My Experiments with Spirituality
‘I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind ……. ’. This poem by Francis Thompson describes my existence from the ages of 12 to 37. I consciously tried to avoid God all my adult life, starting from when I was 12 years old and ironically just after my Sacred Thread ceremony. I denied him totally and absolutely as I got fascinated by Science and reason and logic. All the rituals just made no sense. At the age of 20 I was on top of the world having secured a good respectable job but still felt a strange sense of uneasiness, of having missed out on my true potential. Now it was the turn of my brother to undergo the Thread ceremony. Perhaps, the Head Priest could sense my cockiness and doubt. During a lull in the proceedings he casually asked me if I performed the Gayatri Jap every day. I told him I didn’t believe in it. To which he replied,’You will never succeed unless y