Author: zenhealer

A spiritual journey can continue on many different paths, all leading to the ultimate discovery of the Self. Just as all religions point towards one or more Gods who only differ in name, shape and form, so also there are many paths for spiritual evolution. For me it has been the path of Zen, the purest form of Buddha’s teaching, just as Advaitya is the purest form of Hindu teaching. And for the most part, the two paths are joined at the hip like Siamese twins, except in one significant respect.

And that has to do with physical clutter.

In all spiritual paths there is a gradual dropping off of various conditionings we have been burdened with all our lives, until we discover the very core and essence of our existence and understand our connection with Consciouness. This happens in order for the energy (prana) within us to flow freely, enabling us to see more clearly, sharpening our intuitive skills, opening our third eye and connecting with the higher Self. Anything that obstructs this natural course of spiritual evolution gets dropped off, whether it is clothes, food, company, habits. All of this I discussed in the earlier parts of this series and will discuss further as we move along. On the Zen path, it is equally important that all physical clutter that surrounds us get dropped off too. The Hindu path does not emphasize this, at least not directly. As a result a typical Hindu home or temple does not exude the
same sense of peace and calm. It may contain the most awakened energy of a master or guru, but will not necessarily be clean and simple. Feng Shui is an aspect of Zen philosophy, and it believes that energy is blocked by unnecessary articles kept around as well as misplaced articles. This applies to everything in any space where we spend our time, whether at home or at work or in recreation.

When you visit a Japanese Shinto temple or a Zen monastery, what strikes you immediately is the stark nature of the space, embellished with selectively placed articles and furniture. It immediately radiates a sense of peace and serenity. Meditation would happen naturally and effortlessly in such a shrine. If you are a lover of Japanese architecture as I am, or if you have visited Japanese homes and seen pictures, you will notice an extension of this same serenity within the four walls. No matter how small or big the space, it seems refreshingly light and one
immediately feels so relaxed. Everything is neat and tidy. Every item is placed in its proper place. Only natural materials are used for construction. Walls are made of mud and grass and wood. Floors are made from wood or bamboo on which are placed tatami mats made from grass and jute. Shoji screens, made from rice paper and pine wood, serve the purpose of flexible walls. Sleeping is on futons made from organic linen and cotton. There is hardly any man-made or synthetic material in sight. The living space is in complete synchronicity with Nature.

So what happens to all the ‘stuff’ that we so diligently hold on to all our lives? If we look around our homes, we will find our drawers and shelves and wardrobes bursting with documents, letters, photos, albums, artifacts, memorabilia, unopened gifts, useless gizmos, obsolete gadgets, clothes and accessories, toiletries and cosmetics, shoes and bags………. Literally, the sky is the limit. We have a natural human tendency to hoard stuff like memories, never knowing when it might come in handy. Instead of discarding the old to bring in the new, we just expand our storage space hoping that like our minds, we would have infinite ability to hoard. We either have a penchant for collecting something, or a simple inability to discard and let go. My brother has piles of read and unread newspapers and magazines. My one sister holds on to any and all correspondence, another accumulates stuff discarded by others in the family, yet another has clippings from various published media and the last one hoards food items as if there will be a famine tomorrow! We refuse to let go of the past lest it might slip away and never return. But we forget, it has already slipped away. What we need in the present moment is all that we need to have. And
that becomes the bare minimal. Minimalism comes in, clutter moves out.

I look at my life style in the present moment, and that tells me what exactly I need to live now. Everything else is superfluous and redundant. The past is gone and the future will take care of itself. It resonates perfectly with my philosophy of living in the present moment. I am constantly going through my drawers and shelves and wardrobes, and either discarding or giving away items I have not used for extended periods of time and unlikely to. All kinds of paperwork, documents, bills, reports etc. go through the shredder every month. Every time I buy a new kurta, an old one gets discarded. My kitchen and pantry hold the bare minimum supplies. I buy everything fresh and seasonal. No risk of spoilage or rotting and better nutrition with fresh food. I have a refrigerator but it is almost always empty, specially the freezer section. Nothing is frozen or preserved. In India there is a tendency to hold on to empty packaging material, old cartons, empty bottles and odd and sundry stuff. They all gather dust and cobwebs. In
Zen, an empty bottle is not ‘no mind’, it is blocked energy. Out they go. Not surprisingly, even the digital world is not immune from the problems that arise by accumulating, both intentionally and inadvertently, and saving all kinds of data on our hard drives. Our computers are prone to crash more often, they slow down considerably, booting up seems to take forever and myriad other problems. There are various programs and maintenance routines available to regularly clean the hard drives and get rid of the unwanted.

When we can start discarding unnecessary physical clutter around us, it becomes a potent symbol for also discarding unnecessary relationships, habits, thoughts and ideas. In Ayurveda and naturopathy, regular cleansing through panchkarma, fasting and other detoxification methods is prescribed. This helps to restore the physical vitality. So
also in the physical world around us. It is all related. When you see a clean, uncluttered, neat and tidy space around you, you immediately move into a comfort zone that allows you to breathe more freely and see more clearly. You feel refreshed and reenergized and lighter. A huge burden has come off your shoulders.

The spiritual journey continues. Next stop aahaar.

I was born and brought up as a vegetarian. Even after living in the USA and abroad for over 20 years, I never compromised on this. It was not always easy, but obviously not impossible since I survived hale and hearty! And I always thought it was enough to be a vegetarian to be healthy. Was I wrong! (See ‘Journey of a Vegetarian’ in ………… issue of Life Positive). As a vegetarian and living a fast paced life, I was eating all kinds of packaged, frozen, processed and chemically treated foods. My meals were at all kinds of odd, irregular hours. Many times these
meals were in the company of hardcore carnivores, sharing from the same table and kitchen. It did not seem to matter so long as I was eating something vegetarian.

But it did seem to matter. This realization was one of the earliest and perhaps the farthest reaching of all my realizations as I embarked on my spiritual journey. I discovered what Krishna meant by tamsik / rajasik / saatvik that he repeatedly espoused to Arjun in the Gita’s eighteenth chapter. These gunas apply to all aspects of life, but for me they became particularly relevant in the context of aahaar. Aahaar is not just food. The closest English word would be nutrition, and when I talk about saatvik aahaar in this piece as part of the spiritual journey, there is no English equivalent, just as there is no equivalent for karma, dharma, yoga, dhyana and many other Sanskrit words.

As one moves further along on the spiritual plane and reaches higher levels of consciousness, many hardened practices and habits drop off naturally. The chakras open up, energy starts moving more vigorously, and the body, mind, spirit synchronicity starts to take firm shape. In order for this to continue its momentum and take us to still higher levels, the body needs aahaar, and this aahaar has to be as saatvik as the rest of our being has started to become. Saatvik aahaar is food made with TLC and awareness, from the freshest, purest ingredients,
without the use of any animal products. It has to be equally accepted and consumed with full awareness in each morsel, recognizing and relishing the taste of each ingredient that has gone in the preparation. Saatvik aahaar is ideally eaten with hands, so that one can enjoy the food using all our five senses, including the not so obvious one of hearing. Yes, hearing the sound of food. As a Zen koan says, ‘when you are chopping vegetables, chop vegetables’. Next time you are cutting and chopping and cooking, or near someone who is doing that, and when you are actually eating, bring your hearing sense to its full awareness. You will be surprised with the various sounds of peeling, cutting, sizzling, boiling, simmering, and finally chewing and biting. They form as much part of our sensory perceptions around food as aroma, taste, touch and sight.

At first, all packaged foods dropped off. Next, all fast foods dropped off. Then, all refrigerated foods became absolutely minimal; no leftovers. I have not used the microwave in years. Non-stick cookware and all plastic got banished from my kitchen. I learnt the importance of organic foods not just for how it benefitted our own body but, perhaps more important, how it was critical for Mother Earth herself. Mother Earth that provides all our nourishment has been ravished and ravaged for years by all the chemicals, pesticides and pollutants that have infiltrated the food chain through the soil and water and air. She needed to be nurtured back to health. Organic food became an increasing part of my diet, both at home and while eating out. This was more difficult to achieve in India than abroad. Sadly, over the years I have found it easier to eat healthy outside India than in India. There is a far greater awareness of wholesome food in many other countries than India. This sounds counter intuitive but true.

As I got deeper in the world of energy healing, it became clear that our human body was but a microcosm of the entire Universe. There was no reason for human being to have made his own rules contrary to the Laws of Nature. With spiritual awakening comes an acute sense of observation, and with this sense I noticed that the entire animal world, all the birds, all the plants were up and awake well before the crack of dawn. And with twilight they had already found their abodes for the night. Have you ever seen an animal or bird eating after sunset? If you water a plant in the night, it is a sure recipe for it to wither away in a few days. The sun and the moon rise and set at their pre-determined times. The entire solar system and in fact all the galaxies and the entire Universe work with such clockwork precision that it has become very easy for science to predict their behavior. But the ‘intelligent’ human being has created such havoc for himself due to his unnatural behavior, that it is quite easy to know where to pin the blame. We eat at odd hours, well into the night. We eat the wrong things at wrong times. We do not pay heed to the simple rule of ‘local, seasonal, organic’.

My meals became regular and regulated. I studied up on naturopathy and understood the medicinal benefit of almost every ingredient (herb, fruit, vegetable, grain) that goes into my meal. I found a book by Vandana Shiva, ‘Bhoole Bisre Anaj’, and discovered the pleasures of ragi, nachini, jowar, bajra and many other forgotten grains that were
oozing with energy and nutrition. Wheat and rice became rare in my diet. All of the gluten based diet related bloatedness and heaviness disappeared. I was a heavy consumer of milk and related products. I suffered from respiratory congestion and related problems for a long time, until I met a naturopath doctor in Boston. He suggested I try giving up milk for a few months and see what happens. Sure enough, after three months I was again breathing free, and I have not looked at milk again. I became a deep follower of naturopathy. Regular detoxification became an essential part of my lifestyle. This was primarily in the form of fasting supplemented by an annual colonic. Indians are generally deeply rooted in the act of fasting. But this has come about only as an adjunct to religion itself. Fasting as a tool of cleansing and detoxification would never have become so popular if it had not been cloaked with various mythological anecdotes, stories, superstitions and rituals (mahashivratari, ekadashi, sawaan, karwa chauth and many more). In my workshops when I talk about the importance of fasting as a healing practice, people are generally reluctant to adopt it. Yet, they will have no hesitation if it was suggested to them that they should fast once a month to appease a certain deity to alleviate some problem they may be facing in life. I am always happy that the purpose is served, however the message is delivered and accepted. However in naturopathy, there are strict rules around proper fasting, and unfortunately these are not followed when fasting is undertaken without full awareness, e.g. many people ‘prepare’ for their fast by stuffing themselves to the hilt the night before, and ‘break’ their fast by doing the same. This does not provide for any detoxification or cleansing. I have adopted a very simple fasting routine. Once a month I only drink water for 24 hours; once a month I only consume liquids for 24 hours; and once a month I only eat fruits all day. The meals are equally light the day before and the day after the fast, allowing for the digestive system to fully benefit from the rest it got.

The rule of naturopathy that ‘medicine is the food of the sick and food is the medicine of the healthy’ became my mantra. If ever I was down with some ailment or had one of those low energy days, I did not run to the medicine closet or the doctor any more. Instead I pulled out my naturopathy and homeopathy books and found the right remedy. Like many people in India, I became an amateur homeopath! I even started prescribing remedies as part of my healing treatments and in my workshops. This can come about only from a deep sense of conviction from what one believes in, and gradually it is no longer just a belief, but has become my nature, my swabhav, a fresh conditioning as Ramesh
Balsekar would say.

As with almost everything that dropped off along the spiritual path, there was a silver lining to everything. Since I had not renounced the world as most conventional people would believe, and since I was still very much rooted in the day to day life in the real world, I was still connected to friends, family and acquaintances. Once they heard about my strange eating habits (most importantly, no heavy meal after sunset), invitations became rarer. What more could I ask for! It freed up my evenings for more satsangs and workshops that were typically preceded by a very light meal or a potluck. No energy was wasted in trying to drum up metabolism, without the help of the sun, to try and digest all that heavy food eaten well after sunset, and then waking up all bloated and tired. Instead, I and my group used all the energy cultivated all day long from all the saatvik aahaar we had imbibed. The difference was not subtle, it was dynamic! Saatvik aahaar was truly the fuel necessary for me to continue on this enlightening journey. I was blessed!

When I was in the corporate world in the USA, the dress code was quite simple, suit and tie every day. For formal get together, client dinners, banquets and other similar occasions, it was black tie, i.e. tuxedo. I hated it. With the IT boom, things became a bit more relaxed with casual Fridays when one could drop the suit and tie, and short of jeans and t shirt, one could wear anything. What a relief. At least for one of the five work days, one could breathe! There was some hope for the vishudhi chakra to open up.

When I dropped out and returned to India, I was looking forward to a gradual migration to the blissful, comfortable world of kurta pyjama. However, I was in for a shock. As we say in Hindi, ‘Angrez chale gaye lekin angreziyat chod gaye’! In the hot, humid climate of Bombay and most of India, I saw the Indian men dressed to the hilt in exactly the same attire I had yearned to drop off for years in the USA. At least the cool climate of the USA provided some justification and necessity for that attire. Not just the vishudhi chakra, but I did not see any hope for any of the chakras to open up here.

Fortunately, I had embarked on a journey where there are many unknowns along the way. One does not know what will come next. One keeps going along with the flow that is both sublime and subtle. There are no dramatic changes that happen on the spiritual path. As I got deeper into Advaitya and Zen, the common theme that emerged clearly was the inevitable need for the self to break free from all shackles and years of hardened conditioning, and to soar like a free bird. As the consciousness rose higher, the dropping off of the unnecessary, irrelevant, burdensome habits was bound to happen. Man is born without a stitch on his body and that is the only time in his life when he is at his pristine, pure self, born out of consciousness and connected to consciousness. It is downhill all the way after that. In tribal societies all over the world, children remain without clothes well into adulthood, and in many of these societies even through their entire life. Certain tribal societies have been corrupted by the mores of so called ‘civilized’ people who have insisted that it is immoral to reveal certain parts of your body to others, no matter how uncomfortable or unhealthy it may be to cover up. One has to look at our sadhus, monks, ascetics and others who have either renounced the world or, live lives fully rooted to Mother Earth, and see their almost naked self. They have nothing to hide. One has to look at the many realized individuals who have walked the lands of India and elsewhere almost threadbare, Ramana Maharshi, Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus Christ and many more, and wonder why.

While I was not quite ready to shed it all yet, the changes were happening. As the chakras start opening up and getting charged and energized, they need to breathe. And they cannot breathe when one is covered in tight clothing day and night. The body, the skin, the hair, the bones, they all need sun and fresh air to recharge all the cells and keep them fully vibrant and charged. They need to connect with the moon and the planets and the stars and imbibe all the energy that radiates from them. Tight and layered clothing inhibits this. Why is it that during yoga and pranayama and meditation and other healing exercises we are asked to wear lose, comfortable clothing? Why is it that when we come back from a party all clothed and laden up, the first thing we do is ‘take it all off’? It is human nature. It wants to breathe. So why should we not want to breathe 24/7? Why only for a few hours in a day? And specially why not in the night when sleeping, when our body is busy rejuvenating and recharging all its cells?

My suit and tie had long given way to simple trousers and open necked shirt. Kurta and pyjama had gradually made their inroad into my wardrobe, and not just as nightwear. Conventional trousers with zipper and belts gave way to drawstring pants with lose bottoms. Collared shirts gave way to collarless shirts, tunics, kurtis with short sleeves or long flowing sleeves with no cuffs. Dress shoes were a history long time back. I had discovered the pleasures of sandals and chappals, perfect for India where one needed to take them off frequently. For the cooler climates, I discovered the beauty of the shawl, resplendently available in a multitude of designs, fabrics and colors in different parts of India. Very soon I had an enviable collection. Soon I discovered stores like Fabindia, Bandhej and many others. It did not take very long for the pant and shirt to totally become extinct from my wardrobe. The kurta pyjama (in its many variations) became the attire of choice for me almost everywhere, whether it was at home, at a party, a wedding, formal occasion, business meeting, workshops, satsangs, travel, almost
everywhere. I did get denied access to certain clubs, and I was glad for the same, since I had no desire to hobnob with the leftover angrezis in India. Formal dress code invitations were declined, and very soon became a trickle. Again, a silver lining in the clouds! I started breathing easier and deeper. Sleeping in the buff became normal and with that came peaceful sleep.

It was not too difficult to establish a correlation between our clothing and our health and wellness.

First of all, since our body is a product of Mother Nature and made up of the five elements, any alien element like synthetic, nylon, rayon or chemically treated fabric will have an adverse effect on us, no different than any toxic or inorganic substance entering our food chain and blood stream. The impact is rarely immediate, except in the case of allergies of certain kinds, but happens nonetheless. Once I realized this, it was only cotton and linen for me. I discovered the natural, organic beauty of khadi and the way it allowed my body to breathe. Along the way I discovered fabrics made from bamboo and hemp, and I started breathing even deeper and easier. Once I saw for myself how silk was being woven, by boiling the live cocoons in hot water, silk dropped out of my wardrobe. Even in the coolest climate, I found wool to be unnecessary. Layered cotton clothing of various textures was sufficient.

Secondly, those of us who belong to a certain generation may remember or know that our parents never wore any underwear, including no bras for women. My father always wore a dhoti and my mother always wore a saree, two of the most practical and comfortable pieces of attire in the world. Underwear and bras (corsets and the like from the Victorian era were the origins of this) were yet another gift given to the ‘uncivilized world’ by the ‘civilized English’ along with the chair, the potty, the heels and many others. It did not take very long for the mooldhara, the swadisthana, the manipur and the anahata chakras to be imprisoned. The long term results were inevitable. While this article is not focused on an in depth analysis of the correlation between various life style diseases (in particular breast cancer and other cancers of the organs around the lower chakras) that originated in the 20th century and the wearing of certain pieces of clothing, suffice to say for now that the correlation exists. As it does between the use of the western potty and constipation and other intestinal diseases.

All of these dropped off for me, layer by layer, one by one. I felt a sense of freedom, once again soaring like a free bird, ever higher and higher. The spiritual journey continued.

When your child comes home from the school playground, he is bruised, clothes are dirty, his body is caked with dirt and soil, hair ruffled, dirty shoes. You stand him up and remove each piece of his clothing and attire, march him to the bath and hose him down with soap and water, until he is squeaky clean and his sweet innocent self again. Or the story of the emperor who sheds his clothing one by one, until he is revealed in his original, true naked self, no different than the commoner.

When we start on our spiritual journey we acquire many practices, absorb much knowledge and gain much experience. But we shed and let go a lot more. A lot of the old, long established patterns and habits that were clogging our consciousness unknown to us, start dropping off one by one. One starts to feel lighter and lighter, each shedding
taking away another burden off our true self. Among the many patterns that shed themselves off for me, one of the most materialistic was the act of giving and receiving gifts.

Right from childhood, we become conditioned to receiving gifts, on our birthday, on festive occasions, on good performance, and sometimes for no reason. Very soon, it has become an expectation. As we grow up and reach adulthood and maturity with family and society responsibilities, the innocence of receiving gifts as a child gives way to major gifting activity; weddings, anniversaries, showers, house warming and any number of myriad reasons. As with all human activity in this day and age, businesses were quick to come up with increasingly more occasions for gift giving; mother’s day, father’s day and almost every family member day, valentine’s day etc. to the point that some people may find themselves receiving or giving a gift each of the 365 days in the year! It has now become a serious activity that absorbs a good chunk of our time and effort and money. Expectations around receiving and giving have become ingrained. Stress levels around what to give go through the roof. Embarrassments, societal gaffes etc. become commonplace. A good chunk of our precious time is spent on the unnecessary and frivolous. We start to focus more on the tangible and the materialistic and totally ignore the intangible strands of human
relationships based on intuition and connection.

When I was still in the USA, a few days after one of the mother’s day, my mother asked me why I had not called her on mother’s day and why did I never send her flowers or anything like some of my other siblings. I replied, “Maa, they remember you once a year. You are with me all year long. I do not need a greeting card company to tell me when I should call my mom.” Emotional and alone that she was, she started crying.

I have a large extended family, and for the longest time I was absolutely diligent in sending cards, flowers and gifts to each person on his / her birthday. Weddings are as common in India, and as much of a nuisance as mosquitoes, and gifts are inevitable. Most invitations have a clichéd line at the bottom, “Your blessings are the best gift”. Yet, if you go empty handed, you will turn red with embarrassment as you approach the bridal couple and see the stage laden with gifts of all kinds! You are never sure whether cash is more appropriate than something in kind. If cash, how much? If in kind, what? You might spend sleepless nights pondering over this. And then there are all those odd and sundry invitations for parties, get together, celebrations etc. where you are torn between should you or should you not, i.e. take a gift. You chat and discuss with your family and friends as to what is the
right protocol, and whether that ubiquitous bottle of wine would suffice, or should it be something more substantial. Sometimes you may even tear your hair out not knowing what to do.

I had enough of this. One fine day, I sent an email to all my family members and close friends that henceforth I will not be indulging in the act of either receiving or giving gifts of any kind to any one on anyoccasion, and I would appreciate if they respected this. There was complete silence, not a single response or reaction. Of course most of these people had already written me off as a wacko for having given up a lucrative career in the USA and returning to India to become a sanyasi! This was yet another of my hare brained ideas. Their silence was bliss for me. It spoke volumes. The message had gotten across, loud and clear.

I made no exceptions. Many occasions came and went. I attended weddings, parties etc. There were births and other joyous occasions in the family. The only issue I pondered is which of my many Fabindia kurtas I should wear (another shedding of another sort on my spiritual journey). There was a tremendous lightness of being. Nothing to
receive and wonder what to do with the useless item you just received. Nothing to give. It was yet another aspect of the Zen lifestyle I had adopted, to shed everything that is unwanted, unnecessary, meaningless. There were some who did not understand my philosophy. It did not matter to me. I had the conviction of my heart. And since the
heart chakra was wide open, there was no less love and affection than before. In fact, I believe it became more bountiful. It was not riddled any more with the materialistic. It was pure and simple. It had been freed from all shackles. The only giving and receiving now were hugs, hand holdings, healing circles and exchange of energy. Each of these gestures and actions left a deeper impact and a greater sense of being.

This was one of the first and the most difficult shedding that happened along my journey. It has been a few years now. Other sheddings have been easier, mainly because they have not affected the others as significantly as this one. These are not seasonal like the shedding of a bird’s feathers or the falling of leaves in the autumn. There is new conditioning, as Ramesh Balsekar would say, and new sanskaras are formed. I keep getting lighter and lighter, getting to the core of my being as innocent and pristine as the day I came out of my mother’s womb. There is no going back.

This is a true story of my friend Deepak, in his own words.

“I consider myself to be spiritual and enlightened and aware of Who I Am. I am anti religion to the extent that I consider all religions to be dogmatic, exclusive and ritualistic. I was born in a typical Hindu family, not too conservative, yet rooted in the traditions of basic pujas, superstitions and beliefs. I shied away from them from my teen years onwards, after my introduction to Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein and George Bernard Shaw. The question ‘Who Am I’ first appeared before me when I was eight years old. But there was no one around to seek the answer from. I rebelled against all belief systems that appeared to draw strength only from blind faith or could not be explained by my logical mind. Intuition, ESP and sixth sense had yet to take root in my psyche. I was a rebel to the core.

I continued to abhor all religions, including the Hindu religion, in terms of everything that manifested in its name. The question ‘Who Am I’ stayed with me right through my adult years. I found myself on the spiritual path thanks to my Reiki teacher, and then there was no looking back. I knew that the long sought answer to the eternal
question was ahead of me on this path. I got introduced to Osho’s teachings and my ultimate and only teacher, Ramesh Balsekar. And sure enough, the answer came in an instant.

The question: Who Am I?
The answer: I Am That!

The answer ‘I Am That’ rested on the foundations of understanding free will, or absence thereof. In my search of the past and present masters, teachers, scriptures and writings, I did not come across anyone who so clearly and simply explained this concept as did Ramesh Balsekar. Even Krishna has various veiled references to free will in the Gita, but consistent with his very playful nature, he leaves all of them subject to interpretation by the reader, and there have been interpretations galore! Ramesh explained it in terms of its applicability in daily living, because that is all we are concerned with, and therefore it hit the right chord. While the teaching and the understanding registered completely at the intellectual and intuitive levels, its validation also started appearing in daily happenings.

Little was I to know that the biggest validation was to come soon.

My horoscope reading at various times by various individuals had indicated that I would be under the malefic influence of Saturn for seven and a half years, popularly known as the sade satti in India. I was also advised against buying land or any property during this time. My logical as well as my spiritual self scoffed at this, and attributed it to a creation of the indigenous and entrepreneurial mind of Indian priests and astrologers and others who gain directly from spreading such fear, because along with every malefic effect in the horoscope, there is a
‘remedy’ for it as well! The remedy for sade satti consists of performing certain pujas, making certain offerings, wearing certain stones etc. The reason for my skepticism was that in Western astrology there is no equivalent of the sade satti, even though Saturn is very much part of the Western astrology system! Sade satti can supposedly have a malignant impact on one’s health, relationships, finances and other aspects of one’s life. In general, one is advised to ‘keep low’ and be ‘on guard’ during this period. In other words, be very careful of your free will! It could create havoc.

In 2007, I had bought a piece of land, after a three year long search, with the intention of developing it into an organic farm and a healing center. When I saw the land, overlooking a lake and surrounded by hills, it was love at first sight! It was idyllic! After a year long search, I narrowed down on an architect and contractor, and the work began. Almost immediately after I signed up with the architect, it became clear that he was the wrong choice, and negative vibrations started emanating all around the project. The contractor turned out to be inexperienced for the job. In July 2009, there was an accident on the site, a newly raised slab came crashing down, and there was a fatality and injuries. The police descended on the site more intent on making gains from the tragedy, rather than placing responsibility for the accident where it belonged. There was finger pointing and passing the buck all around. I was in a state of shock. The project came to a standstill.

What did I do wrong?

In 2003, I met my childhood sweetheart totally out of the blue, after a gap of twenty years! It was like time had stood still. It was love at first sight! It was also the beginning of a very intense and satisfying relationship amidst great odds on both sides. The relationship derailed in the summer of 2008, got back on track later in the year, and again derailed in the summer of 2009. It had a disastrous effect on me, emotionally, mentally and physically. When the accident above happened in July 2009, I was seriously nursing the wounds of this broken relationship. I was devastated! My health started to deteriorate rapidly; bouts of high blood pressure, insomnia, and depression started plaguing me.

What did I do wrong?

My well wishers consisting of my family, friends and even strangers started rallying around me. Each of them had a suggestion and a piece of advice. References to sade satti and vaastu started being thrown around. They started haunting me day and night. I lived in a beautiful apartment, had bought an idyllic piece of property, and was generally leading a quiet, spiritual life. Why were such ‘bad’ things happening to me? I started discussing it with Ramesh during my interactions with him. Since the teaching had already gone deep down, I myself started explaining it to him (and thereby to myself) that this was all a happening! At one level, the teaching helped tremendously in dealing with the situation. But at another level, I was restless.

Partly I was scared and insecure with what was happening, and partly I wanted to test the validity of this ages old belief system that was being thrown at my face. Could Shani (Saturn) really play such havoc? Could bad vaastu really have such dire consequences? Was the Devi really upset with me and needed to be appeased?

It was a conflict inside my Self, the kind I had never faced in my entire corporate career! My entire being was in turmoil, and I felt shaken to the roots. Everything that I believed in and everything that was sacrosanct were falling apart. My spirituality itself was being questioned. And I was getting pushed towards something that I did not believe in and in fact abhorred. Where was my free will?

Before I knew, I had consulted with two famous astrologers, two vaastu experts, one pandit, one counselor and my physician friend. Over the next two months, from July to September 2009, the following ‘happened’ out of my own free will:

• I had a vaastu check done for my apartment. Various deficiencies were found and remedies were put in place. I now
have a shrine, pyramids, wind chimes, Ganeshji, flowers, water bodies, crystals and mirrors in various places as suggested.
• I started performing a small puja at the shrine each morning. • I started chanting the Hanuman chalisa each day, no matter where I may be.
• I have a pandit who comes each Saturday to perform a puja and chant for an hour to appease the Devi and Hanumanji.
• I performed the kaalsarpyoga puja in Trimbakeshwar, Nasik to appease Rahu and Ketu.
• I organized mahajaap over a period of two half days with 12 pandits to appease Mangal, Shani, Rahu and Ketu.
• I started wearing the pukhraj stone (yellow sapphire) in my right hand.
• I had a vaastu check done at the land. It turned out that the South side needed to be made heavy. I started planting large trees on the South side.
• I made certain sankalps with the blessings of Lord Krishna at a shrine I visit in Haridwar.
• I had three counseling sessions with my counselor, and followed the advice given by her.

The results have been almost instant. The relationship is back on track, in fact it has gotten elevated to a much higher level. Even though the project has not started again, I have managed to get the architect and the contractor off my back, and organic farming is moving along at a steady pace. Most importantly, I have acquired total equanimity and peace of mind, and never felt better emotionally, mentally, physically. During this entire period, the rebel and rational in me were still kicking and alive, and I refused to indulge in certain other remedies suggested to me. I refused to go to the Shani temple every Saturday. I refused to make an offering of black sesame seed and oil every Saturday. I refused to take anti-depressant pills strongly suggested by a famous psychiatrist who prescribed the same to me after diagnosing me with manic depression within five minutes of seeing me! I did not take any sleeping pills.

So where did free will end and where did destiny take over? What happened to my abhorrence for all rituals and blind belief and faith? What happened to my spirituality?

I have known Deepak since childhood. He is almost an alter ego. The dark phase that he encountered, the conflicts and the turmoil that he faced, and the questions he has raised regarding free will are genuine. I have seen and felt his pain very closely. Ramesh Balsekar was a teacher to both of us. As Ramesh used to say, “….yes, we have free will, but it is worth nothing. It is like a fake currency note.” A thought gets planted in the mind (not in our control), a biological reaction takes place based upon genes and conditioning (not in our control), free will is asserted and an action is performed, but having done that, the results are not in our control. Deepak’s free will caused him to fall in love at first sight with his childhood sweetheart and the land and there was a biological reaction in both instances. Thereafter, the results of those actions were not in his control, because his destiny, as determined by the stars (including Saturn!) had something else in mind for him. His destiny kept
pulling him towards performing actions of his own free will, which once upon a time he would never have contemplated. As Deepak says, little did he know that Ramesh’s teaching would get validated in such a major way for him and for the benefit of others.

Are you a vegetarian?

Let me ask you again.

Are you really a vegetarian?

If your answer is still yes, continue to read and see if you still maintain that you are a vegetarian.

Well, why are you a vegetarian?

Is it because you were born and brought up that way and have continued to be a vegetarian?

Or is it because you believe it is the healthy way of eating?

Or is it because you believe that killing animal life for human consumption is wrong?

Or perhaps a combination of one or more of the above reasons.

Many of those who claim to be a vegetarian fall in the first category (especially in India). They were born to vegetarian parents, were brought up in a vegetarian household, and have continued on the same path. They take vegetarianism for granted and never question what makes one a vegetarian or what it really means. For the most part they either remain unaware or choose to ignore that in their day to day life they may be intruding into the animal world inadvertently. The health benefits of a vegetarian diet are well researched, well documented and well known. This includes the known biological fact that the human body is designed only for a plant based diet and not for
consumption of dead animals. However, the moral aspect of being a vegetarian is more subjective and debatable, and a matter of one’s personal philosophy. I prefer to say that the justification for killing animals for consumption is subjective and debatable, and a matter of one’s personal choice.

True spiritual learning and growth can only be experiential and not anecdotal. What follows is a discussion based upon my own experience around the world.

Are you a vegetarian?

Yes. I was born to vegetarian parents and brought up in a vegetarian household. For the most part, my circle of immediate family and friends were all vegetarians, and that is the only diet I knew and accepted. As in most Indian vegetarian families, the diet centered primarily around dhal, subji, roti, rice, in various forms and combinations. I never gave this aspect of daily life any thought.

It was after I went to the USA, when everything changed. The vegetarian diet that I had taken for granted in India went for a toss. I was exposed to a very different culture with food habits alien for my insulated Indian mind. I was now forced to question every item I bought in the grocery store or ordered in a restaurant. The obvious ones like fresh produce (fruits and vegetables), grains, cereals, lentils, dairy etc were not a problem. This was in the early eighties well before hybrids, GMOs and organic became buzz words. I started coming across ingredients and names that I had never heard of before, like polenta, soya, tofu, gluten etc. I would avoid any strange or unknown
name not wanting to risk ending up eating meat in some form. The silver lining was that I started cooking myself. I started calling my mother regularly to ask how to make my favorite items, sabudana khichadi, upama, poha, various vegetables, dhals etc. I started experimenting on my own. If I had to eat out, I would seek out Indian restaurants.

This is about the time vegetarian diet was starting to become more prevalent in the USA and Europe. Like almost everything else in the USA, there was a plethora of writings, commentaries and other information on benefits of being a vegetarian. They all focused around the health benefits and the moral aspect. I started taking a hard look at my own background and asking myself why was I a vegetarian. This is also the time when people in the USA and India would inquire how I managed to survive as a vegetarian. In India it was generally understood that any one migrating to the USA would inevitably start consuming meat. For the mainstream Americans, vegetarianism was a
fad, totally misunderstood, and riddled with ignorance and arrogance at their own ‘superior’ diet.

This was the turning point for me. From being a ‘born into a vegetarian family’ vegetarian, I became a conscious vegetarian fully aware why I was one. Most importantly, I no longer needed to be defensive about being one. Yet, it was uphill, especially as I rose up the corporate ladder, interacted with the business world, and traveled extensively. Business lunches and dinners, meals with colleagues, invitations to homes and parties, room service, flight meals, all became an obstacle to be crossed. But my resolve introduced me to various support groups like vegetarian societies, and I became more involved as an activist. Most importantly I started understanding the importance of knowing exactly what is it I was consuming. I made it a habit (to this date) of not buying any packaged item without reading the label and knowing the ingredients. In the meanwhile, many vegetarian Indians coming to the USA were shedding their vegetarian diet, partly as a necessity (so they claim), partly as a status symbol, partly to appear to merge into the mainstream and not having to stand out like a sore thumb.

As I quit the corporate world and immersed myself fully on the spiritual path, I became more sensitive to what was on my plate. Why it is that all the teachers and masters, retreats and ashrams and all places of spiritual growth and learning all over the world (not just in India) are vegetarian? As the energy channels open up and energy starts moving through the chakras, one inevitably becomes sensitized to one’s environment, especially food and nutrition. At the physical level, the body starts rejecting any food that is animal based. Intuitively one starts sensing something is wrong even before one has taken the first morsel. This is when I learnt and realized for myself the simple truth that when an animal is about to be slaughtered, it immediately becomes cognizant of this, becomes all tense and stressed, and this negative energy remains in the flesh and bones after it has been slaughtered. Any healer or energy therapist can recognize this, whether it is the negative energy of individuals, food containing killed animals, hybrid produce, or food laden with preservatives, chemicals and fertilizers.

I have a weakness for pizza, and pizza without mozzarella is like pani puri without the pani. One day along this journey I discovered that almost all cheese contains rennin that is derived from a cow’s intestine. I was depressed and disappointed at learning this. I do not have a particular liking for cheese except mozzarella, especially mozzarella made from buffalo’s milk, fresh and creamy. I was not going to accept defeat, so further research revealed that any cheese can be made with a plant based rennin, and that such cheese was available in many
places. I also found out that certain pizza places do use vegetarian cheese. It was not the end of the world after all!

My attention now shifted to items that we generally do not associate with being vegetarian or not; items of personal hygiene (toothpaste, soaps, shampoos etc), personal care (cosmetics, perfumes, lotions etc.), health supplements (vitamins, antioxidants etc.) and medicines. One can argue that these are not consumed by the body, so what is the problem? Well first of all, all these items are absorbed into the body directly or indirectly. Secondly, (this is where the question again arises why am I a vegetarian?) if being a vegetarian is a belief and a way of life, then should it not extend to everything that touches one’s daily life? Should one not question everything that one comes in contact with and see if it involves a slaughtered animal? Where does one draw
the line? What about clothes and footwear? What about the use of leather? What about furniture and other household items? I looked at every item that I was buying and consuming or using,and made a conscious decision whether I will continue to use it, stop using it, or substitute it with a known vegetarian alternative. This was based upon
a fair amount of my own research supplemented with loads of information available on the web, and discussions in groups and forums. The most disconcerting part of this conscious exercise was the discovery that almost every item we use at home or outside contained the remnants of killed animals. The most pleasant part of the exercise
was the discovery that there was a vegetarian or close to a vegetarian substitute available for most items. If one was sensitive and cared enough about being a vegetarian, one would seek them out. If not, life would go on as always.

The thing that bothered me the most was the use of animal products in various supplements I was taking; vitamins, antioxidants, immunity boosters etc., some in a capsule form. I learnt that capsules are made from gelatin that is also derived from various parts of a cow and other animals. However it was not long before I found brands that used
capsules made from plant based gelatin. Even non capsule based formulations are now widely available in vegetarian versions. The problem is with allopathic medicines, and so far, the all powerful pharmaceutical industry has not been influenced enough to research and introduce vegetarian versions of its various drugs. Until then I am happy to stay with ayurvedic and homeopathic treatments for the times that I need to take a remedy. The key of course is to stay healthy so as to avoid a situation where one may be forced to take allopathic medicines.

Did you have any interesting experiences along this journey?

• The first interesting experience I had was just after arriving in the USA. One of the easiest and cheapest things to eat out would be a slice of pizza. The first time I went to a street corner pizza place in New York, I saw something listed as pepperoni slice. My mouth started watering at the idea of a hot, spicy pepper on my slice. I was about to take my first bite, when I saw a poster on the wall advertising pepperoni with a picture of a lump of meat. I almost threw up! This is one of the most common experiences for someone arriving fresh from India.

 In my early years in the USA, my boss once took a bunch of us to dinner for a celebration. He knew I was a vegetarian. I was aghast when I found myself seated in a steak restaurant! When it was my turn to order and not knowing what to order from the steaks and the lobsters, my boss looks at me with surprise as if I had come from another planet, and asks the waiter to get me a large salad! Thereafter I could barely eat my salad as I sat among
a bunch of carnivores devouring dead cows and clawing away at the lobsters with their various implements of dissection. I have never been able to get that image out of my mind. The icing on the cake came at the end when my boss asked me how the salad was!

 I was at a business dinner in a French restaurant. The host knew that I was a vegetarian. I scanned the menu numerous times and except for desserts could not find anything that sounded vegetarian. Then I noticed an item under entrees with sweetbreads. The first thought that came to mind was ‘shahi tukda’, and I wondered to myself why would it be listed under entrees and what was it doing in a French restaurant. When it was my turn to order, I asked for that particular item. The host looked at me and said, ‘but Pradeep, I thought you were a vegetarian’! When I went home and looked up sweetbreads, it turned out to be the innards of a baby animal like cow, pig, goat
etc.. It still beats me why it would be called sweetbreads! That was the first and last time I allowed my vegetarianism to embarrass me in public.

 Soup of any kind is one of the most common items in a vegetarian’s diet. Early in my years in the USA, I discovered french onion soup. The description would typically list the ingredients as onions, croutons and cheese. In particular, I used to frequent a hotel in Boston during my business trips there. I would end up ordering french onion soup from the room service menu. One day, I came across the recipe for this soup in a magazine. I was shocked to read beef stock as an ingredient in this soup. Next time I went to the hotel, I spoke with the chef, and sure enough, beef stock was used in the French onion soup on their menu. It had never crossed my mind to think of the
stock that is used in soups. It was a big learning experience, and from then onwards, unless I am certain, I always ask about the stock in the soup.

 I was a long staying guest at a top hotel in the suburbs of Bombay. Everyone in the hotel knew I was a hardcore
vegetarian. They had just opened a new pan asian restaurant, and I was invited to dine there. As is common in many
restaurants, the menu clearly indicated which items were vegetarian. I scanned the menu and saw one of my favorite
items, som tam which is a raw papaya salad. I ordered it. As soon as it was served, I knew something was wrong. I took one small morsel, and sure enough it tasted and smelled of fish. I called my friend the restaurant manager, and explained that this item shown as vegetarian contained fish. He said that was not possible, and called the new Thai chef who had made the salad. She came to the table all smiling expecting to get accolades for her cooking. I asked her whether the salad contained shrimp paste, and she excitedly said yes, it contained shrimp paste especially imported from Thailand! The restaurant manager apologized profusely. Some years earlier I had a similar
experience with ‘pad thai’ at another Thai restaurant, and ever since I realized that shrimp paste or fish oil is an essential ingredient in Thai cuisine, I avoid that cuisine unless I am eating in a vegetarian Thai restaurant.

 There have been a few other mishaps along the way, being served a beef burger instead of a vegetarian burger at a
restaurant in the UK, being served a chicken sandwich instead of a vegetarian sandwich in a coffee shop in Pune and also in a major hotel in Rabat, Morocco. In some of these incidents when the error is pointed out, they coolly remove the dead animal from the dish and bring it right back! It has happened on flights as well.

How did you mange on your travels?

I have been to 69 countries so far, and in no country did I starve or felt famished due to my vegetarian diet. And I rarely have to rely just on fruits or salad or bread. I always like to try out the local cuisine or at least something with an international flavor. Eating in an Indian restaurant (and almost every country I have been had one) is always a last resort when there is absolutely no other option. As soon as I reach a hotel, I have someone write the following on a piece of paper in the local language: ‘No meat, no fish, no seafood, no chicken, no eggs’. If there is a local word for vegetarian, I have that written down as well. I carry this with me all the time, and unless I am in a vegetarian restaurant, I show this paper to the waiter and wait for him to express acknowledgment that he has understood. It is not enough to just say vegetarian since there are as many interpretations as there are countries. I have come across many vegetarian restaurants that include eggs or chicken or seafood in their menu. It is also not enough to say ‘I eat only vegetables’, because then I am served nothing but a plate full
of raw vegetables!

Some years ago, I discovered www.happycow.net, a website listing vegetarian restaurants in over 100 countries. I never leave home without checking this listing for my destination. Through happycow.net, I have experienced some of the best vegetarian meals around the world, covering almost every type of cuisine. It is updated regularly and has reviews from people who have eaten at a restaurant. It also lists grocery and health food stores that carry prepared vegetarian meals.

Travelling is a great learning experience from every point of view, and especially as a vegetarian one gets to see so many different perspectives of this lifestyle. From the delicious, fresh and wholesome cuisine of the Middle East (falafel, baba ghanoush, hummus, tabbouleh, baklava) to the olive oil drenched and sun ripened cuisine of Italy (pastas, pizza, antipasti, minestrone, breads) to the couscous of Morocco, paella (think biryani) of Spain, empanadas (think samosas) and other delicacies of Central and South America, fresh steamed tamales of Mexico, dumplings, rolls, noodles and soups of numerous vegetarian Chinese restaurants all over the world, rijstafel (think thali) of Indonesia, roti canai (think paratha) of Malaysia, momos of Tibet, Ethiopian ajeera with an array of vegetables and lentils (think thali served on a large dosa); the list is endless. Some of the best falafels I have had are on the streets of New York and in Rotterdam. My first experience of rijstafel was in Amsterdam, as was my first couscous on the Left Bank in Paris. The best pizza I have ever had was at a nondescript joint somewhere on the border of Luxembourg and Germany!

Some of the most sublime dining experiences and meals I have had are outside India. When I was living in Boston, I heard about Café DiCocao in the middle of rural Maine, about 3 hrs away from Boston. This café is open just once a week, every Saturday evening, for a tasting dinner. The first time I went, I did not know what to expect from this middle of nowhere vegetarian restaurant. There was no menu, no prices. One has to call in advance to let Cathy know you are coming. Once you reach there, you are completely in her hands. It is a one woman show. No help of any kind either in the kitchen or outside. Starting with the first course, it turned out to be a feast for the senses….the taste, the aroma, the presentation. Each morsel was sublime. She would emerge with each course and explain in detail what it was and where she learned it. There were flavors from all over the world. This went on for about two
hours while one is comfortably reclined on various cushions thrown all around. It is as if I was her house guest. When it is time to pay, there is no bill. She asks you to pay whatever you wish and drop it in a big box. She has no way of knowing who paid what. It has been one of the most memorable dining experiences ever.

I remember Sublime in Fort Lauderdale, one of the best vegetarian gourmet restaurants in the world. I showed up without reservations and was told it may be a long wait. The ambience was so inviting, the people were so nice, that I would have waited if I was to be the last person to be seated. I am glad I waited. It was one of my first
experiences of fine dining in the vegetarian world. And then there is Hangawi in Manhattan, a Korean restaurant. It is the closest to the temple cuisine of Japan and Korea that I have come across outside those countries. Temple cuisine is part of the Buddhist tradition that is prevalent in Japan and Korea. It is typically found in Buddhist temples, consists of traditional sitting on the floor with a low wooden table placed in front, and served by male and female students or residents of that temple. Numerous small bowls consisting of various items are placed on the table, and each item is explained. The entire experience is very similar to the traditional style of eating in many Indian households even today. I also remember Gandhi in Budapest. I went to the restaurant expecting it to be an Indian restaurant. It turned out to be anything but! It resides in an underground cavern of sorts, dimly lit with candles, communal tables, and a limited menu. There was no sign of India anywhere. Later when I asked about the significance of the name Gandhi, I was told it was because of the non-violent nature of the food that was served!

There is the wonderful restaurant Malabar in Santacruz, California run by a Sri Lankan. All his staff inside and outside the kitchen are women from various parts of the world. While the restaurant is open every day, on Saturday evenings he has a tasting dinner, no menu, no price. One never knows what next will emerge from the kitchen, adding to the excitement of the dining experience. At the end, one pays whatever one wishes. The first time I dined there with a group of 10, and started to pay him $150. He refused, saying it was too much! How can the food at such a place not be sublime? And then there is Greens in San Francisco, David Bann in Edinburgh, and numerous more to
mention here.

For those from India who crave the Indian fare but do not care for the ubiquitous chana masala, mattar paneer fare found in the majority of Indian restaurants all over the world, there is Govindas and various restaurants run by disciples of Sri Chinmoy (under different names in different countries). These places offer no frill, wholesome,
inexpensive, vegetarian meals that are hybrid i.e. have an Indian touch or some Indian items along with various other items. I also learnt a hard lesson while flying. Many airlines offer special meals when booked in advance. Some of these meals are religion based, i.e. kosher meal, Hindu meal, Moslem meal etc. I remember ordering a
Hindu meal on a flight and finding chicken on my plate. Later on I made inquiries and found out that in the Western mind, a Hindu is an Indian and since chicken is a popular part of Indian cuisine, it is usually offered in a Hindu meal! From then on I realized I need to ask for a Hindu vegetarian or Asian vegetarian or just vegetarian meal.

How do vegan and certain other beliefs fit into the vegetarian world? A vegan avoids all animal products including dairy and honey. A vegetarian does not avoid dairy or honey. A vegan believes that consuming dairy and honey supports the animal rearing industry and this industry is responsible for harmful practices towards animals. I do
not subscribe to this view. This is where I believe the ability to discriminate between the good and the bad is essential in order to make an informed decision, rather than blindly following a path. It is true that in the West and other parts of the world, milk is derived from many cattle that are primarily reared for slaughter purposes, and these cattle are subjected to harmful and painful practices. Similarly honey cultivated from commercial bee farms are subject to harmful practices. However, not all milk and honey is derived in this manner. There are
many dairies that rear cattle only for the milk, and the cattle die a natural death. This is definitely the case in India. Similarly, since honey is a natural byproduct from beehives, there are many sources of honey both in India and abroad that follow the natural path and do not force the production of honey in any unnatural way. The key is to look for dairy products and honey from these sources.

By blindly avoiding all dairy and honey, I believe the vegans are missing out on a number of health benefits that can be obtained from these products. While milk itself is not considered healthy for human consumption, its byproducts like butter, ghee and yogurt are extremely healthy and in fact essential for a vegetarian. According to naturopathy and many other beliefs, the human body is incapable of consuming milk. A mother’s milk is the only milk appropriate for a child, and this should be continued for as long as possible. Any other milk cannot be a substitute for mother’s milk. In fact experientially it has been shown that consumption of milk (especially cold milk) is one of the major causes of various respiratory and digestive problems. Undigested milk produces phlegm. This has been my own experience. In the USA I had started to develop various respiratory problems like congestion,
sinusitis, wheezing, breathlessness, constant colds and sore throats. Some of these were attributable to the harsh cold and dry climate of New York. But in spite of temporary relief from various remedies including homeopathy, they recurred frequently. In Boston, my naturopath doctor asked whether I consumed milk. A glass of milk a day was a habit with me since childhood. This was supplemented with ice creams, milk shakes, cold coffee and sundry other forms of milk all the time. He suggested I try and eliminate milk from my diet and see if it helps. I gave up all consumption of milk except in tea and coffee. Sure enough, within a month I started to feel the difference. For the
most part I have continued with this habit, except when I need to have warm milk as part of an ayurvedic remedy.

However milk when set into yogurt changes its characteristics completely. The live bacteria in yogurt works wonders for one’s digestive system and keep it in shape. Similarly, butter churned out of yogurt and ghee clarified from butter are very essential sources of good fat for a vegetarian. The vegans I believe are missing out on this
important element of a vegetarian diet.

There are many vegetarians, especially in India, who avoid all root vegetables or just onions and garlic. This is mainly for religious reasons. Those who avoid all root vegetables believe that by uprooting these vegetables they are harming the soil and various forms of insect life that survive in and around the soil. Even as a hardcore vegetarian I find it difficult to subscribe to this view point, Uprooting of vegetables when they are ripe is no different than plucking fruits and vegetables from the branches of plants and trees, or plucking certain fruits and
vegetables like melons, pumpkins etc that grow along the ground. Similarly, onions and garlic are avoided by certain vegetarians because they believe these have taamsik qualities that impurify the mind. These individuals are primarily devout followers of Krishna. In all my readings about Krishna, I have yet to find any mention directly attributable to Him that validates this belief.This is yet another blind belief based upon someone’s interpretation that forms the core of religious practice. Onions and garlic have tremendous health benefits, and similar to turmeric, sesame and various other ingredients, are very essential for the human body. They are particularly beneficial in warding off inflammations, infections and heart diseases.

Silk is another item that is avoided by all vegans and some vegetarians. I generally avoid silk unless I am sure it has been derived from silk worms that have not been killed to extract their sap. Like everything else, one needs to discriminate between blind faith and reasoned belief. With awareness, one can do this and reap the benefits of a full and proper vegetarian diet.

What is the difference between being a vegetarian in India and around the world? It is the difference between sensitivity, caring and understanding in most places around the world and callousness, indifference and ignorance in India. For a supposedly vegetarian country like India, happycow.net lists only 176 vegetarian restaurants in India out of a total of over 13,000 worldwide, and the majority of them are south Indian. Happycow.net does not include restaurants that serve vegetarian dishes alongside animal based dishes, and I subscribe to this as much as possible. The negative energy emanating from having slaughtered animals in a common kitchen is enough to contaminate the vegetarian cooking in the same kitchen. All food imbibes the vibrations of the person who has gathered it, prepared it for cooking, cooked it and served it. It is obvious that a person who is also working with dead animals in any way will transmit that stale and negative energy to the vegetarian food as well. This is easy to experience if one is sensitive enough and vibrating at a higher frequency by having the same dish in a mixed vegetarian restaurant and later in a vegetarian restaurant. I extend this belief to avoiding sharing a table with someone who is not a vegetarian.

This is not the case outside India for the most part. First of all there are far more vegetarian restaurants of all cuisines in most parts of the world than there are in India. Secondly, even in a mixed restaurant, the chef and the kitchen staff are very sensitive to their vegetarian clientele, and either have separate sections or separate utensils or take special precautions. This is partly due to the risk of legal action in certain developed countries that have laws protecting consumers from being served items that may be contrary to their belief system or their
health requirements. A few years ago, McDonalds and Pizza Hut were both sued by a group of Indians in the USA and both companies had to settle the lawsuits and make amends to their recipes. McDonalds was sued for including beef seasoning in its french fries and Pizza Hut was sued for using various animal based flavors in its pizza sauce. Both of these are most common items consumed by Indians while travelling abroad under the assumption that these have to be vegetarian! When I was served a sandwich with chicken in a restaurant at the Hilton hotel in Rabat, I sued the hotel company in the USA; they immediately apologized and settled with me. This is in contrast with my experience with Café Coffee Day in Pune. When I tried to take action against them for serving me a chicken sandwich, I got nowhere, and became an object of ridicule for trying to do something so stupid. The typical
reaction was why I did not just ask for another sandwich! Lard is a common medium of cooking all over the world including India. It has been banned in many cities and countries including New York. Of course it has been banned not because it is an animal product but because it is a monounsaturated fat and all monounsaturated mediums
of cooking have been banned. I wait for the day it will be banned in India. Similarly MSG, a staple additive in Chinese and other Asian cooking, while not a concern for vegetarians directly since it is not derived from an animal product but extremely harmful to human health, is increasingly avoided in the West but used liberally in India. I have seen people who avoid onions and garlic but lap up Chinese cuisine laden with this chemical.

Pure vegetarian cuisine in India is limited to certain parts of south Indian (not Chettinad or Kerala or Andhra), Gujarati, Marwari (not Rajasthani), and the generic dhal subji roti cuisine of most of the Hindi belt. How many upper crust and fine dining vegetarian restaurants does one come across in India? Swati and Soam in Bombay are the rare jewels. I have been looking for a vegetarian Bengali restaurant in Calcutta or a vegetarian Chettinad, Keralite, Goan, Konkani restaurant anywhere in India, with no luck. I did find a vegetarian Kerala restaurant, Rasa, in London, one of the best meals I have ever had. And yet in New York alone (the haven for vegetarian dining) I have dined in vegetarian restaurants from practically every cuisine of the world, Mexican, Korean, Chinese, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Guatemalan, Peruvian, Sri Lankan, Tibetan, Afghani, Middle Eastern. I have attended dinners organized by the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York (specializing in vegetarian cooking) with special tasting menus.

It is far easier to find vegetarian items on the shelves of supermarkets outside India. They are clearly labeled. In the UK, this has been the law for a long time. In the USA and most European countries, while not a law, the practice is very prevalent. If one is not sure, one will always get an informed answer when asked. In India that is not the case. Knowing full well that a can of Heinz baked beans comes in both the vegetarian and animal version, I picked the animal version from the shelf of a famous supermarket in Pune and asked one of the assistants whether it was vegetarian. He stared at me and said yes, of course, they are baked beans! If he had bothered to read the ingredients on the label he would have noticed chicken stock in it.

A vegetarian outside India has, generally speaking, made a conscious decision to become a vegetarian. It is rare that he or she is born into a vegetarian family. It is rare to find a completely vegetarian family that is not Indian. Therefore he or she is far more committed to the belief and cause of vegetarianism and applies it to daily life far more diligently than a vegetarian in India. If one were to compile statistics one would find that more people in India are starting to eat meat than those converting to vegetarian. It is the opposite in the Western world. Being a vegetarian is a way of life for those who are conscious vegetarians. They apply it to all aspects of their life. In India for the most part being a vegetarian implies cooking and eating a vegetarian meal. Sometimes this is further restricted to cooking and eating a vegetarian meal at home. I come across many individuals who say. ‘I am a vegetarian at home but eat meat outside.’ Or worse still, they themselves do not eat meat, but have no problem cooking and serving meat at home! In various workshops and talks when I inform people that pizza and jello, two of the most favorite items consumed in India, contain pieces of a dead cow, I get nothing but a blank stare. How is it that if a piece of dead cow is served on a plate along with dhal and subji, one would immediately shirk and purify the entire kitchen immediately, but if the same piece is camouflaged in a slice of pizza or a cup of jello, one does not even blink an eye? A conscious vegetarian would never step into a McDonalds even though they offer vegetarian items on their menu. He is aware that McDonalds is responsible for slaughtering millions of cows a year to serve their customers all over the world. In Dhamma it is said that an action that even indirectly causes harm to anyone is an unwholesome action. By stepping into McDonalds to have a vegetarian burger, a vegetarian is supporting a business that is causing untold harm to the environment.

I have come a long way in my journey as a vegetarian, from being a born vegetarian to an embarrassed vegetarian to a defensive vegetarian to a conscious and fully aware vegetarian. Today, for the most part, when I go to a restaurant I have to ask whether they serve any vegetarian items. I wait for the day when a carnivore goes to a
restaurant and has to ask, ‘do you serve meat’? Until then, let me ask you once again: Are you a vegetarian?

When Mahatma Gandhi passed away, Albert Einstein wrote, “Generations to come will scarcely believe that such a man in flesh and blood ever walked on the Earth.”

When seekers and students of advaita read about Ramesh Balsekar in the years to come, they will scarcely believe that a man such as him was one of the last living masters of the 20th century, during the peak of kalayuga.

And I still find it difficult to believe that I was one of the privileged few to have been touched by him, in flesh and blood, during the past six years. Most of the spiritual knowledge is usually obtained second hand, from books, hearsay, interpretations. I got my teaching first hand.

During my twenty-five years long search for the answer to the question, ‘Who Am I’, Ramesh Balsekar’s name popped up time and again, but it never stuck. I travelled around the world, meeting gurus, teachers, masters; attending discourses, lectures, workshops; visiting ashrams, monasteries, retreats; devouring scriptures, books, articles.
But the answer eluded me. Upon my return to India in 2004, one day I found myself in the Philosophy section of Oxford Book Store. Ramesh Balsekar’s ‘Sin & Guilt’ was staring at me. Instinctively my hand pulled it out, and before I knew it, I had read the book cover to cover, over numerous cups of tea at the Cha Bar in Oxford. I went back to the bookshelf, and emptied it out of every title by Ramesh Balsekar. I contacted Zen Publications, got the telephone number for Ramesh, spoke with him right away, and found myself on the hot seat in Sindhula on Gamadia Road off Peddar Road in South Bombay, the next morning at 9AM!

That was the end of my long search.
That was the beginning of a new life for me.

I lived on Peddar Road before I went to the USA in 1982. How was I to know that the answer to my question, that took me around the world, was right around the corner from where I lived! It was not meant to happen a day earlier than that hot, sunny day in April 2004 when I found myself at Ramesh’s feet. The happening happens when it is
meant to happen.

Ramesh was a happening.
Blessed are we who experienced this happening.
That itself was a happening for each of us.

One of the first things that struck me from the time I called Zen Publications to get his contact details was the ease and informality with which almost everyone was addressing him by his first name. Even though I had lived in the USA for 22 years, where first name is the norm for almost everyone except one’s parents, I had retained my
Indian ethos and identity that disallows the use of first name for anyone except someone younger to oneself. And here was this guru, teacher, and master in his mid 80s being addressed by his first name! But instead of revolting, I found it endearing, with no barriers of formality. The story goes that during the early years of Ramesh’s daily
morning satsangs, a gentleman from abroad asked Ramesh how should he address him? Ramesh replied, “Why, my name is Ramesh”!

Adi Sankaracharya wrote thousands of verses explaining advaita. The Upanishads runs into hundreds of pages. Lord Krishna himself took eighteen chapters to get it across to Arjun. Osho, the last living master and advaita teacher of our times along with Ramesh, was prolific to the point of being obsessive about explaining “You are the witness”. Ramesh needed just 45 minutes each morning to explain, “You are not the doer”.

A teaching so simple, that it completely floors you the first time. This cannot possibly be the answer to the question, “Who Am I”. But how could it not be? The question itself is so simple. How could the answer not be so! Simplicity begets simplicity. This frail, small built man in his simple white kurta pajama was simplicity personified himself. From his simple mind and self came this simple answer. And when it did, it resonated with the only words Buddha actually uttered after his nirvana, “Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual
doer.” Zen at its simplest, profound best!

Whenever I mentioned Ramesh and the daily morning satsang and my own awakening to any one, they would refer to him as my Guru. I felt strange. Does one address one’s Guru by his first name? Does one feel like embracing one’s Guru instead of touching his feet? Can one think of enjoying a beer or a shot of whiskey with one’s Guru instead of
accepting panchamrut? Does a Guru crack jokes and laugh heartily like a child? Does one walk into a Guru’s bedroom unabashedly and have a quick chat? Ramesh turned the concept of guru on its head. No saffron robes, no beads, no ash, no mantras, no miracles, no prasad (only cold coffee sometimes!), no assistants surrounding him, no donation box at the entrance, no airs. He was like RK Laxman’s common man, like any of us. He still shed away the darkness for me as the word guru implies. He still showed me the path and lit it with his simple teaching. No, he was not a guru to me; he was a friend, guide and philosopher. …… he was like a child, playful, innocent, and funny; anyone could access him, in person, on the phone, in writing. There were no expectations. There was just unconditional love and compassion. He was faithful to his wife for 60 plus years, to his employer for 40 plus years and to his teaching for 30 plus years.

People attending his satsang from all parts of the world asked him questions on family, relationships, sex, business, money. He talked about art, culture, politics, sports, finance, and religion. No topic was taboo. There were intense discussions on consciousness, rebirth, and free will. There were the typical inane questions, “Ramesh, I do not get along with ….. what should I do? He brought it all down to the highest common denominator in five simple words, “You are not the doer”! It resonated and echoed constantly, until it became a mantra, like ‘Om’,
part of one’s breath. And there it sits with me too.

Ramesh Balsekar, in his physical body, is no more, – who cares!
Ramesh, the Teaching, will always be there – I care!

Dear Ramesh,

True to your teaching, there was pain in the moment, followed by pleasure from the bliss of your teaching.

With love and gratitude,

Pradeep Darooka

October 24th 2004

I woke up with a start, engulfed in bright white light. I could feel something wet underneath me. My pyjama seemed totally soaked. I reached out for my cell phone, it was 3.45 am. There was a strange glow all around. I had never experienced anything like this before. Suddenly a smile crossed my face. I went back to sleep.

My sister Sunila knocked on the door, and simply said, ‘we have to go’. I was in Pune at her place having come there the day before. I switched on the light. My white pyjama had blots of red on the back side. I went to the bathroom to change. My underpants were soaked in red. I felt the area below my navel near the groin. It was gone. The lump was no longer there. I scanned the hara. It was glowing purple! The muldhara chakra was on fire.

Maa had finally passed on; in Brahma muhurat on Kartik ekadashi. She had chosen the most opportune time…… or was it someone else who chose it for her? My sankalp was for that Sunday, the 24th of October. But I had lost all track of teethis, and had no idea that my sankalpa was for Kartik ekadashi. I had definitely not asked for Brahma muharat. We reached her bedside in the Bhatia Hospital in less than two hours. It was as if I had developed wings to be with her. I was on the cell phone almost the entire drive from Pune to Bombay, gathering my reiki circle together and performing the closing circle. We completed it before sunrise.

When I got to her bedside, she was calm as a frozen lake. I touched her forehead. It was still warm. Her skin felt as soft and supple as a new born baby. There was not a single wrinkle on her face. She was glowing. The sahasara chakra had already closed. I touched her feet and put my forehead to them. She blessed me.

I had experienced the divine.

August 1999

The connection was established in August of 1999. I was in London. I received a call from my nephew in Bombay asking me to come immediately as Maa was in a coma in the ICU. I rushed to the Bhatia Hospital next morning after arriving late in the night. Dr. Suhas Shah, under whose care Maa had been admitted to the ICU, had already informed the family about the inevitable happening any day. When I first met him that morning, I took an instant dislike to him as I do with most doctors. I was not allowed to go into the ICU. Later in the morning I was allowed to ‘visit’ her for five minutes. I desperately wanted to reach out to Maa. She was calling me. I pleaded with the doctors, the nurses, the officials to allow me to be with her for an hour or so. I told them about reiki, explained that I would just place my hands on her body without talking to her or disturbing her in any way, all to no avail. Finally that evening, after much convincing and pleading, Dr. Shah agreed to allow me near her. Tears arose and I thanked him profusely.

The next two days were a blur. Once I had gained admission to her bedside, the nurses became more friendly and inquisitive as they saw me placing my hands all over Maa. There was a lot of curiosity. Most of the time I was in a daze and my eyes were shut. The only thing I still remember is a surge of fire in the form of a ball. There was a strange sensation in the anahaat chakra. In my three years of reiki initiation, I had never experienced this sensation. Some time on the second day, I remember watching Maa opening her eyes and locking them with mine.My ajna chakra was on fire. Two days later, Maa came back home. It was a homecoming for me too.

A few days later when I met Dr. Shah to settle his fees, he was a changed person. Or perhaps, I was a changed person? I took an instant liking to him. In the middle of his busy consulting hours in the hospital, we spent almost thirty minutes talking about Maa’s condition and recovery, and what he perceived as a ‘miracle’. I told him there were no miracles only happenings (this is well before I came across Ramesh Balsekar and his teachings!). I thanked him for his help and support. Even though I doubt whether his text book conditioned mind allowed him to ‘accept’ reiki or grasp the phenomenon of healing beyond that induced by drugs, I was genuinely touched by his warmth and sincerity so rare in the medical profession. We both became ‘converts’ to a degree, and more

importantly, a connection had been established.

1999 to 2004

The next five years was an intense period of spiritual and personal awakening and awareness for me. It was a serene whirl of yoga, meditation, healing, scriptures, satsangs, naturopathy, ayurveda, martial arts, shamanism, crystals, aroma, sound, chakras, auras, astrology, nadi shastra….. all coming together and building up on the foundation laid
by Sheryl Benson, my reiki teacher who initiated me in 1996 in Boston. My curiosity and intense travel bug took me to Dharamsala, Rishikesh, Kumbh Mela, Bodh Gaya, Ganeshpuri, Pondicherry, Pune, Osho, Kerala, Himalayan Institute, Kripalu Center, Sivananda Ashram, shaman healers, various monasteries in South East Asia and in the USA. It was a
journey I wished would never end. My sabbaticals from the corporate world were getting longer. Maa thought I had taken sanyas and started preaching to me the importance of grihastha ashram before sanyas ashram! I asked her what was the difference, so long as I was in some ashram! She had her intellectual and spiritual limitations, typical of most Indian women conditioned by and trapped in the ignorance of, what passes for, Hindu religion in India.

Each sojourn brought me in and out of Bombay. It brought me to Maa, who lived alone ever since my father passed away in 1986, and whom all her three sons had abandoned for greener pastures abroad. When I left the shores of India in 1982 to go to the USA, my father asked me whether I will ever return. I said yes, absolutely, but just do not know when. I could not redeem this promise during his life and the time to redeem had still not arrived. But I knew it would.

Maa, the matriarch of a family she had raised amidst adverse circumstances, after getting transported from the sleepy town of Akola to the bustle of Karachi as a result of her marriage, and then getting uprooted from Karachi to Calcutta to Bombay after the partition. A family of 8 children, 13 grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren and their varied spouses. As my interaction with Maa increased, a certain quietude started creeping in our relationship. Words became redundant. Expectations, emotions, responsibilities, duties started fading. As the youngest of her eight children, and almost an afterthought for my parents (a six year gap between my next older
sibling and myself), I always felt very close to her. She supported and protected me in my angst towards my father. We always had a certain understanding and bond typical between the youngest child and his doting Indian mother. Yet, it felt different now. Something had changed since 1999. Maa and I had transcended certain barriers inherent between any two individuals.

I had started living her life.

Her pains, her discomforts had become mine. She did not need to express or ask. I knew it. She did not need to reach out. She had already become enshrined within me. There was no need for that thread of white light for healing. As her heart kept shrinking, I started breathing for her. As her kidneys started failing, my incontinence
increased. As her digestion became weaker, my appetite for her favorite items increased. After all these years, I finally learnt to say no to her. There were no pangs of guilt. She understood. She knew it was not me, but she herself who was saying no.

It did not matter anymore.

2001

My interest towards astrology reached a crescendo. I had my readings done under three different schools, Indian astrology, Western astrology, naadi shastra. I was amazed at the confluence of the three readings. Besides touching upon myriad aspects of my life, each reading mentioned 2004 and one of them mentioned October 2004.

My reiki intuition took over.

August 2001

I felt like a dead end. I was back in the USA. My sojourns had become less frequent. Maa was becoming weaker and lonelier. But I was away from her and could not be with her for various reasons. My corporate career seemed totally faded in the distant past. My dreams of a healing center in India were not materializing.

And then I got a call. A six week consulting assignment in Bombay. The stars had lined up. Something called 9/11 happened. Nothing was going to come in the way. I landed in Bombay. I surprised Maa by reaching home the morning she was having a havan performed on my father’s shraadh.

Her joy was muted. Not really. I was elated. She knew I had come home, even though I was staying in a hotel in the distant suburbs. The six week assignment became a two year project. The entire time I was in the hotel and barely visited her once or twice a week. Each time I visited her, she cooked her favorite items, without asking me. She
knew I would eat and she would relish. Her appetite had diminished considerably. How did it matter? I was eating. e hardly spoke of anything consequential. She knew I would take care of everything. I knew what she wanted.

October 2003

My assignment was over. I finally made up my mind. I decided to move back to India. I bought an apartment in Pune. I could not imagine living in Bombay, leave alone with Maa. She knew; she understood. Never once did she ask that I move in with her. She was so overjoyed, how could she ask for anything. I felt her unexpressed desire. I cried. I was helpless as all I could do was watch and be a witness. (I had discovered Osho but not Ramesh Balsekar yet.) I tarted getting the apartment ready and furnished to move in by the middle of next year. I was running against time. ‘October 2004’ would not fade away. It will go away only after it has come. Not a day before.

April 2004

I finally met Ramesh Balsekar in Bombay at his morning discourse, after having heard about him from a Brazilian friend four years earlier, and a year after I started reading his books. He turned out to be everything except what I had imagined him to be. I had tears in my eyes that first day when I touched his feet. I knew my search was over.
As I was practicing my morning asanas, I felt a twitch in my chest on the left side. I ignored it. It persisted. While not painful, I could feel it now and then. As I give myself reiki, I felt the lump gradually moving towards the anaahat chakra. I did some visualization. I saw something dark brown, almost black and dirty. It was quite small, not to cause any concern. It had almost become a plaything. I sought it out each night before I fell asleep. Over the next few weeks, I felt it increasing in size and shifting downwards.

July 2004

It was time for me to go back to the USA and pack up and come back for good. I was in the car after Balsekar’s discourse to visit Maa. Lalloo, her servant of many years, called on my cell phone. Maa had fallen in the balcony and was in pain. My sister Nirmala called soon thereafter, asking me to get to Maa as soon as possible. It was pouring outside. It was one of those days in the Bombay monsoon when everything is flooded and you cannot get any where. I was able to reach her only later that evening. She had fallen on the plants in the balcony and her
chest seemed to have taken the brunt of the pressure. She complained of pain in the chest, but was otherwise quiet. Her maid Archana was applying hot water bottles. The next day the x-ray did not show any broken bones. Dr. Parikh, the family doctor suggested a chest brace that seemed to give her no comfort.

She kept complaining of pain in the chest. Everyone thought it was muscular because of the fall and would heal itself gradually. I gave her reiki that evening. Her chest was ablaze. The anaahat chakra was all dark and ominous. I did the visualization and saw a lump the size of a golf ball on the left side. It was dark brown, almost black and dirty. I let her sleep. I went back to my bed, and sought it out. It had moved further down, just above my navel. There was no pain, just a soft sensation.

I felt divine

August 2004

My apartment in Pune was still not ready. I was getting anxious. Maa had now lost almost all appetite. I was eating like a pig. Her kidneys had almost failed. My incontinence had become more intense. She was gasping for breath every so often. My pranayams became more intense.

She could no longer stand erect, leave alone walk with her walker. She was totally bed ridden. Dr. Shah was back in charge. I spoke with him for the first time since August 1999. His advice was simple; hospitalize her. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to care for her at home. But being a doctor, he was not sensitive enough to the nuances and the dynamic forces that were in play. He did not understand Maa, he did not understand me.

Maa was resolute. She would not go to the hospital. She wanted to be at home, under the care of Archana and Sarita and Lalloo who had all so lovingly cared for her all these years. She still wanted to know what was cooking in the kitchen, who was at the door, and whether Lalloo was short changing her while buying groceries.

I had drafted the obit. I also had the hand written piece of paper where, many years ago, Maa had scribbled her wishes upon her passing away. I was leaving on the 15th of the month for the USA. I got together with my four sisters the day before, and discussed the entire plan in the event of anything happening in my absence. We all agreed that under no circumstances would we hospitalize Maa. We discussed and agreed the funeral and post funeral plans. I summarized everything and put it in an email to Krishna, Pramila and Dilip, my siblings in the
USA.

I could not have been less emotional.

August 15th 2004

I bid Maa farewell telling her I will be back soon. She patted me and blessed me. As I went to sleep on the flight, I felt the lump. It was in the hara, the manipura chakra.

September 1st 2004

I called Maa from Boston. She could barely speak or hear. She asked when I was coming back. My flight reservation was for October 1st, I told her. She could not hear and kept asking ‘You are coming on the 25th are you not’. I finally said yes. She seemed happy. I called the airlines and changed my reservation for the 24th.

September 5th 2004

My sister Mridula called from Bombay. She said Maa was in a lot of agony and discomfort but was not ‘letting go’, waiting for me. She suggested I come back at the earliest and help relieve Maa of her misery. I said I will think about it. I checked my hara. The lump had not moved much. There was still no pain.

September 22nd 2004

I was traveling in the USA. I had a message on my voice mail to call Bombay immediately. I spoke with Pramila my sister from California who had already reached Bombay. She informed me that the doctor had found a lump in Maa’s chest and wanted to test it for malignancy. They had finally figured what was causing her the pain all along!
I scanned my hara. The lump had moved into the swadisthana chakra. She also informed me that Dr. Shah was adamant that Maa be hospitalized immediately, but Maa refused to listen to any one until I returned. I reminded her that we ad all decided not to hospitalize her under any circumstance. I asked for Maa but she was in no position to
speak on the phone. I asked my sister not to bother putting Maa through the biopsy test. It was not relevant.

September 25th 2004

I reached Bombay early morning. After her morning rituals, I finally saw her a little later. She hugged me and started sobbing. I told her, I have come back home. I had finally redeemed my promise made to my father 22 years ago. I asked her whether she would like to go to the hospital. She just looked at me and kept sobbing. All day long, there was a lot of pressure from my sisters, doctors and others to take her to the hospital. I refused. At 7.30 pm she moved her bowels, and then called me urgently. ‘I can not breathe’, she gasped. I scanned her anaahat chakra. It was very dark. I panicked. I called Dr. Shah, Bhatia Hospital, and the ambulance in a space of 5 minutes. She was admitted into the ICU within half an hour. Ramesh Balsekar’s teachings were truly alive! That night I went back to the conversation with her on eptember 1st. I slept like a log.

I had never been happier.

October 2004

She stayed in the ICU for a week. Both my brothers from the USA had arrived. All her eight off springs were with her. The medical diagnosis was clear. The kidneys had failed, the heart was barely pumping, and she refused all intake. It was a matter of any day now, according to Dr. Shah. But I knew she was not ready yet. I scanned her sahasara. It was closed. I scanned myself. The lump had barely moved. Access to her in the ICU was very restricted, so we decided to bring her out to a private room. The next few days became a routine. I slept in the room most of
the nights.

My sister Urmila had started sensing something. She asked me a few times about the date. I kept quiet. Mridula, my other sister insisted that I was ‘holding Maa back’ and should ‘let her go’. How could I? I was only a witness, not the doer. I attended Ramesh Balsekar almost every morning. I shared my daily experience with him and every one present. His teaching was coming alive for me each day. Advaitya was no longer just a concept; it had become real for me. What better teaching could I ask for? Osho said I could only be a witness. Balsekar says I am not the
doer. It was all ringing true, each day, each moment.

October 10th 2004

It was Maa’s birthday. She was barely able to open her eyes. I asked her if she would like to come to Pune to the new home. She nodded, and said yes, take me there. Her eyes were moist. I scanned her. My hands froze on the back of her head. There was an unmistakable glow and heat. My heart jumped a beat. The sahasara chakra was open.

I felt a tightness in my groin. I scanned myself. The lump had moved all the way down. It seemed to have shrunk a bit, but ominously dark as always.

The next few days I was with her as much as possible. I stayed with her in the room almost every night. She had become Brahmaleen, one with the Creator. I wanted to be as close to this leela as possible; absorb and bask in as much of the divinity as possible. There was no thought, no emotion, no sensation. Her aura got brighter each day. The colors had started to fade. She was encircled in white light that became more intense with each passing day. Maa, reiki, me…… the distinctions had faded. There was no healer or healing, just pure white light. Dr. Shah continued his twice a day visits, amazed at her resilience. We no longer talked about reiki or miracles or healing. It was not relevant, and he would not understand. All that mattered now was his warmth and caring attitude as if his own mother was lying there. Ironically, he said, ‘we can only watch’. I smiled. I wished Ramesh Balsekar was there to hear it!

October 20th 2004, 8.35pm

Everyone had left. I was alone with Maa. She was in a deep sleep. I sat beside her, and as always placed my right hand on her head and left hand on her anaahat. The sahasara chakra was still open. I closed my eyes. I saw a red glow and felt a twitch in my right hand. I opened my eyes. Maa was looking at me with eyes wide open, like a baby who had just woken up from a long peaceful sleep. I quickly grabbed my cell phone and started shooting her video. She rolled her eyes and moved her head from side to side. I immediately called my sisters to tell them what was happening. They wanted to come over. How long would this continue? I hung up the phone, and placed my hand on Maa’s forehead. She looked into my eyes and nodded. A tear slipped from my right eye and I nodded back. She closed her yes. I needed to let go. She was ready.

I stayed awake all night in meditation. The sankalpa came at about five in the morning. All of the reiki energy had accumulated. It was accompanied by a vision of a long highway leading away from a bright light into the forests yonder. I came out of my stupor.

Maa was in a deep asleep.

October 21st 2004, 12.30pm

I came back to Maa’s room in time for Dr. Shah’s morning visit and also to inform him that I was leaving tomorrow for Pune for a couple of days. He examined Maa and asked me not to go out of town. I reluctantly agreed and closed my eyes. How could I explain my sankalpa to him? How could I tell him that Maa would not leave unless
I left first? I kept quiet.

October 23rd 2004, 7am

I scanned Maa for the last time. The sahasara chakra was still open. I touched and kissed her forehead, touched her feet and left immediately for Pune. Dr. Shah did not need to know.

October 23rd 2004, 10pm

I went to the bathroom before going to bed. As I was emptying my bladder, there was a sharp, excruciating pain in the groin. I almost screamed. I went to sleep like a toddler.

October 24th 2004

My pyjama was bleeding red during the entire funeral. I was emptying my bladder profusely. The healing was complete.

October 31st, 2004

I went to settle Dr. Shah’s fees in his consulting room. We spent almost an hour together. He had become part of the family. I wanted to give him a reiki hug. I hesitated. He would not understand. We talked about Maa mainly. From August 1999 to the present. We touched upon my journey briefly. There was no mention of reiki, miracles etc. this time. He asked about my healing practice. Then he simply said, ‘after a point, even the doctor can only watch’. I said to myself, Dr. Shah I would want you to be my doctor until that point. I went home, to Maa.

In August 2011 on Janmashtami day I was at the Osho World Galleria in Ansal Plaza, New Delhi attending a dance and talk by Sonal Mansingh on Krishna and his multidimensional roles. After the performance I was browsing the shelves and came across a set of CDs titled ‘Gita Darshan’ by Osho. Instinctively I was drawn towards it, asked how many CDs were in the complete set, and before I knew, I had bought the entire set of 22 CDs and walked out. I had not even bothered to notice that the CDs were in Hindi!

That was the beginning of an 18 month long journey through the world of
wisdom.

It is March 2013, and I have just concluded this journey listening to Osho while he walked me through the 700 verses of the 18 chapters of Bhagavad Gita in chaste Hindi. Hindi is my mother tongue but it hasnot been my medium of education or upbringing or career or spiritual journey, until now. But, I was surprised how easily it became the language through which I embarked on this remarkable journey with someone for whom it was the language of his heart, just like the flute was the voice of Krishna. I do not remember a single word of English intruding into the 22 CDs spread over 30 hours. Those who have heard Osho in Hindi have experienced something close to ecstasy. His own journey started firmly rooted in Hindi, and in his early days all his discourses and talks were in Hindi for the discerning Indian audience he spoke to travelling all over India. This was well before the dramatic shift that took place in the late 1970s when his audience changed almost completely from Indian to non-Indians, and the language from Hindi to English. While he was equally successful in mesmerizing his audience in English, those who have been fortunate enough to have heard him in both languages know that it was day and night. When he spoke in Hindi, his heart poured out, and it almost seemed like Krishna himself was talking.

From the time I was in school, I had read many different interpretations of the Gita both in its entirety and individual verses and chapters. In hindsight, I consider myself very fortunate that my father had insisted I choose Sanskrit as a ‘foreign’ language in preference over French and German. At that time it seemed the most stupid thing to do especially since I had plans to go abroad. It was only later I realized the value of learning the basics of Sanskrit, and with that one of the most basic yet deepest spiritual lessons of my life that things happen for a reason as part of a plan for each of us, came home true. The Sanskrit lessons in school made liberal use of excerpts from the Gita, and that was my first introduction to the pearls of wisdom lurking behind each verse. When I lived in Boston, I attended a Philosophy School which was actually a group of Harvard / MIT type doctorates and research scholars who met a couple of times a week to discuss the Advaitya philosophy, and the Gita was the main reference tool for this purpose. This was my first indepth and serious introduction to Advaitya Philosophy. I was the only Indian in that group! Every Sunday, a few of us from the group met to learn and brush up on Sanskrit, since it was very clear to all that without really understanding the essence of phrases like dharma, karma, yoga and many others, it was very difficult to really gather the true gyan that Krishna was expounding to Arjuna. My wheel of destiny had turned a full circle when I started leading those Sunday groups!

But even though the Bhagavad Gita along with the Ashtavakara Gita were instrumental in keeping me focused on my spiritual journey, there were occasional gaps in my understanding and some questions. Later, almost all of them dropped off at the feet of Ramesh Balsekar. Osho appeared in my life at about the same time, not in his body any more, but in his spirit that engulfed me completely. The medium was mainly his books (all in English) along with his talks (in English) at the white robe meditation at the Osho Ashram in Pune. More than his words, his spirit and his energy were now within me. But the Gita Darshan brought him alive for me. The set of CDs sat in my car for the last 18 months, and during this time, Osho became my companion whenever I was at the steering wheel. Whether it was a 10 minute quick jaunt or a 3 hour drive to Bombay or stuck in the traffic for hours, his voice filled the car and I became oblivious to everything outside. The chaos, the confusion, the cacophony that used to bother me so much driving round in Pune and Bombay, all disappeared the moment Osho started talking. It was almost as if I was sitting right in his presence while he was talking live, moving from one city to another. It did not matter whether I heard him for just 5 minutes or a complete hour. It did not matter where I stopped and where I picked up again. The energy was a continuum that lasted through the entire 30 hours of recording that took me 18 months to complete. Each word was chaste, crisp and clear. The explanation for each sutra was as if Krishna himself was explaining it.Each talk was interspersed with questions and answers, anecdotes, stories and his favorite Naseerudin jokes. I never felt the rush to go to the next verse or CD. I wanted to savor each word uttered by Osho (Krishna) like a morsel of saatvik nutrition. It went deep in my heart. I had my first shaktipat experience in the 14th Chapter when Osho leads the audience towards the same.

The Gita came alive as it had never done earlier reading all those books and interpretations. Even this was an interpretation, Osho’s; and as he himself says throughout the talks, anyone who talks about the Gita can only talk from his perspective, but yet for me it was Krishna talking himself. During the time the CD would be laying, the car would appear to be on auto pilot, and I honestly would not realize how and when I reached my destination. For someone who intensely dislikes driving in India, it seemed like Osho (Krishna) himself was navigating me like my charioteer. There was a certain calmness within me and in the car.

The icing on the cake was that my Hindi skills sharpened as never before, and not once did I have to seek out any help for any words or phrases used by Osho. For the first time in my journey, a recent workshop I conducted was almost entirely in Hindi. Of course, it helped that the audience too was mainly Indians. Just as Sanjay acquired divya drishti from Ved Vyas to be able to narrate the war to Dhritarashtra, it seemed like I had somehow acquired divya shruti to be able to listen to Krishna himself.

This journey of the last 18 months has been a phase of my spiritual growth that is as remarkable as the five years I spent at the feet of Ramesh Balsekar. Osho came alive for me finally.

Foreword

If we can strip the dogma from religious thought, and bring any religious teaching down to the bare bones spiritual level, the following will make sense. It is not about comparison of religions but the essence of human spirit. Just as Hinduism has nothing to do with Rama or Krishna or any of the other godheads, Buddhism has nothing to do with Buddha’s teachings, Islam has nothing to do with Prophet Mohammed’s revelations, so also, Christianity has nothing to do with Jesus and his teachings. All of these religions came about as becoming ‘organized’ thanks to the greed and power of certain individuals who took it upon themselves to ‘interpret’ the teachings of the Teachers themselves!

I looked up at the icon again and again, not believing my eyes. I was in the St. Sava Church in Belgrade, Serbia. It is the largest Orthodox Church in the world. I went around and looked at some more icons, and the hand gestures stared at me again, almost wanting to tell me something. They were unmistakably similar to the mudras in Hindu Buddhist philosophy. My curiosity was now piqued, and I started clicking some pictures.

In the last couple of years, I have travelled extensively to Eastern Europe and Russia which, along with Greece, are the centers of the Orthodox Church. I had visited numerous Orthodox Churches in these countries, each more resplendent than the other. One of the most beautiful I had visited was in Vilnius, Lithuania. But I had never noticed the hand gestures on the icons until now. It is important to understand that iconography is unique to the Orthodox Church, and does not exist in the Catholic or Protestant Churches. The latter have an altar which does not exist in the Orthodox Church. There are no pews in the Orthodox Church and the faithful and visitors are required to stand during the services. These differences between the two parallel places of worship of Jesus are missed by most non-Christians while visiting the Churches. But a closer and patient look will reveal some surprises, as they did to me.

From Belgrade onwards, as I travelled to the other Balkan countries and Bulgaria and Russia, I started noticing these hand gestures in almost all the icons in the Churches. These countries are predominantly Orthodox, but do have a few Catholic churches. So, to be sure of what I was noticing, I visited them and of course did not find any icons and therefore no hand gestures. The two most common hand gestures I noticed were

1. The thumb and the ring figure joined together.
2. The little and ring fingers joined to the thumb.

Both were done with the right hand..

The first one is the Prithvi mudra and the second is the Prana mudra, two of the 108 mudras from Yoga and Tantra practices. The third most common hand gesture I noticed was the first finger touching the thumb in the Vitarka mudra.

How did these mudras come about in these Christian icons thousand of years after they had already become part of the spiritual and religious practice in India?

As part of this happening, three other happenings occurred within a span of a few days during the same trip to help me find the answer to this question.

First, I stumbled upon ‘The Urantia Book’ at the Mystic Fair in Zagreb, Croatia.

Second, I finally read the complete book ‘Jesus Lived in India’ by Holger Kersten.

Third, I met a defrocked priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade.

Let me start with the Third happening.

While conducting a cooking workshop at Radost, a vegetarian restaurant in Belgrade, I started chatting with Maria, one of the cooks who is a Krishna devotee. I shared my observations about the hand gestures with her, and her eyes lit up. She quickly told me about Priest X (his name cannot be disclosed for obvious reasons) who had been defrocked by the Church. Why? Because he had done extensiveresearch on the connection between Jesus and India, and in particular what exactly happened during the ‘missing years’ of his early life and subsequent to his resurrection’. He had travelled to India and Tibet numerous times, and was about to publish his findings. Before he could do that, the Church got wind of it, and defrocked him. Instead of a messiah, he had become a pariah!

Maria knew Priest X and agreed to introduce me to him. I met him the next day over a cup of tea. He was a very unassuming person radiating certain aura that was very comforting. As I shared my observations with him, he smiled and said what I had noticed was not coincidental. It reflected the ‘Buddhist teachings and philosophy that Jesus had imbibed while visiting India and Tibet during the missing years of his life”. I listened to him in disbelief as he shared anecdotes, tidbits, evidence and other information he had gathered during his trips as part of his research. I sat there transfixed as he showed me pictures and references in various Indian and Tibetan scriptures alluding to the presence of one Yuz Assaf and Issa Masih visiting India and subsequently living there. His trail culminated just outside Srinagar in a dargah that is marked as the tomb for Yuz Assaf. Yuz Assaf was Jesus! His last statement as we parted was even more thought provoking; “Jesus was the last of the seven reincarnations of Vishnu to date. Krishna and the Buddha were the fifth and the sixth.”

Just then, my memory pricked me, and I realized that I had actually visited this place in 2006 while in Kashmir. I had just come across the book ‘Jesus Lived in India’ that pinpointed the exact location, and I had gone to find it for myself.

This brings me to the Second happening. Whenever I am on a long trip like this one (over two months),I usually throw in a book for reading assuming I will have some free time somewhere, which of course I never do! The book lies buried deep inside my suitcase. This time, for some strange reason, I was carrying ‘Jesus Lived in India’ and had forgotten about it. After my meeting with Priest X, I immediately dug up the book from my bag, and devoured it
anxiously. Holger Kersten is a Swiss / German theologian and religious scholar. In this book he has meticulously and painstakingly outlined in detail the missing gaps in Jesus’ life, and in particular shed light on the mystery of the Resurrection and what happened thereafter. His trail from Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Palestine took him across the entire Middle and Near East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Tibet. It culminated in Anzimar, just outside Srinagar at Yuz Assaf’s tomb, the same one referred to by Priest X above! While Priest X’s research notes etc. were all in Serbian and therefore not readable by me directly, Kersten’s book is in English. While some parts may appear to be conjecture and may not stand up in a court of law because of circumstantial evidence, the scientific and theological proof provided by him appears quite convincing to a non-Christian. Of course, to the Vatican Church it was blasphemy, and the book and the author were quickly denounced.

Irrespective of whether one accepts and believes in the theories postulated by the two individuals above, one fact remains irrefutable. Civilization as we understand it had dawned in India before anywhere else in the world. Indian philosophy and thinking in the form of Vedas and Puranas had developed and been documented in the scriptures
thousands of years before Jesus was born. Krishna and Gautama Buddha had both been reincarnated and lived their lives, and left a trail of their teachings and followers well before Jesus. It is not out of the realm of possibility that these teachings and belief system made their way to various parts of the world. However up until the last couple of centuries, Indian history was largely depicted through the oral tradition with very little in writing. This is unlike Western history that is largely written and therefore also easier to manipulate and amend to suit one’s need. The Western world, right through the ages, has never given credence to the depth of Indian wisdom and its impact on almost every aspect of life in the world. Authors like Kersten in modern times, and
travelers like Marco Polo have done that. It is also an indication of Eastern passivity versus Western aggressiveness. And this brings me to the First happening.

The Urantia Book is a 2,000 pages tome that was first noticed in the 1950s. It has no stated author and was compiled based upon supposed revelations to some individuals who chose to be anonymous… It quickly became controversial for its contents and the fact that no individual(s) took responsibility for its contents. In a nutshell, the book purports to reveal wisdom about the Universe, its functioning, God, and in particular Jesus and his life and teachings. Skimming it (it is impossible to read the entire text due to the dense and science fiction
character of the writing), one gets the impression, that the author(s) took off from where the New Testament ended, and took it upon themselves to ‘reveal’ the true nature of the Universe from the Western Christian perspective, so as to counter the widely accepted wisdom of the Vedas and Upanishads. Whether or not they succeed is not relevant. The reason this book became relevant in the context of Jesus and India is twofold. One, it does talk about Jesus seemingly appearing in person to various individuals for a long period after the Resurrection. Second, it reluctantly acknowledges the fact that India was the beehive of all spiritual wisdom during the period of Jesus’ early years, specially the Buddhist teachings and impact that had spread far and wide. It also mentions that the belief in reincarnation and the ability of wise men to portend the arrival of the next Buddha were strongly accepted thinking in the East. But thereafter, instead of joining the dots and linking the birth of Jesus with this reincarnation as followed by the ‘three wise men from the East’ who came following the Bethlehem star, they abruptly drop it like a hot potato on the premise that Indian spirituality and wisdom ‘did not fulfill its potential’! It is not important to go into the reasons for this. Suffice to say, Indian wisdom was very much acknowledged and known in the West, even to a reluctant latter day Christian.

There are numerous areas of similarity and convergence between Christian theology and Hindu / Buddhist philosophy. This is evident more in the Orthodox Church and less so in the Vatican Church. Nikolaj Belimirovic is another Serbian Orthodox priest who has alluded to this connection. Just as Zen is the purest form of Buddhism, Sufi is
the purest form of Islam, and Advaitya is the purest form of Hinduism, the Orthodox beliefs emerged as a truer version of Jesus’ teachings and life, though not in its entirety. A few of the similarities are:  The introduction to John’s Gospel, ‘In the beginning there was the Word……’

That word was Om, the sound of creation itself.

 The Holy Trinity: The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit. Trimurti: Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh or Buddha, Dharma, Sangha

 Baptism using Holy Water Cleansing through ritual bathing in the holy rivers

 Chanting Mantras

 Rosary beads Japa mala

 Fasting Fasting

 Birth of Jesus, foretold and feared by King Herod Birth of Krishna, foretold and feared by Kansa

 Jesus, a healer Buddha, a healer

This is how the hand gestures start to make sense. If Jesus was indeed a Bodhisattva, his spending time in India and Tibet during his formative years starts to fall in place. Upon his return, his teachings earned him the wrath of the Jews since it is in total opposition to their concept of God. He was hounded, betrayed and ultimately crucified. But as foretold by him, he rose from the tomb on the third day, not just in spirit as mentioned in the Gospels, but in body since he never died on the cross. His appearances subsequent to the Resurrection are not just
visions, but in flesh and blood, only no one is aware of this except the few who were with him throughout this time, and who now accompany him as he crosses Mount Olive to head to the East, to India, his home, where he had come from. No less a master of the modern times than Osho himself acknowledges this.

Amen!