Idleness can become a most devastating tool of self destruction. When there is nothing, it will beget nothing. Being occupied even in a state of solitude can be a savior, but never when there is nothing. This is merely cautionary. It does not in any manner describe or narrate any particular state of a person. It is just an observation that emanates from personal experience.

When I sit within the four walls of my existence and ponder at times, it occurs to me that the real test for those that undergo penance and ‘vairagya’, is not the absence of concentration towards the unknown, towards the infinite, towards the divine. It is the ability to consume the absence of the finite. It is to be able to recreate almost the moment of birth. For, birth, could perhaps be that absolute moment of nothingness in the human. As we develop and grow and build and observe, our faculties, senses, all begin that arduous journey of corruption. Corruption of our mind, our system, our existence. If we were to be born into a vacuum of nothingness, without the frills of nature and the universe, there would be very little to absorb, imbibe and pay heed to. We would all be much like Gautam Buddha in his early years when he was deliberately kept isolated from life outside of his palace, from the world in its reality, pain and despair. To not have ever known what poor and want and poverty meant. To have been awakened to the truth that the visual that you saw of a bride in its wedding finery, was in fact a time ravaged stinking corpse ! In a world where Buddha lived in his early years, in the comfort of plenty, in every trodden step of happiness and joy, in wealth of material, among the perennial blessings of beauty and youth, to have suddenly been exposed to the truth of life must have been the rudest awakening.

And what then …

To have discovered after his abstinence from all luxury, in the travels of his discovery and learning, through the woods and forests of nature, that life is but a pierced arrow within our body. Where did this arrow come from, who strung it upon us are but questions that need to be answered later. The arrow needs to be removed first. For that is the pain of life !

Life is but a flowing river. We need to swim across it to get to the other end. Building anything upon it is never going to be possible. Whatever is within us - in happiness and in sorrow - are the givings and blessings of our ‘karma’. Karma is immovable. But the truth is that life has in its vastness the existence of mere pain. The root of all pain is desire. If desire can be overcome, then shall you conquer pain, achieve ‘nirvana’.

These were the teachings of Buddha, of the Gautam, of Amitabha - the name given to this mighty Saint !

How many then among us will be willing to give up and sacrifice and exist in such teachings. To conquer desire. For desire it is that corrupts and destroys. And it is this corruption that we all seek deliverance from as we travel through our journey. And it is this deliverance that we realize, when we discover, that time and state has not given us much opportunity or space for further corruption. But by then it is too late !

Solitude and solitary conditions are admirable. May those that contemplate it, or are a part of it in the reality of life, bring upon them the blessings of its ethereal benefits. Belief then becomes the ultimate promise in such environs. Belief too is solitary, alone, aloof and most private. We wish and pray and contemplate in the wisdom of our privacy. For most of us our private goes with us to our graves, or to the flames of our souls deliverance into the elements.

So … at least something remained within us !

Amitabh Bachchan