Anxiety, confusion, stress… These have become words of common parlance in today’s day and age. It is sad to observe that even people who seem to have every blessing in life are caught in the trap of melancholy. There are innumerable people around who have affluence, good health, and a comfortable and luxurious life. And yet they seem to be afflicted by a sense of emptiness.
Caught up in this vortex of emptiness, people rush to fill it in different ways. They may try to deal with their inner desolation through diverse pursuits of pleasure like adventure, the company of friends and the like. But an inner exhaustion remains despite all the luxuries. The reason is that the antidote for the emptiness within can never be found outside. It can be found within the self only. The answer lies in searching ourselves and finding our essence.
An old Sufi story relating to the legendary Sufi mystic Sayyida Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya al-Qaysiyya, also known as Rabi’a al-Basri, illustrates this well. It is said that Sayyida Rabi’a was intently looking for something on the street outside her hut. It was late in the evening, and the day was getting dark. Some people saw her and offered to help. They asked her what she was looking for. Sayyida Rabi’a said that she had lost her needle.
One of the persons asked her if she remembered where she had lost her needle, because then they would focus on that area and perhaps find it. Sayyida Rabi’a responded that the needle had fallen inside her house.
The people were bewildered. “Then why are you searching outside,” they questioned. “Why aren’t you looking for it inside?” One of them even laughed that she was looking for the needle outside in vain.
Sayyida Rabi’a said she was doing exactly what people around seemed to be doing – she was following their example. “You all seek bliss and contentment outside but you never really think about where you lost it. You lost it within yourself. You lost it inside, and that is where you shall find it,” she told them gently.
Sayyida Rabi’a told the people to watch where their senses were bound. That is the question for us too. Where are our senses bound? Our ears are always attuned to sounds outside. Our eyes are looking at things outside. Our hands are connected to objects outside. Are we ever looking within?
Sayyida Rabi’a told the people that for a long time, her attention was focused outside. And the day she decided to search within, she found her answer. What was lost was within – it could only be found within.
The question is – do we have the ardent desire to find what we think is missing? Are we awakened by our feelings of emptiness or melancholy to search for our essence? Only the loving and luminous presence of God the Almighty can fill the void within.
Sadly, our fast-moving world has filled many people with cynicism. They think that it shall be impossible for them to connect with the divine presence. But if one’s heart and mind are intent on finding God, one shall set out on that path.
Complete and total love of God is the first step. The more we expand the space of our heart and seek God’s presence, the more God fills our being and our consciousness. God is omnipresent. Because of our limited understanding and our petty beliefs, we have closed the doors and windows of our consciousness to God. If we embrace our emptiness as a sacred yearning for the Divine, we shall find that our inner void shall be filled with abiding peace and joy that emanates from His Glory.
One of the foremost ways of finding God is to surrender one’s ego. We must surrender the feeling of ‘I’ as the doer of all things and we must witness God as the force that moves this universe. The Persian Sufi mystic Sheikh Ahhmad-e Jami (1048-1141) wrote of how one may annihilate one’s ego through total surrender to the Divine Beloved. He wrote:
Though I am a sinner impure
Of thy mercy I am sure
I am maligned and taunted in the street
And covered with the dust of sin
Broken-hearted and discarded
And a thorn in the eyes of humanity
I am one lost in the way of love
And am one whose deeds are poor
Cast Thy healing glance on me
For They Grace I yearn
And of Thy Mercy, I am sure.
Pinning one’s faith in divine mercy is one of the foremost steps one may take while treading on the spiritual path. Profound peace, compassion, and spiritual fulfilment can come only from the all-encompassing love of the Almighty. Only God can fulfil the immense space within us that we perceive as emptiness. Rumi, the globally popular Sufi mystic, said, “Essence is emptiness.”
Often, people tend to feel unnerved when they feel emptiness within. Sufi masters have taught that emptiness is a state of mind that must be explored to connect with God within. It is time to let go of externalities like the ego and its linkages, attachments and roles. It is a time when our consciousness must find a space where it is not impacted by thoughts and distractions, and must connect with our Maker, God the Almighty. Emptiness is not a negative space. If one traverses this journey correctly, exploring the space of emptiness may lead one to great peace.
A pious woman spent 30 years of her life searching for the ‘Tree of Heaven.’ She consulted many great teachers. When she finally found the tree, she found that a dervish who had offered to teach her about the ways of God was sitting there. She asked him, “Why didn’t you reveal yourself as the keeper of the tree when I first reached here?” The dervish calmly replied, “You didn’t ask.” The essence is in cultivating patience and humility that may positively impact the seeker, so that he may ask the right questions and seek their answers in order to transform his life journey.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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