My experience- Hitting the rock-bottom and emergence of a flame
April 6, 2023 (Hanuman Janmotsav)
During my graduation, I was lost in my own world of friends, freedom and fun. I didn’t do pujas, I tried to fit into the group of “cool and outgoing”. When I was little, I had faith in the Divine but as I grew up, that faith started smudging with various questions unanswered to satisfaction. Life was going fine with me fancying myself as one of the Gen-Z who would not fall into the trap of religion as I grew up listening to channels exposing the fake-gurus, loot of religious authorities and people rising armies of fanaticism. Enlightenment was a thing of past I thought.
I was enjoying my life and suddenly I hit the rock- bottom. Midst the cut-throat competition of career, my friends started leaving me, I was trying hard to prove myself to people, explaining and demanding things but life battered me to my lowest. I was easily replaceable. Who was I after all? What had I proved to anyone? What was my contribution to anything? I had given my love and emotions to people but it wasn’t valued enough by the majority. Well, things were difficult. I wasn’t getting what I was wanting and I remember I was at my own home and I had nobody to share my pain with because each would judge. I knew. Where would I get someone who would be totally non-judgemental and ever-compassionate? Who would accept me without any expectations?
I locked myself up in the small temple room of my house and sat in front of the altar. I prayed- God, I don’t have anyone to cry to, so, I am just asking for a little place to cry. I don’t want those people back in my life neither do want them to change as per my wishes, I just want a space to cry, that’s why I am here. Let them do whatever they want to do, just let me cry my heart out at your feet. I have nowhere to go. And then I cried and cried for hours everyday for weeks until one day, suddenly, I spotted the Hanuman-Chalisa book kept in the corner. So, I decided that every day, I would recite Hanuman Chalisa once.
Eventually, my feet would gravitate towards the temple room each day. Slowly, my mind started looking forward to recite the Hanuman-Chalisa to Lord Hanuman. I was now laughing- was I really crying all these days because of a few people? When life batters you up, you will have nowhere to go but to the Divine. Knees will bend when all doors close and it happened with me too. I started musing on Lord Hanuman all day! I took Sankalp of reciting Hanuman-Chalisa for 3 times a day, sometimes 7 times, sometimes 21 times! I felt confident that the ever-strong Lord Hanuman had my back and my self-esteem issues gradually started improving. Lord Hanuman became the centre of my life and Hanuman Chalisa, one of my my favourite hymns. I enjoyed reciting the Hanuman Chalisa, musing on it, crying and laughing with it. The grace of Hanuman was such that He became my brother!
One day, by chance I came across a picture of a shabby old man covered with a blanket. He looked weird and I dismissed it and scrolled up. And then, my Instagram feed was flooded with the pictures of the same man. For a few days, I ignored all his pictures. It felt like the more I ignored, the more those pictures would show up so finally, I set my mind up to search for who he was. I switched to google and typed- Old man with a blanket- and lo! There he was and his name read- Neem Karoli Baba.
Next part- The Grace of Baba Neem Karoli- 2
