- Jiska koi nahi hota uska bhagwan hota hai…meaning – even if you have no one in the world, you always have God. (in fact as I am writing this, another meaning is becoming apparent, but later…)
- To attain God, you should either be extremely wise, or extremely foolish.
So God became my best friend to whom I told everything, who knew everything, to whom I constantly talked inside my head. I had a deep connection with God. God was never someone to be worshipped or feared or even respected. God was my constant companion. I even fought with Him! I was also influenced a lot by the concept of omnipresent God, so I did not like going to temples. My argument was that I am with God always, why do I need to go to a temple.
I remember many times I would lie awake at nights, and think about what is the purpose of my life. And always, only two things would come up – to find love and to find the ‘truth’. I had no idea what I meant by that, but I just knew I was looking for ‘the truth’. I remember a time when I was in class 10, and I came across some evangelistic book. In general did not like the book, but there was a statement in there…that God will soon incarnate on earth once again to help heal humanity. I remember crying and crying when I read that, beseeching God to come. I somehow felt deeply that my prayers will be answered.
Fast forward now to 2005 when my then boyfriend cheated on me and treated me really badly. I was hurt, heartbroken, depressed and extremely dejected. I felt as if I would never find love again in my life. My entire life seemed pointless. I had lost faith in myself. My faith in God was hanging by a thread. It seemed like I had hit the rock bottom. All the hard jolts of life, got converted into anger towards God. How could he let this happen to me? Why me, me who considered Him as my best friend. Me, who had done nothing wrong in my life. I felt it was God who had cheated me, and not my boyfriend. The intensity of my anger was so much, I felt as if God had planned everything meticulously so that I may end up in this situation. He had deliberately made all these bad things happen. I felt as if God was not my friend, but my enemy, my worst enemy! In that moment of intense anger, I rejected God. I told myself, God does not exist, and if he does, he is not my friend but my enemy. No, He cannot be called God.
As soon as this thought arose, something broke inside me. Suddenly I felt my world collapse. Nothing made sense. I felt as if I was dying. I couldn’t breathe. I felt the ground sinking from under my feet. I realized that this was much much worse than whatever depression I was in a few moments ago. If earlier I was in the rock bottom, now I was falling into a bottomless abyss. I could not take it. I could not live without God. I could live without everything, everything that I wanted, but I could not live without God. I apologized profusely to God. I realized what a huge mistake I had made. In that moment I suddenly felt God’s love rush towards me. I felt so loved, so protected, so cared for. I felt connected to everything around me at once, and felt God’s presence in them. I suddenly felt ecstasy. This healed a lot of the negativity I was in.
Then I analysed what made me reach such a faulty conclusion…my belief system! So I decided to reject all my beliefs, everything that had led me to that intense moment of hatred towards God. I dropped all my beliefs all at once, and decided to look at everything with fresh eyes. So I replayed my whole life in my mind, this time without my judgements. And suddenly I felt as if all the answers I had always been looking for, flooded my consciousness. All the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place. Truths like ‘life is joy, not suffering’, ‘we create our own reality’, ‘God always wants us to be happy, it is we who complicate things and suffer’, etc.
What followed was a blissful 1.5 years, where everything seemed almost magical. I could see synchronicities everywhere, my intuition became very strong, and most importantly, I was happy like I had never been in my life. However, gradually this euphoria faded. I started missing that feeling connection with God. Now I felt as if he was playing hide and seek with me. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I could not talk to God.
I turned my attention to spiritual websites and portals. I came across ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ and lapped it up like a thirsty person given water. I connected strongly to Babaji and Sri Yukteshwar Giri. I prayed to Babaji to send me my Guru. Little did I know that my prayers were going to be answered so soon.