Almost an atheist!
My mother helped me develop faith in Shirdi Sai Baba and my father introduced me to the books of Swami Vivekananda. I loved reading about them. I loved buying things for the temple and even at the age of seven or eight, I spent hours doing puja at my home temple but despite this, my confidence in gurus and spiritual saints had worn thin by the time I started college in my late teens. I was under so much pressure from my college-work, peers, and the online anti-sanatani content that I even refrained from engaging in havans at our home. To me, it felt like a series of rituals that needed to be performed with painstaking accuracy and hence, all of this was left to the pandit who would be called for a day. All we did was, arrange for the ingredients and sit cross-legged with hands joined and I didn’t understand a thing.
I noticed that the other religions did no better. People were screaming about acceptance, tolerance and secularism online while doing the exact opposite on the ground. I gradually came to the conclusion that enlightenment is a thing of the past and that everything religious around us now don’t make sense at all. Well, back then, I didn’t study our scriptures even a bit, its essence or anything. Learning from the popular narrative, I blamed it all on our “backward,” “oppressive,” “patriarchal,” “idolatry,” “illogical,” and “ritualistic” “culture” and society which was absolutely unfair from my side.
I tried to be a “cool and progressive” atheist, but was unable to be so completely. Every hostel and P.G. has ghost stories and my P.G. was no different. Whenever I was scared, my mind would immediately run to Hanuman Chalisa and I would blare it out with full volume hoping even the ghost nearby would listen to it. My mom had taught me to recite Hanuman Chalisa when I was eight years old and it became the golden thread that kept me going on.
Eventually, life did what it does best- bring us to our knees. My life was a complete disaster by the time I graduated. My grades were poor, some of my emotionally important friends were starting to drift away, a few became a burden to me, and I failed my entrance exam as a result of certain life circumstances. As my health deteriorated, I realized that I used distraction as a coping mechanism rather than confronting the issues head-on. I tried to please everyone, and it turned out to be complete agony.
I was broken. I closed myself in the home-temple room and sobbed in front of the Divine for hours. I said, “God, I don’t want those people back, I don’t even want to make people stay either against their wish, I just want a safe-corner to cry my heart out.”
I used to cry for a while each day in the temple room and then, I started committing to reading the Hanuman Chalisa once every day. Eventually, this Sankalp increased to thrice a day, then nine times per day, and even twenty times per day along with meditating on Hanuman! I’m not sure how my misery changed into an intense eagerness to chant the chalisa and just like that when my sadness gave way to hope and devotion, I saw Baba Neem Karoli in my dream, which I have already written about in two parts-
The Grace of Baba Neem Karoli- 1
The Grace of Baba Neem Karoli- 2
Midst my misery, I took solace in bhakti and Baba Neem Karoli brought about a turning point in my spiritual journey rekindling my faith in gurus.
I understood that real gurus exist and they are not at all like the pseudo-abusive preachers. It is a fact, not an illusion and my dream of Baba Neem Karoli isn’t an illusion either.
That dream of Baba Neem Karoli provided me with such love and strength that I was able to go with life once more, but this time, with a lovely support- Lord Hanuman, my brother!
— Chitra Om
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P.S.- Do you feel I am lying? Keep feeling so. Bye.
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