I thought I was doing essential work!

Today. almost 2.5 billion people are ordered to be inside their homes. Millions are suffering. So many innocent people are infected and some of them are dying. Our thoughts and prayers are with heroes who are working on the front-line to fight the pandemic. We pray for people who are suffering and families of people who are dead. Even if we are healthy and we are at home, we feel the pain. We watch in disbelief as our regular life and work is disrupted. This article explores how can come to terms with the emptiness, we experience when our regular life disrupted.

As a child, I always liked vacation. I looked forward for the school exams to get over and vacation to start. I have so many fond memories of vacation. As the end of the vacation will come near, I would dread to go back to my *regular* life! As soon regular life would start, I will start dreaming of vacation.

I am on vacation now and I am dreaming of restarting my *regular* life!

For last 28 years, I have attended office. Since 1992, almost every day of my life involved going to office in the morning, working, meeting, discussions, travel and coming back home in the evening.

I always felt I am doing essential work! (Till now). :-)

Now, officially Govt around the world has determined three categories of essential work:

1) Grocery

2) Medical

3) Public safety, cleanliness and public service related work.

Now, my work is non-essential!

It is a humbling experience. :-)

World is moving along fine without my profound wisdom and matchless contribution. It is insightful to recognize non-essential nature of our existence.

We are seduced to believe, we are essential, we are important and world will stop without us.

We have two choices :

1) Fight : Fight hard to move away from this experience of nothingness and emptiness.

2) Accept : Recognize, accept and celebrate that we are non-essential, unimportant, nothing and simply empty.

We live in an illusory world of self-importance. We get people around us to agree that we are important. Some of us have money, power and position to force people in treating us with respect.

We have built a life that validates our importance. Our daily life, actions and work schedule is designed to keep us amused, distracted and engrossed in ourselves.

We fight hard to establish our position and our important. Our linkedin profile, social media posts, resume, list of awards are designed to establish our supremacy.

There is inherent emptiness in our existence.

Let us look at some numbers :

1) Observable universe is 13,8 billion years old with spherical diameter of 93 billion light years. 1 Light year = 5.88 trillion miles. Length of the universe = 93 Billion Multiplied by 5.88 Trillion Miles.

2) There are 100 Billion Galaxies in the universe. Each galaxy has billions of stars. Total stars in the observable universe would be estimated 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's 1 billion trillion).

3) Seemingly vast universe is only an empty space. If we move all stars, planets and matter in one corner, rest of the universe is empty. Only about 0.0000000000000000000042 percent of the universe contains any matter.

4) On the planet earth, human beings are one of the 8.7 million living species. Earth will continue to spin its axis and rotate the sun without our presence!

5) Our bodies, everything around us, planet earth and entire universe is made up of atoms. Atoms are simply empty space with movement of energy or particle inside it. Atoms are 99.999999999999% empty space.

6) So, universe is mostly empty. And 0.0000000000000000000042 % matter that make up the universe is 99.999999999999% empty space.

We live in almost empty universe. Our bodies are made up atoms. Atoms are empty space.

Here we are: In this vast empty universe with almost empty bodies doing non-essential work that gets defeated by virus!

All our great theories about our uniqueness, our majesty and our power are shattered by this unbelievable empty vastness that engulfs and surround us.

Let us say, for a moment, we accept that we are non-essential.

My work is non-essential. My actions, travel and results are non-essential.

What can I do if everything about my life is non-essential and empty? We can do nothing.

We can accept the fact. We can relax and enjoy the experience of being a non-essential, nobody!

As we accept the fact, we can celebrate every moment of life. Life is a precious gift. Life is a miracle. Experience of being alive is magical.

We don't know what creates and sustains life in us.

We can clearly experience, every moment we have a choice:

1) To resist life and make efforts to gain power over it.

2) To accept and celebrate whatever life brings.

Very soon, restrictions will get lifted. We will all start working again.

I will get back to my non-essential work with pride & seriousness!

Landmark Forum is a transformation program that supports participants to distinguish and discover these ideas as a living experience.

In India, rishis called it *maya* - grand illusion. We have created an identity and life around our identity. We consider our life as ultimate reality as everyone is living in the same manner!

Liberation is seeing the play of maya. Indian philosophical traditions, encourage us to live life with humility in dance with this great, vast play of consciousnesses, energy and emptiness.

Indian traditions calls this entire movement of life and universe as Lila - meaning The Play, The Game!

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Thanks everyone for reading, liking and commenting on these posts. It is an experience of great privilege to share some inspiring ideas that has made a difference for me.

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