The First Glance

So how did you hear about Swamiji? How did you get to know about him for the first time?

Let me tell you my story.

I was religiously very inclined ever since my teens. I started listening to a lot of discourses in Telugu which is my mother tongue starting from the year 2012.

These were mostly by Bramhashri Chaganti Koteshwar Rao garu who has been a stalwart in southern India in reviving Sanatana Dharma. His style of narration and his depth of scriptures is second to none.

It’s was because of him I heard about Adi Guru Shankaracharya for the first time. Slowly I got introduced to Sringeri Mutt which was one of the 5 Mutts set up by Adi Guru.

While going through their websites, I came across this monthly publication on Sanatana Dharma called Tattvaloka.

In 2015 January, I was sitting at home on a medical leave. I was reading through this article about health and wellness while I was in a bit of a pain.

The sentence that caught my eye was that one need not live in the Himalayas to experience the health and bliss that yogis do. (Paraphrased)

This was of course one of the introductory articles of the book Wellness sense by Om swamiji.

At that point of time, Navjot Gautam ji used to publish some of the articles from Swamiji’s blogs and books in Tattvaloka.

That article got stuck in my head. I started searching about Swamiji on the web. Not much was available apart from 4-5 of his blogs and one video (the 7 min sneak peak into his life)

It wasn’t love at first sight kind of a thing. I used to intermittently search about him for the next few months while I read through his articles on Tattvaloka.

My conditioning didn’t allow me to believe in everyone in the ochre robe. For me the Guru’s who had been anointed specifically by the traditional mutts where the “Real Guru”

But slowly, attraction towards Swamiji only increased. I once heard, if you leave a piece of iron within the magnetic field of a true magnet, it is not long before the iron piece gets magnetized and will jump towards the magnet (So this is the limiting case of magnetism where you are actually not that close to magnet but somewhere on the edge of its field) 

In mid 2015, I bought the book If truth be told. And rest as you might have guessed is history. 

Guru Koteshwar Rao garu used to say very frequently in his discourses “Vairagyam does not come drop by drop, when it happens it comes with tremendous force”

The same was the case with my love for swamiji, once it happened there was no looking back.

It’s been almost 7 years now. The aura and charisma of Shri Hari’s human avatar only keeps growing in my life.

What’s been your story of getting to know swamiji?