Shounak was born and raised in Kolkata, a bustling city in India. Ever since he was a child, he has been fascinated with the cosmos and our place in it. From a young age, he found solace in the quiet moments of stargazing, and contemplating our place amid such immense magnitude of empty space.
The vast night sky taught him to experience the stillness which is present as the background of ever-changing movements in the Universe. This sense of stillness and wonder inspired him pursuit of knowledge and self-discovery, leading him to delve into the ancient teachings of yoga and meditation.
After working as a content creator and pursuing theatre acting, one day he realized that he was chasing someone else’s dream. The passion and career that he considered to be his own was merely to fit in with the society. He decided to leave his city and started living in an Ashram, which allowed him to fully immerse himself in a spiritual community, dedicated to the practice of yoga and meditation.
It became a valuable experience of immersing himself in the practice and teachings of these ancient traditions which helped him. He gained a deeper understanding of his own desires, fears, and suffering, as well as those of others, through periods of intense activities, conducting classes, meditations, and self-reflection.
Through it all, he learned to embrace the unchanging stillness and silence that lies at the core of all beings, as a peaceful backdrop to the chaos of existence.
As he suddenly got chicken-pox, he was kept isolated in a hut in the ashram. It was far away from the epicenter of activities and people. Those 16 days of isolation and sickness were life transforming for him because it was for the first time he stopped to pursue seeking. He was exhausted with spirituality and all the activities related to the seeking of ultimate happiness or liberation.
In this stopping, the natural noticing of the nature of awareness started shining. Earlier, he considered awareness to be a ‘state’ that is experienced from time-to-time. And to help achieve that state, kriya yoga, meditations, and intense selfless activity was needed. And if one’s personal sadhana is successful and the energy reaches its peak, then the experience of ultimate bliss will be attained. This view completely changed for Shounak during this time of isolation and sickness.
Suddenly he realized that Awareness simply IS. And that all his seeking was based upon the belief to be a separate seeker, seeking something which he did not have any clue about. He became absolutely open to this not knowing. He no longer could believe that awareness is an objective experience that appears and disappears. Instead he noticed that this Awareness is not separate from what he considers himself to be. One evening as he came out of the room and stood in the balcony, he could not call himself separate from the tree which was swaying, the breeze, the golden sunlight which was spread across, the environment surrounding him. Though these were different happenings and movements, a deep acceptance of the underlying oneness started being present . There was a presence of extreme sense of lightness, beauty and love. It was not an earthshaking experience, but rather the most mundane and simple experience.
So after years of traveling and experiencing different walks of life, he got pulled to the teachings of Advaita, which is commonly known as the non-dual teaching. An understanding that is considered to be the the crest jewel of the Vedas, where the teaching directs the seeker to the one common and shared underlying Reality of the entire existence. He decided to step-out of the ashram, and not live a secluded life with a secluded goal. There was no longer any personal mission, rather life became a celebration.
He is currently settled in the USA with his wife. He is still speaking to people in his spare time and wishes to keep himself available to people who are looking for guidance in their inner wellbeing and spiritual journey.
“When everything
in this Universe is moving
in-sync,
how can your life
be out-of-sync.”
— Shounak Mukherjee