i felt real peace after a long time
i felt real peace after a long time
spent a whole sunday @iskcon
I pulled an all-nighter studying AWS networking & storage, and late at night, my friend Pranav and I decided to go to ISKCON in the morning. So, I stayed awake until 4:00 am, took a small nap until 4:30, got ready, and reached the mandir by 5:00 am. It was raining heavily as soon as we left.
The moment I entered the aarti room, I felt a sense of peace, satisfaction, or perhaps a numb feeling—it was dark, with blue lights focused on Krishna Bhagwan. The aarti was taking place, and the sound was so soothing and relaxing, literally peaceful. I had never experienced anything like it before!
After the aarti ended, I felt good. The next thing we did was chanting for 2 hours. I picked up a maala from the mandir, and Prabhuji taught me how to chant. Starting with the mantri, you loop through the mantra, saying “hare rama hare rama, rama rama hare hare, hare krishna hare krishna, krishna krishna hare hare.” Once you reach the end of the maala, the root or main seed, you turn the maala around and don’t continue or jump over it. I did 4 chants in total, and it was an awesome feeling. I even slept for like 1 or 2 minutes while chanting, xDD. Other Prabhujis and my friend Pranav were able to chant at least 10-16 times, and somehow I managed only 4.
Then came the 8:00 am aarti. Afterward, we went for breakfast. The food was served hot. We entered through the kitchen room, where preparations for lunch were in full swing. My mom used to say that eating food from the mandir is pure because of the freshness and high-quality ingredients used. I had poha and drank lemon tea, and felt good drinking the hot lemon tea.
Then the bhajan started. I, along with my friends and Prabhujis, started vibing. I enjoyed it a lot—letting go of thoughts, being in the moment, and just enjoying the music. The bhajan is all you need. I literally went from clubbing to bhajans, probably the best decision I’ve made. We also sat for a lecture given by a Prabhuji who did his BTech and MTech from IIT Bombay. It was cool to see engineers turning towards spirituality. Maybe someday I’ll do the same, but with a lot of money in the bank after shipping and building tons of products, successful startups, and of course, coding.
The point of writing this is that, in your busy schedule of grinding—going to college, meeting friends, working on coding projects, internships, and jobs—it’s important to find a medium of peace (mine is ISKCON). It’s really important, like a refresh or reboot, kind of like how your laptop’s graphics card heats up when you constantly play CS2. Similarly, your brain works hard, and you need a bit of peace and rest to grind harder!
thanks for reading <3