My graduation college marked one of the most difficult times of my life; or so I thought… it was just the starting!
Come first year of college and all this teenage girl was attracted to was FAME.
Most teenagers go through this phase of life. I was no different.
And so life gave me an opportunity to become famous — An inter-college pageant 😉
My 7th ‘teenage- dream’ of becoming Ms.World…oops! Ms.(whatever) was in front of me and I went all in to embrace it.
Little did I know what lied on the other side of the grass. Well, it did seem greener though!
The introvert me mustered the courage to go on the stage and perform in front of hundreds of students.
I prepared myself well for a classical Bollywood dance of Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit even though I wasn’t trained in the classical dance, I just loved the idea of dancing on that song. Thanks to the natural moves that I was blessed with, it saved me on the stage when I forgot just about everything after seeing that all eyes were on me.
Then came ‘the question round’. I knew I would win it. After all, the only asset I had was my brains. I am still working on the beauty part until now in my life and trying to develop good make-up skills.
After the pageant got over, and not expecting to win the inter-college contest, I continued to remain the introvert me that I had always been. Somehow the extrovert in me only used to get out for the stage performance. At all other times, courage used to go into a deep sleep mode during daily life chores and interactions.
Well, it was the D-day! And guess who won the contest- ME!
Oh! I was Ms.World. Entire earth knew me. My teenage ego knew no bounds; how amazing and talented this girl was.
But wait…Are we talking about the introvert Kashish here?
Well…What I didn’t realize was that I had to ‘interact with people’ — . ‘wait, what!?!’ …
‘My mind is confused’…
‘Why do I have to interact with people and speak so much? Now that everybody knows me, I don’t need to speak at all, right?’
Well, here comes the other side of the grass.
This time of my life was called — The Modern Mahabharata.
Little did I know that fame had its own side-effects.
Along with the fame came, jealousy from other girls — na! Not just jealousy!
It brought with it infinite rumours, most of which never reached me ever — but I could tell by their eyes that something was so seriously wrong!
‘Wait…I was supposed to be the most sought-after girl in the world – I mean the college. Isn’t it? Weren’t all the guys of the college supposed to propose me down their knees? Why are they all running away from me?’
Amidst all this rubbish, I did make a few friends also that were good at heart, though they never told me about the rumours.
A lot happened those three years of my life. The first year was good. I enjoyed my fame a lot.
The other two years turned out to be…I have no words to express this time…
The only good part was that; along with the most difficult time of my life, the time when I would be initiated into spiritual experiences had also started!
It was the time that marked the entry of my Spiritual Guru in my life, without whom I would not be existing today.
The only two friends that I was left with, one of them — called ‘P’, fell in puppy-love with me but before we could even get to know each other better, he left me under the influence of those rumours.
When your time isn’t right, all things happen against you I guess!
The worst thing that happened during this time was that my only friend, who knew ‘exactly the person that I was’ and who had conversed a lot with me because he used to sit with me in the class and then also became my friend, had decided to change sides.
It so happened once that we were going back to our homes via metro from our college. And while my house was quite a far, ‘D’ used to live nearby the college so he was supposed to get off at his metro station earlier.
Station arrived, and the metro halted , ‘D’ told me to get off as well as he wanted to talk something important. He advised that I take the next metro after our conversation was over.
I can never forget this day in my life. Never!
Because this day made me realise that only a few men in this world really have the courage to support a woman when in need.
They would instead choose fear just because the fear is in majority. Didn’t that happen in the great Mahabharata too!
‘D’ said to me, ‘Kashish, I am sorry.’
‘Sorry for what D?’, I replied.
‘I have to be on their side…
(Pause)
I know that you are right and that you are a nice person. But they are in majority.’
I had just started to understand what he was trying to tell me.
I kept listening.
My mind in that moment told me, ‘record this’. I took out my phone to record…With my heavy karmas and bad luck, the battery had died and my soul started crying out loud inside of me knowing that I would not be able to prove this to anybody after this.
I had lost trust from ‘friendship’ that day. I needed my friend to stand by my side when I was right — when I had done absolutely nothing at all!
But when I needed him the most, he left me – the introvert, all alone.
I went home and cried a lot. I cried all night and didn’t stop crying until 7 in the morning.
Everything had fallen apart.
I had no friend left.
I didn’t know what to do or how to go to college. I did not know how to stand up and fight for myself — I had never spoken so much and never been in such a situation before.
That was the first time when my life had become so difficult but I had not done anything at all. Then why?
What was my mistake?
My mistake was that I was famous and that some other teenage girls couldn’t tolerate it at all.
For the first time in my life, I had started to think about harming myself…
I thought it many a times actually…all of those rumours (that I still don’t know about) were intolerable to be experienced ‘as an energy’ and as ‘an expression of contempt’ from the people around me and also because that the only friend that I had, the only one who really knew who I was— had left me to die all alone in nothingness. This incident was also accompanied by emails of a few girls being hacked by a mad guy in our college, of course, one of those girls included me as well, I was buried deep in the ground for a hundred years (this is a different story, so let’s leave it here)!
And after that conversation, I had expected some empathy from him for leaving me alone – not just leaving but leaving me ‘intentionally’, ‘knowing that he was doing wrong’. But he had lost the ‘human being’ inside of him because later on he started lying just to win the people whom he thought would welcome him with garlands for joining their side.
Had it not been my Guru in my life, a Guru so high that He appeared in my consciousness and showed me the way out and gave me strength, I would have gone long ago. I might have done something to myself that time. That time was unbearable, tears roll down my eyes even as I write this article.
Teenage years are very sensitive. They are like a new world sometimes, as it was for me too. [ You should never ever stand on the wrong side/ the side of the oppressor, remember, this karma comes back 10 folds and with interest.]
In that year, I had lost the concept of ‘friendship‘ but I was initiated into the concept of ‘divine love and divine experiences.’
I must tell you that as I write this article, I have never met my Guru physically.
I have always listened to his satsangs and done a lot of seva for many years of my life.
My Guru, all these years, has helped me via my consciousness. And I am most grateful for his coming into my life!
Coming back to the topic. Sometime later after our college got over, one of these girls, ‘Y’, met me in Nainital and when she saw me, she hugged me and asked for forgiveness. I instantly forgave her. I knew this girl was pure in her heart but the trait of ‘jealousy’ that is present in all of us human beings was just active in her during the college time. Once, during the last one or two months of our college when I had lost my mind completely, I asked to her face, ‘Why do you spread rumours about me?’ ‘Y’ replied, ‘because I am jealous’. My soul actually laughed out listening to that. In that moment only, I had already forgiven her. Her answer had made me realise that her heart was pure and that’s why she was accepting it and saying it out loud. I smiled and left.
The problem back then, was those girls who had done me wrong -intentionally, who had spread things about me that never ever existed, most of which I still don’t know about but the air around me spoke it all and made my life worse!
Today, I am a spiritual guide and I do want to share with you that it is most difficult to become a true spiritual guide.
You know why?
Because a spiritual guide himself/ herself has to go through all the sh*t in life in order to be able to understand the journey of others and their pain in depth and know exactly what we are supposed to guide them with.
I had to go through all the possible difficult times in order to become most capable one that I am today.
If you ask me to rate the difficulty level of these college years out of all the difficult years of my life, I would rate it at 7.5/ 10…because I have gone through a lot worse and I was guided and saved by my Perfect Spiritual Master, time and again.
When I look back today, I do realise that it was probably charted out this way for me.
I was meant to go through such difficult times in order to become the spiritual warrior that I am today.
Today, after more than 25 years on my spiritual journey, I am most grateful for everything in my life, for all the experiences and for all the people who participated in giving me those experiences.
Today I am the strongest person that I know of in the world. If I were given a choice to be whosoever I wanted to be, I would always choose me, over and over again. Because what I have gained from my extremely difficult and rough spiritual journey is immeasurably more beautiful than anything else in the world — the spiritual treasures!
And the best part is that, today, with all such rough experiences throughout my life, I have gained infinite wisdom and I am able to help others out of any problem whatsoever.
I am able to help people in the inner journey of their souls, sharing ways with which they can progress most quickly on their spiritual path, career and lives.
I am able to help the spiritual coaches find the next step to progress on this vast spiritual journey, so they can in turn help a lot many others.
This is the result of enduring the difficult times during my life. My Guru made me in his image and that is the biggest gift that I have received. I have forgiven everyone whosoever for anything whatsoever. I always choose happiness and greatness and peace for my life and for that of others. Always.
I am an evolved human being that I always wanted to be as a child. I have achieved the only purpose of human life — Evolution.
And since the time I reached my spiritual goal in 2023, I have experienced deep eternal peace, flowing within me at all times, peace that I can distribute to those that connect with me.
Namaste.
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