Join me in this journey where I try to bring people together and make them fall in love with the liveliness of life. As a 14-year-old boy, facing a family member's demise, created the seed of investigation within, that led to the question: if death exists, what is the purpose of life? Meanwhile, as a teenage boy, I had just started to fall in love, and an interesting feeling was that, for love, ev
en if death comes, it seems worth trying to be in love. To understand about Love, easy and quick way to learn was television and movies. As I grew up, I realized that the love I was seeing in movies was not the same as the love I was experiencing. I felt love, but it was more like I felt warm and happy being with someone. My hormones kicked in a lot later, for now this feeling was making me realize, I was in love. As my friends, cousins, and I talked, I was advised that if I felt affectionate towards someone, I must confront my feelings to them, yet, I struggled to find the words to tell the person that I love them. As for me, what I was feeling in her presence, it wasn't something I was doing usually. How could I go and say I love you? It seems like a lie because I am not doing anything, so it is just a feeling that I was feeling. Ultimately, I started to search for the source of love, and put death and its mysteries as a second priority. I found that the source of love was what made life worth living, and death did not bother me when I was in that feeling of love. So I started observing the worldly relationships around me and began to realize that they all had certain expectations of what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to act. I soon felt helpless and suffocated from depending on others as the source of my love and one question came to mind. To what extent will I be receiving their love? To a certain extent they will, everyone has their limit to which they will love me, if I cross that limit, will their affection be the same fir me? Or is it going to be converted into hate? For love, freedom had to be sacrificed on a certain level. A teenager who was curious about some things, became more interested in finding out some answers. Then this dependence makes things very painful. At the same time, I stumbled upon Osho talking on Meerbai or Saint Dadu Sant Kabir, Guru Nanak, Buddha, Krishna and many others. Osho is talking about love that transcends time and space. And its essence is different from its roots. It makes one independent, one can find the source of love that does not require dependency. He said that it is possible to find the source of happiness and love within oneself. Only after understanding this, is when one becomes capable of loving and sharing in true sense. The journey of love, bliss, and enlightenment starts here, albeit reluctantly. The Seeker had started to become a sadhak, or one who is ready to practice something to find the source of love and understand life and death. At this point I had acknowledged, that books are insufficient, and there is an intense requirement for an aide who I can converse with, pose inquiries, and identify with. After this, I read several books on love by Osho, and many of his contemporaries. I went to programs with many other Guru’s including Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Of Art Of Living) and Paramsa Prajananda, Paramhamsa Harirananda, Vidhyadhishanand Giri (Kriya Yoga) , Kripaluji, Maharajji and Mukundananda Sarasvati from (JK yog). Eventually, I was able to meet Sw Anand Arun, a meditator, facilitator and devotee of Osho, who initiated me into Osho's Neo Sannyas, and became my guide in the inner and outer journey of life. Now in 2007, a sadhak was ready to take initiation and become a sanyasi, to learn and be helped. And it seems like destiny was kind, because it sent Sw. Anand Arun into my life. Where I was able to lower my ego and open up and admit to taking help. Anand Arun came into my life and helped me open my heart, trust, and take a leap of faith, and I took initiation, and now I'm practicing, so I can learn something more than what I know from books. The name " Sw. Atma Paritosh "was bestowed by the master during the initiation ceremony of the Shakti path, after meditating for more than 10 years with my master, Bodhi Satva Sw. Anand Arun. I felt like a child who learns to walk with father’s help, for the first time I understood the real meaning of words like meditation and love. They became reality in accordance with understanding and experience. It used to be a glimpse, but I couldn't connect all the dots in the puzzle, and finally the dots started to connect and a timeless glance began to occur. I was invited to visit the guru's ashram for seven times in the next seven years. I visited as many times as I could. Eventually I lost the number count. Experiences crystallized, and time came, and the guru and existence guided me to start actively teaching what I had learned or gained with the grace of my master. I requested my master, Bodhisattva Sw Arun Anand to change my name to Sw. Prem Maitreya, because I have been looking for love all my life. Now as my feeling of "me" disappears again and again, I begin to feel that I am love I have been looking for, and I hope to be able to share this love with as many people as possible. But who I want to share with, was a question. Sooner, I realized, the ones I share goodness in life with and the ones I celebrate with ..Friends! Hence I requested my master to change my name to Sw. Prem Maitreya, so I can make more friends and share my experience with them. And provide Osho Sannyas to as many friends as possible. Because I want them to join and Merge into this ocean of love and mystery and I have found it to be a catalyst and instrumental in my journey.
