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From a very young age, I was drawn to questions about God, creation, and the mysteries of life and death. I immersed myself in scriptures like the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and Vedanta. While these texts offered explanations, they did not provide the experience I longed for. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, I had a profound spiritual encounter. It was twilight, and I sat alone in a quiet place, gazing at the starry sky shimmering with an unusual, divine energy. In that moment, I experienced something indescribable—an inner awakening that filled me with transcendental joy. Though it lasted only a few minutes, it made the material achievements and pleasures of life seem insignificant. I yearned for that experience again and again. My heart was set on pursuing a spiritual life, and the desire to leave everything behind and seek deeper truths grew stronger. Eventually, this longing led me to Varanasi, known as the spiritual heart of India. Upon arriving, I searched for a guru to guide me, but none matched the image I had in my mind. Disillusioned, I moved to Bengaluru, where I continued my search but began to lose hope. Then, in 1994, something changed. A messenger came to me, telling me about an ashram in Thiruvananthapuram and a Guru named Karunakara Guru, someone I had never heard of before. Intrigued, I asked if the Guru had a mantra. I believed that if I chanted a mantra, I might experience something profound. The mantra I received was: "Aum Sri Karunakara Guru Parabrahmane Namah, Aum Sri Karunakara Guru Satypradaya Namah." I began chanting it during my prayers. On the third day, as I chanted, I had a vision—the face of a great soul appeared before me. I lacked the spiritual strength to gaze upon it for long, and it soon vanished. Afterward, I saw the faces of other sages, appearing and disappearing as if on a screen. I felt as though my third eye had been opened by the power of the mantra. Curious, I asked the messenger what Karunakara Guru looked like. He simply replied, "You must go and meet the Guru yourself." Around the same time, I heard an inner voice say, "This Great Soul will be on earth for only five more years. Hurry and see him." So, I set out for Santhigiri Ashram, hoping to meet the Guru I had seen in my vision. When I arrived at the ashram, I was stunned to see that the face of Karunakara Guru was the same one I had seen in my vision in Bengaluru. As if unaware of my journey, the Guru asked me why I had come. Although I could have asked him questions about seeing God or the meaning of life, in his presence, those questions seemed irrelevant. It felt as absurd as a blind man asking about the sun while standing in its light. The Guru simply said, "There is some delay." It took me thirty-two years to fully realize that Karunakara Guru is none other than the Supreme Light—eternal, beginningless, and the embodiment of bliss. The Guru opened my inner vision, revealing truths I had never imagined. I came to understand that God works through the Guru, yet accepting the Guru as God was not immediate. The rational mind resists, harboring doubts about how a human form could be Brahman itself. I voiced this doubt to the Guru, and he responded, "You must contemplate this yourself." One day, the Guru gently applied vibhuti (sacred ash) to my forehead. As I left his room, I was overwhelmed by a divine experience, as if the Milky Way itself were revolving before me. At that moment, I understood that it is foolish to insist on seeing God directly. Even the slightest glimpse of the divine is more than we can bear. We can only perceive the Supreme Light through the Guru. I was reminded of Arjuna's words after witnessing the cosmic form of Sri Krishna: "O Lord, it is enough for me to see your human form; my senses cannot endure your cosmic form." The years between 1994 and May 6, 1999—when Guru left his physical body—were the most precious of my life. I have so far written more than half a dozen books based on Guru's teachings. Important among them are "The Riddle of Manu, Manvantara Avatars, and World Teacher Prophecies" (Santhigiri Publications, Thiruvananthapuram), "The Modi-God Dialogues" (Akansha Publishing House, New Delhi) and "Reinventing Sanatana Dharma" (Authors Press Group, New Delhi) and "The Battle for Bharat" (E-book by Amazon).