Freedom and Responsibility for my own Happiness with full Support of my Family

I told you about my father’s reaction in 2005 when I explained why I didn’t want to be a guru anymore and why I was even not following a big part of those scriptures anymore which I had even been preaching in the past. He told me that the whole family was happy if just I was happy. I should actually not have been surprised about this!

I could have known that he would react in this way. I would not have needed to be in any way apprehensive and when he answered like this, I clearly remembered my parents’ support in the past as well.

When I was only 13 years old, I had already started working and was getting more and more busy. Sometimes I was still going on programs together with my father but I was also already travelling and working on my own in different parts of India. Obviously, such programs did not only take part in school holidays and so I was absent from school quite often.

After one of my programs in that year, I came back to school and a teacher asked me where I had been and why I had not come to school. I answered that I had been in another state, in Madhya Pradesh, giving a lecture. Of course it was nothing really new to my teacher but nevertheless he then asked ‘When you are anyway not coming to school so often, why do you still go to school at all?’ He practically told me that I had chosen my career and did not need to bother with school anymore but should rather focus on what I was doing.

I was baffled. I actually always took my school books along on my journeys and tried to keep up with the classes. In the result, I was not a bad student at all, in spite of all my days of absence! Now the teacher suggested not to come anymore. I was not sure what to say or do.

When I came home on that day, pondering about this, asking my parents what I should do, my father had the same answer for me: do what you feel is right.

You may say that this is a big burden for a 13-year-old, a decision that he should not need to take. I did not feel like this however. I felt great about the trust that my father had in me, the confidence he had that I could choose on my own and could thus follow my heart. I did. I chose my profession, not school.

It gave me freedom and responsibility at the same time. It empowered me to take care of my own happiness, something I learned then and for which I am forever thankful to my parents! About twenty years later, my father did the same again. He, who had built his life on religion and being a guru, whose life still existed of this, even though he was retired, told me to just follow my heart, even if it led me away from the path he had chosen for himself.

That’s how I will be forever grateful to my whole family for their support in whatever I was and am doing. We embarked on this journey of life together and I have never felt them leave my side. They were always there for me and in the same way, I will always support their wishes, whatever direction they may go. I believe only in this way we all can be happy!