My Struggle

Chongeswar

(This is an attempt to chronicle my struggle on the Path of Knowledge without a Guru.)

A prudent question is one half of wisdom.  
-Francis Bacon

Questions . It all started with questions, which appeared while I was playing hide and seek as a 6 year old. Questions-who am I? Why am I here in this world ? What is the purpose of life? What is this existence and why?
I sought the answer to these questions from intelligent people around me. none of their replies could satisfy me, they advised me to ask a Guru when I grow up.

As a child I enjoyed learning,exploring and analysing new topics But these questions never left me. I also thought about how to ensure the correct conclusion or truth about any questions/topic ? objectivity- unbiased of emotions,feeling and opinions was my answer after a lot brainstorming. That became my foundation for all the future contemplations.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. - Friedrich Nietzsche .

As a young man,I found "Sadhana "-a small probing and inquisitive book written by Rabindranath Tagore. reading that book will remain one of the most exhilarating and overwhelming experience of my life. I found tears flowing from my eyes .Tears of joy and relief that I was on the right track in terms of my thought process and analysis .so many of my logical inferences were correct but list of questions grew long .

Following the clues from a book an autobiography of a yogi ,I found the book "The Path" written by Swami Kriyanand aka Donald J Walters. He saw the book in a bookshop in America and he felt attracted and bought that book and finished that book in 24 hours and packed his bags to meet Swami Yoganada .I cried thinking when will I meet my Guru ?and when will I have that intense desire to leave all behind ?.alas ! my curious and logical mind used to ask a lot of questions and was not ready to surrender easily. More tears as I wept more inconsolably.

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
-Edgar Allan Poe

Later, I attended a retreat of silence and meditation of several days . Suddenly I understood what Buddha meant by ""अप्प दीपो भव" which I had read years back in school . I became convinced that knowledge cannot be gained from books and it has to be experienced through this body and mind and within not outside in any books .so much so that I did not touch any book for few years .but for some strange reason I did not practice silence meditation either. I decided to practice it when I become 40 or 45.

Few years passed with questions remain unanswered, I came back to my first love, books .this time to find the reason and rationale behind the experience and these practices. After extensive reading on Buddhist text , I concluded that mind and logic and take you to the certain extent and after that you have to take leap( certainly I did not want to name it leap of faith ) OR it will become so self Evident that it will not need any explanation, logic or evidence . that gap was still there for me ,how can I fill that gap? Guru ! how to find him ? Did I have any other choice other than to prepare myself and wait patiently?

Years later,While travelling I got a book " Ramkrishna Vachnamrit". I put in an extra effort to arrange a pencil so that I can underline important lines (habit) for future reference .10 pages into the book, my pencil got dropped and I found tears rolling down on my cheeks because of purity ,simplicity and serenity of thoughts and because of my ignorance that I thought of Ramkrishna Paramhans just as pujari /priest and I thought Swami Vivekananda was gracious and glorifying his master when he said that I am not even 5% of my master.(Apologies for my ignorance)

Ramkrishna Paramhans also emphasized that you take the essence of scriptures from A Guru and Practice.

All roads were leading to one Point. A Guru.

Chongeshwar चोंगेश्वर