GAUTAMA BUDDHA FOR MENTAL PEACE

Well, born in today’s times, we are lucky to follow whatever and whoever we want to. There may be some who follow Saibaba, some follow Lord Ganesha-to each his own. I follow Gautama Buddha for mental peace.

It all began when I was eighteen. I was diagnosed with a certain mental illness. My mom, like all Indian mothers panicked. As is with this illness I couldn’t concentrate in studies. I flunked my FYBCom exams. My future looked meek. On the advise of my doctor I changed place. I shifted to Manipal, Karnataka, took admission in a college over there and began life afresh.

I took medical treatment in Mangalore. The treatment was very good, slowly my life which was out of my hands started coming around. I finished my graduation and returned home in Mumbai in 2004.

Life after graduation, meant taking more challenges. I was not successful in my endeavours which brought stress, marriage and the call centre job added upon the already existing stress. And after little bit of soul-searching and pursuit of mental peace, I stumbled upon Gautama Buddha. My search ended then and there. I bought a palm-sized statue of Him from a gift gallery in Vashi and it changed my life completely. Even though I still take medicines, my life changed and changed for the better. The mere presence of the statue brought positive energy in the house. I started to feel that life is beautiful. Initially I used to brood that my friends are doing better than me and that I’m a loser. But the statue made me see the better side of life. It gave me unimaginable strengths. I did my MA in Journalism and mass communications and have taken up writing as a part time occupation. I still work in the call centre but am at peace with myself and my career. I now don’t hate myself because so and so is an engineer, so and so is a MBA and their careers are rocking while mine is down in the dumps.

And all this is only because of the Gautama Buddha statue in my house in Sanpada. Although in Ulwe, my marital home, Mr Poojari worships Shri Shubananda Swamiji, and it is not allowed to worship anyone else, I’ve downloaded a beautiful picture of my Lord in my mobile phone. So whenever I feel stressed or whenever I have an issue, I can glance at him. And yes, He does drive the negatives out of my system and I’m all positive and charged for the next venture. No I don’t say any chants, I just glance the pic for nearly a minute and the blues go choomantar.

Even though Buddhism is a religion in itself, I’ve not converted. I’m still a Hindu and do make a point to show around all the sarvajanik Lord Ganesha idols during Ganeshotsav to my daughter, but for mental peace I resort to Buddha, the enlightened one.