As long as I can remember my life, I think there always had been a “Knowing” which was in operation, which was functioning and not knowing mentally, really logically or rationally, I have just always followed that knowing.

One very petty example may be that for example, if I’m walking and there is a ‘knowing’ that tells me that I just have to move in the left lane or the right lane, I just go there. And I’ve been conscious about that ‘knowing.’ 

This I can say looking back at my life now in retrospect; now that I feel mature enough through experiences so far, not really fully mature, but I can look back at my experiences and, as Sri Aurobindo says in Savitri, ‘This world is not made by random bricks of chance, a blind God is not destiny’s architect.’ So, I can see now, that’s so true.

If I go back to my childhood, I can see that somehow I never felt like I have to wear frocks since I am, in my body female, I never could comply with those social norms because I always felt like a human being and a human being can wear anything you know, shorts or frocks or whatever s/he wants to. And I always felt that irrespective of being a female, I can wear shorts if I have a feeling that I should. I’m more authentically myself if I’m wearing shorts for example, and even keeping my hair short. That came very naturally to me, and it felt more authentic just being myself. 

There have been phases in my life where, because of external influences, I have tried to please others. Definitely, I have gone through such situations a couple of times, I’m sure, but those phases did not last long, they could not erase what was the deepest me. It was a phase I kind of endured, the external influences were maybe too much that I, in my unconsciousness, could not say that “No” or “I don’t want that”. But those phases did not last long. Their influence was in fact that they gave me even more conviction to own myself completely and to stand for what I am authentically. 

So, if now I look back at my life, I can see that I have actually very naturally been able to stand up for myself. And that always required a kind of shamelessness. There were difficult phases that brought me a lot of suffering because I did not have the courage to stand up to my own self. And yet, some or the other progress was still there through that phase, maybe more conviction to stand up for myself and to live a more authentic life. 

There has been a fearlessness or shamelessness about living an authentic life, irrespective of what people may say about me. It has been just a gift. 

I am very grateful that I have this gift of just fearlessness and shamelessness and at times people may call it arrogance on appearance, but I really respect even when I see many people who have the courage to stand against all odds of the society, of the family, of the relatives, what they will think and leaving all of that aside really follow the call of the heart and I feel that I’ve been able to do that too. 

I was more into studies as a child and I would say all my life; not really too much into friendliness or social circles or having fun and parties with friends, I was never like that. Somehow, I never felt that’s what I am born for and that’s not where I feel most comfortable/authentic. It is just when there is meaning in my life, where there is purpose and a higher call there, that I have felt most authentic. 

So I did my studies and then in college I wanted to study Biology. Biology was close to me as it just came somehow naturally. I did not have any eagerness to be a doctor really in the sense of medical science, but definitely a biological bent was there. So I went on and did some higher studies and went until the level of PhD in Auto-Immunology and when I was doing that PhD, I was almost writing my thesis after three and a half years in the University of Zurich, Switzerland. At that time I somehow felt that no, this thesis is rubbish, what I am writing is rubbish and it just has no meaning. I was studying autoimmune syndromes, autoimmune diseases like Multiple sclerosis Myasthenia gravis and we were studying clinical samples/ blood samples of patients, trying to find out what is the cause and what is the antigen against which the antibodies are there in those people; but I just had a feeling that NO, this is not going to work out just by looking at the blood samples. I cannot know what mental state or emotional state that person is in and how can I find a cure or how I can find what is the real trigger of that disease because it can be very contextual, dependent on every person, everyone is different. 

Back then I had no knowledge of these things, but that “knowing” was there. So towards the end of my PhD, I really began to look for meaning in my life because I felt that why am I living and what is the meaning of my life? What is a true life? What is an authentic life? At the University of Zurich, there was a very big library, and I just got all the books that came to me from there to read, Abraham Maslow, Bertrand Russell, and all these other philosophers, Jiddu Krishnamurti, UG Krishnamurti, and others who have written and thought about life and about what is higher life that is possible for man. I started to plunge myself in those readings and somehow felt a call towards J Krishnamurti. It really resonated with me and whatever he’s saying is making sense to me. Ramana Maharishi also made a lot of sense, and they were like my saviours and really pulled me out of a kind of vicious trap that I was feeling due to the questions – Is a higher life possible? Has anyone explored that? So all of that was very helpful. 

Towards the end of my PhD, after I had written my thesis, I realised that no, no, I am not going to finish this thesis. I don’t want a doctor degree or a doctor title. I just want to now go ahead and travel and tour some of the Krishnamurti’s schools and see what they are doing there. What they are trying to manifest. I booked my tickets and without telling anyone, any member of my family, I just planned my own itinerary and all my visits around the Krishnamurti schools. But then, because of some reason, I had to inform the family and somehow, they compelled me a bit in the sense that now that I have written the thesis, why not complete it and get the degree too? At that time, I was also reading a lot of Ramana Maharishi and experiencing some changes in me. I said to myself that, if I am “no one” then I can be anyone. So okay, let me just finish this off. How does it matter?

I postponed all my planned trip and after finishing my thesis and getting the degree, I went ahead with my plan, knowing that I would not be entering research science in the lab because I knew that the answers I was looking for were not there. We have to look at the behavioural, the mental and emotional aspects also and the spiritual aspects in case of any illness. Now I can name these aspects easily but at that time they were just vague to me, but I knew that something more was there. At that time many researchers were also doing some neuro behavioural research in cognitive sciences in our University and others. I was more interested in those sciences and where emotional and mental components were also there; even quantum physics interested me more than what I was doing. 

I left all of that and toured the Krishnamurti schools; one in London and then others all over India and then although I wanted to join as a teacher at one of these schools, because of some reasons I had to stay in Delhi with parents and I decided that let me find something meaningful here because for the time being I’m here. 

Then I started looking for options and when I found one, I pursued it for some time and during that time I was just true to myself, as in very content in myself, I did not need any other company. I was feeling so full in myself there was meaning and inner richness in my life, and I was present, I was not running here or there to achieve something, like I want this or that to be happy. I was very content and around that time my age was maybe around 28. That would have been 2009. My father said I should maybe look now for a partner; although I did not feel the need for a partner, but I went ahead for the fun of exploring and found a person with whom I really resonated at the first instance; both of us were very comfortable with our own silences; there was no hankering around for each other and again that knowing sense prevailed. 

What I’m trying to point out is that without me knowing, a ‘knowing’ was prevailing, and I was following its call. More or less I was following its call and that is what has been my guide throughout my life. 

After that we got married; I was a very free-minded person in my own style and very authentic to myself, but then suddenly now I am married and usually in the Indian context, one gets married you are not marrying just one person, you are marrying the whole family. There are many things that come up with the family and without me realising it, I had started to become a daughter-in-law. Nobody was really forcing me; I think I just succumbed to pleasing others. Slowly within a year, I could see and sense a disturbance in me and a sense of losing track, because I had stopped listening to my authenticity and maybe listened more to what others were expecting of me.

In 2013 I had my first child and in 2014 I had the second one in my tummy, when I started to notice blood in the urine. The bleeding would just come, it didn’t bother me at all as it was painless bleeding and it would not stay all the time, it would just come and go away after passing urine a few times. That was very strange in the beginning because it was just painless. Usually when you have a urinary tract infection you have pain, you have burning and that was not present. Whenever I looked up on the Internet, I found that in cancers you can bleed; but of course I thought, how can ‘I’ have cancer so that was totally out of the picture and so I delayed the diagnosis, really giving it no importance until the birth of my second child in 2014. After seven or eight months of him being born, the bleeding became actually too frequent to be ignored. I had to get an ultrasound done and in the ultrasound, they figured out that there were tumours in the urinary bladder. 

This was very interesting because now I could see, oh Cancer is real, it can happen to anyone, and I am one of those people now who I maybe earlier have read about in newspapers or magazines; I am one of ‘them’. You often hear, this person got cancer, that person got cancer, but now I have it and initially there was a little bit of surface disturbance but somehow again that ‘knowing’ was in operation; and that knowing told me that this has come to give me a signal. This has come to give me a message and I wanted to figure out what message it wants to give me. 

Somewhere a deep knowing was there that the whole universe and the happenings of the universe are not working against me. They are working for me! So, that ‘knowing’ was again there and as if everything else in the world stopped to matter, now all that mattered was this and how do I deal with this situation, how do I go to the root of what has created this illness! 

Initially, they suggested an immediate surgery, but I was not ready for surgery, and I said no, I am going to give myself some time to work with my emotions and thoughts; I had been into self-help literature and stories, which were inspirational and I knew that we can heal ourselves. I knew there have been people who have healed their tumours and cancers naturally, by connecting with their own inner self. So I wanted to get to the root of what the cancer is trying to tell me and immediately I was guided to contact some people. I contacted those people, and those people gave me further references and then I started to take a few guided sessions in order to get back to myself; to understand what my emotions were, what my mental thoughts were and what is the cancer trying to tell me. What is the message it wants to give me? Cutting the story short, I would like to say that after three to four months of connecting with my inner self, I got the courage to go through this surgery which was again a limit breaker for me because we form limiting beliefs in the mind that allopathy is bad or this is good, but whatever is needed at whatever point of time is good, you have to just go through with it. So, that barrier for me was broken and I had to go through surgery, all in deep faith. I felt so abundant during those so-called hard times, I felt that I am looked after, and this is the message that the universe wanted to give me:  Don’t strangle yourself, just live an authentic life. You don’t need to be fearful or insecure. You don’t need to be suffocating yourself because just to please people around and that’s what I did. So I got to the hospital after three four months of my own healing and therapies and then I had the courage to very beautifully go through the surgery and my family was very supportive. They were totally holding myself and everybody through it in faith. So I got the tumours removed, the doctors also were very helpful. Thankfully in the case of the urinary bladder, since it is in a contained atmosphere (urinary bladder), they only give a little therapy of washing the urinary bladder with the BCG vaccine a couple of times (a standard protocol). They used to put the  vaccine in through a catheter and wash the bladder with it. Back home of course it had some side effects, but it was nothing in comparison to getting your life back. It’s worth enduring the pain and the suffering. 

I got that done in 2016/17 and thankfully by that time I realised that this is a wake-up call for me because every moment whenever I go to the washroom to pee, I can thank myself, I can thank the universe for another day without problems in the body. How grateful one can be! Gratefulness was again a gift of cancer. It just brought me back to the present moment and living a life which is more authentic, which I really want to live, and which has more meaning for me, rather than doing what others expect of me. 

I started to do that, so cancer really brought my fearlessness back, my “knowing” again in front, “courageously following that call from the heart” back. I see that it requires a lot of courage to live an authentic life. People will say things, people will expect things from you, but unfortunately you can’t do that anymore.  You become choiceless in following your call. 

I think that cancer was a cheap bargain for me in order to get my true authentic life back and to know that the universe is always with us, no matter what happens in the outer circumstances of life. They all are happening ‘for us’ and not against us. They are happening so that we can reclaim our true authentic life and begin to live a life shamelessly, fearlessly, more authentically, with more meaning, with more purpose and always progress towards a higher life, following our true calling in this particular life, which could be of course different for everyone. 

So I think that’s where I can maybe stop today and of course life goes on. It’s not that cancer was the end of my learning. Cancer gave me one opening and after that there have been other revelatory openings also. “Knowing” is still in function and more and more I would say I can now consciously collaborate with that “Knowing” rather than suffocating it or strangulating it and can now believe  in it with more conviction. 

Monica Gulati, 18 August 2024 – adapted Audio transcription from received recording