Have you read the book Siddhartha? By Hermann Hesse? If you haven’t may I suggest pick it up now. I have a pdf I can lend to you any time.

Idea of the book (in short) is that Siddhartha is an exceptionally gifted Brahmin boy who decides to undertake his own journey to nirvana and how his story proceeds in due course, twisting and turning ways. There is a beautiful encounter in the book where he meets Buddha (born as his namesake) himself and how they each have an opposite way of looking at moksha or nirvana.

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What is nirvana? Or salvation? It is a state of shoonyata. Zero or nothingness. When no sense of attachment to worldly pleasure remains behind.

I was thirteen when I lost my mother. And to cope with this pain I started meditating. In due course, I lost track but once again guided by a Guru I picked up where I left. And in no time crossed many levels (which is a separate post).

While meditating you understand what life means. How much of it is not real. And what lies beneath is a superfluous membrane of souls waiting to connect with higher self.

Soul’s only purpose is to achieve salvation, moksha or nirvana. And this craving is what drives it birth after birth.

Through a series of complex incidents and ideas, I reached a consensus within my soul. There are only two ways to achieve nirvana:

To overwhelm yourself to shoonyata 

Or

To underwhelm yourself to shoonyata

And I chose former.

Reaching a point of no return is an extremely difficult task. Cutting worldly ties is not just about money or success it is also about emotions. How Swami Vivekananda, much ahead in his road to nothingness, couldn’t bring himself to cut ties with his own mother. And time and again, recorded in his writings the anguish he felt over her pains.

Buddha on the other hand has known to take the latter road to self actuation. He gave up everything. He started with the knowledge of shoonyata to achieve it. He walked the path of belief.

But path of overwhelm is what Osho suggested. He said achieve so much of everything that it all becomes empty. Let your experience be your belief.

And somewhere I don’t agree with everything Osho says, but when it comes to life I do agree- Dream big, achieve even bigger and every single time you will see the futility of your being.

No ambition is worth forever.

And yet. Ambition is my nirvana.

 

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