“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of, so they can see that it’s not the answer.” – Jim Carrey
I had just secured a podium finish in a half marathon, after putting in the hard work necessary for it. Congratulatory messages came my way from all directions. However after the emotions had sunk in, I found myself asking the question, “A few moments of joy squeezed between our constant inner battles. Is that’s all there is to life?”
There are times in your life, which you can never forget. The so called “highlights” in the game of life. These events may only last for a few moments but they leave a deep impact on you and change the course of your life. On that chilly February night, one such moment occurred to me, that forever changed the way I look at life and made me a spiritual seeker.
The moment that made me a spiritual seeker
I was a regular Class 9th kid who loved his Lord Shiva, his family, his friends, and the game of cricket. Like any other day, I did my homework, had dinner before going to bed. As I was lying on my bed, waiting to fall asleep, an insight struck me like a bolt of lightening. I could see my whole life passing by. I witnessed in vivid detail, everything and everyone that I love pass by, leaving me alone in the walk of life. I saw everyone that I loved, getting dissolved in the sands of time. The impermanence of everything and everyone was glaring at me, in that dark night. Those few seconds felt like eternity. This incident changed my perception about life. I now had tears in my eyes.
For the next few nights I couldn’t sleep. Neither could I share my experience with anyone as I didn’t think anyone would understand the pain I was going through. May be I was starting to lose my mind…
Your experience of life depends on what you focus on. Therefore after a few days, as I started addressing more pressing matters, such as studying well to get myself a job, pursuing girls and partying around with friends, the experience of that night receded to the background. With my priorities clearly set for the future, I entered college.
I entered college with the firm determination of enjoying my college life. The more I went horsing around, the further away I went from my spiritual core. Soon I went full throttle agnostic. However as divine plan would have it, despite my deeply entrenched cynicism towards spiritual gurus, I decided to enroll in a meditation workshop that was being organized in college. I loathed the idea of meditation and had this firm belief that meditation was not meant for worldly people. It should be noted that the motivating factors behind my enrolment were that I wanted to spend more fun time with the girl I was dating back then and I wanted to chill around with my friends. And so we did, we had a gala time cracking jokes with questionable humor.
Getting a feel of Spiritual Bliss
During the course, everything was going as I had imagined it would, before the meditation session began. The instructors had staunchly told us that no non sense shall be tolerated. Since now I had no option but to keep my mouth shut, I decided to immerse myself fully in this novel experience of meditation. Soon after, while meditating I found myself on a trip to sheer ecstasy. I had never experienced such a trip before, and have never experienced it again. This trip felt like a peek into ‘Sat-Chit-Anand’( In the philosophy of Vedanta, sat-chit-ananda is used as a synonym for the three qualities of Brahman. It is the supremely blissful experience of Existence, Knowledge, Bliss).
Soon, the meditation camp ended. Again my pre decided priorities of college life took over and so I stopped my spiritual practice. But by the end of my college life, I had got whatever I wanted out of my college life, with good friends, a steady romantic relationship with an actual girl, and a good job. Life seemed set…
“That day is indeed a bad day when we do not speak of the Lord, not a stormy day.” – Swami Vivekananda
Getting lost and finding a way back
Stepping into corporate life, I embraced the culture of ‘work hard and party harder’, with open arms. As frustrations and anguishes of daily life started to creep in, I resorted to booze to numb my mind. But soon, I started finding my life very hollow and was forced to ask myself ,”Is that’s all there is to life?”
This feeling of emptiness drove me into depression due to which I had to do some deep soul searching. However I was rescued from it through divine grace. While I was struggling to come to terms with life, a voice from within told me to try that “thing” from college, through which I had experienced immense bliss and so I did. My practice wasn’t perfect but still I experienced relief from the mental turmoil.
From that day onwards, I started being serious about my practice. Slowly the calmness brought about by meditation started permeating in other areas of my life. With regularity in practice, I started being more conscious of my thoughts. The increased awareness of one’s thought patterns brings with it, the obvious responsibility to guard your mind against negative thoughts as they inadvertently affect one’s behaviour. I started getting more aware of the negative things I told myself and to other people.
Like all of us, I too am a work in progress. With each painful experience I still find myself asking the old question, “Is that’s all there is to life ?” But then, when I sit in a cross legged position and close my eyes, I feel there is something much more to it.
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