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April 27, 2009
My spiritual journey so far – part 5!
Understanding my urge towards spirituality, my teacher called me over the phone to ask whether I was interested to meet a real saint. I had read a lot about miracles and ESPs, but then never thought it was possible in real life. You indeed get transformed, when few things hit you hard personally. The saint’s name was Shantananda, and I left my office without anyone’s knowledge to join my teacher to meet the saint.
Those days, in spite of being married for 5 years, I was getting attracted to other females in the office. It wasn’t just attraction but it was something more than that. I was kind of convinced that that ‘monogamy’ wasn’t my cup of tea. And on the spiritual plane – I thought that this fatal attraction was the only thing that was keeping me off from reaching what I am supposed to reach.
The question I wanted to ask the saint was – how to ignore women, and concentrate on God? And I wasn’t shy, and also I wasn’t short of courage.
Accompanied with my teacher I entered a small house in Chennai, where the saint was seated on a platform, and only two elderly women were sitting on the floor. It was a jolt for me. What kind of saint is he? He has only 2 disciples? And why is the house so small? I still was under the impression that any enlightened master will be as rich as Satya Sai Baba or Osho Rajneesh.
My teacher introduced me to the saint, the saint looked at me for not more than a second, and started to say – “if you think women distract you, consider them as Goddess Lakshmi or Goddess Saraswathi or Goddessl Kali. It will be easier for you to handle things that way.” I was zapped completely. He answered my question without me even asking it.
My relationship with my teacher was becoming stronger, and now I was behaving like a baby who would cry for anything and everything. I wanted to learn astrology, I wanted to learn meditation, I wanted to learn mantra shastra, and I wanted to see God. And I was already sick and tired of the manipulative corporate world.
Posted by Kenni at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2009
My spiritual journey so far – part 4!
My girl friend asked me, “you really want to attend Osho’s meditation camp? Or would you prefer a weekend with me?” And thankfully I chose the former - for deep inside I always knew that the path to godliness was far better than choosing girl friends or women. With the limited pocket money I was given by my father I saved some to attend a 3-day Osho meditation camp at Salem. And of course the meditation camp never had any group therapies – as most people could presume.
I am too small to comment on Osho’s caliber, but then somehow in my personal experience – I found that you could never escape your inner voice, which Osho essentially calls your ‘ego’ or the ‘mind’ that has to be dropped for spiritual growth. The truth according to me is - how much ever deep you go into meditation – your mind will keep functioning and will refuse to calm down – and that precisely is ‘YOU’ - your inner being. And the more you try to escape it, the more you will be unable to meditate. Hence the best thing is to accept your mind and let it do the talking…
I stopped reading Osho as it was creating duality in my mind, and I knew for sure that I was going astray – by reading more and not meditating at all. I put a deliberate full stop to my spiritual journey, and started adjusting to the corporate world. I handled Sify Astrology, pooled in good astrologers, and started making good money for the company. But I surely could guess that it wasn’t what I was born for.
I had read this somewhere that – when the disciple is ready, the master appears. And it did happen to me. Destiny made me meet K Gopalakrishnan, who till then existed just as one of the panel astrologers on Sify. Acquaintance with him made me understand that looks could be completely deceptive, and that the first impression need not be the best impression.
From outside his hair will be full of oil, will be wearing un-ironed clothes and a pair of dirty footwear. In fact he was one of the very few people whom I met who was so intelligent and knowledgeable that it will take a lifetime for many to decipher him completely. Even I have misjudged him for couple of years.
Through few conversation, I made him understand how interested I was in religiousness and spirituality, and how badly I would want to know the ultimate truth about life. He asked me a simple question, what kind of sadhanas do you do? And I replied – I have read Osho’s books. And he bluntly said – spiritual romanticism! With that comment I immediately realized that I have embarked on a spiritual journey once again…
To be continued…
Posted by Kenni at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)