Crossroads

 

It has been a whirlwind quarter since I left from Pune at the end of April. Life in the USA, both personal and professional, gets much hectic compared to India. I find it valuable because it allows for first hand understanding of how most people live in a modern society. The struggles for worldly survival in affluent societies are different from the struggles in poorer communities. And either one cannot easily understand the other until there is first hand experience. 

Now that I’m back in India I have bit of a space to be alone and think. Undistracted solitude is essential for thinking. Not the thinking that qualifies as brooding or overthinking but the kind that sorts things out, assimilates experiences and learning and infuses meaning into existence. 

Crossroads are fast approaching in the journey. In less than eight months from now I will have bid adieu to my job I have most gratefully and happily held on to for the last 27 years. In three months from now I will be completing the commitment I made with DMH Pune regarding Preventive Medicine. Hence professionally I will be untethered in a way I haven’t been in over three decades. Although I have conveyed a desire to work 2 days a week in my parent organization nothing concrete has been chalked out yet. 

The kids are now nearly independent, just a matter of completing last few years of professional training and starting steady jobs, settling into their homes. My immediate responsibility now rests with my octogenarian mother and sexagenarian husband. One may or may not be surprised to learn that the former is more independent and low maintenance than the latter!

What do I have in mind after retiring from a full time job besides the continued responsibility of taking care of this family? Continuing my spiritual journey. Diving deeper and deeper into adhyatma. 

A question arose in the mind. Do adhyatma and normal (family and social) life intersect at all, run parallel or have nothing to do with each other?

Probably the answer is dependent on each individual. There is a choice to make. 

The fast approaching crossroad is beckoning for making the choice. While staying dedicated to the spiritual path is non negotiable for me, do I connect it with social commitments or withdraw completely? If I do intertwine my spiritual lessons with social engagement how exactly should I do that to remain pertinent? 

Everything is a blur at the moment. Perhaps because I did not live life with the thought of the future. I just went with the flow, literally. Didn’t give as much thought to decisions as I am doing now. Life still turned out decent, I think. That’s the Grace of my Guru, my universal mother, my true love. Why then do I think that now decisions are on my shoulders? 

जेथे जातो तेथे तू माझा सांगाती। चालविसी हाती धरोनिया।

Jethe jaato tethe tu maajhaa saangaati 

My job is to simply keep my eyes open at all times and remain fearless. The Guru shall lead. 

While I was thinking about all above, the mind also dwelled upon basic questions like if someone was to ask me what is the purpose of studying adhyatma, what would I say? How would I describe my personal adhyatmic journey?  How would I summarize for myself and anyone else what adhyatma has done for me? How would I guide someone towards a life of adhyatma? 

Basically these thoughts are prompting me to organize my experiences and learnings hitherto in a more structured manner for my own purposes and perhaps to benefit others. It is something that I haven’t consciously done before. Just kept going on and on, gathering a lesson at every corner and simply indulging in the loving relationship with the Almighty. Almost like a teenager in love for the first time in life. Blind to everything else. Blissfully ignorant! I could very well carry on the same way until the last breath because when you have bliss what more do you care about? Except, in that case, the lessons I learned will go with me. No one else can get any benefit whatsoever.

If I have to put aside selfishness I must address those questions. Sometime soon.