Sitting at the Guru's Feet / Part One

When I was in a terrible state in my life—by terrible state I mean there was no settlement in life, no establishment—I'm speaking of that time. Back then, you see, I hadn't completed my honors from CUET, everyone was treating me like dirt. And I had no standing whatsoever in society. Even no one would answer my phone calls. I might be calling someone for some work, but no one would pick up—that's how things were. I had become such a person in others' eyes that there was nothing worth answering my calls for. And you'd see friends all gathering somewhere for get-togethers, where my presence was tacitly forbidden. Or if I did go, no one wanted to talk to me or introduce me as a friend. They had all graduated and were working various jobs, while I still hadn't even completed my honors. I wasn't an engineer, and whether I'd ever actually graduate was uncertain, so perhaps they felt a bit uncomfortable introducing me as a friend. It was then that I first understood that most of those we thoughtlessly call friends are actually just our classmates. There's a world of difference between classmates and friends. If one is biryani, the other is plain rice. You can't embrace a classmate and cry; you can embrace a friend and cry.

So back then I wrote only in English. For two reasons. First, you couldn't write in Bengali fonts on Facebook then. Second, thinking and writing in English was much more convenient for me. Because I wrote in English, most of my friends in Bangladesh on Facebook couldn't understand English very well—if they understood at all, they couldn't grasp heavy pieces or simply wouldn't read them. Though yes, a few did understand. I don't want to mention their names in my writing—they might feel embarrassed. They would see my writing, read it, encourage me. Apart from them, most Bangladeshi people didn't read my work. Among those who did read, most were Indians. Often non-Bengali Indians, some were foreigners, some were university teachers, some professionals, some politicians, some civil servants. They were all foreigners or Indians.
Facebook didn't have the follow feature then. Meaning no one could see anyone's posts outside their friend list. So only people on my list could see my posts. I didn't add just anyone to my list then. I very carefully selected only a few Facebook friends. Now, out of embarrassment, you have to reluctantly keep many people—due to work, fear, life, and various other threads. Back then life wasn't so tightly bound by threads of obligation. I always wanted to be on the lists of people more qualified, wiser, and higher than me. I've always avoided anyone from whom there's nothing to learn. So I would go to their posts and comment, quite weightily. I tried to interact with them in such a way that they would never take me lightly. When necessary, I would study myself to comment on their posts, try to strike up conversations with them in their inboxes. They would engage with someone insignificant like me not because of my appearance, but because of my gray matter. I'm willing to sit at the feet of anyone I can learn from, even sacrificing all my ego, pride, and self-respect.
Among them I found someone who was profoundly life-conscious, wise, learned, philosophical in nature, and a person of very high standing. Her name is Gayatri Talreja. (The name is a pseudonym. I don't want anyone reading this piece to bother such a great person.) She was a chartered accountant. We've all heard of Disneyland Park. Interestingly, the engineers there are called Imagineers. They believe that imagination is more important than knowledge, and they give great importance to imagination. So she worked at Disneyland and was an American chartered accountant, Indian by birth. When she lived in India, she had a romance with Rajen Kapoor. But Rajen wasn't accepted by her family. Later Rajen Kapoor became very successful. He became one of India's most renowned film producers. Rajen Kapoor was also a great admirer of my writing—he asked me many times during that period to move to Mumbai. He said, "You just come here once, the rest is my responsibility. I'll make you the hero of my films. You'll never have to look back." I didn't go then. There was an unbelievable kind of self-conceit. What that conceit was about, I don't know myself. Now I understand there are many kinds of fools in this world.
Gayatri-didi married someone named Mahesh Chopra—meaning the family arranged her marriage with Mahesh. Mahesh was a software engineer and later became the owner of a renowned software firm. That firm was one of America's top ten software companies. I could have worked there and permanently settled in America to become a multi-millionaire. I have a piece about my connection with that firm. I'll come to that later. So Gayatri Talreja was a chartered accountant, but not from India—she qualified in America. I think they call it Royal Chartered Accountant or something like that! She qualified as a CA there and took a job at Disney. How powerful a person can be, how strong-willed a woman can be—there's much to learn from her! Why I said this will gradually become clear. She is the guru, philosopher, idol of my life—whatever you want to call it. Without her, I couldn't have reached where I am today.
So didi took a job at Disney as a chartered accountant. She read various books. She mostly read spiritual books, along with motivational ones. Her favorite author was Osho, however you pronounce it, written as Osho in English. Her second favorite spiritual author was Sadguru, written as Sadguru in English. I first heard about Osho from her, and my initiation into reading motivational books—this initiation came from Gayatri-didi. She was the first to encourage me to read motivational books. I was very depressed about my life then. I wanted to die every single day. She first told me to read Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret." This book was number 5 on the list of best-selling books in the world then. Number 1 was the Bible, I think. Anyway, we talked every day. The reason she gave me time or was drawn to me was my writing. She loved reading my writing tremendously. She called me The Little Philosopher and valued me considerably, speaking to me with much respect and appreciation. That a great person of her position would give so much importance and time to a nobody like me—it takes audacity even to think about it. I felt that courage in my heart, and this too was Gayatri-didi's contribution. She taught me to respect myself and live courageously.
In the entire world, there was only one person with whom I felt powerful. I never felt low. If talking to someone makes me feel low, I never speak to them unless absolutely compelled, whoever they might be. Talking to Gayatri-didi made me feel that my worth still remained somewhat in this world, and the more I talked to her, the more I could feel the strength within myself. At that time, in this entire world, talking to only one person made me feel that I too could achieve something in life—that person was Gayatri Talreja. So I would talk to her on messenger. And why did she talk to me? Why did she give so much time day after day to someone she didn't know or recognize? Because she was an admirer of my writing; she thought I was a philosophical kind of person; and she believed I could do good things in life. She never told me I couldn't do it. Her opinion of me was very high.
She always helped me recognize what was inside me, and talking to her, I realized at some point that what we call God, Allah, or whatever we call that infinite powerful entity—its seat is in our hearts. Prayer means establishing contact with the person inside ourselves. A prayer that doesn't evoke a response from within us is actually incomplete. If we can awaken the power within our hearts, then whatever strength we need to guide ourselves toward our dreams will come from within us, and all our heart's desires will be fulfilled. When our heart's desires are fulfilled, we can help ourselves and those around us. We can help our families. The more awakened one's inner self, the more they progress, and whatever prayer we offer is essentially establishing connection with our inner being or soul. I first learned this from her.
She would say these things and I would sit bowed at the dust of her feet, listening with reverence. From the day I began considering her the guru of my life until today, I have never sought counter-arguments to a single word of hers. Whatever she says is like the word of a guru to me—I'm willing to accept it without a moment's thought. Reading this, you can call me whatever you want—I simply don't care! Because I know your contribution to my life is zero, while hers is infinite or more. Therefore, both you and your opinion are unnecessary to me. I love and respect all those godlike people I found beside me during the crisis moments of my life, beyond all logic and argument. And Gayatri-didi is such a person that where her thinking begins, your thinking and mine can never reach in our lifetimes! Therefore, if anyone comments on her or her ideology without understanding, I could tear out that person's tongue!
Didi was a great philosopher. Everything I needed to reach today's position, I received entirely from her.
One must first prepare one's own mind before attempting anything worthwhile. That is exactly what she had accomplished through her conversations. I believed everything she said with blind faith. I never questioned any of her words with logic or reasoning, never subjected them to judgment. An interesting fact about her is that she had left her job at Disneyland. The reason was that her sister had been unable to have children for a long time after marriage. Later, she did have a child, a son named Neil. It was to raise this Neil that she quit her job. When she was leaving that job, her salary was approximately 28 lakh Bangladeshi taka per month—note the phrase "per month"! Why did she leave that job? I had asked her. In response, she said, "If I leave this job, I can concentrate more on my son. He is a greater treasure to me than this job." But to tell the truth, her husband was far wealthier. He owned one of America's top ten software companies. There's a story about him too, which you'll find in my piece "The Story of a 'No'"—you can read it if you wish.
After quitting her job, Didi devoted her complete attention to her son. She viewed life in the simplest possible way. I never saw her engage in even slightly complex thinking. The first lesson in taking life simply came to me from her. I myself had viewed life quite complicatedly before that. I used to think too much, overthink without any reason. I would spend hours thinking about things that weren't even real. I kept creating all sorts of scenarios in my head that had no actual existence whatsoever. Learning what to think about at which moment and how to move forward without worrying about who said what or didn't say—these two things I learned from her. At the end of the day, what matters is what I'm thinking and what output emerges from that thinking. There's no point in merely constructing a blueprint for the entire world or one's own life just in one's head—one must step into the field of life. Whoever wins in life's arena is the true victor. There's no benefit in winning merely in words or in one's mind.
I received many philosophical initiations from Didi. For instance, seeing a woman not as a woman but as a human being—I first learned this from her. No one had ever told me this in such a way before. How to see a woman as a human being, how to respect her—I learned this completely for the first time from her. When I spoke with her in the early days, I used to feel very shy. She had sensed this shyness and broken through it herself. I first learned to respect and value women from her. Interestingly, I hadn't spoken with her on the phone yet at that time—that happened much later. She called me once on my birthday, that was one time; and later she called me casually one day, that was another time. It's difficult to speak with such a great person. I kept thinking I was saying all sorts of foolish things on the phone. My words would get tangled, become confused. I don't remember ever having such deep reverence for anyone in my life. My conversations with her happened only through chatting.
She would give me various life lessons, lessons about family, about what society is like around us, how society sees us, why or how we exist in society—all of this was learned from her. Perhaps I already knew these things, but I didn't think about them the way she did. It was rather like reinventing the wheel! The fact that we have certain commitments to this society—I hadn't really thought about or felt this in such a way before speaking with her. This commitment we have to our family—this too I learned from her. We haven't come to live only for ourselves—I'd heard this many times, but this business of living for others, what one must do first to organize oneself for that—this was entirely learned from Gayatri Didi. Preparing oneself for one's own and others' lives—this is humanity's most important task.
She would often tell me, "Come study at an American university. Someone like you should do a PhD from a good university!" Where no one had ever told me I could complete my degree from CUET, there such a great person was showing me dreams: "Come study at an American university!" Even thinking about it gave me an extraordinary feeling. She lived in California, America. I would think, how much must she believe in me to think that I could finish my pending undergraduate degree and then do a PhD from a place like America! How did she develop such faith in my abilities! Yet people not worthy of her toenail believe that I won't even be able to finish my undergraduate degree from CUET. I understood that those who are great know how to see people with great eyes. This is where Didi's difference from the rest of the world lay.
When someone places trust in you, believes in your capabilities, and if you somehow like that person, give them space in your life, then you'll see that to preserve your dignity in that place, to shape yourself into what you are in their eyes, you will have wholehearted determination. Even looking at that person, you simply cannot move away from the position you hold in their eyes. I mean, you'll want to keep their faith in you intact. The same thing happened in my case. Then I thought, a person like her gives me so much time, speaks to me with so much respect, listens to my words with so much importance, trusts me so much...to preserve this place of trust, if nothing else, I must prepare myself—by any means necessary. The interesting thing is, those who believe in you and truly love you selflessly—their good words have great impact on your life. And those who don't have faith in you, no matter how talented, successful, or good they may be, none of their companionship or words will be of much use in your life. More important than someone's infinite qualifications is what you yourself learned from those qualifications and how much of it you could put to use.
Great as Gayatri Didi is, I don't even dream of becoming a quarter of what she is, but she helped me recognize the power of my mind, so my gratitude to her knows no bounds. If I had seen her, learned from her, but couldn't do anything myself, then no matter how great a person she might be, it wouldn't have mattered to me personally. I learned many details of life from her. For instance, when she would knock, she would first ask, "Sush" (she called me by this shortened name), "do you have some time? I wanted to talk about your post from last night." Or "Sush, could you spare me some time? Let me share some of my own confusions with you?"...Can you imagine? A person like her speaking to a street boy like me with such respect! I was then completely unemployed. No one had ever knocked and asked whether I had time or not! No one had ever asked me even this much: "Would you have some time?" Everyone simply assumed I had endless time. Because I was unemployed! What busyness could the unemployed have? Even if there was busyness, what was there to respect about it!
And she would ask that very me: do you have time? Apart from her, no one else would speak to a worthless person like me in such a way. When I spoke with Didi, I could think of myself as somewhat valuable, even if just a little. Didi was such a great person, and even she would speak to me with such value—it required great courage even to think this at that time. Let me say this: Didi didn't speak to me with value just to please me or merely for the sake of saying something. She was very busy with various tasks; pleasing me, or even giving me time, wasn't necessary for her. And I can understand myself who truly values me and who says all that merely for the sake of saying it. That can be detected. Whatever the case, mingling with Didi, I began to think of myself as valuable. I began to feel myself as a very precious person, and this feeling is worth a great deal. This feeling created a kind of sense of responsibility within me. Consequently, whenever I spoke with her afterward, I had to speak with great responsibility. This is a responsibility toward oneself, a kind of binding of oneself.
She had created this, and there was a technique to it, which I never understood at the time. Much later, I came to understand. For instance, when I couldn't study, I would tell her, "Didi, I can't study." She would tell me, "If you can't study, why should you have to study! If you can't study, do this work at this time, listen to some music, listen to that lecture on YouTube, go for a walk, read a good book. Even if you don't study for three days, nothing will happen. But if you sit with a book in front of you for three hours without studying during that time, you'll develop an aversion that will harm you. Think about it—not only did no studying happen, but a disgust for studying arose instead. Rather than moving away from studying by studying, it's much better to stay close to studying by not studying."
She was the first to teach me such various things. I consider her my guru. The greatest fortune of my life is that when the entire world had turned its face away from me, I found someone who was greater to me than the entire world, who possessed the wisdom of a whole world. Among those I know in my world, she possesses the finest intellect. Finding a true guru is a matter of great fortune. An even greater fortune comes when that guru accepts me as a disciple—for whatever reason...whether due to my worthiness or her grace and will—and I too can acquire the capability to follow her path in the right way.
At any cost, if one can place oneself at the feet of a true teacher at the right moment, then life changing becomes merely a matter of time.
So I would speak with her like this every day, and she too would tell me, 'You write very well. I always love reading your writing, and I wait for your next piece.' This is a tremendously powerful statement! When such a great person tells me something like that, one simply cannot express oneself carelessly. Let me put it simply. When someone tells you that you cook very well, no matter how your cooking actually is, the next time you cook, a profound sense of responsibility and sincerity develops within you. Both these feelings help you cook better. This multiplies a person's confidence many times over. Along with it grows sincerity, mental strength, patience. So when didi would tell me, 'You write very well,' it would seem to me, yes, I really do write well! Therefore, the next piece must be even better. I will write well for my didi, express myself in a good way. Just to make didi happy I will sharpen my thoughts. I loved her blindly.
Here's an interesting thing: there was no comparison whatsoever between her and an insignificant person like me. She was far above me, she knew much more than I did. To reach her profound philosophy of life and wisdom, I would need to be born several times over. But she would deliberately place herself below me. This is a tremendous technique! The reason is this: when you discover that a great person is learning from you, expecting something good from you, placing you at their level or even above them, then this fact will work on your mind that you must certainly create something good, must improve yourself further, must use the maximum of your strength at any cost, must develop yourself better each day. The responsibility of teaching them, the responsibility of telling them something worthwhile is entrusted upon your shoulders! This creates a tremendous motivation within oneself! I had surrendered myself at didi's feet, within didi's sphere of thought. It's somewhat like this: suppose a teacher goes to teach mathematics to a boy. Now this boy is utterly lazy. No one has ever been able to teach him math. So the teacher devised a strategy. What kind of strategy? He goes and tells the boy, 'Brother, you don't know math, I don't know math either. No problem. But the thing is, I tutor two or three other students, all of them math tutoring. And I'm from a very poor family, brother. If these tutoring jobs are lost, my family and I will have to go without food. I'll be in serious trouble.' Then the boy says, 'Is that so, sir?' The teacher said, 'Yes, it really is so.' The boy says, 'Then what can be done?' The teacher said, 'If you could teach me some math from time to time, it would be very good. Let me tell you the truth, don't tell your father, okay? You know it reasonably well, I don't even know that much. Could you teach me some math problems?' Then the boy said, 'Alright, fine. Whatever I know, I can teach you that much.'
The teacher immediately said, 'You've saved me, brother! Then it will be very helpful for me. I love you very much. And the salary I get for tutoring you, I won't take it, I'll give it to you. This will be my guru dakshina. There's no need to tell your father about this. By learning some math from you and teaching others, I'll earn some money.' The boy was overjoyed. 'Oh wonderful! With this I can roam around with friends, eat and drink, have fun.' Then day after day the boy began studying extensively and through studying began 'teaching math' to his teacher. The teacher would then act foolish, showing that he couldn't do anything. Every day he would give various math problems to the student and say, 'Teach me this tomorrow. I'll also study and come prepared. Then it will be convenient for you to teach.' To teach the teacher more and more, the boy would work very hard and learn all kinds of math problems. Eventually that boy found joy in mathematics, receiving encouragement from his teacher, he gradually began immersing himself in the ocean of mathematics. Every day he would learn math for his teacher's sake, eventually he found boundless joy there and learned math for his own sake. Continuing like this, that very boy one day became one of India's greatest mathematicians.
(To be continued...)