Are you becoming too serious in life?
Do you feel tired and lack of zest in your work?
I was trained since young to be serious when it comes to work. The education system and the society I was brought up taught me to be goal-oriented and performance-driven. When the goals became the driving force for work, the mind would create the unnecessary pressure and expectations which put so much stress in the process of working and stifled my creativity and flow of energy.
I still remember a couple of incidents in my life which I suffered so much from being too serious about work. First was during my second year examination in University, I fell very sick 4 weeks before the examination. My body-mind was so weak that I couldn’t hold any awareness to study which created immense fear in me. The more I tried to study due to the anxiety, the more I failed miserably. The comparative nature in me was literally killing me.
The second incident was during my first job after graduation. I was a sales executive and I was supposed to do my first presentation to a client about the management information software I was selling. The intense stress I put on myself caused me to have disturbed sleep and the next morning on my way to office, I started to feel nauseous and giddy. Needless to say, I didn’t present well.
Honestly, in the process of growing up, I had forgotten how to play by the time I reached 12 years old. I felt old, dead and irritable because I disconnected myself from the space of a child. I had become a boring adult, driven by the seriousness of fear and greed.
It was only after I met Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) who is a living incarnation that I began to understand the importance of play with innocence of a child. He showed me the huge possibility of the space of a child. When I had my son, he was the trigger to rekindle my playfulness. This quality of being able to play in life got further strengthened when I started working with children as a volunteer teacher in Nithyananda Weekend Gurukul, a Vedic learning system.
Swamiji once said that “Life should never be work, it should only be fun. Life should never be serious, it should only be fun. This is the way I want you workaholics to work. I want it to become a play. It should be a play. Only if it is a play will the best come out. Otherwise, what is the use? When you are working, do not be serious about it. Work sincerely, but play around. Do not be glued to the computer screen as if you are possessed. Look at the computer screen that is fine. The only thing is – look at it with aliveness. Do not look as if you are being sucked in! This is working with fun!”
This fundamental cognitive shift was the turning point for me. Now, everything I do is just a play with life. I play with my body intelligence, I play with my mind; I play with Cosmos, I play with powers (shaktis) and energy. I play with my possibilities. The moment I understood life is a divine play (leela), I began to relax from this stupidity of seriousness in life. When I allow myself to be in the space of a child, feeling once again the innocence and authenticity, simply creativity starts overflowing in every aspect of my life. Life becomes like a flow of river and you are just flowing with it playfully.
In essence, don’t be too serious about life because life a nothing but a psychodrama by Existence. The divine plays with the Universe. It is the play of the divine. Life is an eternal celebration. Why are you standing there watching?! Come and play! Namaste 😀