“What? Just five minutes? I have to make something….but what?” was the question that my inner voice asked.
It was beautiful Sunday morning and I was at Vallabha Ashram in Ahmedabad having an interesting conversation with few spiritual seekers. One of the seekers there used to conduct adventurous outings and took the participants into the depth of life. To give an essence of what he does in his outings, he took us through a small & unique activity. He started with the following instructions:-
- You will be given 5 minutes.
- You have to create something
- The objects you can use are the things that are within the reach of your hands. You cannot move from the place you are sitting right now.
As soon as the instructions ended, we all hurried to collect whatever we could find around us. We were sitting in the backyard in sand amidst a few plants, grass and small stones. We were not allowed to pluck any plants or flowers. A picture of all of us working on our creation!
After 1 minute!
There I was, sitting in the sand figuring out what to do with the dried broken branches of a tree and some small stones. I had found this strong ‘U’ shaped branch which I stuck in the stand with an intention to create an entrance gate. As I affixed the branch in the sand, I thought, why not dig a well underneath instead of creating a gate. As the sand was wet, I enjoyed digging the well. I started digging hard to create a deep well. I had a small broken piece of brick with me too, which I kept on the stick just for decoration.
After the 5 minutes I was given, my creation looked something like this.
“Finally! I managed to make something meaningful.” I thought.
As soon as I sighed with relief, another instruction came.
“Now, you will have to speak for a whole minute on the creation that you have made”
“A whole minute? Are you kidding me? On this thing? I will have to make something up.” I thought.
The thoughts in my mind raced here and there to create something out of this well and the stone. Nobody even had the slightest idea that they might have to explain what they were creating. That also for a whole MINUTE! Immediately everybody’s mind started using the amazing Power of “IMAGINATION” and created a fabulous explanation for the models that they had created.
The explanation that I gave was something like this!
(Headphones & understanding of Gujarati language are MUST to listen to the experience! 🙂 )
This activity brought a lot of things to the surface:-
- When you are not told what exactly is to be done, your mind will bring up its own imagination and create its own assumptions.
- These imaginations and assumptions help us to determine the thought process that is going on within us at that point of time.
- These thought process will slowly bring to the surface, the beliefs that you carry about the world, about yourself and the people around you. I am not saying whether something is good or bad. You will just come face to face with what is going on inside you.
- As soon as the beliefs & patterns surface, you will realize whether they are taking you in the direction you want to go or not.
In our daily lives, we are always given a base before we start doing anything. Somebody is always there to guide us and tell us how to start and continue with it. If somebody does not come and guide us, by observing others we start imitating them.
How about we find time once in a week to do something without keeping any base?
For example,
- Sit with a blank paper and draw something randomly.
- Sit with a blank paper and pen and write something randomly.
- Get out of your house and drive somewhere randomly.
- Talk to someone without an agenda.
Do things without any pre-planning and let your true self reveal it’s own uniqueness through it.
It might feel stupid because we have always been trained to work with an agenda, a plan, a goal and what not. Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes it is also necessary to let your self just flow in order to bring a momentum within.
I hope you try it out and experience a refreshment within! 🙂
MAY GOD BLESS YOU! ♥
