It is interesting when you look back at your life. 10 years back you were in a state that is completely different from what you are in right now. Every moment you are changing. Life offers various opportunities at various times and you make use of it, you make good, you make bad, you fall into a trap, you get lucky. It all happens. This journey of life is not the same for everyone and we all experience different things. But at some point during our life, we begin to question the purpose and want to know where does all these ups and downs lead us. We are happy when we are up and we are sad when we are down and we have no clue why we can’t just be happy all the time. When you start questioning deeper, the door opens up for you into the answers of life. This particular part of the journey will be the most exciting and completely surprising. Every single moment you will see something new that you never thought about before.
The funny thing is the door opens up to you in strangest of the places in strangest of the situations. The Universe knows where to get you started. This is why I am always surprised that my journey into the world of truth and spirituality started with a simple cartoon TV show. Can you believe it? Neither can I! The show is – Avatar, the Last airbender. I got curious. The philosophy and concept behind the show was extremely intriguing for me and even though some of the names of concepts were familiar to me, they were totally new because I had not gone any deeper into those. Nevertheless, it happened and the door was opened out for me. I chose to step in. This was 2 years back and I had no idea what I was stepping into, but looking back I am glad where I am and I am glad that I stepped in.
I chose to read about Zen Buddhism and the associated Eastern Philosophy. I picked up a simple book on Zen from the library – Zen, the Beat way by Alan Watts. It was a compilation of Alan Watts’ Radio commentary on Zen. It opened up to the world of Eastern Philosophy and I actually felt ashamed that I, coming from the east, had to travel all the way to a small town in the west to read about the history of the region I come from. Interestingly, Alan didn’t say anything about the religion as such and he covered various Eastern beliefs and how each of them conveyed the same exact underlying meaning. It was a great learning happening on that day. A 100 page book did kindle a lot of curiosity in me. I started searching on what all these meant, I wanted to know more because I believed there is something in this that will offer solutions to me. There was some unknown attraction towards this, I didn’t force myself into this but it was just happening and I was being pulled into it.
I like science. I like to question the logic behind everything and see if there is scientific proof to those. I love science fiction stories and movies. Quantum physics had also fascinated me for a long time. Not at the deep level, but at the high level of knowing what it means. Any show on the Universe, Planets, stars I was there watching. Knowledge was the great thing that was happening to me. But knowledge was causing a tussle within me. I come from a city in south India that is full of temples. I had been to a lot of these temples and Hinduism is a very important part of me. Obviously, when knowledge got to my head and fueled my ego, I was beginning to question all of the religious beliefs. One part of me was becoming the atheist and the other part was the born theist. They were pulling me apart. It was my very own Personal Kurukshetra.
Well now, the war is quitened. There is no more tussle. They are both there, but they don’t fight anymore. They are quietly residing in me doing their own part. Spirituality is not related to any particular religion alone. It caters to everyone, it includes everything. It is the coexistence of the opposites to become the whole. What does all this mean? I will will write about this more and share my expeiriences on various levels. I will try to be as simple as possible because my aim is to not provide multitude of information, which you can get from books and internet (and I will mention them once a while when I can), but my aim is to provide you a simple peek into all of this through my experience.
