Around this time last year, my life was in shambles. Physical pain caused due to a condition named hiatus hernia was wreaking havoc in my life. My stomach had turned against me completely. Anguish and suffering had become second-nature to me. Just imagine a 20-year-old sitting at home, missing out on college, vising doctors upon doctors, with no respite. The pain was so relentless that my physical anguish was materializing itself in the form of mental pain as well. I was extremely anxious and depressed. The pain was so unforgiving that I often had suicidal thoughts, but told no one, as I knew that it would all go in vain.
This conundrum began near the end of August 2023, a diagnosis was formulated on 26th September 2023. I remember the date vividly as it was that exact day when I realized that I had a serious medical condition at the age of 20. I remember feeling heartbroken. I was a 20-year-old boy, who should have been at college, but is instead going around town seeing doctors, missing out on college lectures. September came and went, so did October and November. Each day seemed like a task. I had convinced myself that I am the proverbial Sisyphus and my pain is the rock that I am destined to live with. I was consuming an inordinate amount of medications, to no avail. Not a single drug that I was prescribed ever seemed to make things better.
I was growing bitter with each day, just think, being in pain 24/7, not one medicine seems to work, and all you can do is sit and wait for the pain to go away. That feeling simply cannot be put into words nor can it be sympathized with if you haven’t gone through similar levels of pain. It’s inexplicable. Anyone who knows me would know that I listen to an extraordinary amount of music. During that period from September to December, I didn’t listen to a single song. All I ever did was think, think and think. Thinking if life is ever going to be better, thinking about the medical expenses, thinking how my life itself is becoming a burden on others. Thinking how easy and simple would it be to just end it and liberate myself from all the suffering and make life easier for my family members too.
In December, I had no other option but to return to College for my mid-semester exams, surprisingly from mid-December to mid-January it seemed like everything had become fine and dandy. But like every story of physical pain, a relapse was lurking in the shadows. In March 2024, I started experiencing that oh-so-familiar pain again, and this time it was coupled with extreme anger and self-hatred. This feeling that “Goddamn it, I’ve had enough of it”. Seeing my condition deteriorate I went back home and saw the doctor again, I was advised to take another medicine and get a couple of tests conducted. The results of that test were surprising, the tests concluded that I had no physical ailment as such and that stress and anxiety were most likely the reasons behind all of this turmoil.
In April 2024, I cam back to college, nothing changed. My pain was now at its pinnacle. I spent each day trying to convince myself that the next day would be better, it was not. I tried practicing a thinking framework called 'mindfulness', and 'controlled ignorance' as well, both of them were a complete failure. I became obsessed with 'sad' songs, from The Weeknd's After Hours to Trilogy. I was so bogged down with these sad feelings that nothing else seemed to matter. Coincidentally a visit to AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) was planned. And that visit to AIIMS turned out to be a really big-eye opener. Seeing financially challenged individuals queuing up for miles on end just to get an appointment. Seeing people with diseases so debilitating, that my own ailment seemed to be a joke. I even saw dead bodies lying on stretchers and that transformed something within me.
And this is where the major change happened, I have always been a huge fan of Acharya Prashant. But these past months of pain and despair had made me so nihilistic that I had stopped watching him. All I did was I started watching his videos again, on topics such as “You are not your body, you are pure unadulterated consciousness”, and “Your body was born to die”. About a month of re-watching his videos combined with a lot of internalization that “it is not my body but rather my consciousness which is supreme”. And so I cannot let my body dictate my life. I cannot let my body stop me from doing what needs to be done.
Advaita Vedanta is a philosophy that deals with non-dualism, stating that the Jagat (the world and the body) is nothing but Maya (illusion) and that the observer, the observed and the process of observation are all one and the same. I started reading a lot about Advaita Vedanta and Adi Shankarcharya and reached the conclusion that my body isn’t worth paying this much attention to and that as long my pain doesn’t stop me from doing what I have to do, I won’t pay it any heed. And believe me within a month, the pain was completely gone. Advaita Vedanta had done what no medicine or doctor could do. Maya had surrendered in front of me.
So when the pain becomes insurmountable (mental or physical) go ahead and see a doctor, eat the medicines they prescribe, but if all of that fails, don’t grow bitter and cold. Don’t think of self-harm. Don’t let Maya make you do something your conscience doesn’t permit. Instead look Maya right in the eyes and say “Oh, Fuck You”.
And that is how Advaita Vedanta literally pulled me out from the depths of despair and that is why I will forever be indebted to it.
Comments