So, yesterday after a loong wait, I finally heard back from Swamiji’s office regarding my initiation request and my request was not approved on the grounds that I’ve never met Him. After reading the email, I understood it intellectually but somehow tears welled up in my eyes and I started crying. To be honest I wasn’t even feeling that sad, but somehow I ended up crying. After calming down for a bit I was looking for my next course of actions. 

The reason I applied for initiation this time is because lately I’ve been feeling this need of “getting on” with things. I feel like time is running out while I’m not following any set spiritual path since I don’t have a daily spiritual practice and as a result I’m not sure if I’m making any strides at all towards my goal. And I just couldn’t (still can’t) shake off this feeling of time running out. But since I’ll probably have to wait another year or two or God knows how long until I get initiation from Swami ji, I started browsing through the myriad of online spiritual courses that I can take for now. But further researching into those courses revealed that all of them involved some sort of initiation. 

I’m not gonna lie, some of those courses seemed very tempting but Swamiji has always made it abundantly clear that initiation is Serious Business and shouldn’t be fooled around with. So, I then started researching about the leaders of those organization to see if I would like to have an initiation from them. And I was not even holding them to the platinum standard of our Swami ji and was willing to accept them as they are. But all of them disappointed me because they lacked the principle, I value the most: compassion (some of the spiritual leaders even advocated for jallikattu stating that it is “just playing with the bulls”🤦🏻‍♀️). If there’s one thing I’ve learned about spirituality, it is: Always choose Compassion. So I did that.

Just like the cows after grazing in the fields all day come back to their sheds at dusk, I just stopped looking and came back home : our very own os.me . 

My faith in Swami ji got reaffirmed and I thought everything happens in its own time, so why not let life take its course while I take a chill pill and set some nitya karma for myself. (In case you’re wondering what to do for your nitya karma as well, there are some guidelines regarding the same in the book, The ancient science of mantras.)

I hope I didn’t bore you with this article. Also, if your initiation request was not approved, please feel free to vent in the comments section.🙃

Pranaam.