Work – a spiritual experience

 

I am currently burning to ashes.

My will is broken.

I am exhausted to the point where my brain and my emotions are numbed down. 

My body sleeps hours and hours just to recover to a point where I can handle the next 24 hours.

Sounds horrible right? But believe me, I asked for it.

Yes, I asked to go through it.

Why? 

I am glad you asked. Well, I wanted to be better than I was before. I knew I had the potential to become something more. Hence I wanted to evolve. Every spiritual evolution comes from within. No spiritual experience comes easy. We have to put ourselves through the grind.  

A few years ago, there was a time in my life when I had several ideas running in my mind but I didn’t do anything about them. Every day I came up with some fantastic business ideas and some ideas for inventions. But, I was stuck in a routine which is, 

Waking up late – regret ? – having a lazy breakfast with some sprinkle of wasting time with Instagram and YouTube ? – watching sitcoms, and movies till the sun sets – regret again for wasting half of my day ?– (just) thinking of doing something until dinner time ?– at night actually doing something, writing down some creative things to do and then sleeping late with blind hope of waking up early. 

By the way, this was all pre-lockdown.

Fantastic. Right? Of course, I used to do other things too, but those were sparks once every 3 to 4 days. I knew inside myself that I had the potential to do a lot more. The regret was beating me from inside, challenging me to wake up, to seek more, to seek things I enjoy doing. In addition, I wanted to seek something that would make a positive impact on others, my nation, the world and the universe.
Also, I was lazy as a koala bear. I was the king of excuses. I could make excuses to avoid any kind of task that was given to me.

I could make up stories that would make people believe they were true.

However, all of this only masked the truth that I didn’t want to do work and ran away from it.

From childhood, I was surrounded by compulsive structures.

Like,

1. School – 8 hrs 5 days a week throughout 12 years, where I spent most of my time imagining things and looking outside the window. I spent most of the time waiting for the next spurt of joy like lunch breaks with friends, holidays, and vacations because I got to escape this horrible system. But at the end of the day, it was compulsory for me to go to school.
2. Family Business – since the age of 10 I have been coming to my shop to learn different aspects of the business. But after a few years, it started to bug me. Because I reached a saturation point. Although there is still a lot to learn and lots of potential for growth in this business, the saturated and settled mindset of people in my environment forced me to think only inside the box or escape from it. But at the end of the day, I had no choice. I had to compulsory work in the box.
3. Asthma – I suffered from it and whatever I did at the end of the day, I had to take a pump just so that I could breathe.

I had been going through these above routines and was conditioned to them for almost two decades. The potential and the will inside me got beaten up every time, but I patiently waited for another chance to unlearn, relearn and throw my potential out into the world shouting my will every goddamn time.

FAST FORWARD TO NOW: I am so busy today that even my ashes are burning. But I still want to keep working. From being a thinker, I became a DOer.

Whatever comes to my head, I ensure to bring it into action by the end of the day or just erase that idea from my head. Better than letting it rot inside my head.

Today, I refuse to give excuses to anyone instead I openly say “NO.” today I am not running away but running towards things that my will eagerly waited to do.

Today, however tiring the day might be, by the end of the day I am sleeping peacefully, knowing that- I am doing something worthwhile, I have learned something, today and I am better than who I was yesterday.

Yes of course I get burnt out to the point where I become crispy ashes. My throat sometimes hurts, my headaches due to stress, and my emotions are unpredictable. Many times I apply whatever I have learnt in various ways, but I don’t get any positive results. I have reached my emotional, physical, and mental limits – and this is a beautiful thing. Because now I have a chance to regrow from those burned-out ashes as a new Phoenix, more powerful than ever before. Today I can break the shell around my will and set it free. Today I have the opportunity to push myself beyond my past self.

This is possible only because of my work at Enterprise India Fellowship (EIF). It is not a job, it is meditation for me. It has been about nine months since I have been working there and I haven’t even realized it until now when I actually counted. I don’t care for the weekends or holidays anymore. I even miss out on family events or friend gatherings just to go to the Enterprise Space and WORK.

The opportunity to work for EIF has given me a chance to do something that impacts the people around me, the nation, the world, and the universe.

But why only work? People ask me, is that the only thing you do 24/7? 

Of course not. In fact, today I do a lot more than just work. I have taken on more responsibilities at home. I am having many first experiences in my life. But my work at EIF and more importantly the people around me there, have inflicted the experiences that I am having today. They have inflicted the point inside which makes me move every day and do something to evolve.     

Often, we forget that work is not just about our financial and social status. It is also about our evolution that will allow us to indirectly gain our financial and social status. And most importantly, the evolution of everyone and everything around us.

As conditioning has been in place for almost two decades, unlearning and unconditioning will also take time. Honestly, I don’t know how much time. Also, there might be days that I will not enjoy at EIF or any other project I’ll be working on. But I recently learnt one thing from this shift:

Sometimes when it gets tough – mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially, and all the meaningful relationships I have are at risk. (To truly express it, I would say – “Full on Phati Jaati Hai!”)

Things are simple.

They will work out on their own.

It’s just that we love drama too much to make it complicated.

Having lived just a bit more than two decades and arrived at this realization, I am pretty confident that whatever the future holds for me, things will work out.