Physiology and Psychology

Well, the exams went very well. I thought I had given you the results. I got the highest grade in all my courses and with the help of a curve needed to bring the class average up, in physiology, I ended up with the absurd grade of 105%. I am only taking physiology, psychology and ethics while the rest of the class has biochemistry to contend with too, so I guess I have an edge. Since what we are doing in class is very basic, I have been reading extra sections of the texts (we don't cover everything in them in our courses, for some reason). I have been really enjoying the world of EKGs - how they work, what they mean and what they can tell us about events in the heart. Of course, the honeymoon lasted for about 2 weeks. By this point, the facts are coming in so fast, it is almost getting overwhelming. How does one hold all this in these little heads we have? In my nightmares, I imagine scenarios when a patient in an emergency comes in and I don't remember what to do. I remember that we studied it and I had it perfectly when we did the exam but it was too long ago and I don't remember everything ...
Pysch is a real bag of tricks. Have you ever read any of Freud's theories? They are really off the wall, in some places. Still, one must give the man credit for being the first to enunciate in some systematic form, the workings of the mind. Even his daughter became a psychoanalyst and contributed to the field. I hear that some of Freud's earlier work was based on his observations of his daughter (and given what he wrote about psychosexual things, that must have been a really 'special' family!). Anyway, can you imagine what teatime conversation must have been at the Freuds' house?
Okay, so you can see what my life has come to consist of. Well, I guess that when we get to the hospitals, it will be all physical work and no more sitting in classrooms for 5 hours to come home to sit at a desk reading for another 5-6 hours.
Well, I better get back to the studying. It's 3:00 am in the morning here and it is raining outside. I love it.

What is this life so full of care, we have no time to stand and stare

I have been busy preparing for upcoming exams (Monday). In anatomy, the section we are being tested on is the head & neck - by far the most complicated and difficult. You are right: anatomy and histology are fascinating subjects and I can imagine myself spending not just one 3 and half month semester but a whole year studying just those ... and still not exhaust the depths of the subjects. Unfortunately my feelings with our compressed semester schedules is summed up in the words of a poet whose name I forget:

"What is this life so full of care?
We have no time to stand and stare."

A Body of Work -- a poem based on cadaver dissection

A Body of Work by Vijay Aswani

Posted July 6, 2001 HMS Beagle -- A Biomed Net magazine. Issue 106

The Smell.
That is the all-pervading reality, the memory signature of the
experience.
Our cadaver is located near a window.
Sleep deprived, tense and brow-beaten
We are leaned over an open Atlas
- our wet and frayed road map to the body.
Tired gloved hands push and tease in blunt dissection.
Intrusive, invading, irreverent.
Where is the nerve?
Eyes dart from Atlas to the gaping hole in the body and back to the
Atlas
again.
Outside, the flowers waved and danced in a gentle breeze
Carrying their seductive scent to any willing partners.
A hummingbird's wings blur in a silent hum as it hovers over a nectar
pot.
A butterfly lazes over a bush of flowers.
A riot of color, of life, of unhurried pleasure.
Accusing eyes gaze at the stiff, lifeless, colorless flesh.
We only have half an hour more to prossect the pelvic structures.
Will we lose our grade?
"You've cut the tendon! What are you doing?"
Large angry eyes pin their accusation on the one with the scissors.
Meanwhile, the cadaver says nothing.
Outside, a bird arrives on the telephone wire above the bush.
Her tail dips as she cooes her love call.
From a nearby tree, another answers.
Joyful flapping of wings tell the story of a happy union.
"Can you show me the ischiocavernosus muscle?"
The cold, expressionless voice of the mentor demands.
Uh . . . um . . . fingers prod and probe. Eyes are cast away from the
voice.
The tension was palpable even if the muscle and associated nerve were
not.
The cadaver says nothing.
The mentor walks away in silence.
We stare exasperated at this collection of nerves, muscles and blood
vessels.
This puzzle in a human body box
To be cleaned, dissected, exposing structures of interest.
Outside, the flowers danced and dodged in the wind
Nature and life, color and song, process and movement
In lazy summer sunshine.
Outside.

Vijay Aswani holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Bombay,
India, in 1992. In January 2001, at the age of 38, he decided to enroll in
medical school to work toward an M.D. He is currently teaching biochemistry
and studying medicine at the Medical University of the Americas, Nevis,
West Indies. This poem is what happens when a mature medical student
experiences gross anatomy after a life in biology and literature.

Hoping you pass the course with dignity

Well, I have exams on Monday in anatomy and histology and am in the throes of preparing a biochem exam to be administered Monday afternoon. Between the theory and lab exams, I am quite swamped and a little panicked. There is so much information it can be overwhelming. Ah, the joys of medical school! This is my rite of passage to the dream. I will endure and hopefully survive. Our histology professor put on the course syllabus as a last line: 'hoping you pass the course with dignity'. She is a small Tamilian woman from Christian Medical College, Vellore. In her first quiz, only 2 of the 18 in the class passed. I was one of them. In the second quiz, none passed. The quizzes don't count, however they don't forebode well for the upcoming Black Monday exam. It gives new meaning to her parting words on the syllabus.

first semester at medical school

I have settled back into the house and back into school. This semester is so busy I did not eat lunch at all last week. I am taking anatomy and histology and it has me running from pillar to post. My class schedule is: 08:00 to 11:00 am Anatomy 11:00 to 12:00 am Lunch (during which I prepare to teach biochemistry) 12:00 to 02:00 pm Histology 02:00 to 04:00 pm Biochemistry (which I teach)
In anatomy, we have lab twice a week - Mondays and Thursdays, instead of the lecture. We are five of us assigned to each cadaver. 3 of us work on one side and 2 of us on the other. Our group of 5 has decided to come in every morning and spend extra time from 7:00 to 8:00 am. In addition, we spent Saturday evening, from 4:00 pm to 10:00 pm working on the cadaver, with a 45 minute break for dinner. All this extra time is needed since the dissection takes time and we can never complete it and study it during the allocated lab time.
After all this, there is still the studying to do for histology (whose lab has not even begun yet) and some more studying of the clinical cases associated with anatomy. Needless to say, I am swamped with work. Of course, I am enjoying the many new experiences. Cutting a dead human being is the real initiation to medical school and I am happy to report that I am being initiated in full force.

On Sunday, I was so tired I didn't do anything. I had some coffee and a frozen pizza for lunch and that was all I ate all day. I hope I lose weight and given my schedule, I think I shall.

Amor Prohibido

 I was lonely.

I know: it sounds like the perfect setting (or excuse) for an act born of bad judgment. Her name was xxx. She was 33 and I, 58. This is our ‘story’.

I met xxx for the first time, I think, 3 years ago. My family and I had just moved to Buffalo, New York. For the first 4 years of marriage, my wife had been a stay-at-home mom, because our daughter was still little (5 to 9 years old, in thse years). The move to Buffalo was exciting for both of us. I was moving from working for a Clinic to being a professor at a University. I was going to be an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine & Pediatrics. I would practice medicine, teach students and residents and get some time to do research. My wife, Amy was excited too. She had always wanted to do a PhD in math and this was her chance. She had already been accepted into the program by the time we moved here.

Back to xxx. I came home one day from work and there was a shorter, black-haired, brown-eyed woman sitting on our couch with my wife. She had larger eyes and curly black hair that fell on her shoulders.

“Vijay! This is xxx. She’s in the math program with me.” Amy said this by way of introduction. xxx smiled and said ‘hi’. Amy was 42 at the time, and xxx looked much younger. I could not tell how much younger. She looked in her early 30s. From her appearance, she seemed Latin.

“Where are you from, xxx?” I asked.

“Oh, I was born here. But my parents are from --- (a country in Latin America.”

“Que bien! Gusto conocerlo.” I said, smiling.

“Vijay speaks Spanish, xxx.” Amy added.

Over the next 3 years, xxx would come over often. Mostly, Amy and she would sit together, chatting, or working separately on math in Amy’s office or the table in the hall. Sometimes, xxx would cook something (she loved to cook). She helped Amy clean the house a couple of times (“xxx loves to clean!” Amy would explain.) xxx always said ‘hi’ even when neither Amy nor Phoebe would acknowledge my return home. We exchanged a few words every now and then, sometimes in Spanish and sometimes in English.

Amy had other friends in the program, but xxx was the one that came over the most. In November, 2018, xxx had a car accident. The accident totaled her car. Fortunately, she was okay, except for some contusions. She came home.

“xxx! Let Vijay take a look at you! He is the best doctor I know. In fact, you should become his patient.” Amy was saying this to xxx as I stood in front of them. Despite our relationship falling apart, Amy had always maintained that I was an excellent doctor and my patients were lucky to me. She blamed my devotion to my patients for some of what destroyed our marriage.

Anyway, xxx became my patient. I treated me through her recovery from the injuries. I treated other issues that arose along the way. I would intermittently get texts from her with medical questions. This was not unusual however, as I allowed a lot of my patients to text me in this way. If I saw her at home visiting Amy, I would inquire about how things were going medically and we would have a little ‘office visit’ in our living room, with Amy acting as the chaperone.

Of course, our marriage was going from bad to worse. Towards the end, I would sit in my office in the basement of the house, where I slept at night as well. Amy and I spoke very little to each other. xxx was polite and caught in this awkward cold war.

Amy and I were divorced in January, 2020 after failed attempts at counselling. Amy and Phoebe did not move out until May, 2020. Phoebe was visiting her other mother in Wisconsin when Amy moved their things out and found her own place.

By then COVID was ravaging our country and the world. I volunteered as a doctor to help in New York City during the ‘surge’ – the explosion of cases there. I agreed to go to NYC for a week. When I mentioned this to Amy (xxx was visiting at the time), Amy asked, “when will you be going?”

xxx came up to me. Her eyes met mine as she said in a soft, pleading voice, “Don’t go, Vijay!”

Looking back, I cannot tell if she was concerned about the risk that I would be at working in with COVID patients in an overflowing, taxed system, or if she was concerned for her friend. Amy did not say anything. When I returned a week later from New York, the house was mostly empty. Amy had moved most of her things, furniture, bed, books, kitchen stuff and lamps out of the house.

Ironically, that first week a terrible loneliness set in. I say ironically, because for the better part of 2 years, we did not share much together. We had stopped sleeping in the same bed 3 years before then and when I was at home, I was in my little office in the basement. We cooked our meals separately and barely exchanged any words. Phoebe was a teenage by then, and shut herself in her room, on her computer with friends most of the time.

I walked within what seemed like a large house, picking newspaper off the floor, moving left behind items to the corners to tidy the place up a bit. The house was quiet and dark. Amy had taken the television with her. Before, the television was almost always on in the hall. Now there was silence.

“Vijay, are you going to church on Sunday? Can I go with you?”

I read the text on my phone in between seeing patients in a busy clinic. The message was from xxx.

“Of course, xxx! Do you want to come home and we ride there together, want me to pick you up, or will you meet me there?” I texted back.

xxx had come to church with my family and I when we went, several times. She was not regular, but then, neither were Amy and Phoebe. I tended to go regularly if I was not working.

Over the next 3 weeks, xxx would meet me in the church parking lot and we would go into church together. We attended the 9 am service. xxx preferred to meet me there because she felt she might run late getting to church. She did not ‘dress up’ for church, like Amy used to do. She came in jeans and a shirt with a winter pull-over.

The first time we went, I had to leave her after the service to pick up Phoebe. I promised her that I would buy her breakfast the following week. The next week, after church, we went to the Pancake House for breakfast. It was great to talk with her, going between Spanish and English. I got to learn more about her and loved spending time with her. I remember that first breakfast. When we checked into the restaurant, we were told there would be wait. They offered to text us when our table would be ready. It was a chilly morning, but we both had our jackets. We walked onto Main Street, and strolled down towards the Ellicott Creek. It was beautiful to see the little town of Williamsville with its quaint shops. xxx had been to the Creek before, but I hadn’t. As we strayed off the road into the Island Park, we chatted and saw the little rapids in the river. We smiled and laughed. It was easy to talk to xxx. Unlike my conversations with Amy, where I felt I had to step over landmines that could change the mood in a second, xxx was soft, easy going and seemed interested in what I had to say.

Our little walk was cut short by the restaurant texting us. We went back and had a great breakfast. We had eaten there before, with Amy and Phoebe along, after church. We had great conversation. She told me that in the future she would like to maybe teach math, using questions that were more interesting to girls and minorities, than the kind of questions currently used in classes and texts. I smiled at her enthusiasm and her vision. Here was someone who was a first generation immigrant to go to college, a female and from a Latin American country who was in the process of getting a doctorate… and in math, to boot. I was excited to see the kind of leader and impact she could have on more girls, more minorities getting into science and math because of her.

I ordered an order of gluten-free pancakes for Amy and for Phoebe. xxx mentioned she would pass by there after this, since we were close to their new place. After breakfast, she drove to Amy’s house and I drove home.

After that first week, I began to notice that I was developing romantic feelings towards xxx. It felt a bit odd. I felt in love. I didn’t think I could feel that way still, at my age. To me, she was beautiful, smart, passionate and had wonderful, selfless goals I was excited about. I looked forward to Sunday morning, worshipping with her in church and breakfast after. I had daytime fantasies of a life together with her. I thought of her as my object of affection as I listened to Latin rock music, ballads or merengue driving home from work.

Jose Jose has song that goes like this:

Mentiras son todas mentiras
Cosas que dice la gente
Decir que este amor es prohibido
Que tengo 40 y tu 20

Que yo soy otoño en tu vida
Y tu eres dulce primavera
No saben que guardo un verano
Que cuando te miro te quema

40 y 20
40 y 20
Es el amor lo que importa
Y no lo que diga la gente

I used to laugh at the song. I laughed because I thought that it was a clever way for this 40 year old guy to justify his affection toward a girl literally half his age. But now, I, a 58 year old guy was in love with a 33 year old girl. Why, when I was 40, she was 15. 15! What was I thinking? Amy and I had an age difference too. When we met, I was 50 and she was 37 – a 13 years difference.  Maybe I am attracted to younger women. But then, aren’t all men? Isn’t that more of a sexual attraction? I thought about that. I did find women most beautiful between 30 and 40. I found them mature, more beautiful than pretty, able to be good conversationalists and companions. I loved xxx because she seemed to share so many more of my values and culture than Amy and I had. She loved the Lord like I did. She had spoken of a previous long-term relationship she had and she had supported her boyfriend, took care of him and wanted to see him succeed in everything he did. In this, she spoke as someone who seemed more similar to the women of my culture. Perhaps Latin culture is more like Indian culture in this way than is American (Caucasian) culture. Perhaps all this was racist profiling.

Problem 2: xxx was Amy’s friend. I met xxx through my ex-wife. People might think she was the reason my marriage to Amy fell apart. In all truth, I did not develop romantic feelings for xxx until months after our divorce. Still, what a way to meet your future soulmate.

Problem 3: xxx was my patient! I had NEVER viewed a single patient in my past romantically. I am not blind. I have found my patients attractive, but there is a professional barrier and a clinical line I would never cross. It is unethical to date one’s patient. There is a unequal position of advantage a doctor has over his or her patient, with the intimate knowledge of their past medical history and the patient’s dependence on them for medical care. What would I do with that?

Amore Prohibido.

I remember reading that when Woody Allen was asked about his falling in love with a 27 year old girl that was an adopted daughter of Mia Farrow with whom he had a relationship before.

“The heart wants what it wants. There's no logic to those things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that's that.”

They have been married for over 20 years and still going strong. He was 62 and she 27.

After the second week of church and breakfast, I got a text one Friday.

“Vijay, I am sorry that I cannot come to church with you anymore. Amy is a little uncomfortable with this. She has not asked me not to go to church with you, but I don’t want to do anything to cause any distress to my friend.”

We exchanged a few texts in which I mentioned that I understood and would not to do anything to harm her relationship with Amy. They were friends first and I got to know her only because of that.

Shortly after that, with COVID cases rising in the area, church went ‘virtual’. By mutual agreement, I would text xxx before the services to check that she was up and attending. It was our way of mutually encouraging one another to attend services.

We continued to text each other in relation to medical questions. After one such text, xxx asked me if I would come to her home to pray over her apartment. She felt there was a presence of evil there that woke her up at night. She sounded scared. I had prayed with people in these situations before. I agreed to come over and shared a verse from Scripture with her. The night before I was to go over there, she texted me that she had a headache and would like to postpone the visit. I agreed, although wondered about the whole thing. That was that. I never did go over to her apartment.

That’s the ‘story’. Here it ends. Nothing actually happened. There was no physical contact. There was no sexting. There was not even any mushy talk. There were romantic fantasies (in my mind, anyway).

What if xxx had been older, or I younger? What if we had met in a different way? What if she was not my patient?

What if I threw all this ‘Amor Prohibido’ thing to the wind and did the ‘Woody Allen’ thing?

Well, a few things come out of this:

1.       I realize that I can still fall in love. I thought that with 2 marriages under my belt and being 58 years old, I was done. I guess not.

2.       I am lonely. What to do is not clear. What if love passes me by and I die alone? I feel alone and without a companion. Is this going to be the rest of my life? Will I be this eccentric single, old man with no life – a workaholic with nothing outside of work?

3.       What kind of love and life can a 58 year old man with diabetes and high blood pressure and cholesterol have? Would it be fair to visit this upon a woman? Do I have a right expect a companion who will love me, want to cook for and take care of me? I would give everything to her – love her, take interest in her life and career, provide all her financial needs and aim to settle her even after I am gone. Is this how this works?

4.       They say ‘You only live once!’ Am I being too cautious or over analyzing things? The Christian and Rational person in me sees this as untenable.

For now, it looks like my story with xxx is over. I am still her doctor and have not crossed any borders there.

To be honest, I do not know if she had or could develop romantic feelings for me. In one of her emails she mentioned something about seeing me like a father/brother/mentor. I suspected she was conflicted – torn between (maybe) having a relationship with me but maybe she sensed my attraction to her and was embarrassed and awkwardly trying to discourage me. I know she is lonely. I know she has no present relationship. I know she wished she was in a relationship with someone. She mentions she would love to be in a relationship with someone who has a career, versus an unsettled person.  She is in the PhD program. She is ahead of Amy, but still struggling with her thesis and does not have an end date in sight. This weighs on her.

xxx, I hope you meet someone and that it is magical. I hope he is a little older than you, well established in his career, able to provide for you and provide a house and home for you. I pray you graduate with your doctorate, get married and have children of your own. You have so much love and nurturing to give. I am proud of your plan to support women in STEM and particularly encourage people from ethnic groups not currently represented or under-represented in Science and Math. I know you can be a beacon, a teacher and a leader. I pray you meet a godly man who will support your dreams, be the rock in your life and that you both have many years of a happy, wonderful marriage with children.

 

 

Why (and how) I became a Christian

My name is Vijay Aswani. I am a 55 year old male physician, and an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University at Buffalo -- a State University of New York. I hold a Ph.D. in biochemistry and have worked as a professor of biochemistry and a research scientist before entering medicine.

Roots and Early Beginnings

I was born into an Indian Hindu family in Lagos, Nigeria. My family is Sindhi – my parents coming from Hyderabad, Sindh before the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947. My father had grown up abroad and my parents had been outside India ever since they were married.

During my childhood in Nigeria and Liberia, my mother taught me the Hindu prayers. At home, we worshipped the goddess Laxmi, but also prayed to Guru Nanak. Like many Hindu Sindhi households, we worshipped all the Hindu gods and goddesses, as well as followed the teaching of Guru Nanak and Jhule Lal.

I remember learning “He Paramjot Parameshwar” from my mother when I must have been around 7-8 years old. I remember that I was a very naughty child. I am the younger of two children, both boys. My brother was sent off to boarding school at the age of eight because the schools in Nigeria where we were at the time were not very good. Being two years younger, I was not old enough to go yet. As the only child left at home, with my parents missing my brother, I was very loved and got practically everything I asked for or wanted. I guess I was a little spoilt. I still remember being taken by my mother to visit some holy men who had come to talk in the Gurudwara. My mother asked the speaker to pray that I may improve my behavior. He looked at her and told her that “one day this boy may show you the way of God!” I was about 7 years old.

Boarding school and learning Raja Yoga
When I was 10 years old, my parents sent me off to India, to boarding school, with my brother. It was difficult for them to do, but they sent us so far away that we might have a good education. I remember that my first year in school, I cried a lot. Besides the contrast of a militaristic discipline and corporal punishment, seeing the poverty in India for the first time was overwhelming. In view of all this, I also came to see myself very differently from I had before. I had been the only child at home (since my brother was at boarding school). I was used to having my way. I developed a sense of self-loathing for my lack of self-control, my fiery temper and my preoccupation with materiel things. I had taken my loving parents for granted. I resolved to embark on a path of self-improvement.

While in boarding school, I subscribed to a postal correspondence course on Raja Yoga. I did all the lessons and learned about Hindu philosophy and soul consciousness from the course. When I went to Bombay during my summer vacation, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the school of yoga that I had done the course from existed in Bombay as well. My grand-aunt was a leading teacher in one of the ashrams of that very school! I was thrilled. We had many conversations about seeking truth, meditation and spirituality. I read more books and attended meditation sessions at the ashram. I read books by Swami Vivekananda and his teacher Swami Ramakrishna Paramhans and other spiritual masters in India.

My family in India was impressed by interest in spiritual matters at a young age. By then, I was about 14 years old. My grand-aunt believed I may have been the incarnation of a great soul – that is why I developed spiritual interests at a young age. I was intoxicated with Hindu philosophy. It sounded profound and I resolved to be a seeker of truth and develop soul consciousness through meditation and spiritual discipline. I became a vegetarian – a very difficult thing for me to do, since I did not like to eat vegetables.

Inner struggles
Outwardly, a lot changed. Others were impressed by my attendance at ashrams, my meditation and ability to quote the writings of the swamis and gurus I read. Inwardly, the battle for control of passions, lusts, anger and jealousy continued. I felt I knew what I should do: -- eliminate the vices and cultivate the virtues, practice self-control, be non-attached and achieve self-realization. These goals sounded right. I wanted them inwardly, but they seemed like the horizon – the harder I tried to reach them, the further they seemed. My grand-aunt – easily in her seventies at that time, and a practitioner of raja yoga for at least 4 decades told me that the more she lived, the more she saw that there was still more work to do on herself in realizing these goals. That discouraged me. If after so many years of discipline and practice of meditation, she was still working at it, what hope was there for me?

I began to be frustrated. I had started out to become a better person. All I had achieve, I felt, was an outward form of godliness. Inwardly, I was ashamed of my desires, secret jealousies, seething anger and resentments. I no longer gave in to outbursts as I had before, but I steamed within. I felt like a hypocrite. I resolved to work harder at it, since it sounded right. It had to work.

Confronting Christianity

That year, in the 6th grade, a student joined our boarding school. He was a Christian. Now, we were all in a Christian school. To me, Christians were people with western names like Robert, or Frank. They went to church, while I went to a temple or Gurudwara. Their holy book was the Bible while mine was the Gita. In terms of actual living, I felt we were all the same. There were good and bad people in all religions. Of course, I felt that us hindus were superior, since we were vegetarian, and strict practitioners did not drink alcohol or smoke tobacco. Our women dressed more modestly. We were not contaminated by the corrupt western lifestyle, as I saw it. This boy was different. He claimed to be able to talk to Jesus and that Jesus talked back! What an audacious claim, I thought, to imagine that a mere sinful, impure mortal could communicate with God that easily without years of penance, spiritual discipline or purifying rituals and meditation.

I was impressed with his life though. He seemed to radiate a joy I did not have. I was working hard to be spiritual. He did not seem plagued by the same struggles as I and yet, I was no more spiritual then he was in living. When I asked him about it, he told me about he believed that Jesus died on the cross to take away the sins of the whole world and that we could have a right relationship with God through Him. I did not understand. How could one man hanging on a piece of wood somewhere in the obscure middle-east take the sins of every person on earth in a few hours? That did not seem proportionate to the burden of sin. No! We had to work ourselves out of the cycle of birth and rebirth until we paid all our karmas and got moksha (deliverance) and nirvana (eternal bliss or state of nothingness). I mocked him. I got better grades in class than he. He was just stupid. Compared to the complex hindu philosophy I had read, which was deep, structured and tried to answer the questions of suffering, this sounded like nonsense. It was not profound enough. No, I thought, the answer cannot be here.

A decision

Later on that year, I got to go to a 3 day camp being held at a center outside our boarding school. It was a camp organized by the missionary organization called Scripture Union. I went because (1) I got to go away from school for a few days, (2) there was hiking, swimming and fun activities. At the camp, young students like me talked about their relationship with Jesus. I remember the campfire on the last night of the camping trip. Several students stood up and talked about the state of their inner lives before they came to Jesus. I blushed as these boys talked about the very struggles I was having, but was too ashamed to admit. How could they bare their souls like this? Everyone’s story seemed to end the same way: once they realized they were miserable and stuck in a quagmire of sin, they came to Jesus. At the end, someone came forward and asked us if anyone wanted to “ask Jesus into their heart”. I was confused. How do you do this? What would happen? Was I going to give up the path of the ancient hindu spiritual masters for this? In the end, I reasoned, what had I to lose? I was not making much progress on the path I was on. I reasoned I would try this. If Jesus could do for me what he done for these students and my friend at school, then I stood to gain the very goal I wanted all along. After all, I wanted to be a better person, to overcome my struggles with sin within my body and mind and spirit.

That night, someone led us in a simple prayer. It went something like this: “Lord Jesus, I thank you for dying on the cross to pay the penalty of my sins. I accept I am a sinner – born in sin and a slave to sin. Please forgive my sin and wash me clean. Come into my heart and life as my Savior and Lord. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

We went to bed soon after that. The next morning, we boarded the buses that took us back to our boarding school. I cannot quite explain what happened next. It was as if someone opened the windows of my heart and let sunlight and fresh air in. I had nothing to hide anymore. I understood that the reason I could not overcome my struggles and master my desires was because I was a slave to them in sin. I was not a holy soul who simply needed to realize who he was. I was a slave to sin and needed rescuing. And I had been rescued. My boarding school was located in a hilly village, with lots of open spaces and fields. I went for long walks and talked to Jesus. In the beginning, I thought I had to meditate on him. I asked my friend for a picture of Jesus so that I could picture him, just like I had statues and pictures of my hindu gods before. He explained to me that God was a spirit and was to be worshipped in spirit and truth. It took a while to get that concept, but once I did, it was liberated.

Knowing God
I did not need to be in a special place, or posture to talk to God. I could do it anywhere. I did. I felt God talked back to me, in my heart. I had found a heavenly father and a best friend.

I began to read the Bible. I told other kids at boarding school about what Jesus had done in my life. Looking back, we had kids with some real problems. We had kids who were abused at home, some with chronic sicknesses, some with psychiatric problems. In the next few years, we had a group of 15 children, ranging in age from 12 to 16 that had begun to believe in Jesus. Parents of non-christian children wrote angry letters to the principal when their kids wrote to them that they began to follow Christ. The principal was confused, since neither he nor his staff tried to make anyone follow Christianity. It was eventually traced to my friend and myself and we were warned. Of course, we did not listen. We felt we were not doing anything wrong. We were simply sharing our lives with our friends and fellow students.

Becoming a follower of Christ or a Christian?
Over the course of the next few decades, there were changes in my life. I finished high school and went off to college. I was drawn to science and research and went on to get a bachelors, masters and Ph.D. in microbiology and biochemistry from the University of Bombay, India. During this time, I attended a local church in Bombay that met for most of that time in the hall of a local school.

Through reading the Bible and discussions with others, I realized that Jesus did not come to change our names to ‘christian’ names. He did not come to change our culture – to make us eat with knives and forks or wear pants and shirts, if we wore dhotis and kurtas. He did not come to give us ‘western’ values. In fact, he was middle-eastern and probably had more in common with the culture of India I was used to.

What did my family think of all these changes? At first, my parents reasoned that this was a fad (like my Bruce Lee kung fu phase). Soon however, it was clear that not only was it not fading, but I was making important decisions based on my faith and commitment to Jesus. For example, when my british citizenship was cancelled (connected to the passing of an immigration act in 1971 in the U.K.), my family suggested that I go to India and apply for an Indian passport. Of course, the ‘easier’ thing to do was just fill out an application form for an Indian passport and lie with regards to place of birth and prior citizenship. After all, who would know? And documents like birth certificates could be falsified or obtained by bribery. I refused. My commitment to Jesus meant I could not lie. It took me three years to become a naturalized citizen of India. I was told that I would have to bribe officials to move my file along, that I would never be able to go through the whole process without lying or bribery. I did.

I was offered a seat in a medical college in south India, if I paid a capitation fee. I refused, even though I really did want to do medicine. My parents were appalled that I would make an important career decision on the basis of ‘principles’.

Changing religions?

Other concerns my family had was regarding why I was ‘changing my religion’. As I read the Bible more, I did not call myself ‘christian’ because that word meant the same thing to them that it had meant to me previously. I wanted to establish that my culture, my respect and honor of my elders and my way of life from a cultural standpoint would not change. My heart had changed. I described myself as a follower of Christ. Jesus was my Guru – just like others followed Radhasoami or Sai Baba.

There were conflicts over attending temple worship with them on Hindu holy days such as Diwali and Holi. I refused to participate in the house prayers in front of idols, or to eat the ‘prasad’ – food offered to the Hindu gods. This was viewed as an insult to my elders. It was an affront of their traditions. They were my elders. I was a young boy. How could I disrespect them by not obeying when they called me to the house worship? How dare I insult them in this way on auspicious occasions and holy days? Those were difficult times.

I loved my family and respected my elders. But the Bible clearly taught me that I was not to worship or bow down to idols or partake of food offered to idols. I tried to point out that I was only trying to be a good disciple of Jesus and obey his teachings and that I meant no disrespect or dishonor to my elders. There were times when I was told to choose between following them or following the Bible. Arguments were made that “all religions are the same” and that “the Bible does not teach you to disrespect your elders”. I cried many tears of frustration and pain before the Lord in prayer as I chose to obey the Bible’s instructions in the matter, while trying to reaffirm in every other, that I still loved and cherished my elders. It took years before the cumulative, consistent actions and my life on a daily basis convinced my family that I honored and loved them.

The present

Through the different phases of my life – child, student of science in university, scientist and now physician, I have met different challenges to my life in Christ. There were intellectual challenges to the existence of God, to whether the Bible’s teaching were true, to whether Christ and his teaching can claim exclusivity to God. There were family and society challenges – what is like to be a hindu follower of Christ who rejects Hinduism and yet does not accept the culture of ‘christians’ in an eastern culture. How does one live in the world between Christian culture and hindu culture without compromising one’s integrity of faith while not becoming culturally converted?

In the end, the Bible answered the questions of my heart. Here are some of the passages that have transformed my thinking and life. When the reader looks through them, he or she will see their connection to some of the experiences I have described above.

I am not ashamed of being a follower of Christ. The Lord Jesus is lover of my soul, the captain of my life and my leader. I am a disciple, a love slave and an indebted follower for life, forever. He is the foundation of my life, the fortress from where I fight life’s battles, my secret hiding place in the storms of life. He guards my heart. He fills my spirit with dreams, desires and visions that my life is given to fulfill.

I live in the real world. I hold a job, pay rent, participate in sports, music, watch movies, laugh at comedy shows and struggle with all the challenges of daily life as everyone else. However, just as the strength of a house is dependent on its foundation and the steel girders that hold its structure together, the Lord Jesus is that to me. It may not be evident when you see me in clinic or in the lab or in the supermarket, but scratch below the surface and it will become evident quite soon, where I come from.

The struggle within us:
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Romans 7:14 – 8:4
The ‘foolishness’ of the message of Christ:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;

the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

I Corinthians 1: 18 – 25
The Exclusivity of Jesus as the way to God

Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

John 10: 7 – 10
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:6

An invitation
I have an invitation and a challenge to set before you, the reader. What response will you make to what you have just read? The Bible suggests, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” This is my invitation – the same I received: taste. If you are willing to change your life for the better, I invite you to try praying the prayer I did. Here it is once more:

“Lord Jesus, I thank you for dying on the cross to pay the penalty of my sins. I accept I am a sinner – born in sin and a slave to sin. Please forgive my sin and wash me clean. Come into my heart and life as my Savior and Lord. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

What do you do next? I believe that God will meet with you – an astounding claim to make. You could seek out someone who you know who follows Christ and tell him or her what you have done. You could email me (vaswani@buffalo.edu or aswaniv@hotmail.com) and I will be glad to help you.

I end with this question: what is your response to this personal testimony to the message of Jesus? Please answer the question in your mind. Enunciate your response to yourself clearly.

What will you do?

Baptism in the Holy Spirit

 

From Liberia to India to Marshfield, WI

I became a follower of Christ around 1974 (my story is here). I was 12 years old. Born in a Hindu family, my exposure to Christianity until that time was very limited. The circumstances that led to my accepting the Lord Jesus into my life are these: My family lived in Monrovia, Liberia (W. Africa) at the time. In 1972, at the age of 10, I was sent to a boarding school in Panchgani in India.

St. Peter's School, Panchgani, India

Scripture Union -- the organization that organized the camp where I accepted Christ

My mentor was another kid in the 6^th grade, whose dad was a pastor in Bombay. My understanding of who Jesus was, what he did and said, what the church was about and what Christian life should look like, came from the pages of the Bible. Having not grown up in a Christian home or in a Christian country, the Bible was my source of information. In our sheltered boarding school world, where we had limited interactions with people outside the school campus, Christian fellowship took the form of a group of kids (from different religious backgrounds) who had accepted Christ, meeting together once or twice a week, praying, singing songs and reading the Bible.  

St Peters School, Panchgani, India

On Sundays, our school allowed us to attend the St. Peter’s church – the school’s affiliated Presbyterian Church. The congregation consisted mainly of residents of the boys’ and girls’ boarding schools and a few locals from the town.
While there, I attending a weekend camp held by Scripture Union – a UK-based missionary organization that reaches children with the gospel. Around a camp fire on the last night of the camp, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. The next day, we returned back to our boarding school in Panchgani. In that first year of being a Christian, someone had given me a copy of the Living Bible and I read it daily. 


Spiritual Life Center, Nasrapur, India, where I accepted Christ



Spiritual Life Center, Nasrapur, India, where I accepted Christ

Panchgani is a small town located 4,200 feet above sea level among the hills and mountains of western India. After I came to know the Lord, one of my favorite things to do was go for long walks alone in the hills and roads of the town, to worship and pray. I used to speak out my prayers aloud to the Lord and sing hymns and songs I had learned in church. There were many areas one could be alone in the mountains, and woods.

On Sunday afternoon while doing this, I was overwhelmed with God’s greatness, goodness and His love for me. I was speaking out, singing out songs I made up to praise Him and thank Him for His great love for me. At one point, as I sang and spoke, it was as if English was just not expressive a language enough to worship and describe how great He was and I suddenly broke out speaking in a new language. It rushed out of me with passion and feeling (Acts12:45,46). I stopped, wondering what had just happened. I had remembered reading about something like this in the Bible and went back to my dorm to look it up. I read Acts chapter 2. I identified with the disciples in that chapter. I believed I had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. From then onwards, I began to speak in tongues and worship in tongues in my private prayer times and long walks. After this experience, I got courage to tell the other believing children in our little group about what had happened to me. My mentor, Philip and myself began to pray for others in our group to similarly be baptized in the Holy Spirit as we had read the apostles had done (Acts 8:15, 16; Acts 19:6). Others began to speak in tongues as well.

Road in Panchgani, India

 

View from a hill in Panchgani, India

My favorite part of the Bible at that time was the letters in the New Testament. Living in a boarding school far away from home, letters were important to us kids (these were the days before the internet and email). We looked forward to mail call every Saturday afternoon, to see if we had got a letter from home. So naturally, I gravitated towards the personal tone of the letters in the NT. I read in the letter to the Corinthians ( I Cor. 14: 1-25) how speaking in tongues could be used for personal prayer and praise times.


St. Peter's Church, Panchgani, India



St. Peter's church, Panchgani, India



St. Peter's Church choir, circa 1975

I came to understand from Scriptures that God calls up to keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18) and that we would manifest His fruits (Gal. 5:22) and gifts (I Cor. 12:1; I Cor. 14:1) and that He would teach and remind us of Jesus’s words (John 14:16-17, 26). I continue to pray in the Spirit and seek daily to be filled with Him to show forth in my life, the love and power of the Lord.