Spiritual Encounters

By Shiv Mathur

This book is a compilation of the author's spiritual travel experiences, which he undertook over the last seven years (2015-2022). He traveled to the different parts of the divine Himalayas, to quench his curiosity about the lives of the Himalayan yogis. The search was not just for knowing about the Himalayan yogis, but also a thirst for self-inquiry. It was a search to know myself. What intrigued him was, how the yogis in the Himalayas living in extremely austere, simple, and harsh conditions get true knowledge and eternal bliss. He met many realized yogis in the Himalayas and stayed in various ashrams. This book will intrigue as well as inspire you if you are about to embark on your spiritual voyage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shiv Mathur
• Release date: Jul 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201346386

Shiv Mathur

Cdr Shiv Mathur is an Electrical Engineer by qualification, an Indian Navy veteran. he then worked in IBM, TATA, Reliance Jio in senior positions. He had a strong spiritual calling in 2015 which led him to head for the Himalayas twice a year and spend 2-3 weeks exploring the spiritual energy of the mountains. he started teaching Meditation based on his own experiences and his own achieved state of mind. He currently lives in Pune, India. he has been an avid traveller as well.

Book preview

PREFACE

1. I am simply grateful to my parents and God, who have brought me up and given me a direction in this life to move on a path of self realization and truthfulness.

2. In this journey of the soul which came to this body, the experiences have been interesting and worth sharing. That is why I thought that consolidating them in this book will provide some good food for thought and also an interesting material for the eyes.

3.  I will keep my preface short as this is my second book, and I would be happy if the soul reading this book has also read the previous book. I would like to embed the photos of my parents here and dedicate this book to them.

4. This is a colourful book with images taken by me during my travels where I met these yogis. I hope it will provide a gripping reading experience.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

S.  Chapters   Description   Page

1. Chapter 1 The Background       07

2. Chapter 2 The Spiritual Encounters     11

3.  Chapter 3 The Ashram Experience     89

4. Chapter 4 The Teaching Experience   117

5. Chapter 5 The You Tube Channel   125

6.  Chapter 6 The Situations in Life    129

7.  Chapter 7 The Author Journey    133

8.  Chapter 8 Living with Himalayan Yogis   137

9.  Chapter 9 The Final Objective    141

10.   Inspirations      145

11.   Tribute to Teachers as Gurus  153

CHAPTER-1

BACKGROUND

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1.1 I was born on the 09th of March 1966 at Varanasi, India. I did my schooling from Kota, Rajasthan. Thereafter, I did my B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from NIT Warangal in 1989. I got married in Oct 1991. After completing my engineering, I joined the Indian Navy and served there for 16 years.  I took pre-mature retirement from the Navy in Oct 2005. I then worked in the corporate sector in companies like IBM, Tulip Telecom, Tata Teleservices, Tata Communications, Saudi Telecom, Juniper Network and finally Reliance Jio.

1.2 It was in the year 2010, that a thought appeared about the Vedas, the ancient scriptures of Bharat (India). It was a curiosity about the knowledge therein which was supposed to be all encompassing and ultimate. Along with this, there was another curiosity about the Himalayan Yogis. Despite living in such harsh conditions, how are they able to attain the true knowledge and the eternal bliss? I then started looking for some information, as until then, I was just not into any kind of spirituality, yoga or religious inclinations. I found a book titled A Search in Secret India by Paul Brunton. This colourful book gave me some ideas about the spiritual world and about the existence of some realized Yogis in Bharat.

1.3 In the year 2011, I went through some difficult situations in my relationships, which lead me to start questioning about the purpose of life. Questions like – Does anyone really belong to us, what are we chasing, for whom are we living such a life trying to strive for more and more of materialistic acquisitions, why are we always trying to please others and when the time comes same people will turn their back. As the introspection started, many beliefs and myths got shattered.

1.4 Life was on a fast track, chasing a big target aligned to our financial goals. To make it more difficult we faced an uncertain economic conditions and an equally challenging job market. There was not really much time left for introspection. Though, I am a strong family and home loving person. In 2013-2014, for four five months I had to be in Jakarta, Indonesia for a project from my company. My family had to be in India. While living alone in Jakarta, I realized that life is just not about money. It is important to be with your family. To me family was always a priority and family was also my driving force to work hard and excel, so as to fulfill the family goals and responsibilities. Then in 2015, I went alone for a job to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Same realization happened, that chasing money is futile, and one should be content with what they can attain without compromising with certain priorities of life. I realized that happiness was in living together as a family and not by earning more and then spending even more on the materialistic acquisitions. This is a very sensitive situation, and one has to sometimes compromise and go through a grind so as to meet one’s aspirations or responsibilities towards the family. It is a delicate balance required to be maintained. Notwithstanding the good tax free salary package I had in Riyadh, I took a decision of returning to India, even though I had spent only two months in that new job in Saudi Telecom. I was lucky that I could get another job as soon as I returned to India.

1.5 The Spiritual Calling : Towards the end of 2015, I got a strong urge to visit Rishikesh, which is literally the gateway to the Land of Gods. It is also a place where many seekers from across the globe come looking for the food for the soul. Rishikesh is also known as the Yog capital of the world. Here onwards started the quick march on my spiritual path, more visibly as well as more vigorously.

CHAPTER-2

SPIRITUAL ENCOUNTERS

2.1 As the urge to visit Rishikesh was so strong, that I booked my train tickets from Mumbai to Haridwar