THOUGHT VACATION

I powered my laptop and sipped my coffee the weekend hangover wasn't over yet. i keyed in the password with lumber & opened my outlook. A typical Monday morning i thought. hmmm back again. i should say to myself, ,"power up buddy i love my job this is the best i deserve and has luck ever abandoned me? Never. I've always got everything i wanted the trick has been to hang-on. to stay in the same distress and feel it , bear it , cry with it. the answer comes.All questions get answered, all desires get fulfilled."


I started my Monday morning with these thoughts circling me like ravens haunting an already rotten corpse. but who cares, it's a corpse anyway.To ease the pain a little , i geared up for a gmail chat session. Nikhil was online. Since i had been gearing up for MS in states for God knows how long and then got slammed in the face ; Nikhil was the only one who got thrown out of the ride along with me. We don't know each other much but pain turns load sharing acquaintances into friends. So he asked me what am i up to these days. I answered almost spontaneously , " I am on Thought vacation". "Now whats a thought vacation bro?" he asked.
When you get tired of hoping for hope, when pain becomes your closest ally when success becomes a distant dream , when you start feeling that your ship is in the midst of an everlasting tempest & future beams like a secluded lighthouse whose radiance you can only see but not touch , when, with every effort you find yourself slipping in the quicksand of despair; hopeless , tired , famished , craving for help; then you let it all go. You make peace with yourself , you start identifying with yourself you accept the twinge & RELAX.




Essentially it means: I wont be thinking about anything except what i am doing right now no future plans, no empty promises to self , no deception, nowhere to go , no dreams , no aspirations. JUST BE. being in the state of emptiness ,doing whatever is given to you.taking small steps and definitely not thinking about "Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?".
You stop living in future. You don't see yourself anywhere but today. You don't have to buy anything , you don't have to know anything , you don't have to have anything, you don't have to feel anything.


It's been only 3 months in this experiment and i can assure you it is bliss. You might say ignoring the future and not planning for it has to be bliss and i don't want any part of it.It's just a part of losers mentality; No effort-- No result. But i dont care much about what anybody else says or if it's written in the book of life; my question to myself is How long are you going to run? Take a break for a while . A real break not the fake ones we keep on convincing ourselves with. We take vacations , spend a month's, sometimes an year salary to run away from ourselves, from the crowd, from the pain, from the nuances of routine and essentially from bliss.It dosen't matter which cruise you book or which 'farthest from civilization' spot on the globe you choose and i've tried it a couple of times but it has been enough for me to understand one very important truth. YOU CANT' RUN AWAY FROM YOURSELF. No matter how many houses you buy , no matter how many cars you own, no matter how many ever-ready support shoulders you have to weep on ; you are alone.Every morning you might wake up with someone , every night you might sleep with someone, but between that you are alone.You go to work,enjoy some drinks with friends , organize a satsang, but it's like putting on a mask which bars your entry to yourself.




Thought vacation experiment has taught me something truly amazing. IF i am alone it's time for me to enjoy my seclusion. IF i am lost it's time for me to vanish in the dark jungle of truth where i am my only companion.IF i am a failure i have to enjoy my fiasco as if it's the last one. If i am a success and still feel that something is amiss, then it's time for me to immerse myself in this sensation and never settle till i am soaked in this overwhelming reality surrounding me. I will do whatever i can do and whatever i feel like doing. I am going to forget that i was ever born i am always gonna hark back to death and hold the cup of life in my palms and sip each drop as it is the last.


But how to do it? What goes on in mind when nothing goes in mind? How can you train yourself to do this? As far as i am concerned i thought i'd rather give it a try & watch what happens rather than wasting my time mulling over the process. It takes a lot of courage to get out of something you've spend a significant part of your life building up.You have to give up your perceptions of distorted reality, the hope for bliss, the sense of achievement and find out something more about yourself. I've always wondered what does Realization mean. What does a self realized person realize? I think he realizes his true nature. he realizes that no one can change the world by thinking about changing the world. Every man must take the responsibility first to change how they perceive the world , unlearn what ever they have learned all their lives. No charity, No support, No extremes. You have to stay in the system doing whatever you do and observe. Don't feel guilty about the past don't be hopeful of the future. Just watch everything that happens inside you. When you get angry watch the anger. You feel like eating eat and watch the eating. Cease being a NOUN be a VERB instead. Be the action , Be the love, Be the Failure , Be the Success Be the JOY. Everything we want in this world is a NOUN. Some want to prove they are smartest , some crave recognition , some are fanatics about money. Some think "hmmmm that person is really something , I want that". Your self esteem doesn't let you accept the truth in public but deep inside you crave the NOUN. Be somebody, Do something. I say, Be the process, change everyday. Be a NOBODY. There are infinite possibilities, It's only our limited world view that forces us to become abnormal,to be somebody we aren't, the true nature is hidden.Complete acceptance of who you are, knowledge of wherever you are it's because of the way you are.There is no destiny which has been written for me, nothing called Luck , there is no Fate , No GOD. No Judge. No one has created the world. The world might end tomorrow.No place to go after death. No recognition for the good deeds. No punishment for sins.


Once you realize this and feel it in every breath. YOU ARE FREE.
This is Thought Vacation.