The Journey Begins ..

It was somewhere during my twelfth standard that the questions had popped up .. may be it meant coming of age of the mind .. or may be i simply had too much free time on my plate .. but then i never found them out of context .. and they never ceased to surprise me .. 

Every action even remotely related to godliness would spark the curiosity .. and try as i might .. reading up stuff hardly seemed to help .. one off answers here and there from folks .. some guru ... pandit .. but nope .. the curiosity wud remain unquenched .. 

Bye bye school  .. welcome graduation .. and its time to decide where to head in life .. by then i was all but done with the curiosity part .. and simply accepted the things as they were ..career .. success .. took a front seat .. everything else was irrelevant .. i soon decided commerce is my stream  .. and headed likewise .. with no real aim but to study well and succeed .. 

Graduation gave way to my first job .. as an article (part of the CA course) .. Your first job is always special .. it teaches u a lot .. and mine was no different .. watching people strut around with good degrees and a fat paycheck something really opened up inside me .. and soon a 'realisation' dawned .. wasnt this what life is for?? Isnt it why we all are here? to seek that for which there is no end?? - Success?!!

Just when you think you have figured it all out  .. life comes back to screw it up!
My case is no different .. except .. the screw-up was in a pleasant sort of way .. :)

It was in June of 2006 .. my second audit at ADP wilco .. when i first heard about Art of Living's Yes!+ course .. (Youth Empowerment Seminar!) .. i scoffed it off .. and gave it little thought .. but not my dad .. as it was with many other yoga courses and pravachans .. so it was with this too .. he wanted me to go for it .. and well . my yes or no hardly mattered .. the dread of having to waste another 4 days doing things which i never really understood .. got to me down to a level where i stopped speaking at home altogether .. 

The same curiosity that was inside bubbled up in the form of frustration ..

Starting from the intro talk a week before till the start of the course .. all i did was sulk at the time i was about to waste .. people i would meet whom i would no longer want to be in touch .. doing yoga with little enthusiasm .. and basically everything against my own will ..

detest detest detest was all did for one whole week ..

Life they say is a perfect balance between the good and the bad .. between happiness and sadness .. between smiles and tears .. and so it was .. the whole week spent detesting .. gave way to a week followed by total joy!!

My journey had truely begun! :)

Prologue ..

How often have we wondered at things anew?

How often have we thought of the obvious things that we do?

Remember the time when u sat back .. and thought about life?

how about the time when dealing with a strife?

Like many things in life .. the beginning to this journey too starts with questions ..
Those small little thoughts that munch on your grey cells and live off your curiosity ..

I would be in denial if i ever said that i never doubted my religion .. coming from a devout hindu family i was taught to pray regularly .. never to waste food .. not to eat non-veg .. to do charity .. to touch elders feet .. to sing bhajans .. to do yoga ..

I never understood them .. and forever questioned .. following all these had more to do with a child doing what his parents told him to do rather than out of self effort ..

For why should i pray to the idols when its written in almost every scripture that god is everywhere?

What is really wrong in eating egg or chicken? Arent plants too living beings??

Why give stuff to the poor .. Cant they work hard for themselves?? Is it more to do with us 'showing' generosity or was it about them deserving better things than they got?

Why is it that people strive for salvation? To be free from the cycle of birth and death?? Dosent it imply that the world is not a fit place to live? Why then do all the so-called-enlightened ask people to be happy?

.. Not all the questions were negative though .. there were still questions that lingered which were enigma in themselves ..

Take for example: 'How is it that i am more privileged than others who are born in poorer families? What really is the reason for the disparity? If the roles could be changed .. why werent they???'

I never found the answers .. not in bhajans .. not in charity .. not in being good .. not in praying to god .. and never never in yoga ..

Life has its strange ways .. they say .. things come to you .. when you stop looking for them .. and so it was .. just when i was really like i could'nt care less .. things changed for the better .. and i began .. to realize .. and with it .. to see life in an altogether different perspective ..

And this blog ... this blog is all about my journey on the path .. the many turns and bends .. and the many ups and downs .. about the discovery of the answers (along with much much more) .. and why i believed in them ... about things as i perceive them .. about spirituality .. as i see it ...

Jai Gurudev!!

Vishal