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Is it possible to keep you mind blank?

Downtime programme of 40-odd minutes doing nothing, thinking nothing, a whole mountain of nothing proved futile

Take a look at this whole new ball of wool in good feeling. See if it floats your boat. A German corporation introduced a downtime programme for its staff. Not yoga or meditation or some group therapy designed to better your life, just 40-odd minutes doing nothing, thinking nothing, a whole mountain of nothing.

In itself, the idea has great merit, because this love for ourselves has been vitiated into travesties like greed, a hunt for status symbols, ugly competition, rage and a few other niceties like these. Maybe we need more care for us than we realise. There are people I know who spend their lives trying to upstage everyone around them. Then others who live in La La Land believe their wealth makes them well-loved and popular; if only they knew what estimate and esteem they were actually held in.

Anyway, the 40-minute effort has largely failed. Not because it wasn't well thought-out or hadn't legs to walk, but because the staff were incapable of relaxing into nothingness. After a few minutes of simply sitting in the darkened office and letting the minutes wash over them, as they let the stress go, they began to fidget and become restless. They needed to do something and the pressure to fill in this artificially-created vacuum was so overwhelming, they just had to pull out that mobile phone or go onto Facebook or send out a tweet - some connect to the ether world (or the netherworld, if that suits you).

And I thought to myself, no clue if it is restful or comforting or revs up the batteries, but I am sure I can do nothing for 40 minutes. I mean, think of all the class teachers I had in school who told me I was good for nothing. So, certified through history, I chose a day off to conduct my experiment, drawing the curtains, switching off the music and unplugging the TV, so as not to be tempted.

Then, I lay down on the bed and tried to blank my mind. All I got was a flood of memories, a swarm of ideas and disjointed recalls of things to do today. The first five minutes went slowly, excruciating, as I battered the face of nothingness with ideas and concepts and crystal-clear visuals on the screen of my mind. Then my hand went automatically towards my phone, just to check if there were any messages, but I withdrew it swiftly and spent the next few moments listing people I would expect messages from. totally against the intent of downtiming. By Minute Ten, this experiment had about it the texture of soggy cornflakes and was going nowhere in a hurry.

Come on, I told myself, you can do this, those Art of Living people are way ahead of you in control terms, as are yoga practitioners and those who are into zen, blank it, blank it. Getting there, wonder if anyone reacted to my article in WKND, is that something to think about right now, think of a white sheet, and talking of white sheets, today is the laundry day, the guy will come in his van and we didn't pay him last time, oh man, how much do we owe him, it is on the computer but I cannot touch the laptop, what's the time, whattt, only nine minutes over, this is ridiculous, there goes the hand towards the mobile phone again, just a quick peek, okay, mini glance, wonder what's for dinner, why did you come up with that, how did dinner figure in this effort, a simple 40 minutes and you are harping on about dinner.

Suffice it to say, I failed. Was up in 18 minutes, frustrated and tired of fighting the procession of thoughts that tunnel into the mind when you are trying to block them. I am clearly not made for downtiming.

Give it a shot. I think we have become so dependent on audio-visual abduction, we are more than willing prisoners to these captors. They have us enthralled. We cannot do an hour without contact, so Pavlovian is our conditioning, so vicious our need to be needed. That last has become the operative sentiment: need to be needed; to seek affirmation that we count, that out there, we are relevant, that somebody thought about us, not just in these 40 minutes but every window of time.

I don't know about you, but it is a fair bet you cannot blank out either. Prove me wrong, do 40 minutes and see if you can keep that mind blank and good luck to you.
As for me, take heart in the fact that my teachers were wrong. I am not good for nothing.
bikram@khaleejtimes.com