Nothingness Can Create Immense Possibilities
Every now and then in life, we reach a point where it becomes essential to empty our cups, a state I spoke about in my last blog.
Emptying your cup is essentially about letting go of your past beliefs, prejudices, thoughts and perceived limitations — basically ‘unlearning’ — to learn something new.
But there’s another more important reason to empty your cup — to reach a state of nothingness.
Because, in the moments in between, when you let go of your previous learning and create a blank slate — waiting to absorb the new — is where your maximum potential lies, to create something unlike anything you’ve created before.
Creativity lies and emerges from a state of emptiness and nothingness…
A space where you don’t know what will unfold, but you’re still open and willing to experience what emerges.
Yoga has a breathing practice called shoonyak, which can be translated as the ‘zero state’. It teaches you how to suspend your breath after an exhalation, and hold that emptiness for a few seconds.*
In those few seconds, you truly experience nothingness… Your mind is stilled as it is focused on holding that nothingness. It stops chattering, and thoughts are kept at bay.
Being in the present moment frees you of past memories and future anxieties.
And, liberated by the fact that you can survive even for a few seconds without breathing, makes you realise that life can show you multiple possibilities, in a state of calm and quietude.
The yogic breathing technique of shoonyak is a great way of letting go — Letting go of everything you thought you needed to survive, or thought you were and knew, to discover what you don’t know, or the unknown.
Creativity too reaches its peak when we have absolutely no resources to depend on…
When there is nothing within you, and you are down to zero, you think of newer ways to create and express yourself.
Throughout my career, I only played with the written word, thinking it was all I could be flexible with… I changed words, and restructured thoughts to write all forms of content to make them easy to read, interesting stories.
The process gave me much joy and comfort. But I soon realised there was something missing…an element of me waiting to be discovered.
So, I took a short sabbatical to learn about the intricacies of yoga…
To see how its theories and techniques could help my philosophical enquiring mind with more fodder.
What dawned upon me next, was that the mind is at its finest state when it’s blank…when you create enough emptiness within it to hold the unknown.
If you have to stretch and stretch some more — be it the mind or the body — all you need to do is create more space…
Space for old ideas to be exhaled and new ideas to be inhaled.
This for every creative is shoonyak, or the space of nothingness, where the potential for creativity and originality lies.
My sabbatical is like shoonyak for me, the state of nothingness… A kind of breathlessness, during which I wait to inhale the next long inspiration.
In the meanwhile I’m not planning the future or holding on to the past…
I simply absorb the present moment with calm and strength, reassured in the fact that it will take me to its rightful destination!
*Disclaimer: Please do not practise advanced yogic breathing practices, like Shoonyak, without supervision.
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