If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir (25 page)

It is beyond the periphery of my expression to acknowledge the contribution innumerable people have made in my life. Just like the body is a colony of countless cells, my life is simply a congregation of the good done by others. This memoir, and my every breath, is an acknowledgment of their beautiful and bright strokes on the canvas of my heart.

My deepest gratitude to Mother Earth for patiently bearing me and providing for me. I'm indebted to every single living entity, for we all are interconnected and whatever we do has an impact on everyone else. The bounty of love and peace bestowed on me by the Universe is, therefore, a direct result of the noble acts of the people around me.

There are those who taught me what I needed to learn, who forgave me for my mistakes, who loved me immensely and who supported me unconditionally; I'm grateful to you.

It is not possible for some words on a page to recognize the contribution of everyone in my memoir. Nevertheless, I must highlight those who have worked incessantly to make this book a reality for a bigger cause.

Writing is not my forte. I realized this after I was done writing the first draft of my memoir, which, to be honest with you, read more like the operating manual of a microwave oven than a book because I had simply documented the events of my life. What's even more noteworthy, I thought I had done a good job. But then it went into the hands of Ismita Tandon, an adorable person and my first editor, who helped me transform the manuscript. Thank you, Ismita, for your unwavering confidence in Swami and his work.

I was considering self-publishing my memoir when Ismita sent the manuscript to Rukmini Chawla Kumar, a commissioning editor at Harper Collins India, who expressed her interest in publishing it. I thought the editing was near done, but then Rukmini edited the manuscript with an uncanny attention to detail and worked her magic. If there's a literary equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, she did exactly that. Thank you, Rukmini, for doing the wonder only you could do.

Anju Modgil in Canada deserves a special mention for diligently going through each and every word of my early draft and raising flags wherever more clarity was needed. Thank you, Anju, for your relentless enthusiasm and unparalleled devotion.

I would like to thank PB, Oswald Pereira, Navjot Gautam, Harpreet Gill, Suvi Gargas, Meenakshi Alimchandani, Kaley Belakovich, Shweta Gautam, Manik Gautam and Kanishka Gupta for their comments. And my gratitude to the two swamis, Swami Parmananda and Swami Vidyananda, who listened to parts of my memoir and gave important feedback. My heartfelt thanks to Ganesh Om for his profound and insightful remarks.

My thanks to the awesome cover designer, Alexander von Ness, and to the celebrated artist, Min Wae Aung, for granting us the permission to use his painting for the cover. Thanks also to Bonita Shimray at Harper Collins for further creative input in the cover design. My gratitude to Rajan Sharma for funding and managing the artwork.

I would like to thank the sales and marketing team at HarperCollins, notably Sameer Mahale, Iti Khurana and Hina Mobar, for their priceless inputs.

This is not all though. To ensure this book reaches more readers, a few other people offered much assistance. In particular, my gratitude to Sanjeev Madan, TR Ramachandran, Sarala Panchapakesan, Neeta Singhal, Prasad Parasuraman and the Unnati Foundation, Bangalore.

Finally, none of this would have been possible without Vivek Dhume, who provided generous and unconditional financial support for the whole endeavour, and Narender Anand, who executed it flawlessly. Thank you, both. Swami's indebted.

Now you know what I mean when I say that this book, and my life, are a result of the good done by others.

Om Swami is a mystic who lives in the Himalayan foothills. An advanced yogin, Swami did thousands of hours of intense meditation in complete seclusion in Himalayan caves and woods. Prior to renunciation, he founded and ran a multi-million dollar software company with offices in San Francisco, New York, Toronto, London, Sydney and India. An Australian national of Indian origin, Swami completely renounced business interests a few years ago to pursue a full-time spiritual life.

Om Swami has a bachelor’s degree in business and an MBA from Sydney, Australia. You can connect with him on his blog,
omswami.com
, read by millions all over the world.