Your Friendly Philosopher & Guide

Period - 2004 later months

Never in my life have I had financial crisis and now I was already facing one. Not that I was born with a silver spoon, but then my desires were always less, and all my desires were always met without hassles.

My episode of borrowing money started. The first person I borrowed money was my elder sister followed by few friends. I made a list of people from whom I should never borrow money, and that remained my only prayer. And thankfully till date, God never put me in a situation to borrow money from people from I never wanted to accept.

This particular set of blogs are predominantly to express my gratitude towards all those people who helped me in my difficult times, which I wanted to convey very badly before it is too late. In fact I never got an opportunity to thank my father for all that he did for me.

My teacher had very clearly told me that ‘gestation’ period for an astrologer is really high. So you need to keep that in mind, before you take up astrology full time. I understood his statement better only when I experienced it myself.

For instance - I started predicting for people from the year 2002. If I predict marriage for a client in 2007, he will never come back to me or trust me till he gets married in 2007. So I need to wait for 5 years for that particular client to come back. And when he comes back he brings his friends too.

The gestation period was eating me so I thought I should be able to gain trust in the very first meeting. Hence I got into predicting the past events, before I got into the future. I still practice this, and don’t predict the future until and unless I am able to read the past. This exercise isn’t to prove my astrological skills, but was just to gain trust.

Money and Me

Many of my predictions started coming right for people, and they started coming to me frequently. And they would refer me to their friends too - I still wasn’t sure about the money part. I remember in 2004, the first amount I received for a reading was Rs 11. That time I wasn’t in need of any money as I had a good job. But when I quit my job, I knew I have to change.

People who consulted me that time, knew it was my new profession. They will come, consult, chat for hours, and walk off without paying anything. Of course I gained a lot of good will and ‘thanks’ from the people. But I cannot tell my landlady that I made 100 thanks this month, so you take 50 of them. Or I cannot go to a grocery shop and say take 10 thanks and give me a packet of biscuits for my children.

Both my sister and wife were mad at me to do readings for free. But then I was still very uncomfortable asking money for the reading. I left it to God.

Later people, I think, understood that they should not consult me for free. They will ask how much, and I would say your call. I still wasn’t sure about the money part. When I gave people the freedom, they always paid me the bare minimum - Rs 100 or Rs 50 for a reading. I made a simple mathematical calculation. If one person pays me Rs 100, I have to do consultation for 30 people to pay my house rent, and do some 100 consultations per month to meet my minimum needs. Well this wasn’t working!

To be continued…