Before 2001, I had never read any spiritual book or any scriptures in my life. But reading was my forte.
Way back in time, when I used to visit my grandmother’s place, I frequented a very big library there. Bandra, the island which was inhabited by the fishermen folks and some other migrants was a sleepy old town like one of the Goan villages. The atmosphere was the same, a bit rustic and laid back.
I still remember McRonnels, Blue Circle, Nandi Theatre, Neptune, Falooda place, Sahakar Bhandar and a few other stores from my childhood. While on the way to my house there was a very big lake. Just in front of the lake is a very old library called National Library. The national library had two sections, one was for the adults and the other one, which I frequented, was for kids. I must have completely devoured the kid’s section of the library. Whenever the new books arrived, I was always around when the distribution happened. The librarian was my favourite person and she always ensured that I got the books first.
Not only did I read all those kids books but I gulped down the adult English section of the library too. My favourite haunts were Matunga Seven Gardens circle which I visited with my best friend Jairam. Second-hand books were sold on the pavements which I would browse and pick up a few to read. Strand Bookstall in South Mumbai was another haunt. The kind Mr Shanbhag allowed me to sit and browse through some of the books there. The school library was hardly able to satisfy my needs. The Western Railway library provided me with all kinds of detective novels.
In all of the above reads, there wasn’t a single spiritual or mythological text which I could lay my hands upon. Though I saw quite a few mythological films but it never appealed to me to know about God or his strange world. My grandma would read the Sai Satcharita and other books in Prakrit during my childhood but I never understood any of them. So you can guess that I never could fathom these ancient texts.
Then the impossible happened in 2001. I woke up from my coma and started to expound on never heard of books. I could glance over any spiritual text and could give the deepest of the spiritual meanings they contained within them. Know that every scripture or old religious text are codices and need to be deciphered by some sort of a key. The code breaker is the Master. He knows it all and can tell you what they contained.
Even though in my past avatar I had never heard or held these books, I could crack them easily as if I knew them or had read them earlier. But I hadn’t. So how was I able to decipher them? That’s a mystery for another day.
