If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir (12 page)

‘Anyway, we’ll see to it later.'

'No, I’m serious. I want to renounce properly. We have to settle it now. Please don't expect me to be a part of the business once I walk away.'

He was quiet again. I knew this was neither my plan nor Vivek's; it was the Universe's way of doing things. What else could explain two people meeting for the first time and not only sharing their financials but pledging their entire corpus of savings? We had started our discussion over our entrées and everything was finalized before we ordered dessert.

The following day, Vivek and I met to work out the details of our business. We had decided we would do something together but neither of us actually knew what we were going to do. He suggested growing my software business but I was bored with software. I had done it for nearly ten years now.

The café where we were sitting was full of customers and rather noisy. We decided to take a stroll and find a quiet place. Just a few shops down was a juice bar; it had no customers. We sat down and ordered a couple of smoothies.

Looking around, Vivek said suddenly, 'You know, there are no juice bars like this in India.'

'There are, but only in the big cities, I reckon.'

'But I haven't seen any chain of juice bars.'

'There are numerous roadside carts offering juices.'

'Yes, but what about a premium offering for those who care about health and hygiene?'

'You know, it doesn't sound like a bad idea.'

We brainstormed for an hour and, without any further market research, decided that we would start a chain of juice bars in India. I wasn't sure if it was our casual attitude towards money or faith in each other that allowed us to simply put our chips on a business we had no knowledge of whatsoever. We agreed that I would start this enterprise in India and build the team, while Vivek would join me two years later.

In September 2007, I moved back to India. My parents were living in the same old house. My father was still driving his old scooter. The TV, sound system, furniture … everything looked old and shabby. All these years, I had travelled to India but had completely failed to notice how my parents were living. A deep sense of guilt washed over me. Even with all my wealth, I had been of no use to my parents.

I couldn't make up for the past but I could build for the present. I bought them a new house, furniture, gadgets and everything else I thought they might like. I bought them two new cars and hired a full-time driver as well; I didn’t want them to use the scooter any longer.

But with all this came a realization: objects don't make up for what objects can't make up for. My father, a simple man, cared little about gadgets and cars. Both he and my mother were used to leading a certain life; after all, they had always lived that way. My arrangements had come a little too late. My father continued to use his old scooter most of the time.

When I asked him about this, he said simply, 'You're back to live in India. What more can we ask for?'

Repeatedly, Ma expressed how happy she was to have me back and to be able to feed me again. Seeing their happiness, I could not muster up the courage to share with them the fact that this joy was short-lived and that I was going to leave in the foreseeable future. I only shared my business plans with them. Even though my mother had never opposed me and my father always supported me, I couldn't figure out how to start this conversation. Besides, I was getting increasingly busy with building the new business, and didn’t manage to find an appropriate moment to broach the topic.

Meanwhile, my software business was still obliged to fulfil its current and active contracts with customers in Canada, Australia, Holland and the US. I wanted to focus on the new business as, this time, it was not just about my savings but Vivek's as well. I wanted to do a thorough job and come through. So, I began wrapping up my software business in North America, Australia and India which, due to the nature of customer contracts, was an eighteen-month process.

Meanwhile, Vivek and I also acquired an Ayurvedic health-care company. Engaging a team of top doctors in the industry, we came up with a product range of seven unique health boosters. The company broke even within the first eighteen months.

Vivek moved back with his family in the third quarter of 2009. The company was turning around fast. By the end of that year, the company was in profit; in fact, we had several current orders and many more worth millions of dollars in the pipeline. I gently reminded Vivek that I would leave soon.

Another couple of months later, we saw a block of land in the mountains. Vivek and I stood on that land and thought it was a good place to be in after I returned from my sadhana. I told him that my only requirement was a meditation hall, around ten small rooms, a kitchen and a small cottage. But he gave me a bigger vision.

'We’ll have nice pathways here, with fragrant creepers growing along both sides; there can also be trees arching over the paths. We’ll have trees as wind-breaker around the periphery of the property and a pond in the middle. I’ll get a special type of feed which, once placed in pots hung from the trees, will attract all sorts of coloured birds. We’ll also have special meditation huts with thatched roofs. And it would be lovely to have deer running around. This place is going to be a heaven on earth.’
              We finalized the deal for the land. On the way back from the mountains, Vivek and I discussed the monthly stipend the company would pay me, and settled on Rs 10,000. This was just a fraction, less than 2 per cent of what I would have earned had I invested my capital in a low-interest secure financial instrument like a term deposit. But it was enough for my needs.

I made a trip to Australia and Canada in late 2009 to meet my friends and family. My mother was in Canada visiting Rajan at the time. I wanted to see everyone once before marking my departure from the material world. I didn’t know when they would be able to see me again. One evening, I was alone with my mother. 'You know, Ma, soon I'll leave for sadhana?' She turned pale.

'You already do sadhana, you sit in meditative absorption all the time, you have everything, my son. Why do you still want to go away?’

'You are right, Ma. But, God forbid, should something untoward happen to you or my other loved ones, the pain I experience will be far deeper than any sentiment I may feel at losing someone I don’t care about or don’t know. This means I'm still attached, still biased. I want to feel the same pain and the same love for all beings. To become impartial or, putting it another way, to have unconditional love for all, I need to be in solitude for a while. Plus, the vision of God I had earlier was dreamlike, Ma. I want something more concrete, more real.'

'As always, I don't have any response to your statements. All I have is this faith in you that you'll only take the right step, whatever it may be.'

              I put my head in her lap. I knew this was the last time I would have this opportunity to experience my mother’s love; it would not be possible after renunciation. In her incredible acceptance of my decision, I also saw deep pain. But my resolve did not break. I did what I had to because this was the only way I saw to quench the thirst of my soul. Maybe Prof. Sharma was right after all: I was all head and no heart.

I came back to India. In my drafts folder quietly sat the painful departure notes I had written for my loved ones while in Canada. Each note basically said that I was sorry for leaving them in this way but I had to take this step. I had long wanted to do this, and it was all I wanted from my life.

I got power of attorneys drafted for my personal as well as company assets. I left Vivek with exclusive control and transferred my assets in his name. The lawyer advised me against this but his job, I told him, was to execute and not advise.  I could have given my wealth to my beloved family but I felt that this wouldn’t be true renunciation.

On 15 March 2010, I gave my father a tight hug before leaving the house. I had breakfast at my sister’s place and said goodbye to her. At work, I had a normal day. I printed letters and sealed envelopes. I made handover notes. I wrote cheques for some people out of the funds still sitting in my account—I wanted to give away every last penny I had and only live off the stipend money. Some investments were in a lock-in period so I couldn’t liquidate them. Meanwhile, I had informed my bankers a couple of months ago of my decision, and made sure there were no debts to be cleared. My parents were financially secure as they both received pensions. My siblings were also comfortably off. My employees would be looked after by Vivek.

I had a nice lunch with Manik, a senior manager in our company, and a good friend. I told him I wanted to enjoy that day, and we went for a coffee. Vivek was out of town for a customer meeting. In the evening, I called Sandeep, my driver, who brought the car around.

'Railway station,' I said.
              Sandeep was an extremely trustworthy person and quite attached to me. We had had many moments of laughter in the past thirty months. As he drove, we were both silent. I wasn’t thinking about the present or the future; I wasn’t thinking at all. I was simply quiet, the way I had been when I was leaving for Australia. These moments, when you are aware but not thinking, are blessed.

After a while, I let the thoughts enter. I reflected on the people I was about to leave and people I had already left behind. I had had my share of relationships, both platonic and intimate. Until I was about twenty-five, I had absolutely no time for anything other than my immediate priorities— work and meditation. Gradually, it had dawned on me that I had missed something very important: I had not experienced myself completely. I had studied about purusha and prakriti, Shiva and Shakti, yin and yang; I had studied tantra and done tantric practices. But my understanding of sexual union in tantra was superficial; I had no practical experience.

Always influenced by religious principles, I used to think that celibacy was essential for self-realization, a view I later found to be baseless and erroneous. I had known many girls and some had wanted me, but I had been driven by my own beliefs and wasn't ready for intimacy. It was also true that I didn’t really feel the need for relationships. I had tried to reciprocate, I had cared about certain people, loved them even, but I couldn't feel any attachment to them; their presence or absence didn't make any difference to my state of mind.

'The trouble is,' one girl had said, 'there's nothing I can offer you because you have no needs.'

She wasn't entirely wrong. My heart was always in the Himalayas. I longed to experience the state the Buddha had realized, the state yogic scriptures talked about, the transcendence the Vedas preached, the samadhi the ancient sages talked of. My samskaras, innate tendencies, continuously pulled me towards that state of being. The more wealth I created, the stronger this urge got, for I couldn’t understand what the fuss about money was. I’d tasted money, attention, fame and relationships, and become clear about the fact that none of these things could fill the void within.

Marriage was not a part of my plan or my dreams either. I knew I would renounce one day and, therefore, I thought it would be unethical to consummate the relationship. Once again, I was rather naive in my thinking. I had always seen life in black and white, believing in absolute definitions—this was good and that was bad, this was moral and that was immoral, this was right and that was wrong. How tantra used sexuality to transform and transcend the self was not something I really grasped until I experienced it first-hand when I did my first tantric sadhana of Goddess Kali. And I learnt that life was really a huge, grey sea.

Doing this particular tantric sadhana was supposed to give the practitioner a vision of Kali in a vivid dream. A process of three nights, it required invoking a mantra along with the energy of Kali in one’s partner. Honestly, I wasn't sure if a short sadhana would result in anything significant but how wrong I was. Not only did I get a vision of Kali but, at the time of consummation, I felt like the only entity that existed in the entire Universe, why, I felt I
was
the Universe. 

It was an experience unlike any other. Physical intimacy didn't hurt my conscience or my sadhana; on the contrary, it was incredibly beautiful and liberating. Any notion of sex or sexuality I had held was now transformed into an expression of love, a way of experiencing oneness. If I had any inhibitions about it earlier, I had none now.

I even remember sitting down later and analysing why such a beautiful act was labelled a sin in the major religions. If you had sex within a societal or religious framework like marriage, it was acceptable, but if you dared to venture beyond, it was considered a ‘sin’. Who had made these rules? Some Hindu scriptures did not view sex so negatively. Nevertheless, they regarded it as a great hindrance towards one’s spiritual progress because lust can easily override one's intelligence and resolve.  They argued that a seeker on the path must be chaste, he or she must be steadfast in practising celibacy so they do not become prey to temptations.