It was during my vacations after 2nd PUC during 2002. Like any other CET aspirant, I had the luxury of enjoying about 6 months waiting for the outcome, thanks to the messed-up entrance system.
I used to eagerly wait for SOM(Star of Mysore, a local newspaper) to drop home. Unlike others, I used to start browsing from the last page. My interest was not in the headlines rocking the city, but the events,talks,discourses happening locally.
I used to attend literally every free talk! The first one I cam across was one by Sri Sri Ravishankar's AOL. It was a free introductory talk and I was one of the few kids to attend it. The talk was impressive.I was expecting Guruji to deliver the talk. Weirdly, what attra
cted me to these talks were not the hope of spiritual enlightenment but the long, mushy beards!
And of course, the free snacks that might be on offer. I must confess that I was utterly disappointed as it was one of Guruji's clean-shaved shishyas delivering the talk. It was claimed that Guruji could recite Bhagavad Gita at the age of five! Alas, I was 4 times that age and could not remember the relatively simpler chemical equations for CET! When it was the question time, I wanted to know the "fees". All the while I assumed that it was a free course. And then I dared to debate with the volunteers on what seemed to be an exhorbitant guru dakshina.
My next stop a few days later was Sidhi Samadhi Yoga. The talk was somewhere in Kuvempunagar. I was happy to see the long bearded master, a Mysore-based scientist, waiting to deliver the discourse. I do not recollect the contents of the talk. But I clearly remember why I quit! At the end of the talk, the master started enlightening us about the effects of food on spirituality. Apparently, brinjal was the culprit of our short life spans. If we could quit consuming brinjals, we could live for some extra 5-10 years. Then came onion. The list grew longer. I thought I had enough of it. I started wondering if I would be finally advised to survive on grass and fodder!
By then, SOM had made a mention of Osho Rajneesh in one of its articles. I
believe some public debate was going on & SOM was the forum for discussions. I was curious to check first hand what it was all about. My curiosity took me to It was now time to receive some gyan on rebirth. Dr Isacc conducted one interesting meditation session. Oh, I forgot to introduce him. He was a medico by profession and his name has nothing to do with physics. His dad had named the two siblings as Isacc & Newton! Wonder what he would have named his sister, "Curie" ? Be that as it may, he spoke about rebirths, karma etc. Finally, we were to practice the meditation for some time there. Enchanting Japanese music was being played from his laptop, which was not so common those days. It put to me blissful sleep. Finally, this snoring spiritual seeker was "awakened" by his neighbour. I was pretty embarrassed. But, what a deep sleep I had had!
Then came a couple of "Personality Development" sessions. One of them was to be conducted by a local "human trainer". The first thing that came to my mind was a tall, well-built, demon with a whip in his hand trying to train us. But, I decided to be open-minded for I had nothing to lose. The talk was impressive. It was devoid of any spirituality. It was more about memory, public speaking, etc. One of the "human trainees" could remember the names of more than 60 articles! It was soon question time and I wanted to test his skills with 10 chemistry equations. Expectedly, he was unwilling to testify his skill and tried to assure me that I could manage to succeed once trained in the art. But, amidst all this disappointment, the only cheer was the cookies on the desk!
My second "Personality Development" session was at Ramakrishna Ashrama. I must admit that the humble Swamiji defined personality in a refreshingly inspiring dimension. I might be short of space & time to paraphrase the entire discourse. But, I did enjoy it.
Jai ho!
