I strongly believe that there is a divine plan behind this creation, and certainly behind someone getting on to the spiritual path. Here is a brief account of how I was “nudged” to start my spiritual journey. Of course, let me clarify upfront that the idea is not to claim any “chosen” status for myself. I sincerely acknowledge, like our gurus keep exhorting us, that I do not deserve divine mercy which has come upon me only due to a sovereign divine will.

I was born and brought up in a fairly conservative brahmin family in a small town, living a typical god fearing life till my early youth. Later, I moved to the metropolitan city of Mumbai (India) to do my graduation in technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, a premier technology institute in India. Through my career, I lived in many different places interacting with many different people of widely varying thinking. As such, I may concede that by virtue of my education and profession, I must have changed significantly from a god fearing child and teenager to a “rational intellectual adult”, such as they come in the modern times! So, I never thought I would ever become a serious spiritual seeker.

In the year 2000, I stayed with my younger brother in Singapore for about 3 months, when I was on a short project assignment and he was a permanent resident of Singapore. He had already got onto the spiritual path and had received “deeksha” (initiation into spiritual pursuit by a self-realised guru) from a living guru. During a conversation, I once said to my brother that being an intellectual, I didn’t think I would ever “surrender” to a guru to get into a serious spiritual pursuit!

Within a couple of weeks of the above-referred conversation of ours, my brother’s guru came to Singapore to stay with him. She landed in the morning of a Saturday. Since the guru was tired on her arrival, I didn’t have any interaction with the guru on that day. It so happened that I was supposed to return to India that same evening. But my waiting list seat was not confirmed. So, I had to stay there one more day since I had a confirmed seat for the next day, Sunday.

Next day, on Sunday afternoon, we had a chat session with the guru. Of course, it was basically a sharing of the guru’s own life story in the context of how she came to be what she was. Those couple of hours somehow left a deep impression on me. Not that she revealed any great fundamental truths or put forth any “convincing” arguments in favour of spiritual pursuit. But something happened to me all the same through that session. On my flight back to India that evening, I unusually felt like avoiding beer and non-vegetarian food which I used to like till then. I also felt a serene calm and felt like doing a mental “jaap” (chanting of god’s name) of Bhagawan Shri Ram’s name.

Since then, I engaged myself in a little bit of meditation and gradually got more and more interested in spiritual pursuit. I was even able to hang up my boots in the year 2005 to “retire” at a premature age of 53 years to focus more on spirituality. Eventually, in the year 2006, I received “deeksha” from my guru who also belongs to the same “guru parampara” ( a lineage of gurus belonging to a particular spiritual sect) and is a current “uttaradhikaari” (next heir in the line of guru parampara) of the lineage along with my brother’s guru.

I won’t be exaggerating if I say that my encounter with my brother’s guru in Singapore as described above was the divine nudge to me to get on to the spiritual path.

As can be seen, I am just an ordinary seeker. I have no claims to any scholarly knowledge in the subject of spirituality, scriptures or writings of great philosophers and thinkers. However, I was blessed by the Almighty with a sustained desire to study Shrimad Bhagawad Geeta which is the best spiritual philosophy in the Indian tradition. I read and reread the commentary non pareil on it, called Shri Jnaneshwari or Bhaavaarth Deepika by one of the greatest Indian saints, Sant Shri Jnaneshwar Maharaj. My understanding of spirituality comes totally from my reading of Shri Jnaneshwari and the related literature / discourses by our guru lineage.

I had been regularly posting my spiritual musings as blogs on the Speaking Tree website of Times Group of India. Also, more than 20 spiritual articles of mine have been published by one of the leading daily newspapers of India, The Times of India, in its column on spirituality titled Speaking Tree. This book is based on these blogs and articles of mine.