It’s only after spending several years in Canada as a wide-eyed immigrant lapping up succour in the much advertised land of milk and honey that I started to see the need to reflect on who I was, what I was doing in Canada, and what would fulfilment be like for me. So clearly Canada did not fulfil me; 6 months of alien cold weather, living the secluded life of an 1.5% extremely visible minority, and bereft of cultural belonging were un-ignorable factors. Materialistically Canada was more than rewarding both in terms of earning potential, opportunity to leverage oneself in the financial markets to invest further, and of course the clinically defined great quality of life with good infrastructure, polite public manners and evolved civic sense. But individually for me all these factors fell short of making it ‘home’ for me.
That led to a search of my identity - both in the narrow personal sense as well as in the broad human/sentient sense, and a search of dharma - which erroneously is referred to as religion but at its core is about natural principles of life itself. After a long process of research, analysis, discovery and a bit of inspired internal articulation I settled for a definition of myself as under from a narrow to a broader identification of the SELF:
Odia, Indian, Global citizen
Brown, Indian, Asian, Colourful person
Male, Gender neutral, Family oriented person
Hindu, Sanatan, Natural principle based human
It also became clear to me that human existence is but a blip in eternal time, albeit a particularly bright one. Yet, only nature has made it possible to be as such and I wanted to be physically and spiritually close to the cradle of human civilization; the land of the monsoon - Bharat.
It took some time to find my way back to my land of origin Bharat but nature made is possible once I centered myself on that desire. The full circle of having the deep itch to quit the Indian Army, get into a corporate career, reach the long coveted foreign shores, and return to India after spending close to a decade in Canada firmly established it in my mind that salvation lied within and was only as far as its realization or re-discovery.
Even before the possibility of returning to India became confirmed, I had been building up all that I wanted to do once I return to India and these ideas had occurred to me:
Pilgrimage to the long standing centers of auspiciousness and energy - the 12 Jyotirlingas, the 51 Shakti-peeths including the 18 Maha-shakti peeths, the Char-dham, the chhota Char-dham
Review the sites of great archeological finds
Visit the majestic Himalayas, the holy grand rivers, the mighty mountains, the serene forests, the wonderful beaches, the rejuvenating waterfalls
Experience closely my home state of Odisha - the great Oudra desha with its magnificent temples and un-conquered spirit, and serve its people in all ways possible
Spend time with my parents and take care of them, be closer in touch with my siblings and their families, and my childhood friends
Delight of delights is that I am able to start doing some of the above listed activities. I will write about my experiences from each of these activities as and when possible.
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