• Even the highest position, the grandest title, cannot fill what is empty within us.
An Egyptian king once conducted an experiment.
Someone must have told him that when a man is left completely alone, he becomes so distressed that he could go insane.
The king apparently didn’t believe the statement as he ordered that the healthiest man in the capital be brought to him.
A young man was found—physically fit, mentally at peace, with no illness, no financial troubles, and full of happiness. He had just been married, and both he and his wife were joyful.
This young man was taken and locked inside a solitary room in the royal palace.
All facilities were provided—food, bedding, comfort—he lacked nothing. In fact, the arrangements were far better than his own home.
But at the door, a guard was placed who did not understand the young man’s language.
No one else was allowed to meet him either.
For the first day or two, the young man cried out, asking why he had been imprisoned.
He refused to eat or drink.
But what could he do? After a few days, he had to give in—he started eating and drinking.
Within eight days, he resigned himself to the solitude.
But he couldn’t last even a month.
The king’s men reported to him that the young man had started showing signs of madness.
He had begun speaking to himself.
When there’s no one else to talk to, a person begins to talk to himself.
It is the only way left to distract oneself, to avoid sinking into one’s own emptiness.
By the end of three months, the man had gone completely insane.
When he was finally released, he was utterly deranged.
What had happened to him?
For three months, he had found no way to forget himself.
No matter how healthy or happy someone may appear on the outside, deep within, there is an unrest, a fundamental dis-ease.
We are all trying to escape that inner emptiness.
One person turns to intoxication, another turns to devotional singing.
They may appear different on the surface, but essentially, both are trying to forget themselves in their own way.
One person gets lost in music, drowns in it.
Another plays games or gambles—looking for some way, even for a short while, to escape themselves.
We all long to forget ourselves.
One man drowns in the pursuit of wealth, counting endlessly, calculating.
In that obsession, he forgets even that he exists.
Lost in his vault’s balance sheets, he forgets to keep account of his own self.
Another man runs after positions of power, chasing one chair after another.
It’s a lifelong pursuit—running from the emptiness within.
No matter what name or form we give it, all our pursuits are driven by one thing:
To escape the void inside us—either to fill it or to run from it.
Even in the race for status and rank, it’s the same.
From small chairs to bigger ones—this never-ending chase continues.
But in this intoxication, we forget that chairs are separate from us.
Even the highest position, the grandest title, cannot fill what is empty within us.