I came to this teaching the way most people seem to — through a problem I could not fix on my own.
By the time I was in my mid-fifties, my life looked, from the outside, like it was working. I had graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. I had worked across India, the Middle East, and Europe before settling in California in the mid-1990s. I had made partner at a top-four management consulting firm, then left to start my own practice. I had a marriage I valued, two children I adored, a successful career, a home in the heart of Silicon Valley.
And underneath all of that, a restlessness I had carried as long as I could remember.
Each promotion had brought a brief lift, then the old pattern returned. The next milestone. The next version of success that was always just out of reach. I had been running a strategy my whole life — build more, achieve more, secure more, and peace will follow — and I was beginning to see, in moments I tried not to look at directly, that the strategy was not working. It had never worked.
* * *
What finally got my attention was an unexpected medical scare.
A routine scan for back pain showed something the radiologist could not immediately rule out. There were four weeks of follow-up tests before the result came back as benign. They were quiet weeks. I went to the office, met clients, gave recommendations. Inside, something had changed.
For most of my adult life, I had been operating on the assumption that time was abundant. Enough years to grow the business. Enough time to become more present with my family, more honest with myself about what mattered. The four weeks of waiting made it obvious that this assumption was not safe.
When the all-clear came, the relief was real. But it did not put me back where I had been. I felt as though I had been given extra time and could not afford to spend it on the same patterns.
* * *
What I had been postponing, all along, was a conversation with my own tradition.
I was born in India. My grandmother spoke about Vedanta the way other people discuss the weather. My mother and aunts quoted the Bhagavad Gita when giving advice. I had always meant to look into these teachings properly. Someday, when there was time.
A friend mentioned a teacher who lived in the hills above Berkeley — a clinical psychologist who had spent two decades studying with Swami Dayananda Saraswati, one of India's most respected Vedantic masters. I had not thought of myself as a spiritual person. But I was honest enough to admit that nothing else had closed the gap between how my life looked and how it felt.
So I went.
What followed was three years of slow, patient work. Of sitting in a small living room with a teacher who refused to give me easy answers. Of being asked questions I could not answer and being made to sit with the not-knowing. Of discovering that almost everything I had believed about who I was, where peace comes from, and what I had to fear, was wrong.
What I found there was not a new belief system. Not a technique for managing stress. An understanding — simple, ancient, and unsettling — about what I am, and what I am not. That understanding came from the ancient Indian scriptures, including the Bhagavad Gita, read through the lens of Advaita Vedanta. The scriptures are ancient. In my experience, they are the most relevant body of work I have encountered.
* * *
I am writing this in 2026. Though my consulting practice is still active, a considerable portion of my time now goes to studying and teaching the Gita and Vedanta in small groups.
The restlessness that brought me to that small living room is no longer running my life. The fear of running out of time has loosened. I have not arrived anywhere. I am still a work in progress. But the direction is clear, and for the first time in my adult life, the direction is enough.
I have written this app for the person I was at fifty-five. Certain that something was off. Certain that if I could just find the right framework, I could fix it.
If that sounds like you — even a little — you are in the right place.