Becoming Hollow Like Strength

What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?

“You have a right to perform your duty, but not to the fruits of action.”— Bhagavad Gita 2.47

I once thought leisure meant rest.But every time I sat in front of the television, it felt like the television was watching me fall asleep.My body was still, but my mind was rotting in comfort. That was the worst kind of watching.

I turned away.What I enjoy most now is sharpening myself.I train my mind the way others train muscles mental math, speed, accuracy, no hesitation.I ask myself again and again: Can I think faster than this? Can I move before doubt even forms?The faster I go, the quieter the noise becomes.This is not entertainment.

This is survival.Through Isha practices, I experiment on my own mind. I apply discipline with force because I know my mind resists freedom before it tastes it. Each practice reduces the useless chatter, the background complaints, the old looping fears. I push not because I hate myself, but because I refuse to remain stuck.

Still, one image keeps returning to me.The Navakkal Hanuman temple—hollow, empty, yet unshakable.Strength held inside emptiness.No clutter. No residue. No place for intrusion. I don’t fully understand how the deity can feel like silence any yet I know I need that same state within myself.

To be hollow—not weak, but untouched.So that no accusation sticks. No imagined attack enters. No fear of black magic, no projection, no external force finds a surface to cling to. I need to walk through each moment like that temple stands present, open, and impossible to disturb. Not fighting the world. Not reacting to shadows. Just doing what must be done.

“Established in yoga, perform action, abandoning attachment, remaining even-minded in success and failure.”— Bhagavad Gita 2.48

That is progress for me.Not escape.Not sleep. The steadiness hollow, awake, and free.