Belief and disbelief, tick -tacks  like a pendulum in human mind and the myriad justifications offered by the erudite intellectuals,to be effectively countered by  convincing postulations of the existence of  a dis-membered soul as a figment of fertile imagination, tutored from infancy. This extreme swings of thought is characteristic of every thinking man, that strode the earth from time immemorial. At times you are convinced and other times swept off your feet at the convincing and rational arguments that contradict  the views that you hold  so sacrosanct depending upon the experience encountered by each individual in the traverse of his assigned path.

It was some three decades back , when  I encountered this man sitting opposite my berth in his early forties,be-spectacled,slightly of larger build,sporting a thin moustache and of a scholorly look holding a book authored by the well known athiest, Abraham Kovoor.. As the Doon express chugged out of the New Delhi railway station, and as my wife and the two kids comfortably settled down, I casually opened the conversation with my estemed co-passenger. The eagerness to learn the un-known and  un-learn the known is built in to every Indian's psyche, as we always are, in the fore-front of knowledge seekers !

As the train picked -up speed, the conversation became a little stiff with the stranger asking me, if some body has at any time seen God and if their claim for veracity ever tested  by subjecting them to a psychiatric examination. "When did the thought ever came in to existence in this world ? It is only when man developed the thinking faculty ,and the medieval men attributed every natural event from rain,lightninig and thunder to the Gods .As the society progressed, every un-explainable event for which  man could not visualise a cause became atributed to that un-known God, who eventually by constant and repeated assertion became all-knowing", he harangued.. No amount of countering his arguments by my knowledge of the divine powers gained by the enlightened saints of yore, like Thyagaraja or Raghavendra  could  dislodge his views or the belief of the millions that flock the temples from Rameswaram to Kailashnath.. The conversation drifted  to advancement in science which offered demonstrable proof of every physical event, quantum mechanics, inter-planetary travel and  on to merchandising of religion by the jet set gurus that fly around the globe at the expense of the devout believers. An Uri Geller or  a native  P.C.Sarkar would be enough to call all the bluff, he commented.The dialectician in him, was more forceful than all the mythical knowledge I possessed. As it was getting late in to the night and the surrounding noise reduced to the cling -clang of the un-welded rails, I bade a very good night and went to bed, but the rage of the convincing arguments deluded me, of the sleep.

The succeeding couple of days spent well, in visiting the many temples around Haridhwar was in a way de-toxifying. This is the place that millions of Hindus come in search of salvation and for  good riddance of the sins they  may have committed knowingly or un-knowingly.. From here, we motored down to Rishikesh and after ensuring our accomodation at the Sivanandha Ashram left for Lakshman Jhula by Tonga. It was almost twilight as we reached there and  after a little jumping about on the suspension bridge held taut by wire ropes,went to the other bank of Ganges, shopping mementos. It was almost 8.30 p.m. when we returned  back to the ashram tired and hungry.. As we hurriedly  went in , we were told that all the activities of the  ashramites having come to an end, the next programme on their daily routine was retiring to bed. Completely flabergasted, I asked my wife and children to wait near the Sivanandha Swamiji's Samadhi and went out to  a near-by motel in search of food. Alas ! The doors were drawn close there too and I was told that in winter the shops and motels close by 7 p.m. With a worrisome face I returned to the samadhi where my wife and kids were waiting. Their eagerness driven by hunger was writ largely on their face. There was no other place to go.Every activity in the town - ship those days were tuned to the ashram routine. The misery of having to go to bed with an empty stomach was awesome especially  on a wintry night for the children who had done a lot of trekking through the day. Another 10 minutes were spent, contemplating on any viable alternative. It was also utilised to adore at the pacifying face of the benign Lord Swami Sivanandha who was a witness to the goings on. Just then, a sadhu passed by and stopped to enquire as to what we were doing there when every body had gone to sleep. He made some kind enquiries of the place we hailed from and whether we had eaten for the night. On his learning our plight  he, ruminated for a moment and then briskly walked in to the ashram to dis-appear from sight. The ten minutes that ensued was as good as hours on end for us. All of a sudden he emerged from the door through which he went in, with a kamandal full of  Ven Pongal ( a south - indian delicacy with lots of rice,cereals boiled,  laced with ghee and spiced with pepper and salt.) and a few bananas and biscuits. He asked my wife to empty the contents on to a teak-leaf he had brought and eat out of it. As he watched us finish the single itemed menu, relishing the deliciousness with great abandon, he related to us the village he hailed from,  and the earth quake that struck the land when he took to saffron robes in the early thirties, after which the time had frozen for him and he was out of sync with the calendar of  subsequent events. We thanked him profusely and offered our pranams and took leave.

As we returned to  Saraswathi kuteer, which the Divine Light Society had allotted us for the night, I wringing with pain on my muscles, was greatly relieved of the ache in my  heart and went in to great slumber in the satisfaction that after all, I have found my God. It is all life is about, with nothing further to ponder..