An Empty Mind is a.....

... a Devil's Workshop?? Is it? Really?? I guess not.. You need to be very smart to do Devilish Works. Empty mind is far to 'Spiritual' to venture into evil... There are many who have been trying to attain this state of mind, this emptiness thru meditation, thru yoga, and so many other ways to bring peace to their wandering minds. It takes lots of efforts and sometimes efforts of lifetime in attaining moksha . Reminds me of Neo's jump across the rooftops in the movie Matrix. "Free your mind"... "Okey dokey... free my mind. Right, no problem, free my mind, free my mind, no problem, right..."  

Okey dokey... no problem... is it? I'm sure most of us would not have thought this way. OR if we did, we would have not tried hard enough to dig deep within and search for the happiness or satisfaction or peace. OR we might have tried and not reached there. Yes! It certainly is a tough task.

Recently a close relative of mine was asked to take a vacation for medical reasons. The person in question was posed with a difficult question - What would I do simply siting idle at home? I'm used to work. With so much of time and nothing to do, it'll make me more sick! Of course, we made him take some time off from his work so that he gets back to his good health. 

This incident made me think about how difficult life would be for who retire from their regular jobs. Jobs that they've been doing all their lives and suddenly there's nothing to do. One fine day there's no morning rush to office, no bosses or colleagues, no lunch-breaks or tea-breaks, no looking forward to returning home... It must be awful - the vacuum - the emptiness. 

Of course, I would certainly enjoy a couple of days with all the above 'No's as a vacation. But then at the end of the vacation I still would have to get back to work with 'renewed' energy and vigor. I've never thought of a permanent vacation... And there might be so many others who also are as clueless as I am if not more or less.

Few days back I traveled abroad on a 'business visit'. And during this visit I met a lot of people who worked on the same project. We interact regularly thru mails and messengers and calls. But this was the first time I was interacting with them in person. There are many things I learned from this trip but here I'll restrict myself to the stuff which is related to this topic.

I met with people with a variety of interests - one guy is a regular marathon runner, someone good at cycling, some having a stamp collection, some bloke a regular triathlete apart from being an awesome good guitarist, another lady who flies planes on weekends, others trying out wine-tasting. I mean each one of them had something to do in their idle time. In fact, they never have idle time. They are short of time for doing so many things, I guess. 

While, in this part of world, we are always short of time for all wrong reasons - missed deadlines, high-priority work coming last minute and things like that. Let me be fair to my counterparts - even they face such things in their professional life. But, personal time is religiously kept aside for family and other personal pursuits. 

This made me revive an old hobby of mine - stamps. Something which I had long forgotten as a thing of past. Something that I thought was good enough for only school going kids. Something that I had grown out off. 

Yes, I had grown out of it and add newer interests to my long list of likings. But could rarely find time for them. Now, I think its time to 'create' some time for myself and for things I'd always liked to do and wanted to do.

Will it bring some peace to this troubled mind? Something to satiate that urge? 

I really don't know what I want from life but I do want... need some emptiness for myself...