“I Sell Peace for a Living. Some Days I Can’t Find It for Myself.”
I thought I had found freedom.
I walked away from corporate life — left the security, the salary, the predictable ladder.
My marriage ended.
Most of the money I’d made over a lifetime was gone.
Some through bad choices, some through risks that didn’t pay off, and yes — some through old gambling habits that taught me more about chance than I ever wanted to know.
For two and a half years in Rishikesh, I lived what I thought was freedom.
No fixed hours.
No one breathing down my neck.
Talking to people about living in the moment. Feeling grounded. Smiling at the simplicity of it all.
I wasn’t rich, but I wasn’t worried. Life felt… light.
Then I started Aavya — a wellness center on the hills.
The dream was pure: create a place where people could breathe, heal, find joy.
I’d teach Yoga Nidra, share philosophy, help others live the kind of “free” life I thought I had mastered.
And Aavya grew. People came. They loved it. They left lighter than they arrived.
But now…
Some mornings I wake up not thinking about meditation or presence, but about cash flows stretched to breaking point.
About a season ruined by relentless monsoons.
About a hundred repairs that all need doing yesterday.
About regulations, delayed payments, and being the person the final buck — and every other buck — stops with.
It’s a strange feeling.
To stand in a space you built for peace… and be quietly calculating how many room nights it will take to pay for the repairs and delayed rents and salaries
To preach “be in the moment” while your head is fast-forwarding to every possible future problem.
And sometimes I laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Because if I don’t, I might just cry.
So on this Independence Day 2025, I’m asking myself — is freedom the absence of responsibility?
Or is it the ability to hold responsibility without letting it crush your spirit?
Or… is it just an illusion we talk aboujt in nice spiritgual language…elusive in tougher times
I don’t know yet.
But maybe by next year, I’ll have peeled away another layer, oir learnt how to feel free whilst having a 100 responsibilities
Until then, I’m here — juggling the joy and the weight, trying to remember that even in the mess, there’s something beautiful.
How free are you, really?
