I developed a fascination for the mystery of life and the universe during my high school days when I first read Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. This book ignited that lifelong sense of curiosity about the universe and our place in it. Another book that made a huge impact on me at the time was Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. I thought I had found a clear path to improving myself.

I completed my studies in engineering (B.E Mech from VRCE Nagpur) and management (MBA from IIM Bangalore) and started my career.

Meanwhile, I continued my exploration of the outer and inner worlds primarily by reading books on science, history, philosophy and psychology. I was very excited and eager to learn more and more, to expand my knowledge of the universe and the human mind. Learning how one scientific theory replaced another and how it improved our understanding was as engrossing as any Sherlock Holmes mystery.

My Journey of Self-Discovery

Unfortunately, reading about the human mind and knowing about various theories is not sufficient to know oneself directly. In one moment of deep emotional crisis, I was unable to understand myself and what was happening to me. For the first time, all that I had read did not make any sense. All my knowledge failed me. This forced me to look inward and thus I began my inner journey.

My explorations led me to the teachings of Gautam Buddha, J Krishnamurti, Gurdjieff and innumerable other Zen and Sufi masters. I began practicing rigorous meditation and attended several spiritual retreats. After many months of intense self-inquiry, I experienced profound spiritual awakening. I re-discovered the path to knowing oneself.

This experience was unlike anything I had expected. There is no comparison. It was a direct seeing. No words could describe it yet I could finally understand what all the spiritual masters were saying all along.

For some time after that, I harboured intentions of living like a monk. However, I realized that what I really wanted was to be a monk within, not merely in my outer appearance. I decided to continue in my career and family life, trying to live in accordance with my realizations.

I worked in the field of marketing, sales and product management in several multinational companies in senior positions, travelled the world and had many experiences.

Now, after 20+ years, I am honoring a clear inner call to focus more on sharing the path with others. Big Picture Zen is my offering to the world.

Big Picture Zen is an aggregation of several lines of work, all focused towards supporting people for their inner awakening. It started with a simple blog where I started to express the big picture view as I saw it.

This evolved into a series of the Big Picture Workshops, which were attended by several of my office colleagues. The purpose of these workshops was to give an experiential feel for the inner work.

At the same time, to encourage people to take the inner journey, I wrote an ebook – An Earnest Invitation to the Greatest Adventure of your Life. You can download it for free. (For those who are interested in reading, there is a section at the end which lists all the books which have influenced my thinking over the years.)

I have now started The Center for Self-Inquiry and Awakening with the following vision and mission.

My focus now is on individual coaching for sincere seekers. The inner journey has no map. Therefore, a little help and support can help any sincere seeker to discover his true self. The Discover TrueSelf@Life program is designed to help seekers get at the essence of the truth directly. Whatever has helped me in my inner journey, I have encapsulated it in my coaching program.