Doctor By Chance-Mystic By Choice; Memoir Of A Doctor's Journey From Medicine To Spirituality

Life has a purpose. It is our duty to find that purpose, live it, and fulfill our spiritual destiny. We are more than the physical being we often think that we are. Saints, sages and teachers of humanity have taught us that we are spiritual beings and we need to "know" that we are spiritual in order to “graduate” into Divine life. We can think of our material life in all aspects as preparatory stages. In living this life, purely on the physical level, we miss that part of life that enriches us in humility, universal love, compassion, morality and ethics. Forgiveness, gratitude and generosity help us to feel fulfillment and satisfaction in life. All of these attributes become natural components of our life.

In this memoir you can see the progression of my life from a country boy, son of indentured labourers, trying to find my way through primary education, and learning to be a goldsmith and a tailor. By chance, I attended high school and university, and becoming a doctor. But my progress took me to studying religions, teaching meditation and lecturing, and producing religious television programmes. I found that full time medical practice was compatible with my spiritual pursuits. I can look back on my life with satisfaction, knowing that I am firmly grounded in the knowledge of my purpose in life.

Here I would like to present a comment on my memoir by my editor Jane K. Watt, Ph.D.:

“Dr. Das is a man who sees “nothing but God everywhere," a man of deep curiosity and vast experience across continents, in the interplay of matter that makes the human body live and function, and especially beyond the body in the spirit that makes us whole and well and connects us across communities of people and faiths.

This is a courageous and timely book, one that makes a place for time and timelessness, that challenges us to be true to our best selves and to that spark of divinity that lives in each of us -- even if that means turning away from the pull and tug of career and the frantic busyness of life we sometimes mistake for meaning. We ended the book with these words of Dr Das:

“Life is a progression. We progress from childhood to adulthood, from simplicity to complexity, form ignorance to knowledge, from innocence to wisdom and from birth to death. It is the law of life. But there is also a progression from the external life to the internal, from the hustle and bustle of material life to the serenity and silence of internal life. It is in the latter that we experience the beauty of the Self and its connection with Divinity”