MEETING WITH MAHASHAKTI

From 2001 to May 2003

From April 2001 to May 2003,I did have the same self-realisation,that God alone was real and everything else was unreal. Whatever I asked myself,I got an answer that would puzzle me beyond my belief. I would ask myself:"Am I the same dullest backbencher  students and teachers made fun of ?" I would ask myself  whether I should again chant another mantra like the Lord Hanuman Mantra or Gayatri Mantra. This was because when I was suffering in the beginning,a brother of mine had taken me to Konark.There we met a great devotee of Hanuman. He gave us the prasad of  the god.He advised me to worship Hanuman or chant the name of the great God.

Then I met a young Brahmin priest and his father.They heard the whole story and said:"Chanting Lord Shiva's mantra at home is not such a big mistake.What happened to you at home would also have happened in any other place. Every man or woman who wants to  reach Lord Shiva or any other God is destined to experience plenty of suffering.This was because a large number of spirits are following Shiva. There are other evil spirits who distract people from their hard spiritual practices.They told me I should have kept chanting the mantra and eventually I would have gathered rich dividends.

I said to them,"Who could have tolerated the nightmarish visions that I had ?When I would be trying to go to sleep,I would see a bearded demon or the naked woman with the pig's face,holding a shining knife standing by my bedside with an intention to cut my throat.Or I would suddenly get up and find sharp scintillating knives round my neck. Again and again I would see Yama,the God of Death would be standing right in front of me. Or a very large black cat would jump at me but could not reach me.I would scream and give shrill cries but I would be calmed discovering the gold chain tied round my wrist was tied round the phallus of Lord Shiva in the distance. That would give me real relief."

"The young priest said to me,"Thank God you managed to stay alive."

His father said,"These things,I mean,your dangerous experiences could have taken your life. Thousands have died experiencing things like you.Lord Shiva's grace saved you. This I say because you could see a rope tied round your wrist and its other end tied round the phallus of Lord Shiva."

He advised me to worship Shiva. When we were returning from Konark,I could see shadowy figure of Yama dressed royally riding his well-decorated buffalo with a thick coil of leather roping in his hand.An ugly jackal-faced female creature with ill-formed dirty teeth came up to me and said,"Why so scared?You sucked Mother's milk and who will kill you?"

The Hanuman devotee had told me that I had got the knowledge of the Brahman or the Supreme Being. So I must practice austerities to attain more and more spiritual knowledge and be my own master.I unearthed to myself many interesting secrets and when I spoke to people about them,they would get a little amazed.Most of them would ask me:"Did you have any experiences with God?"But I never told them anything in detail. If I told you I had a night long conversation with Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Kali,would any man on earth believe me? You would call me either a liar or a madman.
Later on,small children,even class 8 boys and girls expressed great interest in what I told them.Once a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba was narrating how Baba travelled to Switzerland and came back in pfive minutes with a life-saving drug which was needed to rescue a girl from impending death.The audience wondered how it could be possible.I told them Baba was already at the medicine store in Switzerland. Then and there he assumed his physical form and procured the medicine.They wondered how Baba's physical form dissolved into the air.When they were told that the visible world had come out of pure nothingness and this nothingness did have the power to take the entire universe or countless universes into itself.Matter dissolves into nothingness being divided into the minutest possible invisible particles.A yogi has the supreme power to do that.When those minutest possible invisible particles come together in incredible great numbers,matter takes.Only brainless stupid scholars denounce image worship.Even Buddha lacked the insight to realise this.I have much greater reverence for Sai Baba of Shirdi than I have for Buddha.Similar too was the case of Swami Dayananda Saraswati. Dayanand didn't seem to have any deeper knowledge of God.

It was during these days that I devoted myself to writing mainly short stories.I had a large number of rejection slips that had been preserved in a huge sack.I mustered courage and resumed writing. I sent two stories to ALIVE and waited for the reply. After some weeks a rejection slip came. Both my stories had been rejected. I was profoundly hurt.Again a lot of time passed.I tried my luck once more. I sent two more stories. This time too my stories came back rejected. I couldn't contain my anger. I was rankly upset with Mother Kali and Lord Shiva. Mother Kali didn't show up any longer. In the evening I was boiling with anger at the injustice done to me by the ALIVE  editor who had rejected my short stories. I proceeded to the nearest telephone booth and dialled the Delhi Press number. Someone connected me to  the editor of the magazine Viswa Nath.I said,"May I speak to the editor of the ALIVE magazine ?"
The answer came,"Yes,speaking."

I said,"I am Chittaranjan Dash calling from Bhubaneswar.I sent two short stories but you rejected them. Again did I approach you with two more short stories and you have rejected them both once more. Do you yourself edit the stories?"

I was angry but he said to me politely,"I didn't edit your stories. Others might have done that."

Encouraged by his calm and polite voice,I asked,"May I send a short story again? "

"You can send as many stories as you can.."
said the editor.The next day I sent two short stories to  the ALIVE magazine. They were "The Skivvy" and "Love and Sacrifice." They were my debut stories. After around a month,I received a cheque for 1000 rupees and the contract paper. After that I contributed regularly to the magazine and also to Woman's Era.But within a year perhaps,Vishaw Nath breathed his last and that ended my romancing with the magazines. His son became the next editor. Once I talked to him and he behaved like a Mughal emperor!