They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. There I was on a pleasant Goan evening right in the middle of a bustling flea market. The stall in front of me was nondescript yet alluring with bold letters inviting visitors to ‘KNOW YOUR DESTINY WITH TAROT’. I took the initial step with trepidation and curiosity, with the keenness to know what was in store for me. I entered the stall and met an elderly lady whose hypnotic and magical eyes belied her age. I took a seat right in front of her. She immediately asked me in a confident tone, “What would you like to know?” Well, this was my first time and I was a total novice at asking questions about my future. With all my inexperience and innocence, I gathered courage and came up with a simple question. “What do you see in my near future?” She shuffled her cards some three to four times and spread them in a circular shape, a total of five cards. They looked colourful and interesting, even magical and mystical. She seemed lost in the cards and this kind of gave me a mixed feeling. Was it good or bad? In any case I butted into the silence and asked, “So what do you see?” To this she answered, “My dear, I am happy to tell you that I see you getting married to your boyfriend, the one you are seeing now, in less than a year.”
This came as a surprise to me as I was unsure of my ongoing relationship and definitely wasn’t considering marriage anytime soon. The other things she said really appalled me. “I see a new beginning,” she said, “a beautiful one, but this comes at a price.” I was sold. “What beginning and what price?” I asked.
“I see you starting a journey that you have never taken before, a journey that will change your life and your life’s purpose, but at a price that you may have to pay now. The price is at the cost of your existing job. You may be asked to leave what you believe is your dream job, only to begin the real journey of your life.”
This kind of disappointed me. I loved my job as a Radio Jockey with a leading radio station; I was doing exceedingly well and there was talk of my being moved to prime time, which was like an indirect promotion. It was out of the question that I would be asked to leave. What journey was I going to start? This didn’t go down too well with me. However, with this I ended my reading and bid adieu to the mystical woman.
When I returned to my job, everything looked good, as it was. It continued in the same manner for a couple of days only for something strange to happen after that. In less than 10 days I was asked to leave from my present profile and this at a time when I was doing very well and hoping to shift into drive time shows. The project I was working on had moved to some other location and they didn’t need me any longer. This shattered me and my dream. That’s when the Tarot reader’s predictions rang like a warning bell in my head. Her predictions were coming true. I felt it deep in my heart. Four months from the time I got my first ever Tarot reading, I was engaged to my boy friend and was married after another three months.
Today I am happily married, leading a different but remarkable life in which I discover myself each day. Everything she predicted went right and I found it difficult to accept this, to even acknowledge it. After a couple of months I went back looking for her because the urge to know what she had left unsaid nagged me. She had mentioned a new journey. What could it be? I went back to Goa where I met her at the same place. Luckily for me, I met her just as she was packing up for Europe permanently. I reminded her that I had been there a few months ago and she had predicted everything correctly but with one undisclosed thread of events.
“You will discover yourself through your instinct and intuition. You are meant to do something related to foretelling the destiny of others. Your calling is to see the unknown.” Her prediction was still ambiguous. On the way back I continued to ponder over her words.
Life got back to normal as usual. I found myself a new job, was getting ready to move on with marriage and the rest, but there were sudden incidents that would bring me back to what the Tarot reader had predicted about my self-discovery. Two of my common friends got engaged; I had a nagging feeling about the eventual marriage and would often discuss the uncomfortable instinct with my husband. I strongly felt that their marriage wouldn’t last long. Since it was only a feeling, an intuition, I couldn’t take it beyond discussing it with my husband. My friends got married and three months later they separated. This didn’t come as a surprise to me for I knew something was wrong, my instinct told me so.
After a while I predicted India’s victory in a critical match, a victory which seemed impossible. Again it was my intuition, my sixth sense. It didn’t stop at this. I continued predicting big and small incidents as if my ability had suddenly assumed a mind of its own. A colleague of mine was going through a difficult financial situation; I predicted an unexpected sum of money for him, a windfall. Of course he didn’t believe me when I said help would come; I didn’t know from where or how, but I knew it would, and it did. Incidents like these would keep bringing me back to the Tarot reader’s prediction and that’s when it dawned on me that Tarot could be the missing link. Probably this is how I could foretell one’s destiny, heal one’s life through my knowledge, and show others the way. This is when my journey began.
I started working towards this new discovery, the discovery of Tarot. I knew the underlying power of Tarot but the success lay in becoming not just a Tarot reader but a good one. I dedicated my life to its understanding and study. I continued working but only half heartedly. I was convinced that Tarot was the big change and I had to master it; my destiny rested upon it.
There has been no looking back. I have excelled at my work as an expert on this subject and in fact Tarot has opened doors to more than what I thought predicting the past, present, and future was all about. It showed me the way to spirituality. Spirituality is about connecting with your real self, with the Being in you. I am yet to get there but the journey has begun. Tarot has opened the door to achieving greatness and success beyond the material wonders of life.
Around this time, Vipassana also happened to me. Vipassana is a scientific form of meditation which releases negative energy from your body and brings your biggest formidable opponent under your complete control, your Mind! I attended a ten day course of Vipassana, and this opened my third eye. I knew my purpose in life—to reach out to others and guide them to their destiny through Tarot. I studied the Science of Psychotherapy and Counselling and this equipped me with a deep and scientific understanding of the human mind and enabled me to understand my clients’ needs beyond just pure tarot reading.
Today Tarot is an intrinsic part of my life and my experience as Tarot Reader gives me the confidence and knowledge to write this book. It is not just a medium to predict the future but a different way of life. As a student and practitioner of Tarot I have learnt that there is more to an individual than just his/her future. As a Reader I don’t just predict the future for my clients but try to equip them, through my intuitive future forecasts, with knowledge of what awaits them and how they can shape their future with this foreknowledge. Tarot gets you to where you want to be. My experience over the years has shown me it is not just the readings that draw people back to me but the whole process of change that Tarot offers. Besides readings, Tarot gives you a new way to handle life by guiding you not only through predictions for the future but also by equipping you with the means to address this future.
The Tarot way encourages and enables a deep understanding of the self that no other medium does. Spirituality is this deep sense of understanding of one’s inner being. Tarot