I come from a very ardent, pious, orthodox, Bengali, Hindu family. I am going to share with you how I started my walk with Christ, how I came to know Him and how he has changed me. From my childhood I was very much fascinated with the stories that my mother used to read to me, with the stories she would tell from the epics of the Vedas and Upanishads and mythological stories about gods and goddesses. I was very much fascinated about them and I wanted to be like them, to build up character as they had. As I grew up as I was going to school as I was meeting with my friends, I had all those things in my mind and I wanted to be someone who would like to have a strong faith in Hinduism. I used to have debates with others on the facts of the Hindu epics like the Mahabharata and Ramayana. 

One day what happened when I was age of 13-- I heard about Jesus. Actually my parents—they heard about Jesus and they took a decision of accepting Jesus. They told me also to accept Jesus, because they thought because they had accepted Jesus, I should follow their steps because I was doing so when I was with them—they told me to follow the rituals my mother had done in front of the gods and goddesses. So one day I said to Jesus, I was going to do the same. But at the time I said, “No, I am not going to accept or worship a foreign god.” Jesus-- I heard stories about Jesus, I heard he was a Palestinian god. He was a Jewish God, a Jewish person who started Christianity. So to my concept, he was a total alien, a total foreign god. 

Then one year passed. I just started reveling. I told them, “You do anything; you even stop my food, my clothing—I don’t care, I’m not going to follow Jesus with you.” But in between this time, I like to tell you, though I was a small kid, I had a big head. I used to read a lot, I used to read to by people, and I had a few mentors who used to teach me on communism. They used to talk with me and they were those kind of people—the mentors--who used to believe in atheism, those who used to stuff my head with all their stuff. And I was a really a book worm who always like to read and hear stories. So I was 13 years of age, but with a head of 30 years. 

Now I had a sloka from the Vedas: “From untruth take me to truth, from darkness to the light and from death to eternal life.” I read this because our great, great man of Bengal, Vivekananda, he introduced this sloka to the whole world and he himself used this and he started a whole brand new movement. Now this very much attracted me because of Vivekananda. I really used to think on this sloka. It really, really touched me and I started to think that yes, I can be a god, that god is present in me. A Brahmin said to me, “I am god. Everything in this world is god, everything.” 

One day, a man gave me a New Testament. He came to talk with my parents and gave me a New Testament. He said, “Well son, I understand that you know much about Hinduism and you know much about Jesus. But have you really read about Jesus? I see you have lots of books and have much knowledge, but have you really read about Jesus?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “You have read stories about him, but the main book that speaks about Jesus is the Bible. Have you read it?” I said I had not read it. So he gave me a New Testament written in Bengali. And I started reading, and I read, and read. I finished it once, I finished it twice, I finished it a third time. A few things I really got from the NT. Remember I told you that the concept I used to follow was the sloka I told you about. I used to pray that. In the Bible I found Jesus was saying, “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the light. In Hinduism there is a quest a long quest: “Take me from untruth to truth. Take me from the darkness to light. Take me from the death to the eternal life. And here was someone saying, “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, and the light of the world. I was astonished. I never found this in any of the gods of goddesses or any of the gurus who ever said, “I am the light, I am the way. And the truth. And the life.” 

And I think I will take you with me. The quest is still there. Though we think Brahma loves me, but still there is a fight within us—we still think we need a god. Christ is here to fill that void. Someone has said that we have a god-shaped void inside of us. Jesus is the answer to that. He is the life, the truth and the way, and He is the light of the world. If you are still praying that same thing—that sloka, then I tell you receive Jesus because he is the life truth and light of the world. Jesus is the one who will take you from untruth to truth, from darkness to light, and from death to life. This is my story.

A.C.