Ask The Master: 29 Oct 2007

Q. Compared to other contemporary swamis, you appear very young. Do you consider it a disadvantage?

Nothing is an advantage or a disadvantage. Ultimately, people are interested in what I have to offer. No one is affected by such details. Also, at least as far as spirituality is concerned, the ordinary ‘life experience’ is immaterial.

See, there are two kinds of experience – anubhava and anubhooti. Anubhava is acquired over a lifetime. It is like learning that fire burns, after testing hundreds of kinds of fire all your life. First you touch a log fire and find that it burns; then you touch a gaslight and find that it burns; then you try an oil lamp, then a match – and finally by the time you realize that fire always burns, it is time for you to go to the burning ghat! This is anubhava. But my experience is anubhooti. It happens when you learn from the very first fire. All fires are like this, all desires are like this. That leap is spirituality. If you come through anubhava you need a lifetime to become wise. Anubhooti needs intelligence, not age.

So age is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage for me – it is such, that’s all!

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This excerpt has been taken from the book: Uncommon Answers to Common Questions