I was born into a Brahman family few decades ago, one of the
most orthodox castes of Hinduism in India. My parents and
grandparents, who adhered to high moral standards, raised
me during my childhood. As the first grandson born to my loving
grandparents, I was their favorite, and had the privilege
of visiting several sacred Hindu places and participating
in rituals with them. My grandparents followed a strictly
orthodox life-style. They worshipped gods, fasted, recited
slokas (Sanskrit poems) every day by the family altar, visited
the Hindu temple, and performed temple rituals every week.
My parents were also religious and always used good reasoning
to expose why rituals were performed before performing them.
Because of this, I performed rituals with more zeal. When
I had no clue why certain things were done, I convinced myself
they were done for good reasons.
As Hindus, we believed in several gods, and our ultimate
objective was to realize unification with "Para-Brahma,"
the godhead. Hinduism subscribes to several ways to reach
this objective, which fall under four broad categories:
Rajah Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, and Guyana Yoga. Rajah
Yoga covers all mental exercises, like meditation, contemplation,
chanting, and Hata Yoga (the exercise Yoga). Bakthi is the
devotion to either concepts or idols. Karma Yoga teaches
one to focus on the duties of one's life. And Guyana Yoga
prescribes to knowledge.
None of these methods opposed each other. They simply were
the many ways one could choose to reach his final objective.
Depending on the way one chooses, his final destination is
either Moksha, Samathi, Brahman, Mukti, self realization,
pure consciousness, etc. Thus, Hinduism is both pluralistic
and pantheistic. As I entered my teens, my brother and I had
to participate in "Upanayanam," a ceremony that
started the second phase of life: bachelorhood. Every Brahman
male had to go through this ceremony before marriage. This
phase of life was to be dedicated to godly pursuits. We were
taught to follow several ritualistic practices to aid us.
We performed ritual chanting and special breathing exercises,
recited secret mantras hundreds of times, and worshipped the
sun god every day in the morning and evening as a part of
a worship called "Sandya Vandanam." We performed
rituals before and after eating, wore sacred marks on our
foreheads, and wore a sacred thread. My entire life-style
changed considerably in order to keep up with the rituals.
In spite of the monotony, the life-style was fascinating,
because I felt I was on the road to self- realization. This
continued for about four years.
Slowly, my life leveled out, but, still, I had not attained
"Brahman" (the universal godhead/Spirit). Living
in India, I observed others who had experienced Upanayanam
several years before I did, such as my father, grandfather,
uncles, temple priests, and other Brahmans. To my surprise,
they were in no way closer than I was to the state of self-realization,
which we were all supposed to attain. This discouraged me.
But instead of giving up, I became more serious about my pursuit,
because I believed that Brahman did exist. Perhaps the problem
was with the method that I adopted or perhaps I was not steadfast
enough. For some reason, about two years after my Upanayanam,
the rituals, the underlying purpose behind them, and my eagerness
to reach self-realization thrust me into a spiritual pilgrimage.
I seriously searched for the answer in achieving Brahman.
For years, I pursued the methods I learned, without compromising
common sense. But when I finally looked at myself, I found
only deep emptiness! (Ending my life at that point seemed
the greatest suggestion my rational mind could think of.)
But a terrifying dream about death changed my thinking overnight.
I didn't want to die, I wanted to live. I felt if I had
to live, I must have a purpose. And if there was a purpose
to my life, I wanted to find it. I believed that when I
reached the state of complete self-realization, I would
live out the answer, and my living would reflect my purpose
in life.
Being the sole authority of my life, I granted myself an
entire lifetime to discover its purpose. This time I decided
to be sincere in my efforts and use common sense in this
pursuit. I was willing to be open to other options.
I applied one principle to this quest: I should put more
effort into it. After all, it only seemed logical that if
I wanted something, I must work for it. If what I wanted
was worth a lot, it would require proportional effort.
I did not isolate myself from my family and friends during
this process. I helped others when I chose to and often
went out of my way. I respected my parents and other elders
when they didn't interfere with my, admittedly, childish
objectives. I was not a bad person in my own eyes. Even
if I did bad things, the good always seemed to more than
compensate for the bad. This made me feel good about myself.
Several people thought that I was a wonderful person, and
this mattered to me a lot. I wanted to be liked by everyone
to dull the blows of the terrible inner emptiness. Though
I felt noble by serving others, it did not fill my inner
loneliness. Nonetheless, for the next few years I spent
several dedicated hours each day towards understanding the
purpose of my life.
My family was closely knit; my uncles and grandparents played
a major role in several family matters. The issue that concerned
them most was my education. In order to help me focus on
my high school studies in Madras, India, my uncle decided
to enroll me in a transcendental meditation class. After
a few weeks, I experienced several seemingly good effects:
I slept for only two to three hours a day and felt fresh
throughout the day; my pulse rate went down to the fifties;
I seemed to have more energy; and I was able to spend more
time studying. While I liked the effects, the emptiness
I felt inside remained the same. I hoped that the emptiness
would disappear after some time, but instead, the meditation
started unraveling its side effects: vibrations in my body
and restlessness.
I was aware that some people who practiced transcendental
meditation wound up losing their sanity. I knew I had to
stop right away. There were other ways to self-realization;
so I switched to simplified Kundalini Yoga (SKY), which
seemingly had the answers. I also took up martial arts class
after being impressed by the peaceful looking masters in
the movies. It seemed they knew the purpose of life. I was
serious about both SKY and martial arts and received my
black belt and also took a course to teach SKY.
My typical morning would begin at 3:00 A.M. For the next
four to five hours I would meditate, perform Yoga, work
out briefly, then go to martial arts class. This was my
routine 5 to 6 days a week for almost 4 years. But to my
sadness and surprise, I was not closer to filling the emptiness
inside me. Nevertheless, I still believed I was on the right
track, so I kept going. I even taught my parents some yoga
and meditation. I wanted them to be able to reach "Para-Brahma"
if I happened to get there. I withheld my latest methods
from my parents until I was convinced the methods would
do no harm, then I would pass them on. I never mentioned
to my family my internal quest. They simply observed me
involved in yoga, meditation, and martial arts and probably
assumed that these were a part of growing up. I wish now
that I had told them about my internal struggle.
Being rooted in Indian (or Hindu) methods, trying to look
for the solution in Christianity was totally out of the
question. I thought many Christians were hypocrites who
conveniently changed their belief system to accommodate
anything they wanted to do. In fact, a lot of my friends
perceived Christians in India as people without conscience,
mostly because of the British rule in India. While the British
ruled India for 200 years, we did not hear a single good
story about the Christian faith.
In 1991, I moved to Chicago to pursue a masters program
in computer science at Northern Illinois University (NIU).
I was 21 years old, and I brought my spiritual emptiness
along. By this time, I was accustomed to failures in my
pilgrimage and was almost convinced I could spend a few
more years in my spiritual quest and it would have got me
nowhere. But not quite. I decided to turn to the Vedas,
the ancient Hindu scriptures for answers. I remember my
mother having said to me that our family was to follow the
Rig Veda, so I found some books in a library that explained
the Rig Vedas. They made no sense to me. One particular
book, however, was deep and fascinating and supposedly simplified
the Vedas. The author elaborated the fundamental concepts
of Hinduism. Yet, he never answered my deepest question.
So, I turned to science for my answer. I became interested
in some of the best sellers on quantum theory, written by
an Indian doctor. The author elaborated the seeming truths
of the universe from a Hindu perspective. His books caught
my attention, and I spent several months reading them. He
even used his experience from transcendental meditation
to explain several concepts. I thought I had missed out
on these teachings during my meditation days. Nevertheless,
I was terrified by the recollection of the side effects
of transcendental meditation and never wanted to try it
again. The author claimed he enabled cancer patients to
respond well to chemotherapy by removing their guilt from
their minds. He established the connection between mind,
body, and the presence of intelligence in every cell of
the body. There were many more things he claimed to be true.
The only thing I really learned from his books was that
guilt would catch up with us someday, somehow before we
died. This is simply the law of Karma. I knew I had done
at least a few things wrong in my life. But whenever they
bothered me, I just shut them out. On the other hand, I
thought, "What if there are no absolute standards for
right and wrong? Or what if I could rationalize my guilt
by blaming my wrongdoing on my circumstances, my childhood,
peer pressure, or on something else? Then I need not be
guilty of anything." It seemed like a great idea but
never seemed to work. I believed there must be some absolute
standard somewhere. But even so, guilt was not the major
issue in my life then. Self-realization was!
Since I could not find any answer to convince me of the
truth, I sometimes challenged my friends with the question,
"What is the purpose of your life?" It struck
some like a lightning bolt. Some gave answers, but usually
I quickly discounted them as false. I was surprised that
nobody gave an answer that made me even consider his or
her reason. Deep inside I longed to reach the end of my
quest.
It was in 1991 when I happened to meet Sophia. She was a
Christian from India. We worked together in the computer
lab at NIU and became good friends in a short time. Sometimes,
during casual conversation, our difference in religious
beliefs surfaced. Once I asked her my favorite question,
"What is the purpose of your life?". "To
glorify God," she replied, sincerely and casually,
as if it was so simple. I was astonished! My ego was so
big, I ignored her answer and asked more questions to cover
up my surprise.
That day, deep inside me, I felt a heavy jolt. What Sophia
said seemed plausible. Maybe there really was a God, external
to me, who knew everything, including my emptiness and the
reason why I exist. But I was so caught up with self-realization,
I had no concept of an external God, separate from me. To
glorify this God would mean to live a life worthy of the
reason I exist. I thought, "Is it possible it's so
simple I've missed it?" I had heard a few noble answers
to my question "What is the purpose of your life?",
such as "to help others," "to serve my family,"
"to become rich and give to the poor," and a few
others. But I knew deep within me that even when I did such
acts of kindness, the motive was to demonstrate to others
that I was good, so I could feel good about myself. Thus,
my sacrificial services were selfish.
A multitude of questions and thoughts welled up within me.
How could a simple religion like Christianity with one God
so easily explain everything, while Hinduism, the ancient
religion with several million gods, several schools of thought,
several ways, and several rituals, obscure things? If
Hinduism had the answer, how could I have missed it after
so much effort? And what about the millions of other Hindus?
Sophia's answer to my question "What is the purpose
of life?" was not unique, because Hindu temple priests
in India would have given the same answer. They would have
said their purpose was to glorify God too. But what they
meant was vastly different: their gods were idols. The temple
priests cleaned, decorated, and even put their gods to sleep.
I also washed idols, sang to them, and recited several prayers
to them when I was a little child. They were like material
objects to which I gave glorified purposes and even life.
To me these idols were statues, and my mind decided what
I chose to do for them. What troubled me now the most was
that if there was a God, glorifying this God could very
well be the purpose of my life. And this meant that I should
know this true God.
I fully understood what Sophia said. She meant her purpose
in life was to glorify Jesus Christ. I had read some history
books and knew Jesus was a man, like any of the thousands
of saints in India. In India there are several gurus who
claim that they are god or claim to have contact with god
or that they can show you the way to self-realization. I
even have the official certificate to teach Kundalini Yoga.
I assumed that Christ was like one of the gurus. Having
been stumped by Sophia's answer, I wanted to prove to myself
Christianity was false by proving Jesus Christ was just
another good person whom people deified. There are people
in India who worship noble kings as gods. I was convinced
that this was the case with Jesus also. I thought maybe
better Bible translations enabled Christians to know their
religious teachings. But the same information was available
to me too, so I set out to prove Christ was a gimmick (just
like the fake Indian gurus) by investigating Christian practices.
I attended a few church services and tried to stump the
pastors with tricky philosophical questions. If they couldn't
answer me right away I never bothered to give them another
chance. Of course, I never knew the answers to my own questions
nor felt obliged to find any. I asked questions like, "Buddhism
says desire is the cause of all evil -- if you follow this
teaching and have no desires, why do you need the commandments?"
I was just throwing rocks at Christianity. But in spite
of that, I learned a few Christian facts like, Christ was
brutally killed on a cross, Christ claimed that He died
for the sins of humanity, He supposedly came back to life
in 3 days, and He was kind and loving.
Sophia invited me to a Christian retreat where an Indian
pastor took time to explain a major difference between various
religions and Christianity. He said that in all religions,
man makes the effort to go to God, while in Christianity,
God comes to where we are. I thought to myself, "WOW!!"
This caught my attention. How I wish this was true! After
12 years of search, I now heard that the omnipresent God
was right by me. Even before I could start to imagine this
possibility, my family, culture, tradition, and heritage
flashed before me. How could I even think of believing this?
I hated Christianity. My parents and several others I knew
in India had similar opinions. In spite of the fact that
I felt his explanation could be true, I chose to deny the
possibility. I stopped asking tricky questions. I was afraid
I might find the answer in Christianity.
A few weeks passed and still I could not ignore the fact
that Christianity might have held the answer for me. The
truth was, I was too scared to find out because of the cultural
taboo. But, I reasoned, "If this God existed, He would
resolve all my problems. He could take care of the consequences
of my quest. If I ever find this God, the True God, I will
never have to worry about the cultural consequences."
Even after thinking through this, I did not remove my guard
completely. I made a final attempt to find fault with the
Bible. Someone had given me a copy of the New Testament.
Of course, I would never have bought one.
After reading the first chapter from the book of John, I
understood Jesus was the Word of God, God's expression.
Chapter two talked about Jesus' miracles, so I figured He
was not an ordinary man. In Chapter three, Jesus talked
about being born again -- this was truly fascinating! The
concept of reincarnation as I understood it was not a physical
birth and death but a mental one. When Jesus said we had
to be born again, it made a lot of sense to me. I knew he
was telling me about a new life -- like starting a new resolution
on New Year's Day, except this time for real, with a brand
new nature of Jesus!
I realized that I would have to submit to Christ and forfeit
self-realization for Christ-realization. This, I reasoned,
was a great exchange. The Bible also mentioned that "God
so loved the world He sent His only Son, so that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."
When I read Chapter four, where Jesus talked to the woman
at the well and told her if she drank His water, streams
of living water would flow from within her, so that she
wouldn't have to keep traveling to the well, it all clicked!
I was running around trying to fill my emptiness, and Christ
was saying He would not only fill it, but fill it in such
a way that it would overflow. So if I accepted Christ's
help, I need not seek other things to fill my emptiness.
This was the solution I was looking for.
I began to see the big picture. I was incomplete because
of my own nature. This incompleteness was the emptiness
I felt. For so many years I tried several methods to fill
up this incompleteness, but none worked. If I had died this
way, I know for sure I never would have been with God. But
God in His love sent Christ to fill up my emptiness and
make me complete. Christ suffered the ultimate consequence:
death and separation from God. In doing so, Christ paid
the penalty I was supposed to pay. But, after dying, He
came back to life in three days. He passed through death,
the termination of our physical existence. God showed what
would happen to those who are made complete by accepting
Christ's death as ransom for their own.
This made perfect sense. Even death cannot keep me from
being with God by choosing this Way. Previously, I thought
that only at death one would know his destiny. But by this
Way, Christ has shown salvation is readily available. I
can enjoy salvation while I am still alive today. But what
would I have to do to receive this?
Jesus claimed that just by believing in Him, this is possible.
The ransom has been paid in full for all humanity. The Way
has been paved for everyone to pass through death. Since
God is omnipresent, He knows my thought process, He is very
near. All I had to do was take one step of faith. I felt
as if Christ was waiting on me, to just take this step.
In the silence of my heart, with all sincerity, I said,
"I believe in You Jesus, as You have revealed."
This happened early in the morning on March 5, 1994. Words
cannot express what happened at that moment. My emptiness
was gone, just as if it never existed. I felt a deep sense
of cleansing, a great peace and satisfaction. I knew this
was what I was looking for, for 12 years. Christ never promised
wonderful experiences and feelings at the time anyone accepts
Him. But that does not negate the authenticity of Jesus'
promise. Some of my friends felt nothing when they took
this step of faith. Yet there is only one Christ, one Way,
one faith, and one result: salvation.
Now, after looking into the Bible and who Christ is, I am
convinced this is what the many different ways in Hinduism
have been trying to achieve. We had prayers like, "Lead
me from falsehood to Truth," "Lead me from Darkness
to Light," "Lead me from Death to Immortality."
I recited this every day in school for many years. Christ
fulfilled these prayers when He said "I am the Truth,
I am the Light of this world, I am the Life and Resurrection,
and I am The Way." I plead with all my Hindu brothers
and sisters to take an openhearted look at Christ. The different
ways available in Hinduism are an attempt to reach God by
self-effort, but, fortunately, God requires no effort from
us. By faith in Jesus Christ alone, God grants salvation.
More than two years have passed since I came to Christ.
An additional blessing walked in my life through Sophia,
my wife. We got married one year after I came to Christ.
Now having known Christ, our hearts go out to all those
who have not come to know Him the way He ought to be known.
Christ fills our spiritual emptiness by giving the Holy
Spirit when we believe in Him. Only the Holy Spirit can
satisfy this longing.
Christ lovingly warned that He is the ONLY way to the Truth,
but wide is the way to destruction. With such profound statements
Christ is clarifying His uniqueness. Many philosophers and
gurus of this age are unable to discount Christ, and so
try to include Him in their ways. No one can suggest that
their way is right without negating The Way through Christ.
Either Christ is not The Way and a liar, or all other ways
lead to destruction. No other possibilities exist. Some
claim Christ was a good teacher, an excellent philosopher,
or a scientist. This totally degrades the Son of God to
a mere man. Christ was crucified because He proclaimed His
status - The Son of God. The so called great men show us
some ways that they themselves follow, but Christ showed
The Way and became the means by which we become children
of God. He became the Gospel, He Himself is The Way to God.
My thanks goes to Christ, my Master, for saving a wretch
like me.
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