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The Financial Express
November 21, 2003
Beyond Business

Mystic Minister
Rajiv Banerjee
 
Engage yesteryear actor and today's politician Vinod Khanna in a conversation, and you get a feeling that here is a fairly contented man. When you quiz him about that impression, he agrees. "I am right now content with what I have achieved, and have arrived at a balance between the soul and mind," he says. But, in the same breath he adds that he's satisfied with life not because of the successes he's achieved. "My time with my master enabled me look at the spiritual side of life and helped me acquire a different outlook towards life", says the Union minister of state for external affairs. 

Mr Khanna was drawn into spiritualism early on, and annual pilgrimages with his family to Rishikesh and Haridwar only added to his interest. He is in fact known to have read Paramhansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi in just one sitting, only to discover later - with some help from a regression therapist, while in the US - that he had been a disciple of Yoganandaji in a previous birth. It was this book, which led him to pursue meditation, particularly transcendental meditation, with the suave gent later turning to J Krishnamurthy's discourses. 

It was a desire to understand spiritualism that led the film star Mr Khanna to Osho Rajneesh's ashram in the early '80s. When he met Osho, he immediately realised that his search for a guru was over. "Osho's stress on witnessing the Self changed my life. Therapies and practices help you realise that the observer is the observed," shares Mr Khanna, a trifle mystically. 
In 1974, well before other celebs had hit headlines for actively embracing spirituality, Mr Khanna gave it all up and took sanyas (monkhood). This was a man who was ruling the silver screen at the time and was even tipped as one who would dethrone the Big B from his mantle. Doesn't the minister ever consider heading off to a forest or the Himalayas, perhaps, to immerse himself in dhyaan? Now, interestingly, Mr Khanna dismisses this notion completely and offers a refreshingly modern take on spirituality. "Spiritualism is misunderstood. It is not about renouncing your worldly responsibilities but reaching out to yourself even when you are committed to your duties. Be in the world yet be out of it".
It was in 1986 that he returned to Bollywood, marriage and a regular family life (with children and all). His political career too is on a roll presently, with a ministerial stint behind him and him being well on his way in his current term. In response, Mr Khanna explains that he returned with complete self-acceptance and today, he says, he can also accept others easily. 
Probably, this ability to understand spirituality in its entirety has come from so much water flowing under the bridge. "Everybody is spiritual in one way or the other," Mr Khanna continues, "We just drift away, getting caught in worldly commitments. There has to be a balance between the mind and the soul," he reiterates. He's balancing it all pretty well, it seems. For, today he claims that he is happy with what he has, and there is no craving for more. "Over the years, I have achieved what I wanted. There is no craving for more money, power or success. Right now the attempt is to share the experiences that I have undergone," he smiles.