We live in an era of techniques, courses and qualifications.
‘If you want to improve yourself, use this technique.’
‘If you want to better yourself, go on this course.’
‘You’ll need this qualification if you want to progress, if you want a top job.’
The insecure energy behind all this, is the idea that to be better – whether in business or self-development – you must add things to your life…add letters after your name, add information, add certificates…
…when the utter opposite is true.
Deep creativity is not in acquiring new ideas but in releasing ourselves from the old ones; those that have seeped silently and drip-fed our consciousness down the years, disabling it.
The poet RS Thomas asked to be delivered from ‘the long drought of the mind.’
Health, wisdom and happiness is about removing things from our life; removing those influences that make us blind, stupid or restless.
This is why teachers speak of emptiness…space into which fresh life can be poured each day.
Until then, it will be a needy rush after techniques, courses and qualifications; filling rather than emptying…a desperate mind-stuffing.
It might appear mad, but today we’ll be open to emptiness, to space.
After all, it’s how the world began.
From no thing, some thing.
