The Unfolding Experience

Somewhere there was a strange kind of emptiness engulfing me all the time. I sometimes felt like a bird entangled in a kite string. There was a pain inside but no emotion to name it. There was unrest in the mind and a futility in the body. At times it felt as if all of reality was staring blankly, straight into my eyes.
This void did not seem to be caused by external circumstances. It seemed to emerge from somewhere deep inside me. Everything appeared very limited and measurable. There were days that made me question how we were born, how our life gets conditioned, how we struggle, compare, compete and one day vanish. Just like that! We strive for degrees, jobs, relationships, money, name and fame, and then one day we die. The whole of existence dissolving into the silence of space. An ever-changing insecurity: an uncertainty where every moment is only a transition point only for another to take its place. How are we supposed to live like this? Where do we ultimately go?
As time passed, these questions became so irrepressible that I could see only two paths ahead of me. Either I go into this in a radical way and examine myself as sincerely as possible. Or follow the second path – death. There really was no other way. No escape. For now I had started seeing how I had escaped for the past twenty - five years of my life. I had used up all the emergency exits by now. I had experimented with a few extremes in my life and everywhere I had hit a wall. So now the only place left for me to go was within.
Somewhere, my faith in life had still not left me. There was a part of me that believed that life is fair. That was the foundation of my journey from the known to the nameless. I thought that if life was really fair, then we are not supposed to go through even a trace of suffering. We should be equipped with all that we need to live a life that is absolutely happy and peaceful, that is good for us and good for others.
In the period that followed, the inquiry only got more intense. There was an unknown force fuelling my search. I was travelling to places within myself that were never visited before. I felt that for the first time in my life, I was looking at the naked beauty of my soul.
In this time, silence helped. There is something deeply sacred about silence. I felt that when I was truly alone, I was one with all.
Obviously, this pilgrimage within oneself is endless. But I started feeling awake than ever before. And a day came, when it felt like the heart broke open. Something totally illogical came over me. I felt like I was holding on to the moment like a butterfly in my fist. Slowly the fingers uncurled and the moment fluttered away like a colourful bird into a free sky.
Most things that I had done in my life were all measurable and calculated. Almost everything was only to benefit myself. But now I had to do the exact opposite and see what happened. I wanted to be illogical and unreasonable. And the most illogical thing I could do was give without getting anything in return. It was like setting free irrational acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty into this world. It was like writing poetry in the prose of life. It was like allowing the inner universe to dance.
Now, love was no more a temporary sense of pleasure or comfort. Love was emptying my entire being – and offering the whole of myself. It was breaking open every barrier in the heart so that generosity could flow. I realised that the only way for me to make myself complete was to share with others unconditionally. In this fine tapestry of life, all strands are entwined to each other. In the larger whole our lives are intrinsically connected, and in order for me to be truly happy I have to serve those who are suffering.