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This year Diwali came early – the days have not yet started getting shorter and there was still no bite in the morning air.

But no sooner had it announced its arrival, than we got busy with that one activity, that most of us have been pushing aside the whole year – cleaning.

It is said that such cleaning is essential to create a pure and auspicious space to facilitate a new beginning. A decluttered space – so the tradition says – spreads positive energy, ushering in all that is pure and fresh.

Ushering in the festival of lights – Diwali.

Diwali - the festival of lights

For me it was different though – I had to clean my space as I simply ran out of it. Again.

Just before the closure for Diwali, I started with my office cupboard – and removed an extra-ordinary amount of junk and clutter, wondering at my own ability to hoard such stuff in less than a year! Bravo.

Among the stuff I found were several “to-do” lists, an unread book The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer (it was a gift from a colleague), a host of outdated memos and some rusty stationary. Some dried felt pens. A set of worry stones*.

My Worry Stones

Useless junk I’ve faithfully accumulated over the last year.

But more than office, it was my art cupboard at home, that took a greater part of the day, oodles of sweat and several cups of tea, to clean.

Discarded masterpieces, a set of cheap watercolor papers (that I’ve been holding onto for years), a broken palette, some specialty brushes I’ll never use - all stacked one on top of the other. Some packing material. Some dried paints. A set of reference images I collected to try out portraits. All sat happily there.

And happy was I to meet all the friends and neighbors who came for Diwali after the cleaning!

One such friend narrated an incident of his recurrent nightmare and how it got resolved.

From his early childhood, he used to dream that he’s stuck in a narrow crack in a stone & a giant is preventing him from getting out of it. Whenever he was alone or was stressed, he would invariably have the same nightmare. For years.

And it suddenly occurred to me, that cupboards do not exist only in our homes and offices – they could dwell inside our minds too!

The same friend also mentioned, how in the wilderness, when one day he stood alone in front of giant El Capitan in Yosemite, he felt as if he’s facing his darkest fears.

El Capitan South Face, Yosemite

Maybe the large stone face matched his visions, or maybe a crack on its surface resembled the narrow opening where he got stuck in his dreams. Or being alone in a vast openness liberated his soul – he didn’t know. But strangely enough, the nightmares didn’t come back after that. The cupboard was clean once again.

It got me thinking of my own nightmares – how my own cupboards needed cleaning.

There was one recurrent bad dream in which I reached school like any normal day only to find out our final exam started that day & I was completely unaware, unprepared. And in another one, I kept a subject to study right before the exam but then the night before I found out the syllabus was huge, and I could not understand an iota of it.

Both were enough to wake me up in a cold sweat.

I tried to figure out the possible reason for those. I’m no expert, but a basic understanding of psychology told me that perhaps I’m too worried about the outcome of an event.

And maybe I’m thinking of the future way too much.

I remembered the famous saying of Lord Krishna to the warrior prince Arjuna, during the Kurukshetra war –

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन। मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥

["You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction"] (Bhagavad Gita, Verse 2.47)

A contemplative approach to this could be to find inner peace by accepting things as they are, and by focusing on the work in hand. In that moment.

Control what you can, accept what you can’t.

And I should face my fears like my friend did, like making a portrait instead of city/landscapes I’m so comfortable to paint. Or do some retirement planning. Get some blood tests done. Etc.

I found out that a great book to help in such situation is The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singe. It is considered a spiritual classic that could guide in releasing limiting thoughts and emotions by examining the inner consciousness.

And what particularly helps to release these thoughts is to practice being in the moment or mindfulness – if necessary, by using different fidget tools like breathing beads or worry stones!!

So, two of the greatest tools that could help me clean my cupboards were already with me – the book and the stones - but only if I happened to look more closely! Yes - cleaning can have so many benefits!

Also, if I’m careful, I may not need to clean at all!

And if I ever want to face my fear like for instance, making a portrait, I know where to look for the reference images.

So, which cupboard are YOU cleaning today?

[Worry Stones – These sensory/fidget tools are actually smooth, polished stones with a thumb-sized indentation. Rubbing the stone with the thumb in a repetitive physical action can calm anxiety and direct the focus]