Spaces, empty spaces, are they empty or are they just spaces? Empty because they don’t contain anything that one can recognize or empty because you see nothing there? Empty because perhaps something that was there has been moved. Or empty because it chooses to remain empty. The nothingness of empty spaces is mystical, fascinating, magical, enigmatic, mysterious and oh so full of potential!

What is a space? 

How would you define what a space is? 

A space exists in everything we see, we feel, we hear, it is present even in our breath if we watch very carefully. 

There is space between each word you’ve read till now. There is space between lines, between paragraphs, even between two alphabets there is space but way smaller.

Let’s look at something bigger and grander. Let’s look at the sky. What is the sky? Isn’t it one very big gigantic space? 

In the space that the sky is, the clouds float by. The sun moves across it from sunrise to sunset. The moon moves across it. The moon even shows off it’s waxing and waning cycles to us in this space. We enjoy full moon nights because the space provided by the sky allows the moon to do so, displaying itself in all its glory and magical beauty that has enthralled many a poets and shayars, not to forget the hopeless romantics all over the world! 

The clouds decide to gather up and form a storm, in the very space of the sky. There is thundering. Loud noises of that initial crackle and then the massively loud sound literally sounding like someone shouting out the word “thunder”. All this also happens in the sky.

When the rain and the Sun decide to have some fun, out comes the beautiful and everyone’s favourite, the Rainbow! The beautiful perfect arches of this seven-coloured wonder are distinctly seen against the background of the generous sky – the space.

Imagine for a moment that there was no space, no sky, no space between words you just read. What would that world look like? Would you like it? Would you stay on there or wish to come back to the normal where a space is a space so that the other things in and around it shine and become the center of everyone’s focus?

I definitely want to be in a world where there is a beautiful balance between spaces and non-spaces; for I believe that a space provides the non-space its identity. Spaces are generous, giving and kind. They hold the non-space entity in its folds and securely so. The non-space entity has no fear for it trusts the spaces one hundred percent. This is a mutually functioning and respectful relationship. One shines, while the other holds it up. One supports while another does the visible work or function. One stays in the background while the other is out for everyone to see. More often than not, this “seen” entity gets all the love and adulation from onlookers. It has countless admirers. 

So does the space ever get jealous of the non-space entity? I don’t think so. The space is far wiser and secure for such a trivial thing to get in the way of its mission. The mission to be there, to be available, to be full of possibilities and potential for something good, something beautiful and something that will give someone that sense of achievement and success of a joyful creation. 

While I was contemplating this in my head, I thought to myself. What would I like to be – a space or a non-space entity? 

I thought long and hard, a lot of perspectives came into my mind-space. I thought of myself as a non-space entity that was getting a lot of support from people who were like spaces in my life. But that thought did not give me what I was looking for. Then I thought do I want to be like a space – that gives everything it has to a non-space entity; and frankly as a mother I thought I resonated with being a space in that regard. But still I was not satisfied with what I was looking at and I knew there was something else that needed to come out of this.

Then finally the grey clouds moved from over my brain or let’s say the Sun shone its brightest light over me and now I could look beyond the obvious landscape of my mind. 

It then came to me that I must strive to be like the giant space of it all – I must strive to be like the sky. Why? The answer lies somewhere up in this very article. 

I want to be the sky so that I remain unchanged, unbaffled and unflustered come what may. No grey clouds, thunderstorms, happy showers, rainbows – nothing affects me. They come and go. The Sun rises and sets, the moon comes and goes – I remain as is. Still, calm. I just be. 

That’s a nice ambition to have. I am going to work towards this. It will be a long meandering path, but I am confident I will reach there with the help of the guidance from my Guru, my parents and the innate wisdom of my timeless Soul. 

(Photo by Lisa from Pexels)