At the age of 29, he was broke and unemployed. He had lost all his money in the stock market. The only thing he was left with was his ability to play with words. Having worked in a newspaper and a magazine on alcohol, he felt the solution to his problems could be writing a book. He went to a publisher friend for help, only to be told that the publishing house doesn’t publish fiction.

This was the turning point in the life of Ruzbeh N. Bharucha, whose books The Fakir and The Fakir: The Journey Continues, rekindled the faith in many. The author, journalist and documentary filmmaker, whose latest book The Aum of All Things was released recently, feels one can’t “get into” spirituality. “You can’t find your master, your master finds you,” he remarks.
He believes being unemployed was the starting point of his journey into spirituality. Considering that he had worked in a magazine on alcohol, the publisher friend suggested Ruzbeh work on a book on “spirits”. “For the next 20 minutes, we both were talking about spirits (he about alcohol and I about the supernatural spirit) until he suggested including a chapter on hangover. I casually replied, ‘Do spirits too have hangover?’ and we suddenly discovered we both were talking about different things,” he recalls. But then the idea of writing on the supernatural clicked and stayed with Ruzbeh.
He started meeting friends who were “mediums or channels”. “I studied about how everything works and one day started getting messages,” says Ruzbeh, who believes that Sai Baba of Shirdi was connecting with him. The Fakir series was the outcome.
Though written in a fictional format, the books have personal stories. And thus, when he had to take his journey forward with the third book, he didn’t want to disappoint readers with a non-personal account. “When I was thinking about what to write on, I was taught a particular meditation exercise, which I believe Baba taught me,” he says, adding that he never takes himself seriously. “Because I never know if I’m getting a message or if it is just the mind that is working.”
But soon after his dream, he met a friend who told him about a sage in Delhi who teaches a particular meditation technique. “I discovered that he was talking about the same technique that I had been taught in my dream. The desire to meet the sage grew,” says Ruzbeh, and adds that the genesis of The Aum Of All Things was that technique, his meeting with Bapuji (the sage from Delhi), and questions on spirituality from his five-year-old daughter.
This meditation technique, he says, is important because it has the power to bring about a cosmic change. “The main focus of the technique is not just self-growth, it is about affirmations that you leave into the cosmos and pray for the well-being of all — Om Tat Sat,” he says.
The book tries to find answers to complex questions in life. “It emphasises how material attachment is not going to help. We all know we are going to die and won’t take even a rusted nail with us after death. You come with your karma and you go with your karma — that is what the book talks about,” he says and adds that it also gives readers an insight into how one can manipulate the five elements within themselves to increase the akash tattva (the ether element) that has the power to solve many problems.
Ruzbeh says that during his rendezvous with Him, he has discovered that He is quite funny and doesn’t dictate. “He would never tell you to quit smoking or not to have non-veg. He would tell you to lead your life in a way that makes you feel happy. He doesn’t make rules.”