He made my day!!

Blogging after a looooong time. Something happened today that really inspired me to share this with others.

It was the closing session of the perambur children's class this morning. One of the volunteers arranged a share auto for me to go back home. She said the auto driver is also a volunteer and they generally use his vehicle for transporting class materials. She added that they pay him a nominal amount even though he is willing to do this free of cost, as he depends on this money for running his family.

It was the 10 minute conversation that I had with this driver volunteer which made my day. He first started the conversation by sharing about his visit to the Mystic's musings program by Sadhguru in Mysore. He was overjoyed to even talk about it. He was also very excited and happy about the few words that he had with Sadhguru. "Sadhguru, Naa chennaila share auto ottikinukeeran, unga aasirvaadham venum". Sadhguru responded with his blessings :).

He then said he either participates or volunteers for most of the programs that sadhguru conducts in and around tamilnadu. He also volunteers at the coimbatore centre for a minimum of 3 days every month. He has completed all the higher programs including BSP, Shoonya and Silence. Everyday, he begins his day by listening to Sadhguru's speech for half an hour.

Until then I was just listening to this with a general interest, as all these are quite common among Isha volunteers. In the middle of his conversation, he mentioned he did his first program (7 day Shambavi) in may 2008. This is when I was a little surprised. I wondered what made him so involved within a short time.

He continued, he would have ruined his life totally in the last one year if not for ISHA . Before an year approx, he used to drink everyday, he would be drunk almost 24 hours a day. Once, last year, he had a severe accident. After this accident, he came out from a serious injury. This is when his mother asked him to attend this ISHA class and see if it helps him. He was initially refusing, but when teacher Gayathri akka asked him to try attending the one hour intro, after which he can decide for himself, he agreed. After the intro, (Or the trap? :)), out of curiosity and a little hope, he attended the shambavi program. Ever since he attended that, till today, for the last one year, he doesn't even happen to think about drinking. Now, his whole life is revolving around Sadhguru. In order to donate 7% of his monthly income, he is keeping 7 Rs aside for every 100 Rs profit that he earns. So far, he has kept Rs.640 aside. He intends to go to the center with his family once in a year and hand it over to them. He says, after he started volunteering for isha programs, though he loses a few days of work every month, his profit has only increased. Before, if he was earning Rs.500 every day, now he earns Rs.600 everyday. He sincerely feels he need not have to worry about his financial needs, Sadhguru takes care of it.

Seeing the change in him, his wife attended the Shambavi program and she recently did her BSP too. Now, she is very supportive in his volunteering endevours. Before ISHA, there used to be regular fights at home with his wife and mother. But for the last one year, life is flowing so smoothly. These days there are no fights whatsoever at home.

He finally added, he was under an assumption that drinking is the only happiness in life, there is nothing else. He now feels nothing can match the joy that ISHA has brought to him. He is not ready to trade it for anything else in life.

It was a 10 km journey, so while getting down, I offered him money for the cost of petrol, he refused to take. He said he does not want to miss the fulfillment of serving those who serve Sadhguru.

This fellow has given a new meaning to what I have been doing. This will keep me charged for the next few days. Many a times, even when I am full time on schedule for isha classes, my activities tend to become monotonous, without much life in them. But the advantage of doing this teacher's training as a full time activity is that, I get to meet a lot of people who charge me up completely. This is not the first time something like this has happened, every time this happens, I feel so happy and fulfilled that I can't explain with words. Sadhguru has provided a variety of batteries on the way besides the practices!!