Remembering Past- Volume 1
I did consciously avoided remembering certain unpleasant things in life- which kind of made me live in the present mostly. Its not that I do not reflect about past events, I do. In fact, I kind of stalk my pleasant memories sometimes when I have nothing better to do. Future to me - is always an uncertain, unknown place- where I know I have to go, but have no clue nor expectations about.
Well- to the present.
The reason I want to start this blog is to specifically recollect some of the memories from my past- since earliest I can remember - for my sojourn towards the spiritual realization.
A little bit about my current state of mind- before I go to the original subject of the post:
Lately I have been feeling a strong drawing of my thoughts towards the spiritual matters- especially after I restarted reading Autobiography of a Yogi since last year. I stumbled upon several things - including Youtube Channels, Online books, etc. The immediate thought while I am writing this blog is: I think may be the main inclination started growing towards these interests - may be after I did the Guru Charithra parayanam - which I felt I was asked to do- when I did Sai Baba Parayanam a few times before.
I have a fond affection for Sai Baba -and strongly feel that he is always listening to my thoughts and intentions.
Anyways- after reading some more books and looking at some videos- I have suddenly came to a realization that - per this literature and interviews with certain people- it seems that - what I always sought - a moksham ( no more lives after this) - so that I can experience the Divine after this life is over and be fortunate enough to go to Vaikuntha or Kailasa- it is possible to experience that kind of reunion with Divine in this life- to some extent. I am not sure if I am even 0.99% eligible for that in this life or not.
So- coming to this blog- I wanted to capture the best from my memories- of what I have felt about Spiritual matters like this at different ages of my life- so I could try to understand my own propensity towards the ultimate goal.
What came to my mind today morning while commuting to work are a couple of things:
1. In early childhood- probably when I was 7-8 years old, we had this audio casette player in our Hyderabad house (around 87-89), and there was a cassette of Bhaktha Ramadas Keerthanas by Dr M Balamuralikrishna. I used to listen to this songs. I recall faintly at one instance at least - when I was probably alone in the living room listening to this- and sat down on the floor and kept crying - emotionally for the keerthana "Ikshwaku kula thilaka". It is true that I am generally very emotional in nature, but somehow I felt this one instance as a bewildering experience for my own sake. It could be possible that I was drawn towards these with influences of my family- my dad telling stories of Hanuman, Rama and Krishna.
2. In my youth - around 16-17 years of age, I was already feeling a bit of fed up with life and saw no value in samsara. By this time I read a few more spiritual books - including the Buddha's famous story. I was also generally unhappy with the life around - the situations in which my particular life was- nothing significant - nothing spectacular. By the way, I do not know when, but between my childhood and youth - somewhere around the time- I strongly decided I should not have another life after this. An example of this is, someone told me that when you rub the remnant water from your hand after drinking theertham in temples on your scalp, you will get a better Janma next life. Somehow- I got fixated on this and till this day- I do not rub the theertham on my scalp- in hopes that I would not have a next janma and will get moksham in this one. Coming back to the youth, I got so attracted to the Bhagavad Gita and ISKCON publications - that I wrote a few poems for Krishna for a few years. And somewhere before or after these poetry- I wrote a letter with a red sketch pen- that I will only live with family until they need me and then I will go on to Himalayas. Some of my friends from college still tease me about the Himalayas I wanted to go. I had a plan to retire from work by 29 years (like Gautama Buddha) and go to Himalayas.
I will pause it here now and come back and try and recollect more specific events in my journey.
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