I was born in a family that did not pray everyday. My dad was an atheist all his young adult life.
But given my own experiences, I grew up believing "Everything happens for a reason". Like there is a superpower that sets forth our destiny right when we are born. Like everything in this universe acts the way it does because it has been designed to happen that way. Like no one has a control, but everything works out fine. For everyone. Eventually.
But that was a flawed belief. Since if that's true, why do some babies die out of illnesses? Why do some people live not knowing anything but poverty and hunger. I couldn't tell them "Everything happens for a reason", could I? I spent the next few years of my life reading about different religions. No offense to anyone, but nothing made slightest sense to me at the time. Some explained how the son of God suffered for humanity. Some talked of a holy messengers and a supreme god who get offended by the slightest of questioning or ridicule. I did slightly and temporarily got inclined to my own religion as it offered options. And I began to interpret Gita and the vedas to my own liking and convenience.
And then a widespread bug bit me. The law of attraction. Thoughts become things. Power of positive thinking. I gave it a shot too and did experience a few miracles myself, like some of my friends did. This brought a paradigm shift in my philosophy. From a mindset that all power belongs to the creator, I suddenly felt I owned the power to transform my life just by thinking and feeling good. But the biggest realization that this phase brought to me is that controlling your thoughts and feelings is way more challenging than it seems. It destroys your peace of mind because all the negative feelings are obstructed and buried inside you. The philosophy of positive thinking wasn't sustainable enough to be clung on to. But I did feel that the power to create my life somehow rested within me. How to utilize that was a big question. So I turned to the gurus.
I listened to Osho, but he was more of a question than an answer. I listened to Deepak Chopra for a few months and was impressed by how he linked the discoveries in latest physics with his spiritual teachings. But at some point, he turned into an extremely materialistic and egoistic person in my mind. He became a brand that sells books on laws of spirituality and looks impeccably made up in his videos.
Around the same point, I began to find some peace in the words of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, who talks about an attitude of Agnosticism. But he talks openly about his 'enlightenment' and I just couldn't correlate enlightenment with the occasional outbursts of violence that I experienced in his opinions.
My next haven was J Krishnamurti. Honestly, I only began to start reading him because my dad mentioned about him once and said "he was a great philosopher, but difficult to understand for common people." A loser in my own eyes, I wanted to listen to this guy and reassure myself that I am at least good at this one thing - pondering about life. He shook me. Like nothing ever before. His words made me question everything I've ever believed in. What does 'belief' even mean - being lazy about finding the truth through logic and succumbing to someone else's or your own fancy ideals? Just accepting certain things as moral or immoral because society defines them so? He even brought a sense of spiritual dissonance within me. I began wondering if living a life of purpose meant anything. I haven't seen within myself extreme talent, deep passion or the strength to follow a single cause. Can my life have any purpose? Endless videos on theoretical physics suggested to me that nothing in the universe has a purpose. And perhaps a piece of stone is as conscious as I am.
JK suggested an approach of self-observation, which made sense to me and even brought me a lot of mental peace. But now this calm feels like absence of life to me. I know money or love cannot make me content. I cannot even dream of something that would grant any meaning to my existence or make me sustainably happy. I actually don't see any hope for myself going forward. Nor can I go back to any of my previous beliefs as they seem ridiculous, superficial and almost non-sensical to me now. I feel like dying even though my life is filled with awesome people and opportunities.
Am I locked in this lost state forever?
But given my own experiences, I grew up believing "Everything happens for a reason". Like there is a superpower that sets forth our destiny right when we are born. Like everything in this universe acts the way it does because it has been designed to happen that way. Like no one has a control, but everything works out fine. For everyone. Eventually.
But that was a flawed belief. Since if that's true, why do some babies die out of illnesses? Why do some people live not knowing anything but poverty and hunger. I couldn't tell them "Everything happens for a reason", could I? I spent the next few years of my life reading about different religions. No offense to anyone, but nothing made slightest sense to me at the time. Some explained how the son of God suffered for humanity. Some talked of a holy messengers and a supreme god who get offended by the slightest of questioning or ridicule. I did slightly and temporarily got inclined to my own religion as it offered options. And I began to interpret Gita and the vedas to my own liking and convenience.
And then a widespread bug bit me. The law of attraction. Thoughts become things. Power of positive thinking. I gave it a shot too and did experience a few miracles myself, like some of my friends did. This brought a paradigm shift in my philosophy. From a mindset that all power belongs to the creator, I suddenly felt I owned the power to transform my life just by thinking and feeling good. But the biggest realization that this phase brought to me is that controlling your thoughts and feelings is way more challenging than it seems. It destroys your peace of mind because all the negative feelings are obstructed and buried inside you. The philosophy of positive thinking wasn't sustainable enough to be clung on to. But I did feel that the power to create my life somehow rested within me. How to utilize that was a big question. So I turned to the gurus.
I listened to Osho, but he was more of a question than an answer. I listened to Deepak Chopra for a few months and was impressed by how he linked the discoveries in latest physics with his spiritual teachings. But at some point, he turned into an extremely materialistic and egoistic person in my mind. He became a brand that sells books on laws of spirituality and looks impeccably made up in his videos.
Around the same point, I began to find some peace in the words of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, who talks about an attitude of Agnosticism. But he talks openly about his 'enlightenment' and I just couldn't correlate enlightenment with the occasional outbursts of violence that I experienced in his opinions.
My next haven was J Krishnamurti. Honestly, I only began to start reading him because my dad mentioned about him once and said "he was a great philosopher, but difficult to understand for common people." A loser in my own eyes, I wanted to listen to this guy and reassure myself that I am at least good at this one thing - pondering about life. He shook me. Like nothing ever before. His words made me question everything I've ever believed in. What does 'belief' even mean - being lazy about finding the truth through logic and succumbing to someone else's or your own fancy ideals? Just accepting certain things as moral or immoral because society defines them so? He even brought a sense of spiritual dissonance within me. I began wondering if living a life of purpose meant anything. I haven't seen within myself extreme talent, deep passion or the strength to follow a single cause. Can my life have any purpose? Endless videos on theoretical physics suggested to me that nothing in the universe has a purpose. And perhaps a piece of stone is as conscious as I am.
JK suggested an approach of self-observation, which made sense to me and even brought me a lot of mental peace. But now this calm feels like absence of life to me. I know money or love cannot make me content. I cannot even dream of something that would grant any meaning to my existence or make me sustainably happy. I actually don't see any hope for myself going forward. Nor can I go back to any of my previous beliefs as they seem ridiculous, superficial and almost non-sensical to me now. I feel like dying even though my life is filled with awesome people and opportunities.
Am I locked in this lost state forever?
