The Art of Minimalism – Introduction (Part 1 )

Ever thought about what this pandemic has taught us? It has been more than a year, I have bought new clothes, a new pair of shoes, or any new fancy consumable item which is more of a want rather than a need. I have invested in my health and wellbeing during this pandemic time. This hard time has taught me an invaluable lesson and has redesigned my life from top to bottom. I moved towards spirituality, started my inward journey, and a lot more could I explore about myself. I could redirect myself from seeking happiness from materialistic things and move towards improving relationships with family and friends, gaining experiences to have self-actualization. I spend most of my time with nature in the mountains and realized that it is one of the places where one finds the answers to the mysterious life and true everlasting happiness. I experienced how all that stuff I own was holding me back to attain inner peace. If you want to enter a journey where you can declutter yourself from different possessions you have, you will experience the joys of peace, contentment and master your wants, and be focused only on your needs.

The art of minimalism throws light on one's understanding of the difference between wants and needs. The art of minimalism teaches you to survive on the minimum materialistic things required to sustain life peacefully and happily. The wants are endless, while the needs are limited. The wants take you to the path of agony and pain, where you work and give efforts endlessly and still you could not achieve 100 percent of what you wanted. The need on the other hand will make you satisfied and more content once you achieve them. The wants want you to accumulate, putting you into stress, while the needs will always make you calm when they are met. You don’t have to struggle to achieve your needs. The person who understands the needs and acts accordingly has understood the art of minimalism. Once a tourist entered a hut of a yogi and was shocked to see that the only thing yogi had was one earthen pot to drink water. Shocked to see the empty room, he asked yogi, “why don’t you have any furniture, refrigerator, and other similar stuff?”. To this, the yogi asked the tourist “why he doesn’t have any of that stuff”. The man answered that I am just a tourist, to this the yogi smiled and said, “So am I”.

The art of minimalism starts from decluttering your home. It is a simple process in which you get rid of the things in your home which are not used. Decluttering is not organizing the stuff at home, nor is buying an item of new furniture, shelves, or something to stack the things which you don’t want. Even if you shift your material things or stuff them in an organized way, they still exist in your home and take up the unnecessary space in a different way. Decluttering is the first step in minimalism where you discard the things which you don’t want in the house. By doing this you will realize that a weight has been lifted from your shoulders as well as from your home. You will see the extra space created in your home which you can now utilize for yoga, meditation, or simple cardio exercises. One thing you must understand that, when unnecessary stuff lies in the house, they create negative energies. This is similar to a lake where the algae are formed due to stagnation of the water. The river which is flowing will always have positive energy, as the energy should always be free-flowing. Many people buy big homes to stuff their materialistic things accumulated over the period, and then they eventually end up staying in the same small space where they were living earlier. The moment this accumulation stops, the extra space in the house will become visible and this can be used for a better purpose.

I am going to present a series of articles on how to adopt the art of minimalism, where we will focus on materialistic things, way of living, living with a clean environment, minimum use of water and food for healthy living, decluttering of your unhealthy relationships, developing the art of positive thinking. The art of minimalism if availed to its fullest will raise your consciousness and will help you to reach the height of contentment. You will soon realize that 90 percent of the stuff which we use in our day-to-day life is only our wants and not our needs.

- Dr. Dhananjay Patel

Stay Tuned for Part II – Understanding the Law of Energy