Once the visit to Puttaparthi was over. Suddenly, the emptiness creeped in for some reason.
Nothing in the outside world looked the same. The restaurant which I went to earlier, foods I liked, places I visited started looking so dim that interest towards all of it was reducing. Didn’t really feel drawn to all of it like before.
Now, my interests have started changing. I started visiting spiritual retreats. Indeed Baba sent me to all of it.
I had an opportunity to visit the 10 days spiritual retreat program in Andhra Pradesh. It was nice. I had some good spiritual experiences over there. Got a bit of visions about the past lifes. A few people over there in the retreat kept calling me to the next retreat that is going to happen in Chennai.
Clearly, I said “No” to it. But, again and again the same message started coming from different people and online as well. So, I took a chance at the last minute. Booked my train ticket. I was trying to catch the train to Chennai from Bangalore. That day Bangalore experienced one of the peak Bengaluru moments with traffic. The road got jammed for nearly 20 to 25 min. I have to catch the train in a few minutes. I was praying to Sai Baba. Kept chanting Sairam. Reached the station. I have to get to my platform from the entrance. I pushed so much that day and reached the train. When I went and kept my bag on the seat, the train started moving. Sat there thanking Baba. Attended the retreat in Chennai meditation centre with full mouna for 10 days. It all went well with Baba’s grace. Started the new year, 2023 from this retreat.
Then, I returned home. While I was surfing at home, I came across the Buddhist meditation retreat program for 10 days. It came with an advertisement in Google search engine(this meditation centre is ngo organisation. They don’t advertise anything at all. All the programs are done directly in their centre). When I clicked on it, Baba’s photo showed up in the meditation website’s header. I kinda understood it by this time that it was from Baba. Since I just made my visit to many places recently, I was a bit reluctant to enroll myself again in another retreat. But, the next day, I somehow filled out the form. They confirmed my seat. I was called for the retreat. I went to retreat and it all went well. I learned a lot, meditated, contemplated. All was good.
When I was at home after this, one of the friends from the retreat called and said, let’s go to aurobindo ashram. I was actually looking forward to that. Suddenly, it came up, I didn’t say no to it. We were there for like 3 days but couldn’t enter the meditation center as we didn’t know the rules of writing email. But, rest all was nice.
Within a few months, Baba sent me to various places to make me learn many things. While returning from the train station to home, this time while returning, it was so empty. That I feel that. The car, buses, people are going. But, it was empty and silent. After that few days I couldn’t sleep properly. I would just go out to the verandeh at midnight to watch the stars. It helped a lot.
Something started changing drastically inside. I didn’t know or could get the awareness of what’s happening. I was trying to comprehend things. But, nothing is happening. My talk with people has decreased a lot.
When I was approached by people for normal random conversation, I couldn’t really take it. So, I made myself unavailable or away.
I went into the mouna again for a period. I used to go to temple, pray and meditate to come back home. It was the routine. It continued for a couple of days.
Meanwhile, since I come from an engineering background with a head of engineering and media experience in an international start-up, I started doing freelance. But, something or would come in the line - like device/monitor would break, device wouldn’t work, internet connectivity issues. It kept happening that I lost interest in working. Just continued the temple routine with mouna.