Nail the MONOrail

Tired of the monotonous routine of everyday life? Sometimes performing repetitive non-intellectual acts can appear to be boring & bring frustration & also depression.

Monotony is an inbuilt aspect of our lives. Internally, my heartbeat, functioning of every organ is monotonous & repetitive. On a more gross level, habits like eating food, brushing my teeth, bathing etc. are repetitive & monotonous.

Our 5 senses create an illusion of breaking the monotony. I have a variety of flavours, colours, smells; these prevent me from getting ‘bored’ of doing repetitive acts like ‘eating’ everyday.

I have, however, wondered very often, why monotony & repetition is such a big part of my everyday activity?? There had to be a reason. 

I would like to share a story here that comes to my mind:

Once a woman wanted to learn how to meditate! She approached a wise man & the wise man re-directed her to a goldsmith. The woman approached the goldsmith & said, “Please teach me how to meditate!”

The goldsmith was surprised at the request & said “I donot have any knowledge about how to quiet the mind & mediate. However, you are welcome to watch what I do through the day & gather information that might be of use to you.”

The goldsmith did an extremely repetitive & monotonous task. He burnt a piece of metal in fire, brought it out of the fire, increased the heat & put the metal in fire again & again & then when satisfied gave the metal the form of an beautiful ornament’.

The bewildered woman asked the goldsmith ‘what do you achieve by this monotonous act.’

The goldsmith replied ‘burning this piece of metal in fire removes its impurities.’

Woman asked ‘How do you know when to stop?’

Goldsmith “I go on till the metal is pure enough to reflect back my own image in it’.

Message for the week:

In life we have to go through several monotonous activities like studying, traveling, working in an office, cooking food etc…

The creator of this universe is the ‘Goldsmith’; ‘burning in the fire to remove impurities’ represents going through activities that cause us discomfort on the physical, emotional & mental level.

Passing through 'the fire'(of fear, monotony & boredom), clears our mind & intellect of unnecessary thoughts & judgements & thus we start reflecting our divine qualities like creative thoughts, love, inner peace, happiness and balance.

It is a lot easier for my mind to give several reasons and excuses to either run away from monotony or the mind becomes too dull and gets stuck in the rut.

Was it not Thomas Edison who, on invention of the bulb, said, "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. I've just found 10,000 ways (of making a bulb) that won't work".

Only after passing through the seemingly uninteresting and difficult acts with awareness, are we able to remove the impurities from our mind and this ‘inner fine-tuning’ brings forth the best of creative artists and geniuses in the world. 

For eg. When learning to play a guitar, only if I transcend the initial monotony and boredom of playing chords, after I pass through the intense pain I feel in my finger tips, only if I hang on with consistency for years for the same repetitive practice, will it ultimately be possible for me to someday create and play a Master piece in Music. 

This week,

Nail the MONOrail, go through the monotony with awareness and allow your inner creativity  and hidden genius to come forth. Find the hidden Einstein, Steve Jobs or Oprah Winfrey in you!