Self-Interview

Why did you quit U.S?

I was against the US invasions. My tax money was used to wage those wars. I had no voting rights in this regard. So the only option that I had was to quit.

Why did you quit your job?

I was very happy in my job with Microsoft. One day we had a work shop where the H.R.D were assessing the morale of the employees and were subjecting us to different activities. During one such activity, eight of us were on a discussion table and had to answer certain questions. The H.R. girl asked “How would you change your life if I gave you a billion dollars”. The guys on the table went on saying that they would buy a boat, go on a world trip, open a charity organization, invest in x,y,z… but when my turn came I seriously thought over the question and answered from my heart, “My life would be exactly the same as it is today. I would drive the same car, live in the same place, work the same job and do all the things that I do today. The state of my personal finances might improve but there is nothing more that I need and can do with the extra billion that I can not do now”. So people concluded that I did not need to work any more. I went home thinking what is it that makes me work? I liked my job, my team. I got time to skate and train. My life was balanced and disciplined. I had interesting things to do and intelligent people to work with. It was not the money that drove me and I was not attached to anything. I had every thing to keep me going till Guruji called me back to the ashram. Yes, I had plans of joining the ashram soon after my first visit but every time I brought up the subject, Guruji pushed it aside saying “There is more that you need to do in the U.S.”. I had always kept my material possessions that everything could fit into my car. I was always ready to wrap all my transactions and return to India in 24 hrs. Then out of the blue a question sprang up in my mind - “What would you do if you happened to know that you would die in a month?” The answer was very clear. I would go back to my Guruji and spend the rest of my life in service. And what was preventing me from doing this? - The idea that I would live for many more years. Wasn’t this exactly called Maya? This convinced me that the right thing to do was quit.

How did you decide that the time was right?

In the real world you will never know when the time is right for things like that. Future insecurity and risk aversion keeps one on postponing such decisions. Working in the U.S. meant that you only had 3 weeks of vacation every year and I always had to be very stingy with it so that I could accumulate everyday of it for the ashram. I had finished work for a major release and got an opportunity to visit the Amazons and spend a month with the tribes in the deep forest. This convinced me that I was ready to survive on nothing and also gave me an insight that the people were the same everywhere and the fundamental problems were the same every where. Now that exhausted all my vacation days and my only sister’s wedding was fixed. Since things were not that hectic at work may be I could have worked something out, especially because I was in the good books of my bosses. But I thought that it was not right to portray myself as some one that I was not going to be to my sister’s in-laws after the wedding. So I had to quit before that.

Did your Guruji finally call you?

Well as I said, Guruji had been postponing this question for eight years. I finally decided that I had to take a leap by myself and take complete responsibility for my actions. In the spiritual path, there is a lot of risk and very few succeed. If I fail, I should not blame Guruji for coercing me into the path or such. May be that was the reason that he was postponing the question. Or may be, that I was not ready yet. In any case, I had nothing to loose by engaging in full time Sadhana and developing my Self till the time came. I had come to know by then that your body had to be fit and young to engage in serious Sadhana but working a job can be done even when you were old and broken. I did not ask Guruji, but I just informed him formally as every disciple is bound to. He did not object and there I was back.

Did you get some kind of omen that you were doing the right thing?

Nothing concrete that I can tell as such happened. But it is my belief that when you are doing the thing that you are meant to do, nature co-operates and when you are doing some thing that you are not meant to do, nature throws all kinds of blocks to hamper your progress. So I went along playing the game and testing how it unrolls.

I had sufficient FF miles to get my ticket back home free. My car got sold to a good friend. I distributed my furniture and utensils amongst my friends. My room lease expired naturally. There was no resistance from any front. I had told my intentions to my friends, relatives and all those who mattered and it did not surprise anyone or disrupt their lives in any way. I achieved all my skating goals.

At work, I was supposed to give a month’s notice but we had just finished shipping a major release and the next month was December. In the U.S. nothing much happens in that month and there was not much point in keeping me there. So it was a Friday when I told my boss that I was quitting, and he asked “How soon?” I told him “I have booked my flight next Monday. If you insist on me serving the one month notice, I will have to take a loss of pay, attend my sister’s wedding and then come back and work during the Christmas holidays”. He said, “Well if we were in middle of a cycle I might have thought along those lines. As I have told you, you were a good hire and we would have done everything to keep you here but now I see the reason for you leaving is quite unusual and there is nothing that we can counter that with. And if I do anything to retain you, that will be against your will. I would rather suffer the loss of a good worker rather than keep him here unhappy. So I would say, if you change your mind at any point, just ping me and we will have you back on board”. He threw me a farewell lunch on Monday noon and I boarded the evening flight.

Thus, all things fell in place and I was able to wind up all my transactions and clean up without causing any friction.

What did you plan on doing once you joined the ashram?

I had never made any concrete plans as everything depended on what Guruji would ask me to do. In the end every body has to serve. But I had guessed that he would ask me to travel all over India on foot of something of that sort. If I passed the test, he would give me some Sadhana. If I failed, it would mean that I would not be alive. Till then I could keep reading some scriptures or may be learn some music.

Do you think that you have progressed in any way by joining the ashram?

Spirituality is a slow moving world. It is not like you get out n papers, m patents or get promoted every year. You don’t switch jobs, move places, buy and sell things. You just stick to one thing and keep doing it long enough. I am just like a young kid in this area and need to spend much more time here before measuring progress.

I had already spent some 20 odd years getting this western education before being able to say something in one narrow area. Unless I spend some time educating my self in the matter of spirituality, I have no authority to comment about progress or even to know what it means. Most successful aspirants have spent around 12 yrs with their Guru before learning anything. So I have to be patient and keep working at it.

Do you ever repent your decision?

I never have repented my decision but I do miss my life at Microsoft. The quality of people around you is so much better in that place. As you see, I did not quit because I did not like it there but because I thought that there was something else of higher priority to be done here. I do miss my skating. I do miss working with computers, writing code, going on hikes and visiting beautiful places. I do sometimes thing about my friends there but now it seems like it was in some other life.

But on the other hand, when I am able to lie down under the open sky with only a T-shirt on me in the month of December and count my lucky stars, I do commemorate the decision of moving out of Seattle. I like the Sun and a lot and hate the clouds. So every time I see those big negative temperatures on the Weather News, I can’t help but smile on my good fortune.