Being unoccupied can also be a rewarding experience

| Last updated less than one minute ago

Submit :

News Photos Just In Debate Topic Latest News Articles Local News Blog Posts Pictures Reviews Recipes

scsosho

01 February, 2012

Most of us want to be active. However, we also need to learn how to be active when we are not occupied in a job or a long-term commitment.

ALL OF us have heard about cccupational planning, but not so much about planning for situations when we are not occupied. The latter, however, is more important because ultimately everyone ends up, at some point or the other, as being unoccupied. But can we plan for doing well when being unoccupied?

Man’s adversity is that he cannot live without occupying himself with something or the other, at any given time. If he is not working to earn for his bread, he occupies himself with lesser acts such as playing cards, watching cricket matches or simply counting the ocean waves breaking on the seashore. Until sleep forces him to withdraw, man continues to engage himself, in one way or the other.

Nevertheless, all his occupations come to an end one day when his youth and middle age passes like a dream and old age stands glaring at him. Unable to do anything about it, he resigns to live in an agonizing state of inoccupation. Could this inoccupation have been joyful for him? If yes, how could he have planned and achieved it?

Certain physical activities the man engages in are not his occupations but natural extension of his biology, which is also at work in breathing, blood circulation, digestion, defecation, and growth, etc. These are the physical activities of sitting, standing, walking, lying, stretching, bending, and movement of hands. However, man has learned to manipulate these physical activities into acts of productivity and leisure. The manipulations have become so intrinsically woven into his daily life that it is difficult to make out where his natural body functioning ends and where his occupational functioning starts. Inoccupation means rediscovering his body’s natural rhythm as separate from his occupational life. This rediscovery, quite understandably, has to be slow because man has already moved far away from his true nature.

Inoccupation involves taking up a natural body posture as sitting, lying, standing or walking and closely observing it from the within. When walking, just walk and observe the movement of feet and body weight shifting from one leg to the other, when lying observe the relaxation spreading in the body part by part, when standing, observe the body balancing itself on its two feet, when sitting, observe the erect spine, and so on. It definitely does not involve off-time activities such as reading newspaper, watching TV, working on computer, walking to catch the bus, going to the market, lying in the Sun, daydreaming, and gossiping, etc.

Also Read :

Abhayam in Sanskrit means 'fear not' and raises your morale

As we learn to observe body postures and get attuned to its internal rhythm, we also gradually learn to reach the quiet of the mind. Then, someday, we discover the natural soft music playing there uninterrupted. As we familiarize ourselves with this music, we could immerse in it for any longer time, enjoying it. Planning for inoccupation, therefore, is to take a break from every day occupations and arrive in inoccupation. It lets us know ourselves and enjoy it. With this experience on our side, who would not welcome inoccupation in old age? Yoga and meditation have developed from inoccupation, but inoccupation is available to us directly.