My Testimonial

Once I heard that monks who get elevated to the ranks of capable of giving mantra (initiation) can’t hold their earthly body for long. The reason behind it as many people say that at the time of initiation the guru takes every responsibility of his/her shishya. So naturally whenever the shishya or the ward commits any sin the guru absorbs it and protects him/her. Because he has also vowed to take care of him/her along with the shishya surrendering before his/her guru for eternity.

When I reached Chennai airport and switched my phone on, one text popped up instantly. It was a message from my gurubhai Subhajit, one of my classmates. It said our gurudev has bid adieu to his last earthly possession, he has shed his last cloth, his body. I was struck just as like I lost one of my poles I can hold onto and that too at the time when I was most vulnerable. In a bid to clear my brain up I looked around. All i saw were fake makeup laced faces and even more fake smiles, who knows maybe the dimension of the smile were predetermined and taught at their training institutes. I took a lungfull of air-conditioned air and as a regular earthly man went out and headed for the city to get my job done. To get the release papers and doctor’s advice and some tested sample to get them back to Mumbai. I was as sober as a man can be with minding his own business. Back in my Mumbai bound plane I reflected upon the series of events which was apparently messing with my life. I couldn’t make myself believe the authenticity of each character of subhajit’s text. I was really scared with myself and the things going around me because in every case the outcome was same, death. I remembered the days of my childhood when we got beaten by our maharajs but still went on with our mischiefs and they also kept loving us. The day when our bhandari maharaj taught me to how to eat ‘parbal/potol’. He crushed it on my plate, took away the seeds, peeled the outer skin and took some rice and mixed it and asked me to open my mouth and fed me with his hands, as far as I remember only my mom has does this to me when I was a toddler. The day when one of our friend had a serious asthmatic problem we took him to the hospital and stayed awake whole night reaching for him, comforting him to get rest. I guess this was my first night out before kgp happened. Oh! Why this can’t be just a dream. All of my childhood I have learned to be positive every single time even when the teacher opened the roll of checked answer scripts in front of us. I argued the events with logic…. I am a goddamn engineering student right!!! I realised my gurudev has not passed away just like this, he definitely had a lot of reasons. Maybe he was so overloaded with the sins we’ve done  just like a responsible father giving his chidren the best and taking the toxic with a smile like nothing can go wrong. And to top it off I can’t even barely imagine he released me from the shackles of cancer and logged out of his earth account giving me a second chance. He brought me back to the light again when I was headed for the abyss. I got the same Goosebumps the day I got my mantra. So this event you might feel is merely biological on the outside but in it’s core it gave me the strength to live again. When your family, relatives, friends are praying for you it’s a sin if you yourself give up and I didn’t wanted to add to my gurudev’s suffering. Now here I stand again in front of everybody, bowed down for your wishes. Thank you gurudev, you didn't die for nothing, thank you!



P.S. I was initiated by Srimat Swami Prameyanandaji Maharaj. He was one of the vice presidents of Sri Ramakrishna Math and Mission at Belur, India.