Links of Love – 2: Journey Home

Please click here for Links of Love: Emptiness

I moved to Hyderabad, rented an apartment, and started living alone. In beginning it was all scary there were constant thoughts that what if I get raped? What if I get robbed? What if a serial killer targets me and kills me? What if I get a heart attack and there is no one around me to hospitalize, what if I die just like that?  When I was done this there were other sets of questions like what I will do if I run out of savings? How am I going to manage? What if I fail to pay my bills and the owner throws me out of the building? What if I fail to fill that emptiness with new career choices then should I has to go back to the same meaningless life? There were just constant sets of questions. There were no answers, no courage, no path, and no light.

Whenever you are alone, remind yourself that God has sent everyone else away so that there is only you and Him. — Rumi

That was the phase where life taught me so many beautiful lessons. People whom I thought I would never take a step without them life preached me to live without them. Whomever I clung to during my emotional breakdowns they just vanished as if they never existed. Friends whom I thought, gonna be there for me in my all thicks and thins and helps me out they just turned out strangers and people whom I thought strangers they became my genuine helping hands. People whomever I loved from bottom of my heart just deceived me. More I tried to get a hold of my life it just slipped out of my hands. As if the whole universe was standing against me.

But today I feel and believe this is how Bhagawan works. When he wants to stay with us he just sends everyone else away as Rumi Ji said. And he holds our hands and takes us toward our “self-discovering “ journey. He breaks our hearts so brutally so that he can fill them with purity and infinite Love. He takes all our loved ones away from us because he wants to keep us with him every second. He fails all our plans so that we start learning surrender and patience. This is Bhagawan and his Leela. (At least this is how I feel about him)

I was still unaware of Bhagawan’s presence in my life. I was exploring my new independent life. I started reading self-development books. Many books helped me to change my thinking process, perspective towards people and situations but no book helped me to understand my emptiness. I made a new checklist. Took up some new classes etc. when I was busy doing all these somewhere my heart showed me my purpose. I was happy and started working toward it. After few months when I expressed what I was pursuing to my mother and sister they just laughed. They ended up saying so many mean words and after that, I never dared to work on my dreams and just continued working again as Network Security Engineer. At that time my Mother’s validation meant a lot to me. If she said NO then it meant God had said NO to me. (But now I remember what Chris Gardner  Said after playing basket ball with his son  Hey. Don’t ever let somebody tell you… You can’t do something. Not even me. All right? You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do something’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want something’, go get it. Period (here)

Between all these roller costars, my cousin had decided to take me with him to Shirdi. As he got the Ph.D. seat in BITS Pilani rather than celebrating his happiness partying with friends or in any other ways he decided to take all of us (me and other friends) to Shirdi. Till then I never believed God.  On the other hand, I believed that he is the one who had created all the mess in my life. With that state of mind believing a monk who stayed in a broken hut (Dwarakamai), worn-torn out dresses, and who lead his life asking alms, believing a fakir like him was really out of my reach. I was not at all in a mood to go to Shirdi.

My mind was constantly chattering how a fakir will change my life? Will he tell me the reason behind my emptiness? Will he show me the path to lead a purposeful and meaningful life? What will he even do? My Mother had prepared food for the trip for all of us, my father had packed my bags and my sister had cleaned my never-used camera. They all had done their jobs and they are ready to say bye and wish me a happy journey and on the other hand, my brother and friends were waiting at the railway station for me.

I was feeling down I looked at my parents and said “I am not feeling like going to Shirdi. I believe neither God nor Sai Baba. I knocked on every possible door with lots of hopes but never found any rays of hope. Now I do not have the energy to take another disappointment. If I come with empty hands then I may even stop questioning God. I may even forget God word also”. I said my Amma can you call Amar (My cousin) and tell him that I do not want to go to Shirdi. But my Mom (She is the woman of her words). She sat with me and said it’s ok if you are not feeling like going to Shirdi but you promised someone to be with them. You gave your words so it’s your responsibility to keep your words. Do not think that you are going to Shirdi just think that you are going on a small trip with your brother and friends. My mother convinced me to go to Shirdi. (I will be always grateful to her for convincing me to go there).

Then I didn’t know that I was not just starting a journey toward Shirdi, it was the journey towards home, towards my father, love, light, divinity, grace, healing, and whatnot. I didn’t even have no clue that how Baba gonna fill my life with LOVE, LOVE, and just LOVE. I don’t even remember one single pure thought or act of mine which lead me to this Ocean of LOVE. I was that flower that didn’t have fragrance, I was that body with no life, light, and hope. But Baba held my hand, pulled me towards him. (Swami Ji it really scares me, if you had not found me then what would have happened to me. Please do whatever you want to do with me, make me walk through hell or heaven I do not care, if needed then punish also but never leave me. In any birth please).

How I met Sai baba, how I fell in love with that fakir. How I started to experience his love I will share this part in upcoming posts. ( Dear readers there are so many stories, people who believes and not believe Sai baba. I really understand because I have been there. But still he is my Baba)  

After returning from Shiradi nothing didn’t change overnight as they show in movies. In real life too magic happens and it happened in my life too but over a period of time. Slowly the void within me, the emptiness which was haunting me day and night didn’t bother me. Just SAI name or some time Baba and sometimes Krishna started filling that emptiness with beauty and love. I was still doing the same job, same flat, same boring life but his presence in my room, in my heart made all the changes. Now I was free of thoughts like getting raped, robbed and killed. Something within me slowly started believing that there is someone who is constantly taking care of me. In those days I experienced Baba’s love abundantly. I experience his care and support for me. I witnessed few beautiful miracles also.

Thank you All for reading. Take Care. Jai Sri Hari.

To be continued….