THE JOURNEY WiTHIN, THE JOURNEY HOME, JOURNEY OF DETACHMENT
She was telling me about places I could go to and stuff I could buy, while I was in Phuket. My ears were hearing but not listening. The words were not resonating. I smiled at myself. Another realisation that I was truly home; content and at peace with what I had, no material thing exciting me as much. How was this journey to a better state of detachment?
Looking back a little more than an year, I was lonely and craved for love. Mind you, I did not crave for just marriage but love. I filled that void by random shopping, going out, exploring newer places, getting instagrammable photos and then deriving pleasure from the likes those got. I identified myself with my professional designation and the thought of losing that or not progressing fast enough scared me.
Most of these gave me pleasure and filled the void. My virtual identity had a lot of friends and fans who kept massaging my ego and praising what I posted. I was happy to an extent. But not contended though. Somewhere within me, I did not get a sense of belonging. I wanted to share happiness with someone. I knew these things would just fill the gap momentarily.
As they say, happiness is real only when shared. I always had the realisation that it was the happiness of people around me who mattered. Their happiness was a source of happiness and peace for me. No matter what had to be given up for that happiness, it always seemed the right thing to do.
When marriage happened, we both discussed the spiritual meaning of us becoming one. We discovered our common innate desires to serve the humanity in our ways. We discovered how we bought things we did not need, wanted opinions from people whose judgement about us should not matter and lived under so much peer pressure that a lot of times we did things so we had something to tell our colleagues the next day or that we were scared to just sit in peace with our own selves and wanted to make busyness as an excuse for not having the time. We never judged each other and that let both of us be. We discussed how minuscule we were in the whole universe and yet we had some purpose of existence.
No longer do I feel under any self-inflicted pressure to look beautiful. No longer do I depend on likes from facebook connections to tell me I look good. I want to write and share truly for the purpose of sharing — even the most random thoughts. I never wanted to buy more than what I needed. His care of the humans around us made me more aware of how much we wasted. When I travel for work, I want to be back home. When I travel, I want to experience the cultural differences and how that makes us different human beings; than the food and the malls of the place. The material travel experiences educate me about the world. But it is what my soul captures about other humans across the globe that is now more important to me. I no longer feel the need to read a lot about what was happening in the world; because in a way it is not shaping me. I don’t feel connected with my professional designation and work only for enjoying the work and adding value to the world.
The journey of being with few people who mattered more than being in the crowd; the journey of getting comfortable even when I did not look physically beautiful; the journey of looking at all lives as equally important and thinking of life as a stream of giving — the journey inwards has begun!
Originally published at http://dishachhabra.com on January 21, 2020.
