So my Danish friend and I had arrived in Hyderabad in the end of September 2003. My group with my musicians and other helpers had already arrived and also my German friend was about to come. The next day my lectures were supposed to start.
It was one of my usual programs which were scheduled for nine days with two lectures every day. There were a couple of ministers at the program, with them of course their security and a lot of other people with spiritual interest. Among all those Indian people there were my German friend and my Danish friend, sitting there, watching me and listening to my Hindi lecture. They did not understand a word of what I said.
After maybe two or three days my Danish friend told me that he had now seen what I was doing here in India. He explained me that he would go and travel for a few days, to see another city of India and then come back before my program was over to fly back to Vrindavan with me. I completely understood – why would he sit for nine days in a program that he did not understand? So he took a flight to Mumbai. He wanted to be back after three days.
My German friend did not seem to mind the Hindi program though. When we talked, he told me that he quite enjoyed it because we included some Kirtan singing and music in between the different parts of my lecture and he could sing along. He simply liked being among all those spiritual people. So he stayed and further enjoyed the atmosphere.
It all happened as planned, the program was good and the people were happy. My Danish friend joined us again before we returned to Vrindavan. Reaching home I made a decision that would be one of the steps of completely finishing my role and image of a guru in India. I decided not to do any such program in India anymore.
Since my time in the cave I had not enjoyed that ‘guruism’ anymore. I had stopped making disciples because of the decision that I would not be a guru anymore. I did however realize that even though I did not want to be a guru, I still had the image of being a guru. I talked with my Danish friend about the program and one thing he said stuck with me. He told me I was like an icon for these people. And it was true!
Even though I had refused the role of being a guru from my inside, I still loved the scriptures and that is why I kept on doing what I had done since my childhood. I had kept on preaching what was written in the scriptures. At that point however I felt that I was not anymore fully convinced with what was written there. And if I was not 100% sure of what was written in those scriptures, how could I tell others to follow them?
You are always in a process of change and at that point I decided that I would not do any religious program of preaching the scriptures anymore. I was not lacking any offers, there were lots of them, but I just did not feel like going anymore and rejected the offers. That was another step on my way away from religion.
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Perhaps I should ask you this in person but what was it about the cave that altered your mind so much. Before you went in you were the epitome of a spiritual leader and then after you came out you gradually denied it all together…I would like to know your thought process and how you came to know that you wanted to be a completely different person after the cave.