Herman Rodrigues is an aspiring writer and practitioner of spirituality since a few years now. He found out about us and the work we do here at Kechara though our YouTube channel, and was inspired by Rinpoche’s teachings. We asked him to share a little about his journey so far on the spiritual path, and a few of his personal experiences with events and life in general and here’s what he had to say:

Hey there! My name is Herman, and as an introduction, I would like to share with you, my journey on the spiritual path. I will also share with you my experiences as a writer. When I was told to write something about myself, the first question that popped into my mind was, who am I? After thinking for a while, I thought to myself, “Let me just write and see if I can describe some of the aspects of my life and share my journey with you so far”.

I was born in a middle class Christian family in Mumbai (India), and my parents raised me and my brother pretty much the same way every other middle class family would raise their children in India, or in any other part of the world. Growing up, I had all the support that a child would receive, but as years went by and I grew up to be an adult, things started to get difficult for me. I won't go into the details of that, but one thing that I remember about myself is the fact that I was a very shy kid growing up who lacked confidence and self-esteem. As far as my career was concerned, I had no clue about where I was going with that either. At that point, science was the subject which I least hated so after clearing my HSC examinations, I decided to learn science further and major in Chemistry. What a smart move, right?

I ended up failing almost all subjects in my final semester – this made me feel like a complete loser. My parents were even more disappointed than I was, because in India, a degree is given a lot of importance. Also having a PhD, LLB or any of these fancy titles attached to your name is of great importance. The more the number of titles, the better it is, and the more respect you get in society. Along with great respect, you also get marriage proposals from families who would like to offer their daughter to you in marriage. Fortunately in my case, my family, especially my mother was not very old school – she was more of a brave woman who didn’t care what the world thinks of her son, but deep down she had a genuine concern for me, and the way things would work out in the future. I could sense the pain she was going through.

My mother was really disappointed when I told her that I’d be joining a call centre for a living back in 2012. A job at a call centre was not considered very respectful, because the type of people that usually work there are the ones that have not been able to find academic success. Also people who work there usually spend most of their time on weekends going out to parties and getting wasted. Smoking is something that is mandatory for every hardworking person in the organisation due to the level of stress that an average individual has to go through, and so not many people considered a call centre to be a great place to work at, but because we were short of finances due my father’s illness, my mother couldn’t stop me from working either since there was no source of income.

Just about a year later, my parents got another shock of their lives when a close family member from my father’s side took away his money that he had received after his resignation from his company due to his illness. You see, my father wasn’t really good with handling money, and due to financial crisis, he was assured by this family member that all of his retirement money would be well invested, and towards the end, if he chose to invest elsewhere, all his money would be returned. Unfortunately, that was not what happened.

Meanwhile, I was demoted from the position that I was promoted to in my office as a trainer due to my lack of skill. I continued to work as a customer service representative in the same organisation, since I had no other option. I remember very clearly, even to this day how devastated I was. I continued to work day and night to earn as much as I could to support my family.

Back at home, my mother would try her best to save every penny that was possible so that she could handle the home and my brother’s education. She never spent a single rupee for herself even for things that sometimes would be absolutely essential. She never purchased new clothes or even went to the parlour. I remember, just to save a few hundred rupees, she would cut her hair at home sitting down in front of the closet mirror. At this point I tried my best to work as much as I could. Sometimes I would work throughout the week for extra hours each day to make a little extra money.

Noticing my effort at work, I was gifted a kindle E-Book reader. Looking at it, I said to myself, “What is a dumbo like me supposed to do with a kindle”. I had not finished a single book in my entire life. If I had, I wouldn’t be in the position I was in. Anyway, since I had no option, for a few weeks I played some games until I decided to make proper use of the device and download a few self-help books. At that point, self-help was what I needed desperately. For a couple of months, I was totally addicted to reading. I would sometimes utilise my breaks at work to read books, and this is how things started to change for me. After a while I thought to myself, how great it would be if I became a writer. I made sure that none of my friends actually found out about this, because they would have laughed their asses off for the rest of their lives listening to my aspirations.

At this point, I did not even attempt to write a single paragraph or even a short story. Forget all about that, I had no formal education as far as writing was concerned, so there was no way I could even think of pursuing writing as a career. Besides, I wasn’t even a graduate. I have no clue what crossed my mind back then, but because I was sick of going to a job that required me to work day and night only to get money and nothing else, I decided it would be better that I stayed home and read books instead, and hopefully I could even teach myself to write. I had made enough money at this point, and my brother had started working too. This made me feel like it was the right time to say goodbye to my work life.

Finally In December 2014, I left my job with the hope that I would become a writer someday. Like I said before, I did not write much at this point, so my dream of becoming a writer was rather delusional. Throughout the year 2015, I did nothing besides reading books, and listening to spiritual and motivational talks. For me, learning was enough contentment. As the days went by, I even started to write a few articles. I had even decided to publish a book that I had written, but at that point, I just felt like I did not have enough experience and knowledge to be able to publish a book, so I did what I would usually do – read, write, and teach myself as much as I could in order to be able to someday come up with decent material that I could say I had written on my own, without being influenced by anybody. After many months of practice and learning, I felt like I’d achieved what I wanted to, to a large extent.

So far, all I have is a book that I have written, and a few articles. I do not consider myself to be a professional writer, or anything close to it. You may be quite disappointed at this point, since at the beginning, after reading all that I have written, you were probably expecting me to tell you that I sold millions of copies of my book, or probably share my success story with you – well maybe sometime in the future that could be possible, but as of now I think I’m contented doing what I do. To be honest, I have not made a single penny out of my writing so far, and as much as it may seem sad, it really isn’t.

We are raised in a world which teaches us that money, success, fame and fortune is everything, and so, every step that we take reflects our greed for money and success and not the real thing which is creativity. Just look at the people around you, and you will not notice many individuals who seem to be living their lives with creativity as their goal. I believe that creativity in any form is an end unto itself, and if you do not get contentment out of your creativity, and you need things like money, fame and recognition as a means to your satisfaction, you are fooling yourself. When you perform an act of kindness, or you do something for someone else that changes their life in any way – the feeling of contentment you get is the real success. If you are waiting to be compensated in the form of money, praise, gifts or anything else, you will go on missing the point.

This is what I have learnt from all these years of experience. This is the success story I wish to share with you – the success story of no success. This does not mean that if you are focused on your creativity, you will not make money, gain success or attain other forms of material wealth. Money, fame and success are all by-products of creativity, and the day you recognise this to be the truth, you become spiritual and reach great heights.

This is what authentic Dharma is. This is what authentic religion and spirituality is all about. As I’m sharing my story with you, I would like to thank all of the great spiritual teachers, mystics, and writers who have contributed to my realisation of this truth. Also, it has only been a few weeks since I have started listening to H.E. Tsem Rinpoche, and I would like to thank him too, for contributing in every way possible to enlighten people’s minds, and help them onto the spiritual path.

As I conclude what I’ve written, I would also love to thank my parents, especially my mother for raising me, and putting in all the effort that she did. Since she is not in this world anymore, the only gift that is worth giving is the practice of spirituality which would help me benefit her and many others.