This article was published on 14th May 2002

I would like to share my experience with you all. This experience is regarding my first attempt to be spiritual. It was a great learning experience. I am an Indian, working in India, by profession a Software Engineer. There was no so called “problem” in my life. From all respect Family and Professional I was very happy. During this time I came across the site Cyberspace Ashram for Kriya Yoga, God and Love and thus my beloved Gurudev Hans Neukomm. It brought a drastic change in my life. All the questions that were accumulated in my mind for years about the creation and God were answered. I took excessively interest in spirituality. I started using much of the time in home and as well office to read the text of the site. By reading I was getting utmost pleasure. The interest towards my professional work gradually reduced. I did not find at all any interest in studying new technologies, which is very much appreciated from a software engineer. I was thinking why to read a false knowledge, there is no end of those. So I decided to leave the job and follow the path of spirituality very seriously. I thought I would find a job, which would give enough for my livelihood and still give lot of time for spirituality. I left the job in spite of all the resistance from my family.

I went to Bhubaneswar, the city of temples, to lead a true spiritual life. After arriving there I immediately went to the Kriya Yoga Ashram whose address I found in the web. Alas, to my surprise the ashram was no way near to my expectation. The main swamy was not there at that time. After that many a time I called up the ashram to inquire about the swamy but he was regularly out of station. That was a big disappointment. I put up myself in a rented one room flat. It was a small room. There was no fan, no bed, only a 100-watt bulb lighting the room. Many times in my room when I silently sat back and was thinking about the infinite with my finites and trying to perceive the divine light, it’s the only silly light that was diverting me with its flickering, besides of course, the Duck pair, who never failed to distract me with their bass dominating sound whenever I used to do the Kriya Yoga at dawn.

The daily routine was like this. Generally I used to get up at around 5 am. Then the most important work of the day was following – Kriya Yoga for around one hour. After doing it I used to take a nap for another one hour. This one-hour was very rejoicing for me as after a good Kriya Yoga session the body is full of high vibration energy circulating. I had few very nice experiences in this period of semi-awaken state like getting hit by energy bullets, flying in the clear blue sky. It was so nice feeling beyond my capability to describe it. By around 9 am I was getting ready to face a new day.

In this material world, world of maya, one needs money for each breath he takes. Each breath costs. This is very good measure employed by God to teach his divine children the lost divine qualities – to love and to be loved. Man provides service, a form of love, to the system by doing something; in return he gets other form of love and of course learn other divine qualities by experience. Thus I had to search a job first. I had committed to my family that I would first search for IT jobs, if I could not get any job in Bhubaneswar then I would search for a lecturer/faculty kind of job. When I came to Bhubaneswar I found that there was absolutely no jobs in IT due to the recession. The lecturer post takes at least 5/6 months for its selection procedure. There were no vacancies in computer training institute also as many institutes closed down their service due to depressed IT market. I was wandering for job here and there, walking a lot, and going different institutions for job. I applied in many engineering colleges around Bhubaneswar and many other colleges in places like Varanasi, Dehradun etc. for lecturer job.

The daytime was passing either in search of job or reading books or visiting different places. Near to my resident there was an ISKCON temple. I used to go there very regularly. Though the type of worship (i.e. kirtan) ISKCON preaches I am not into that still the vibrant spiritual atmosphere at ISKCON temple is highly conducive for praying and meditation. I was enjoying watching the ISKCON devotees dancing and chanting “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna”. I used to pass around one hour there generally from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm. By 8 or 8:30 I used to be in my room after having my dinner. Then I used to read mostly either autobiography of a yogi or the kriyayoga.com site text for sometime to prepare my mind for a God Yoga session. I never got tired of reading these repeatedly. That was so touching and inspiring and full of wisdom that it never left any thirst to read any other spiritual book. Reading these scriptures itself is spiritually uplifting. Unlike Kriya Yoga, God Yoga can be practiced by anybody. Kriya Yoga in other hand should be practiced only if your primary goal in life is to achieve god union. The scientific Kriya Yoga technique is like a jet to God, which requires fuel of love. Without love for others, caring for others Kriya Yoga is useless and dangerous to practice. The God Yoga session used to last for around 30 minutes only. By 10:30/11 pm I used to go to sleep.

If you have read Autobiography of a Yogi then you know that in search of his Guru, Yogananda had met many great Yogis in his life. I had and still have the thirst to meet Yogis of such great stature as written in the book. But in this spiritual expedition of mine of four months the thirst could not be quenched. First when I reached at Bhubaneswar immediately I went to the Kriya Yoga ashram to meet a Kriya Yogi named Swamy Shankarananda. As I said earlier I could never meet him. Whenever I enquired he was out of station. During the stay in Bhubaneswar I attended Bhagavad Gita discourse presided over and lectured by Paramhansa Prajnanananda – a very well known Yogi in Kriya Yoga circle. Well, in first day of discourse itself I fell asleep. Earlier also I have attended such spiritual discourses and most of the time they are enlightening but this was very boring to me. I am trying my best not to make any judgment on his spiritual level on basis of this but I did not feel like meeting him personally too.
Then I had an opportunity to meet one of my good friend Swapan Dey’s Gurumata in Kolkata. She is known as Mataji among her believer. She was the good among all seers whom I had met. She was very loving – the one and only qualities suffices to recognize a true seer. One interesting episode happened there. I talked to her a lot. But meeting with her also did not quench my thirst for meeting spiritual persons. Though the experience was good one, alas, it did not touch the core of my heart, probably I should have spent more time with her to understand her completely.

When I left the job to pursue my “spiritual career” steadfastly, I had expected that like Yogananda I would also meet great yogis. But it did not happen. This was extremely high expectation for a very ordinary person like me. I realized that my love for God is tiny small than the amount of love that is prerequisite to attract the presence of divine person. In “Autobiography of a Yogi” you will find how at the age of 11, Yogananda used to yearn for God and love to God. He used to fall on seers feet literally crying requesting them to guide him to God. Such was his love for God that at the age of 15 he left his home for Varanasi and he had the guts to tell his Father “How can I tell my love for you! But even greater is my love for the Heavenly Father”. Realizing the fact my love for God is abysmally low, I was always craving to love Him more. But how do I do it? I always used to pray to god to teach me to love Him. During this time I met a person named Pankoj Chandra Bose in Kolkata. I met him at Yogada Satsang Math. I went there to get Bhagwat Geeta, translation and commentary by Paramhansa Yogananda. While returning back we talked about spirituality. He told about his meditation experience. He said that when he meditates, he becomes unconscious of time. He meditates for 2/3 hours and he feels as if only 15 minutes have been passed. Well I am no way near to that. I asked him the question that was killing me for many weeks i.e. how to love God and how you know you love God? I was so confused about loving God at that time. As soon as I put up this question his eyes started floating in tears. Later he said he loves God so much that whenever somebody talk about God he can’t control his emotion of love. It is true that tears are generally result of emotional weakness but the poor eye knows no other way to express the positive emotions like love. There I understood where do I stand in loving Him. I also have dripped tears many times in prayers but I felt his love for god was amazing. Later on after weeks of that event I started loving God relatively more when I realized how loving He is. When one will realize how loving God is, he will fall in love with God. God never punish, it’s all our Karma , which strikes us back.

There is hardly any fellow who has stayed in Bhubaneswar and has not visited Puri and Konark. I am no exception. I visited Puri and Konark. Konark is fantastic. It’s one of greatest medieval Indian architectures. I visited the famous 1000 year old Shri Jagannath temple at Puri. In Puri I also visited seaside Karar Ashram, the ashram of Swamy Sri Sri Yukteswar – Guru of Paramhansa Yogananda. There I met Swamy Terjyananda (not very sure about the name), the head of the ashram. I told him that I am also a Kriyaban (person who practice Kriya Yoga). He inquired from whom I have learned the same. I told him that I took Diksha – initiation to Kriya Yoga from the site http://www.kriyayoga.com/ and told him that the author of the site Hans Neukomm himself is my Guru. Hearing it he guessed that my Guru is not an Indian. He asked about his nationality. I told him that he is Swiss national. The Swamy’s displeasure is conspicuous from his face. He did not like the fact that my Guru is not an Indian. He retorted me “Where Yoga is originated from?” I replied of course in India (late realization: something that takes you to God could only be from GOD – no country, no religion). “Then who are the Gora Sahibos (Western Foreigners) to give diksha?” This surprised me. I thought, had he had a slightest realization he would not have told this. I concluded this man does not have the fuel to take off his Jet. All are equal in front of God.

As the days were passing by, there was continuous distraction in my mind for job. The spiritual progress was good, which I can realize now when I am not enjoying that state due to lack of practice here in the Working Men’s Hostel. Though at that time I was not happy with my progress. May be it’s because of high expectation that I had. Add on to my agony was the fact that I could not found any great seers, which I had expected. All my dreams like staying in a Kriya Yoga Ashram full of greenery and me practicing Kriya Yoga daily there, were anyway crushed beyond recognition. It’s the time when the frustration peeped up. I had applied for a job in Bhubaneswar for the C++ programmer post, where they would not have given me more than two thousand rupees, but I was rejected. While few times in search of job walking in streets and roads of Bhubaneswar looking at Sun I was asking myself whether whatever I did, was that correct. But never did that frustration last long. While praying to God I used to feel strongly that whatever I did is best that could have happened to me. But those momentary frustrations were enough to make me apply jobs everywhere wherever I was eligible for. At this point of time I felt seeking my revered Gurudev’s guidance. Hence, I posted my question to Spiritual forum for Kriya Yoga, meditation and spiritual counseling. The post and reply does not exist in current forum but it’s present in www archive of kriyayoga.com from march 2002

As usual I never anticipated this type of reply from Gurudeva. After reading it, needless to tell you what I decided. I decided to come back to Software field in full swing. I understood that, as mere possession of material does not make person materialistic; a person can be termed as materialistic if he is material conscious. Likewise I thought mere working in career-oriented job or working hard for job should never distract me from the path of spirituality. I thought I should learn all the spiritual content that Job would offer, which Gurudeva has pointed out in his reply. Unlike before I got committed to excel in whatever I do, as it is part of evolution and spirituality expedite the process of human evolution. So, I came here to Bangalore and then getting a job here was just matter of time. The first day in Bangalore saw me staying in a chaal(slum area accommodation). I enjoyed this hospitality from a friend with whom I met while entraining towards Bangalore. Friends I would suggest you spend couple of days in a slum sometime. After that suddenly you would feel that your own resident suddenly became a palace. The bed where you sleep turned into bed of flowers. You would smell fragrance that has not been sprinkled by anyone. Discover the Sea-Saw game of life; it’s fun. Then you may think of writing the theory of Relativity of human law on earth but in different dimension, dimension of human perception and awareness.