In search of.............

This Himalayan cool breeze is soothing my soul.  It feels so wonderful to sit at the banks of Ganga. No wonder you chose this place.  It is so amazingly beautiful and serene.

Yes absolutely. I love this place. I sit and meditate here for hours together and I walk in this sugar sand till I get tired. I feel like I belong here. Ganga here, cares for me like my grandma…we have our own world and things to feel and discuss.

I know you were very close to Naani ma¹.  I met Devika before coming here.  

Yeah…She was with me in my ashram when she came to attend Kumbh Mela² last time. She called me yesterday and informed about your arrival here. She said that you were on a journey of self discovery of your spirituality.  That’s the reason I decided to meet you.

Actually I am in search of answers.   I want to know the reason why you rejected me from your life.  This question has been haunting me for so long and I needed to know the answer from you.

Oh Shekar..let us not talk about the past. It does not hold any value at present. We are here to discuss spiritualism and let’s stick to it.

No. The past does have relevance to the present.  When I went abroad for higher studies, I had a dream.  That was you. I had dreams of marrying you and sharing my life with you.  I promised the same to you. Didn’t I?  You were my life and my hope.  But you suddenly disconnected yourself from any form of communication with me.  I thought you must have moved on during my absence. But it was indeed a shock to hear that my Yogita had become a Yogini³. Why?

I am sorry Shekar. My own spiritual inclinations made me take this decision. I really beg your apologies if I hurt you.  I want to live the rest of my life like this.  You are young and have a wonderful life waiting for you ahead.  Don’t waste it thinking about the past.  That is over now.

No. Let me be the judge of that…what is over and what is not.   You cannot guess what happened to me, when you suddenly vanished from my life. I became mad.  I tried a lot to accept the situation and move on.  But I couldn’t. No doubt it is your life and you have full liberty to live the way you chose to live. But how could you forget the promises you made me? The promises that helped me survive all those years in a foreign land.  Did you even for a moment think how your decision will affect me?   It never even occur to you that the choice you made can destroy my life?  How can you forgive yourself?  I am sure all this spirituality will still not be enough to erase all those memories and heal your heart. Don’t you think so?

I take all responsibility of my decision. But Shekhar who can change fate?  This was my destiny.  Also, how could I have possibly known what was coming ahead in my life? We can only deal with situations as they come up and not before hand.   This world is full of illusions. When one finds the truth of life, they will lose interest from all these worldly things.

Yogita, What is fate…it is after all a word given by our ancestors to endorse our helplessness in a situation and help us accept it. Eighty percent of whatever happens in our life is due to our own actions and rest 20% can be attributed to external things which do not have a proper reason or explanation. I cannot accept your argument of fate and destiny.  I need to know the actual reason and I have a right to know why you did this.

My closeness with Naani ma may be the reason which helped me to take this kind of decision. I was much influenced by her beliefs, traditions and rituals since my child hood. 

May be…but all of a sudden? Why so?

You know that my parents didn’t have much time for me in their busy life. We were like those lions in that Pillar of Ashoka in a home. We were together but all were living in different directions. Naani ma was everything to me. She passed away soon after you left for abroad.   My loneliness boosted my spiritual ambitions day by day.  I even lost interest in my studies and slowly got addicted to this path. Finally I found this as my destiny.

Yogi, I am not satisfied with your reasoning. There are a lot of people in this world who are living alone in this life. I also know you are not the kind of person to take this kind of major decision in life because of loneliness.

Shekhar….This way of life is more appealing to me than the family life. 

It is your wish as you are the owner of your mind. I can understand the importance of spirituality as I too was born and brought up in the land of this culture & traditions. If you tell me the actual reason, I can understand it in its right manner. I have heard that you were disciple of some Ashram and you got enlightenment under their spiritual guidance.

Devika must be told you. Yes. I got enlightenment in the Ashram of Swami Midhyananda. If you are adamant to know the truth then listen to me.

Thank you.

Do you remember Akansha who was my friend in my college?

Yes. I remember.

In the absence of you and Naani ma, she became my support in life.  Her family was disciples of Swamiji. I used to visit ashram along with them. I liked that spiritual and peaceful atmosphere in the ashram. One day I heard Swamiji is preaching about some Tantrik Kriya⁴. He said that it was possible to transmit spiritual energy from one person to another through a sacred practice and the receiver would attain the state of nirvana the ultimate peace.

Nirvana⁵ through Tantrik kriya?

Yes. Our mind gets liberated from the clutches of all worldly illusions. Normally it takes lot of years to achieve such power for a normal person. The more I heard about it, the more interested I became in this. I was in a hurry to attain the spiritual pinnacle and was absolutely determined to learn and practice this tantric kriya.  So I requested Swamji for the same. In the beginning he tried to discourage me saying that it would be tough and that it was a secret process. But seeing my absolute determination, he agreed to accept me.

Your parents got agreed with your idea?

My parents were not fully aware about these developments. They all had their own world within themselves to live. When they got a hint of my spiritual advances, they warned me not to over indulge in these things. But I was enjoying. I wanted to know the height of spiritualism. I wanted to feel that bliss as earliest.

Hmmmmmm…..

Then swamiji drawn a mahurat⁶ for my deeksha⁷ and decided to conduct pooja at Akansha’s ancestral house, which is little far from the city. The three day rituals started over there. I sat in front of Havan Kund⁸ and recited all those mantras which swamiji was reciting and followed all rituals. Akansha and her family were present with me. After two days, I started feeling virakti⁹ in me. On third day at the end of rituals I was ordered to sit in a wooden plate and Swamiji poured turmeric water on me while chanting mantras. At that time I felt some kind of strange feeling within me. Thereafter I was shifted to another room and made me lay down in the middle of some spiritual drawings. Then he asked others to bring my husband over there.

Your Husband !!!

Yes…in this process there is a need to maintain mind in one kind of climax stage. For that the physical union was necessary. At the time of climax, the master transmits his spiritual energy to the disciple. We were not at all aware about this final stage in this ritual.

Then?

Others told him that I was not married. Swamiji got furious and bursted on others. Apparently he had been doing lot of rituals day and night in preparation for this and he worried if this was not completed, it would bring negative impact on him and others.  When I was laying in fear and amusement, he again started chanting mantra and directed others out. I closed my eyes and concentrated on his mantras as I was shivering myself with fear. He placed his finger on my forehead and I slipped in to some unconsciousness. Then……………

Then ?

I was experiencing a heavenly sense within me. I felt him in me and my inner self surrendered to him without any resistance. Some power entered me with huge shivering and sounds. I have gone through tunnel to tunnel which was filled with different colours of beams.  My body became weightless and was floating in the air. When I opened my eyes I was sleeping on that floor with my nudity.

………………

Don’t you want to hear further?

Continue………

Soon I realized what happened with me at that time. After that I definitely felt some relaxation within me. But same time I was conscious that what I lost in that spiritual adventure.

Didn’t you get any hint about this trap?

How can we say it was a trap? Didn’t I tell you that I myself initiated these things? No one forced me to do so. In the end, it is true that whatever happened is without my consent. But it doesn’t mean that I can free myself from the responsibility of my actions.

Hmmmmmm…true.

After this incident my mind went into some state of hollowness. I lost interest in almost everything. A sense of guilt started arising from my heart. Because of this I again lost my inner peace. I never visited Ashram or Akansha after that incident. The guilt within me started to strangle me like a python. The feeling of loss made my nights sleepless. I studied various texts and books to justify my experience. I visited spiritual masters to know about it. But I never got a justification of my experience. Because whatever I did was only a short cut and that was not a right way. The results were only for the time being. Attaining moksha¹⁰ or nirvana is not so easy. It should have to achieve through its real path. Without a total surrender of self, it is not possible. I was actually doing a right thing in a wrong way. When I got this enlightenment, once again the hungry of inner peace emerged within me. From there my real spiritual journey started in search of inner peace.

Still I didn’t get my answer Yogita.

Your answer is in my experience Shekhar. I thought you may have understood by this time. I didn’t have any doubt on your love and sincerity towards me. Here the sinner is me.  My spiritual immaturity and adventurism resulted in the loss of my virtues and made myself disqualified for your pure love. I was the loser. Then why should I impose myself on you Shekhar ? I couldn’t save myself for you. So I do not have any right to love you. Odd is out.  Nothing else.

……………..

……………..

Yogita, almost all are in search of something in this world. You reached this stage when you started searching peace. I came to you in search of my love. Hope both of us got our destination. At first I would like to thank you for recognizing my true love towards you. But the sacrifice was unnecessary as I value only intention of a person in their actions. Who can guarantee a safe path in this journey of life? Accidents may happen any time in this life. But I would like to ask you why couldn’t you categorize this as a fate? Who can predict all these things? We all have spiritual & material side within us. We have to balance between these two sides to maintain inner peace in our life.

Running away from something or taking shelter from something is not spiritualism. It should be natural liberal and selfless. Punishing self is also not spiritualism. “Sanyasa” does not have a direct path. First Brahmacharya, then Gruhasthashram, then Vanaprastha and then only the Sanyasa comes. Let us not take again a short cut here. Pure love is also form of spiritualism. I am sure that whatever experience we had in our life will guide us in a right direction now.

……………………I came with two tickets to fly back. Get ready….we will move after few hours to air port to search the meaning of our life together.

Shekhar can you love me like before?

No. I love you more than before. Come…..let us have a stroll here.

Created: 4^th  December 2010

Author: P-kay

Editor: Ss

This story is dedicated to you Neh :)

GLOSSARY.

1.       Naani Ma : Grand ma

2.       Kumbh mela : A hindu pilgrimage which conduct once in 4 years at the banks or river ganges.

3.       Yogini: Female saint

4.       Tantrik Kriya: Spiritual practice

5.       Nirvana: Mental state of ultimate bliss through spiritualism.

6.       Mahurat: Most auspicious time or moment to commence particular occasion or activity.

7.       Deeksha: Preparation for a religious ceremony.

8.       Havan Kund : Place of Sacrificial Fire

9.       Virakti : Feeling of detachment.

10.    Moksha : Release from the worldly attachments