I have received much more from life than I ever asked for.
Since childhood, I have often found myself performing at the top of whichever space I entered. I studied at some of the finest educational institutions. Work brought opportunities, recognition and responsibilities. Travel took me across countries and cultures. Yoga strengthened my body and deepened my awareness. Inquiry sharpened my mind. Relationships opened my heart, sometimes gently and sometimes by breaking it.
Looking back, I can see that none of this was entirely my doing.
I was gifted with certain capacities, placed among the right people and given opportunities at the right moments. Fortunately, I was also conscious enough to recognise some of these gifts. Self-awareness entered my life early and often helped me observe myself even while I was fully engaged with the world.
But gifts have shadows.
Capability can quietly become arrogance. Confidence can begin to resemble invincibility. Achievement can create the illusion that life is under control.
I have fallen into these traps more than once.
Sometimes I caught myself. At other times, life caught me.
There were periods when relationships became painful, when the heart broke, when loss arrived and when I encountered depths of darkness that achievement could not illuminate. The mind that had solved many problems could not solve the ache of being human.
Yet even those moments now appear as grace.
They pushed me closer to the reality of life. They exposed the limits of intellect, control and personal strength. They softened places in me that success had hardened.
Still, something was missing.
A Life That Was Full, Yet Dry
Life was not unsuccessful. Far from it.
Materially, intellectually and professionally, I was doing well. Physically, I was in good health. Emotionally, I had developed resilience. I could think clearly, carry responsibilities and recover from setbacks. My relationships had seen both light and darkness, but I had usually found my way to the other side.
I had knowledge.
I had experience.
I had self-awareness.
But the inner movement often remained the same: arrogance, correction, humility, achievement and then arrogance again.
I could understand humility, but I could not always remain in it.
I could practise detachment, but something within me still wanted to possess the result.
I could speak about surrender, but surrender had not yet become sweet.
Life was full, but somewhere it was still dry.
The missing ingredient was not another achievement, qualification, destination or insight.
The missing ingredient was Krishna.
The Sweetness of Surrender
My reading of the Srimad Bhagavatam changed something within me.
It did not introduce surrender as a demand or a discipline. It introduced surrender as sweetness.
Through its stories, philosophy became intimate. Psychology became lived experience. Values became characters, relationships, choices, losses, devotion and love. Truth did not remain trapped inside an argument. It began to breathe through a story.
Perhaps this is one of the great ingenuities of Indian civilisation. The deepest principles of life were not preserved only as abstract ideas. They were carried through stories, rituals, temples, songs, festivals, sacred geography and living relationships.
Every river could be sacred.
Every mountain could hold a presence.
Every tree, animal, planet and element could participate in consciousness.
The sacred was not somewhere outside the world. The world itself became a way of remembering the sacred.
Cultures built entirely upon abstract philosophy can sometimes lose their continuity. Ideas may become distant from ordinary life. But when truth enters a story, it can travel from a grandmother to a child, from a teacher to a student and from one century to another.
While reading the Bhagavatam, I began to realise that I was not merely studying an ancient story.
I was becoming part of its continuation.
I am one of the threads carrying it forward. I am living evidence of why these stories were preserved, protected and passed on. A story that travelled through generations had entered my life and begun to transform it.
For that, I remain deeply grateful.
Krishna Was Already There
When I look back, Krishna does not appear to have entered my life suddenly.
He seems to have been guiding it quietly for a long time.
There were the teachings and presence of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. There was my exposure to Belur Math. There were the many temples of South India that my father took me to. There were journeys to historical and sacred places. There was yoga, travel, inquiry, art, reading and an ongoing fascination with consciousness.
At the time, these may have appeared to be separate experiences.
Now they seem like footsteps leading in one direction.
Perhaps I believed I was searching independently. Perhaps I thought I was choosing the books, journeys, teachers and questions.
Now I sometimes wonder whether Krishna was arranging the search.
The seeker may believe that he is moving towards Krishna, while Krishna has been drawing him closer all along.
What Krishna Added
Krishna did not take away my life.
He added life to everything that was already there.
He added joy to discipline.
He added tenderness to awareness.
He added devotion to knowledge.
He added service to achievement.
He added detachment to responsibility.
He added sweetness to surrender.
This detachment is not indifference. It does not mean withdrawing from work, relationships or the world. It means participating fully without being consumed by possession. It means carrying responsibility without constantly claiming ownership. It means giving oneself to the work while leaving space for grace.
That has enabled me to carry more, not less.
I can think through complex situations and still feel deeply. I can take on responsibilities without treating every outcome as a personal verdict. I can serve continuously without needing every act to be recognised. I can be among people and genuinely enjoy them rather than viewing every relationship through usefulness, agreement or expectation.
Krishna did not make me less engaged with life.
He made engagement lighter.
Beyond Light and Darkness
My life has contained moments of genuine darkness. There have been heartbreaks, disappointments, uncertainty and loss. There were periods when I could not see the way forward.
But I also discovered that darkness is not the opposite of life.
Sometimes it is a passage.
I have been fortunate to emerge from many of those periods into light. Yet the deeper joy has not come merely from moving from darkness into light. It has come from glimpsing something beyond both.
Light and darkness continue to alternate. Pleasure and pain continue to visit. Praise and criticism still arise. Success and failure remain part of human life.
Krishna does not always remove these opposites.
He creates a centre from which they can be witnessed.
To cross a difficult period is a relief. To recognise that I am not limited to either the darkness or the light is a different kind of freedom.
Even seeing this is joy.
The Joy That Sustains Life
Recently, I heard a biohacker make a simple observation. We may follow disciplined routines for exercise, food and sleep, but joy remains essential to a long and fulfilling life.
The statement stayed with me.
Health is not merely the extension of time. Wealth is not merely the accumulation of money. A beautiful life cannot be measured only by how efficiently the body functions or how successfully the mind performs.
There must be joy.
Not excitement that constantly demands a new experience. Not pleasure that disappears the moment its object is removed. Not the temporary satisfaction of being praised, promoted or proven right.
I mean a quieter joy.
The joy of being aligned with one’s purpose.
The joy of doing work that feels meaningful.
The joy of serving without continuously calculating the return.
The joy of being with people without needing to control them.
The joy of moving slowly enough to notice life.
Indian wisdom gives this joy a deeper name:Ananda.
And beyond even that, Paramananda.
This joy is not separate from Krishna. Krishna is the source, the object and the experience of that joy.
Work as a Form of Gathering
The work I am drawn towards today also carries this quality.
Whether it is sustainability, digitalisation, Diversity and Inclusion, energy efficiency, coaching or bringing people together, I find joy in creating connections. I enjoy helping different worlds meet, allowing ideas to support one another and enabling people to see possibilities that were previously hidden.
Perhaps this, too, is connected to Krishna.
Krishna brought people together. He attracted different kinds of people without demanding that they first become identical. His presence created relationship, movement, music, friendship and belonging.
He led with intelligence, but also with joy.
He acted decisively, yet remained compassionate.
He understood human weakness, yet did not abandon human beings.
He revealed the seriousness of dharma without making life lifeless.
I find myself increasingly drawn to work that carries a similar energy. Work that gathers rather than divides. Work that awakens rather than merely instructs. Work that creates value while preserving the dignity of people and the world around us.
When work becomes an expression of service, responsibility no longer feels entirely like a burden.
It becomes an offering.
The Grace Hidden Inside Success
I have been blessed in many visible ways.
I received education from some of the finest institutions. I developed physical strength and emotional resilience. I was given intellectual capacities, professional opportunities and spiritual exposure. Financial independence created space to choose more consciously. At important moments, the right people appeared with the guidance, encouragement or challenge I needed.
Even the difficult people played their part.
Even the wrong turns revealed something.
Even delays protected me from arriving before I was ready.
For a long time, I might have called all of this luck, capability, effort or timing. I still respect each of those. But I now sense another movement beneath them.
Grace.
Grace does not cancel effort. It reveals that effort itself is possible because something has already been given.
The ability to work is grace.
The capacity to learn is grace.
The strength to recover is grace.
The awareness to recognise arrogance is grace.
The possibility of returning after losing one’s way is grace.
To see life in this manner does not reduce confidence. It frees confidence from the need to claim everything.
The One Thing I Still Chase
The modern world often tells us, “Do not chase. Attract.”
There is some truth in that.
Desperation repels. Inner alignment has its own presence. When a person becomes clear, centred and purposeful, life often begins to respond differently.
But my relationship with this idea contains a paradox.
I still chase.
I chase Krishna.
And because I chase Krishna, I become less interested in chasing everything else.
I do not have to chase approval when I am held by something deeper.
I do not have to chase every opportunity when I trust that the right work will reveal itself.
I do not have to chase people when I can meet them with openness rather than need.
I do not have to chase success when work itself becomes service.
Krishna means the all-attractive.
When the chase turns towards the source of attraction, something changes within the seeker. The restless pursuit of the world begins to soften. Presence deepens. Joy becomes less dependent on circumstances. One becomes available to life instead of constantly trying to capture it.
That availability itself becomes attractive.
So, I do not chase the world.
I chase Krishna.
Therefore, I attract.
The Missing Ingredient
The missing ingredient of my life was never success.
It was not education, travel, health, knowledge, financial independence or intellectual stimulation. Life had already given me these in abundance.
What was missing was the sweetness that could hold them all together.
Krishna did not become another item in an already full life. He became the thread running through everything.
Without that thread, achievements remained scattered.
With it, education became a responsibility.
Work became service.
Relationships became sacred encounters.
Pain became a doorway.
Detachment became participation without possession.
Surrender became sweetness.
And life became joy.
Not a dramatic life. Not a life without difficulty. Not a life protected from heartbreak, uncertainty or loss.
A quieter life.
A simpler life.
A life of devotion and service.
A life that does not need to rush after every possibility because it has begun to recognise what it truly seeks.
Perhaps Krishna was not the missing ingredient because he had been absent.
Perhaps Krishna was the missing ingredient because I had not yet recognised that he had always been there.
And perhaps the one thing I still chase is the very presence that has been attracting me all along.