My Spiritual Journey

Dhan Eshwara

Materially we begin life as a blank slate. Everything learned in the last life regarding language, culture, skills, etc. must be relearned with each birth experience. Spiritually however, we take with us the lessons learned from that life and pick up from there in the next. Each life is not only a continuation of not only the previous one, but added to that are the experiences gained between lives, from a past-life review of our thoughts, words and deeds, as well as the impressions made on us of visits to heaven or hell. These soul impressions are carried with us into the next life, beginning from where we left off, with the opportunity to do better and progress in our spiritual development and understanding.

So it has been for me.
​Where Did I Leave Off?

Through a number of hints and personal experiences I am convinced that I was a Hindu in India in the previous life. I say that because as soon as I came into contact with what is called Hindu culture in this life it was familiar and so very natural, and I immediately embraced it as if it were a dear long-lost friend. But not only was I a Hindu, but unfortunately, a very fallen one. One who showed himself outwardly as a religious person, but who privately was engaged in various irreligious behaviors. Basically I was a hypocrite – showing myself to be one thing while doing another. I say that because I began this life with practices and a culture considered very degraded by the Hindu norm – intoxication and illicit sex – which must have been where I left off in the last life.

I am also inclined to think that I was forcibly converted to Islam. Such was Hindu culture in former times that if a Muslim forced a Hindu to eat meat, or simply sprinkled water on him or her, they were no longer considered Hindu. Still identifying as a Hindu but unable to be a practicing Hindu due to being social ostracized would naturally create an identity crisis for a person, and I carried that identity crisis into this life.

I say that because since the time I was a young man I was fiercely and stubbornly determined that I would be “who I was” regardless of what anyone thought, or the consequences to myself. Thus, doing as many young men do, I expressed my blossoming manhood by wearing a beard. However, that being the 1960s such a thing was strongly frowned upon by older generations and branded one as a non-conformist hippie. The hippies, understanding this, deliberately wore beards and long hair simply to give the middle finger to society. However I was not a hippie, but just another young man searching for his identity. To counter any ideas about being a hippie I wore a necktie to my college classes, something that nobody else was doing in the 60s. The neckties were not enough to counter the impressions of the beard though, and consequently I had no job offers upon graduation. Still, regardless of the consequences I continued to insist I “would be me.” Without a job I then did what many students do – I continued on to graduate school.

At that time, coming to the age of maturity, I began to have spontaneous realizations of the nature of life. For example, I clearly remember the “aha!” moment when I realized that happiness and distress are uniquely experienced by each of us. Although that may seem self-evident it was an awakening experience for me at the time. There were other aha’s such as realizing the futility of life when each of us will ultimately die. “What is the point of life if we are simply going to die?” I asked, and “what therefore gives any meaning to life?” I began to be preoccupied with other existential questions that most of us encounter along the path of life. This, along with my pending graduation from graduate school, launched me onto my spiritual quest.

Naturally I was questioning what I was going to do after graduation with my M.S. I didn’t want to go for a Ph.D. and the other obvious path would be to get a job and get on with the business of life. However I had an inexplicable, but very deep-seated fear of doing that. I vividly recall thinking that something very bad would be my fate if I went “out there.” I’ve concluded by studying myself that in-between lives that I also spent some time in hell due to the aforementioned wanton behavior, and that made a lasting impression on me. I believe it was fear of returning there that was making me very cautious in my life choices at that time.

Of course I already was “out there” although somewhat sheltered from the “real world” by the campus environment. Nonetheless this angst set me to wondering. “What is the purpose and goal of life?” I asked myself while pacing about my apartment and the answer came to me – “to be happy.” “Very well then, what is the source of happiness and how will I find it?” I asked.

Serendipitously, around that time I had read the results of the Gallop polling organization’s inquiry as to who was happy. The report was that people who were significantly involved in religious activity were happier than people in general. I accepted that conclusion and took that as my starting point. Not having been satisfied by the Christian religion I was raised in by my parents, and having already stopped any regular involvement in that, I decided that I would look to the East for spiritual truth, and began to educate myself in Eastern thought by buying any books that had an Eastern flair.

Reading Siddhartha, Be Here Now, and The Tibetan Book of the Dead opened new vistas for me that were exciting, and I felt that I was onto something. Immediately these books and others were answering some of my existential questions, although to my dissatisfaction, regardless of who I was in contact with, or what I was reading, I was always left with unanswered questions. At the same time I was connecting with groups who were presenting, what was for me, a new spiritual path. Groups such as Ekankar that promoted out-of-the-body travel. After reading their advertisement I remember telling my girlfriend “this is just what I’ve been looking for – all of the mysteries of the universe revealed – but nothing to do with God!”

Not being given any convincing arguments by my Christian upbringing for the reality of an omniscient, omnipotent person, I had rejected the idea that there was a God. At least I wasn’t convinced there was, so I considered myself an agnostic. Little did I know but all of the arguments needed to convince me of God were just around the corner.

I Found It!

Before I could get very far with finding out the secrets of the universe without being bothered by God, I became distracted by a book written by the person who I would later accept as my spiritual master, Bhaktivedanta Swami. Coming to me by way of a friend, it was ironically a book about God. Not just a philosophical book, but more of a biography of God and His activities here on earth some 5,000 years ago, which, while entertaining as a story, also explained the science of God. Although I began reading it as fiction, that book, by many logical arguments, was sufficient to turn me from being an agnostic to a believer that there is a God, who is not only all-powerful, but the most wonderful person who could actually be the source of everything. This powerful book convinced me that indeed there was a God, and His name is Krishna.

The most convincing thing about the book however was the authority with which the author wrote. By comparison all of the other spiritual books I’d been reading Bhaktivedanta Swami made the others seem like children pretending to be spiritual without actually knowing what that meant. Rather, they were projecting the idea of spirituality from a material understanding of life. Bhaktivedanta Swami however, knew what spirituality actually was, and his writing was not mere conjecture or speculation, but the conclusions of profound and deep realization.

Shortly after finishing that book I found more books by the same Swami in my local health food store. Next I purchased and read the Bhagavad-gita, the title of which translates to “The Song of God.” I began to read that book with a bit of trepidation due to the numerous Sanskrit words that I couldn’t pronounce and didn’t understand, but I simply skipped over those expecting that they would eventually become understood by familiarity and context.

Now I was amazed at the explanation of the soul, what it meant to be a spiritual being, and how that was different from the material understanding of life. As I read on I learned more about God and how He was guiding all of us on our path of life and lovingly giving us everything we desired, even though for many of us what we want is not the best thing for us. On and on the explanations kept coming, explaining why this world existed and why we are here. I was amazed by what I was reading to the point that when I finished the book my hairs were standing on end! If by following religion people find their happiness, then this is the religion that I was going to follow! Indeed, I was already experiencing great inner happiness and satisfaction by learning these truths!

Needless to say I could not understand everything the first time through the book, so I continued to read, and re-read, and with every pass my understanding developed. The Bhagavad-gita has been my life-long study and I continue to read it now 45 years after that first reading, gaining new insights at every contact. It has opened up an entirely new world for me by illustrating a worldview that goes far beyond the limited understanding of the material worldview I was indoctrinated in while growing up. This worldview, the Vedic worldview, has allowed me to not only make sense of the world, but especially my world, in ways that were previously impossible.

Soon after my first reading of the Gita I came into contact with Bhaktivedanta Swami’s society The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and joined them. Now taking up the monk’s life, I wore the clothes and markings of Indian culture, as well as a shaved head, a real freak show on the streets of the 70s, but it was my “I’m going to be me” attitude that allowed me to do that with abandon, again, regardless of what anyone thought.

Hearing the lectures from senior members of the society I had the opportunity to ask all of my questions and finally all of them were answered to my full satisfaction, and this convinced me that I was on the right track.

I’ve continued to follow this path, called Krishna Consciousness, meaning God consciousness my entire life with no regrets. Not only with no regrets, but with great satisfaction, and if I had to do it over I would follow the same path in a heartbeat. Not that I haven’t suffered the normal ups and downs of life as everyone else, I have, but because I have not invested my everything in the material side of life such temporary challenges are kept in perspective. My focus is not this world and finding happiness here, but in preparing for what will come after this life, and I am very confident that the great happiness I now experience will be continued in the next phase of life. The consciousness that we’ve developed is the only thing that we take with us from this life.

My realizations of spiritual truths and their application in this world continue to develop, and especially so later in life as I have had the opportunity to teach extensively while traveling widely throughout the world. Based on those realizations I now write books to share what I have learned and realized with the world.

Oh, and have i found the happiness that I was hoping to find by immersing myself in the spiritual way of life? Not just happiness, but bliss! So much bliss that all other so-called happiness in the world is pale by comparison. There is no place else I would rather be.

We are all on the spiritual path even if we are ignorant of the fact. Each one of us will learn and grow from the experiences of our lives. That path does have a destination which is to enter the spiritual world and forever be free from the repeated birth and death of this world. My spiritual master has shown me the way there, and it is my desire to share it with as many as possible. Part of my path is to help you find your next step along your path. I sincerely hope that you will make rapid headway toward that wonderful destination.