Page 279 - Light of Divinity

Alcoholism spirited

away

AS A child, whenever I used to go to Jalandhar with my family,
we used to stay at my maternal grandparents’ place. They would
visit Guruji. And during one such visit, I met Guruji with my family.

When we entered his mandir, we could smell perfume all over as if
some one had sprayed the room with scent. We would sit down and
watch as people poured in to get Guruji’s blessings. Later, he would
bless glass water with his mala and we would drink it. The water
would have a distinct aroma. Even as children, we could sit in one
place without fidgeting and did not even realize how time flew by.

My Dad does not believe in any one beyond God himself. He told
Mom and me to avoid going to Guruji, stating that he did not like
it. We stopped going. For around eight years we did not approach
Guruji, but my aunt and my cousin sisters were regular visitors.
Guruji would tell them to ask us to meet him. Then, Guruji shifted
to Delhi.

In 2003, I also shifted to Delhi to do my MBA. I took to drinking,
as I used to live alone and enjoyed having alcohol. I went through
a liver function test on my parents’ insistence. I had taken the test
earlier and it had shown bad signs, but I had ignored the results.
According to the test results, a normal person should have a total of
40 IU/L (international units per litre); I had 347 units. It was clear
that if I did not stop drinking, I would have fatal liver cirrhosis.

My mother was staying with me as we were planning to shift our
residence from Vasant Kunj to Dwarka, and she had come to set

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