BEYOND EMPTINESS















“All the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace —
 arise from beyond the mind.”
- Ekhart Tolle

A couple of mighty names come before me today: Ekhart Tolle, Byron Katie, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Paulo Coelho, Rhonda Byrne….

All of them have one thing in common: before a breakthrough happened in their lives, there was a massive breakdown... Life had appeared utterly meaningless, blank and they all had thought of ending their lives… Ekhart Tolle tells his tale in the introduction to his remarkable book, ‘The Power of Now’… How unworthy feelings and emptiness had driven him to the suicidal brink…and, how, there, on that brink, everything around him – the old sense of self - dropped! Byron Katie’s path-breaking book, ‘Loving What Is’, has her story, too… How worthless she had felt in the asylum (Half house) where she was sent to… how undeserving she had felt not even to sleep on the bed… and, how, one fine morning, everything about her simply dropped! Dr. Wayne Dyer carried in him tons of anger and poison against his father, who had abandoned them when Dyer was a little boy… Dyer had turned to chronic alcoholism and anger had consumed him so much that he wanted to confront father to get even… He went hundreds of miles in search of his father with this sole mission… till the journey brought him to his father’s grave… There, standing in front of his father’s grave, the rock fell off his heart… Rhonda’s world, too, had crashed and there was nothing but emptiness staring at her till that moment came… and ‘The Secret’ happened… Paulo Coelho is everyone’s heartthrob, today… But, I am sure, hardly a few know his story. So, I strongly recommend the book ‘Confessions of a Pilgrim’ by Juan Arias. I suggest you read the confessions of Paulo… to comprehend the emptiness and trauma he had encountered in his life…

There are many more mighty souls, right from the times of Moses… Gautama had to leave his palace… Jesus had to pass the temptation on the mountain… Jiddu Krishnamurti had to walk off from the false sainthood built around him… In other words, they had to empty themselves… before finding a new meaning in their lives…

well, you and I are not a Gautama Buddha or a Jesus Christ… We are not a Paulo Coelho or an Ekhart Tolle. But, then, our story of finding meaning in life is no different from these mighty souls… Don’t you agree? We all hit the rock bottom in our lives… We all encounter emptiness in our lives… and – we may not like to admit this – many of us do think of ending it all… Don’t we?

At our Tai Chi Camp, last week end, we had a wonderful woman by the name Thrity Engineer. She lived in London for years, and was on a visit to India for a few days. During this short stay, she had decided to learn a bit of Tai Chi from our sir, Rakesh Menon, at her residence in Bandra. Sir had invited her to our Camp.

Mrs. Thrity, with her affectionate and sincere persona, immediately gelled with all of us. In the evening, just before my new book was released, our sir requested her to share what she did back home in London. In her story, we came to know that, some twenty years ago, when she lost her marriage and all the money, her world had collapsed, all of a sudden, and her life had hit the rock bottom… Emptiness loomed large and life seemed meaningless. It was at this time, she chanced upon the life theory called ‘Coherence’ and the old sense of victimhood dropped to make way for a purposeful life… She became an advocate of this new life of ‘Coherence’ and went on to write two books to propagate this new life-lesson called ‘Beyond Emptiness’…

On Saturday night, as Mr. Thrity was sharing her experience with us, the phrase, ‘Beyond Emptiness’ stayed with me…

Is there life beyond emptiness?

The path to ‘coherence’, evidently, is through ‘incoherence’… That mysterious barrier called ‘Void’… ‘Emptiness’… ‘Zero’… or ‘Nothing’!

“Ma’am, you are our Guest of Honor tonight,” something made me tell Mrs. Thrity, “Please do the honors of unveiling my book.”

I am fortunate, that Mrs. Thrity gracefuly obliged.

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Vikram Sharma

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MUTHU KODI KAWARI HADA

Image
Pic.; Ashwin Mohta M y Hindi was always bad. It still is. One reason for this was, that they introduced Hindi for us only in 6 th standard. Or, was it in 8 th ? I don’t remember… I only remember struggling to write and read… leave alone speak! But, I loved Hindi movies, and, strangely, I could understand the dialogues and the lyrics of the songs… I used to sing those songs (of course when no one was around me!) as if I was the lyricist… One of the songs was a very funny one. ‘Muthu Kodi Kawari Hada’. It was from Mehmood’s super-hit comedy – ‘Do Phool’. I was a 15-year-old high-school boy when I had heard that song (not watched the movie). I could grasp the meaning of two words – ‘Muthu Kodi’… which meant ‘Give kiss’… But, what ‘Kawari Hada’ meant, I have no clue till date! It was just like ‘Why this kolaveri di’... Yes, why ask? Simply enjoy the beats… And, the beats are great… The rest... Who cares? Really! So, whatever bit of Hi...
Read more

SELLING MIRRORS IN THE CITY OF THE BLIND

Image
“I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. I laugh when I hear that people go on pilgrimage to find God.” - Kabir T here is a universal human weakness – and it dates back to the days of fallen civilizations – and it is: to place people on pedestal and trying to be smothered by them, feel loved and protected in their company… worship them as mentors, heroes,  gurus, Mahagurus and Satgurus… Make these mortals larger-than-life cut-outs, worship them as flawless, pure and give one’s all… And, then, ‘take’ everything from them blindly as divine… Give everything to them blindly… Eventually, what happens is:  one more dangerous bondage… What was supposed to free you now becomes a new prison… It’s sad to see this happen! T his room, where I am writing this Post, has no image of any deity. I have no image of any Guru or Master around me… My question is: “Am I not able to feel close to Almighty God?  How ...
Read more

"HAPPILY EVER AFTER IS NOT A FAIRY-TALE... IT IS A CHOICE"

Image
“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone… It has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” – Ursula K. Le Guin,  The Lathe of Heaven T welve years ago, when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie got married, the world began to hail the couple as ‘Brangelina’. It became a fashion for couples around us to call themselves so… Norbert and Teresa renamed them as ‘Noresa’…  Amol and Vishaka baptized their relationship as ‘Amoshka’… and, Salman and Nargis became ‘Salgis’! I and my wife, too, got tempted to re-christian our matrimonial relationship as ‘Germa’... That is, Gerald and Anima, to be precise! B efore I proceed any further, let me make it very clear, here… that, I have no business to judge on the break-up of Brad Pitt and Angelina’ Jolie’s marriage. I have no inclination to go into why, how, what when etc behind it… The couple ‘chose’ to split. And, it’s their choice… Only they know how good or bad… how joyful or pain...
Read more
THE WILD, WAYSIDE FLOWERS
There is, always, something extra-ordinary in the wild, wayside flowers...