we encounter darkness and once again a period of “nothingness”. But do we face this “nothingness”? No!

We resist this “nothingness”, which we should not because that is who we are. In this “nothingness”, we need to question ourselves: Who am I?

So how do you get to nothingness?

The state of being nothing is simply being yourself, just existing. A complete unit in yourself, with no urge or desire to be something or create anything.

If we do an action unintentionally or unwillingly, not expecting anything, can this be called “nothingness”?

When people do activities because they are supposed to perform particular duties, but they don’t affect it, can it be called “nothingness”?

For instance, if a person is carrying out mundane daily activities of their lives like driving to pick up their child from school, can it be called “nothingness”?

This is what I believe- This planet is like a stage upon which we are performing a drama. The kind of life you lead is entirely your creation. Whatever colour you wish to paint it, it is all your creation. You have already created it, and it will continue to exist. Moreover, several aspects of this life drama will keep you preoccupied with various responsibilities.

However, to achieve contentment, you must reach a point when you can let go some of your responsibilities.

But we must understand that the happiness you derive by letting go of your responsibilities is not everlasting. Although, this desire to abstain from participating in the stressful daily chores may appear rather soothing. However, once you are no longer engage in these responsibilities, there is a chance you will feel extremely distraught. This is because you desire to experience life’s complexities and achieving your objectives.

Is it possible to experience nothingness while we are in the drama of life?

As we go through the process of experiencing nothingness, we feel a moment of enlightenment. It is in this state of nothingness that we see ourselves emerging. I do not want to make this subject esoteric, beyond human comprehension, because this is our journey of nothingness to ask ourselves: who am I? In discovering myself, I entered a nothingness when I realized that we are nothing but light and sound, vibrating and pulsating.

So basically, what I experienced is life energy. This energy is not in the physical aspect but in the non-physical element of nothingness. It doesn’t seem inexplicable to you. Does it seem completely alien? No, it cannot. Because that’s who we are.

Still, as soon as we are over the process, we may again get engaged in our respective lives, performing responsibilities, arranging for household and professional affairs, planning for the future, among other things. Life is like a painting. We paint a line, draw together or draw against each other, splash colours on each other, or take away somebody’s colours. This is the whole drama of life.

Undeniably, we completely forget the spiritual experience of being in a state of “nothingness”. And from there, we move to our previous selves: we again become creators.

But again, the question is, how to experience this “nothingness”?

It felt as though I needed to experience “nothingness” when my son asked me why I was going forward when we were walking on the beach.

We all are constantly building the script of our life plans, always planning the next step we must take. Every day, we invest in the story we’ve made for ourselves. For an entire day, to experience this state, just detach yourself from your story for a day. Don’t script the plot of your story for one day. This is the moment to go backwards, towards the origin.

How straightforward and uncomplicated it is! Sitting in “nothingness,” not planning, fretting or pondering the next steps you want to take in your life. Detach yourself from your daily life! It may appear to be tedious and uninteresting.

But you must come to the realization that when you act on a stage, how well you know that you are performing. But when you are acting in your life, you forget it. In this “nothingness”, you can distinguish between the two parallels of your life.

These phases are reciprocal yet corresponding experiences of “nothingness” and the “acts on the stage of life”. One instant, you are nothing and at the other instant, then feel the need to act to become something.

This feeling to respond to something is because people are afraid of being nothing.

But, this “nothingness” is a sense of completion in itself. You are complete when you’re nothing with no desires. You are full of energy and vibrate to the full potential of being anything and everything.

Experiencing this made me perceive things in life differently. It wasn’t like my eyes were beaming, but I could feel the difference. I was still partaking in the daily acts of the drama of the life I’ve built, but I felt enriched.

Being through various stages of life, I am arriving at the point where being nothing looked scary. Knowledge from the outside sources we acquire from reading books or from the experiences of others gives us a false sense of being something and a false sense of detachment.

Hence, it took me time to reach an internal state of “nothingness” and I didn’t arrive at it immediately.

In this process of awakening, I observed one thing repeatedly.

Could I feel this detachment if I lose something or a person suddenly? What would be my reaction? Will the knowledge I’ve acquired come to any rescue? I realized that it wasn’t the case as knowledge is a collection of data that we all acquire in the state of being in existence, being something.

This “nothingness” allows us to feel from our point of view and not someone else’s. This is when I see myself progressing.

The path to reach “nothingness” starts from observing the “somethings of life”.

The aspects of life that keep you involved, engrossed, and entangled are those we need to focus on. It is a journey backwards when we see the extent to which we are entangled. It is hard to move back when everyone is moving forward.

I am not the first to have gone through these experiences as many people have expressed these kinds of reality where “nothingness” overpowers them. But when I see it coming to me, I say: it is worth it. It is a goal worth accomplishing.

I call this journey “demystifying” because there is a mystery. I am demystifying, and there is fear in demystifying. Most of us want to leave some mystery, but once you demystify, you have to come to a point where you need to choose whether to want to create. When you are not creating, you are vibrating and pulsating and in the rhythm of existence.

Hoping for a new normal of “nothingness.”

Looking at the world after the Covid 19 pandemic, I wonder at the word: “normal”. After the pandemic, the new normal is the Covid vaccination. A new normal signifies people wearing masks and being fully vaccinated. We’ve set up new normal, but who thought this would ever happen?

Likewise, I envision that being in “nothingness” will be the new normal for people worldwide. The strive to set a foundation for the state of “nothingness” to be the new normal depends on how many people start to realize, recognize and comprehend this for others to follow.

This realization among people to reach this new normal to incorporate being in a state of “nothingness” during their daily acts of life is what I endeavour for individuals around the world!

Not only because it helps us to move back to contemplate of the question of your “being” but because it is during this nothingness that your brim with energy and vibrate at your highest level, capable of being anything and everything. Read More!