My journey in spirituality

When I was a young kid, I remember my father taking me to a small Hanuman
statue, which was near a hillock. He always used to jokingly tell others that I
had built the temple. As a young kid, I fully believed it and over a period of
time this grew into the very famous, Hanuman temple at Mahalaksmi Layout in
Bangalore. I remember going to several temples as I grew up. My thread ceremony
was performed when I was about 12 in the holy Mantralaya. So at this stage, my
spirituality was totally driven by my parents.





When I stepped into high school, a set of friends started going to temples
and after we came out, our discussions were about the pretty girls who had come
to the temple. So going to the temple became some sort of a way to see pretty
girls. At some point, something came over me and I told myself it is stupid to
go to a temple for this true intention with a fake outward intention of
spirituality. So I stopped going inside the temple. I used to wait outside as
my friends went in. This gradually built up and over a period of time, I even
removed the holy thread around my body and almost totally stopped going to
temples.





After marriage we used to go to temples and I performed the rites when my
daughter was born. These were done more from a duty perspective and there never
was internal conviction. It was in late 1996 that my father expired and I was
deeply distressed. At that time, one of my colleagues who was also good at
astrology came up to me and told me not to feel distressed and suggested that I
should start doing the daily sandhyavandana and also visit Hanuman temple on
Saturdays. In that emotional state of mind, with a view to ensuring that my
father be peaceful after death, I started doing whatever she had told. So, from
a person who was doing temple related activities as a chore, I began doing this
out of emotion towards my departed father.





Several years later when I was in NJ, I started going to the local temples
especially the one at Bridgewater and the Ganesh temple at Queen’s. Here it was
driven more by the feeling of identity with India that motivated me to go to
these temples. There was no strong devotion still. Sometime around late 2002,
His Holiness, the Udipi swami came to NJ and set up his base in my friend’s
house. We were invited to one of the functions. Seeing the Swamiji with his
serene look, for the first time, started creating some sort of awe and respect.
Soon the Swamiji opened up a temple in a small house near our house, Owing to
the convenience, we started going frequently, but I was going because I enjoyed
going and at this point more of devotion started building. Soon the Swami
started giving lectures on Gita, which kindled my intellectual curiosity.





The following year, my wife booked us for a spiritual retreat at Arsha Vidya
Gurukula in Pennsylvania. I attended several lectures by his Holiness Swami
Tattvavidananda. His Holiness, a Doctorate in Chemistry and Sanskrit explained
some of the basic spiritual concepts so well that I started developing a keen
interest in this and tried to google up some articles and started reading them.
Around this time, my mother’s health worsened in Bangalore and when I went
there, my friend Krishna (A friend is a misnomer for him. He is more than a
brother to me) presented me the Bhagwad Gita written by Swami
Chinmayananda.  I started reading it
around February of 2006 and was deeply fascinated. The way he explained
spiritual concepts was very logical. I finished the book sometime around summer
of 2006.





Still the turmoil was there within to learn more and a book could take me up
to a point only. I was hoping that I could attend lectures. It is said that
when a student is ready, the teacher appears. It happened exactly that way for
me. Those days I used to subscribe to Business Week. Sometime around August or
September of 2006, I read an article about Swami Parthasarathi who was
promoting Indian spiritual thoughts in corporate boardrooms. I googled his name
and noticed that his disciple Gautam Jain was offering classes on spirituality
pretty near our residence. I signed up for the course on Vedantha, which he
offered through a book called The Vedanta Treatise. This was a fantastic
introduction to spirituality since it helped tie up many knots in my
understanding. I also attended his classes on Bhagwad Gita.  The impact of these teachings was so
profound that when my mother expired in late 2006, I could take the news
significantly more calmly than when my father had expired.





Independently I also read the Bhagwad Gita as enunciated by ISKCON, the
society for Krishna Consciousness. Having gone to Bangalore, I purchased
several Upanishads, the Kathopanishad, the Mandukya Upanishad, the Mundaka
Upanishad, the Prashnopanishad and also the Viveka Choodamani. The last book is
a classic by Adi Sankaracharya and very lucidly explained the highest concepts
starting from absolute basics. I read all of the above Upanishads and gradually
some of my concepts seem to be crystallizing.





Around late 2008, my friends in Bridgewater started organizing lectures on
spirituality through Swami Shantananda of the Chinmaya Mission. I started
attending the lectures where he covered the Kathopanishad, the Kaivalya
Upanishad and Ramanamaharshi’s teachings. I also listed to the complete Bhagwad
Gita lecture by Swami Tadatmananda of Arsha Bodha. I also listened to his
lectures on Narada Bhakti Sutra. I listened to the lectures on Purusha Sookta
and The Bhagavatham by Shri Udhav Chaitanya of the Chinmaya Mission in Dallas.
I also listened to the Viveka Choodamani by Swami Ranganathananda of
Ramakrishna Mission. I had read various Upanishads, but still felt like
listening to these from a master. Luckily I got access to the lectures of Swami
Krishnananda and I listened to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and the Chandogya
Upanishad.





I feel there are the following stages in evolution of knowledge:

·       I don’t know what I don’t know.

·       I don’t know what I know.

·       I know what I don’t know.

·       I know what I know.

I think, before I started on my intellectual spiritual journey, I was in the
“I don’t know what I don’t know” category. Gradually as I started reading, I
went into the “I don’t know what I know” category. With constant discussions
and also the lectures that I attend, I think I am currently the ignorant person
who is in the “I know what I don’t know” stage. For people like me with strong
desires and with all the accumulated wrong thoughts of several births, it may
take millions of births to reach the level of “I know what I know.” But then
every journey begins with one small step. Hopefully I have begun in that direction.