Someone told me... that people might not understand, what I wish to say, if I don't give them an introduction to Spirituality. I thought... an introduction to my own path on Spirituality, would instead, do the job. So... here we go:
I was born into a normal South Indian, Hindu family. Like everyone else, I went to temples, prayed and followed Hindu rituals and traditions. I automatically did what I was taught, so, there was nothing like having a natural spiritual illumination so on and so forth. After entering into teenage, especially when I stepped into my pre-university, I experienced what it meant to be a 'Youth' packed with the power, the age gives. Sky was the limit, in achieving many things, that just a few years back, seemed impossible. 'Youth' is indeed very powerful, where, you feel mighty enough to conquer the fear, you always had towards the adults, who always had used their 'adult power' to override you as a child.
And so, I bathed in all the wonders of life rediscovered, through my new youthful eyes. I soon became a 90 % atheist. Rather, I didn't need God, because I was doing very well without him. Once, I even remember thinking, 'I don't need God, all I need is me'. I was very self- confident and it continued to grow in leaps and bounds. My academics, my relationships, were all at their best! I achieved almost everything that I wanted and felt as if I had full control over my life. I had built a positive personality and life felt extremely good!
Time passed by and I came across a few troubles... of course, troubles are normal in life. With my usual deftness I dealt with them. But... only this time, the results weren't exactly as they were supposed to be. I was puzzled initially and kept working harder than ever, but, there was a point... when suddenly, I felt, all my smartness were not smart enough to deal with a Smarter Life. Life seemed bigger than me. All my fantastic will power, positive drive and success in life, didn't work successfully anymore. I wondered why?... but continued to battle, against this new unpredictable life.
Those days, I used to have a die- hard attitude. My motto was "A Winner never quits, a quitter never wins". But soon I understood, that I really couldn't budge anything with my earlier youthful 'superpowers', and started to submissively take everything in my stride, like the disciplined and crestfallen child by a 'cruel' (in the eyes of a child) elder (Universe) who didn't reward my efforts, but punished me instead :(
Life was taking on a different hue now. Something like, I had heard someone in the distant had lived through or like one of those stories in the magazines. Funnily, it seemed like the harder I pushed, I was facing newer and harder challenges in life. I soon was at the end of my wits and didn't know what other 'smart brain technology' I could use! It was then, without ...any warning, I met a friend who took me to meet her friend, who, happened to be a very nice person. Later on, I found that she was spiritual too.
Irony happens in life.... In earlier days,when life used to be a cakewalk, I had always and very studiously avoided the so called spiritual people, because they were not 'normal' for me! Even before this gentle lady, I had met other people who were supposed to be spiritual but they could not impress, even the tip of my soul! But this lady seemed different. She connected with me even the very first time. Her wavelength seemed to gently turn around my soul which, by this time, was sitting crossly and sulking, facing any other side, but the world.
From then on, there was no looking back. She seemed to suggest me books, speak about things, that all seemed to point towards the answers for my thousand questions. Earlier, too, I had tried hunting for books, people, anything, that I could get my hands on! that could enlighten me! But nothing had worked. Now, all of a sudden they all seemed to come across me. Slowly the ice that covered my heart started melting away, and hopes for a spring and a summer announced.
On retrospection I wonder, and might be there is some truth behind it, that if not for the challenges in life, I wouldn't have budged away from my big ego , showered upon me by my Youth. A humbling effect has come after facing a chain of life's challenges. And perhaps was that the point of all the challenges? I had indeed been too sure of myself, of my mental power to tackle anything in life and was upset when all my tactics hadn't worked. My ego had been on an escalation path. Perhaps I had to open my eyes to greater truths?
I started looking at Life with new eyes. I applied what Buddha had advised. " Do not believe in anything unless it appeals to your own common sense" and thus my spiritual journey began, and before I knew it, I was into the so called 'spirituality' and doing meditations. My mechanical praying to God as a child, were now converted to very meaningful meditation sessions. I do have to admit, that my wisdom now after spirituality is much wiser than what I thought as wisdom in my Youth.
In accordance to my die- hard attitude, I also tried to understand precisely the problems I faced and what exactly had gone wrong. As I came across by chance, some passages in my newly availed books or heard any spiritual speech I said to myself " oh! so that was the reason!... I also very deeply analysed the problems I faced, with my now wiser mind...and one particular interesting reason I found as the cause of my failure in tackling one issue, really brought me to heel! I had been busy trying again and again in dealing with a problem, when instead the prudent thing had been to back off. Sometimes, some situations need a backing off, not attacking! Not always "A Winner never quits, a quitter never wins" applies!!
Life indeed was too clever.
Finally, I understood, that no matter what, none is 'too smart' or 'too intelligent' to handle Life and Universe that are creations of a smarter and more intelligent Divine Intelligence. Life can indeed be very tricky and none is all knowledgeable. The point is, at every point there is always something new to learn. One can never be greater than his or her own Creator. There is so much more involved than what is known. So here I am now, trying to understand better... Myself, Others, Life, Universe...
By the way, not everyone understands the greatness involved in spirituality: "The privilege to tune into higher frequencies of the Universe" as I would say it. For instance, not every layman understands the technical functionality of electricity or sees other unseen energies, like x rays. But... not seeing and understanding them, doesn't mean that they don't exist! Similarly not feeling and understanding the higher and finer frequencies of energy involved in spirituality, doesn't mean they don't exist. And since it is a finer frequency, definitely, the understanding required is also of a finer level.
There is one great news about spirituality. Unlike any other field, there is no satiation here. The more you experience and learn, the more it gets interesting and the ultimate perhaps would be, where I wouldn't be any more on this earth right? Going by what Buddha achieved in the end...the Nirvana!
But, since I am nowhere there, I am just going through spirituality in my own pace, feeling once in a while little bursts of enlightenment and wonder and then my laziness settling back in and then picking up the threads again to move forward. It is like hiccups, jumping up to the skies and then am back down on earth and again a spurt and so on, but I am steadily moving forward. One more saying that needs to be taken note of, to understand spirituality is 'Nothing is supernatural. It is just understanding that is required to make everything natural.'
After much contemplation... I do feel, it is an honor, to have, by no voluntary design of mine landed in spirituality...meaning I do feel that I have been pulled into it by Divine Intelligence itself. The situations that have pulled me into Spirituality are too clever and I can assure you that! If you had asked me a few years back... I couldn't have dreamt of it and would have just replied "Me into spirituality, meditation!? No way..." But here I am now, ain't I? :-) Life is unpredictable... so don't be too sure of things and humility is a great virtue.
In this blog, I share many of my spiritual thoughts, that just happen out of the blue sometimes, and sometimes, they are general analysis of a normal situation. Feel free to go through them and see if you find them interesting and if they strike a chord with you :-) We are all here to share ;-)
~ Ramya Jayachandran
No Plagiarism!
"The story of my Journey into Spirituality" by Ramya Jayachandran is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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