Dear Reader,

Welcome to DrChirban.com! As a respite from your busy day, I invite you to peruse the contents of this website. But before you roam freely in the interviews, press releases, and other news, I would like to mention a few key ideas to aid you not just in navigating the site, but importantly, in making your own voyage of self-discovery.

As I have suggested at length in True Coming of Age, I see life as our voyage, our quest for meaning and search for fulfillment. But because there are usually immediate demands and goals that preoccupy us, we can easily ignore the vessel for our voyage our preparation for the trip, our means for traveling the sea.

How fulfilling our voyage will be depends less on the weather at sea (the circumstances we encounter in life) than it does on the sturdiness of the ship (our personal readiness). The strongest winds and biggest storms will rarely steer a sturdy ship off its course. I have found that if we are anchored in our True Self and Critical Connections, grounded in our innate qualities and centering relationships, then we are ready for most any challenge.

What I mean is that our True Self and our Critical Connections are the intricate parts that fit together to create a seaworthy vessel. The rudder, for steering, determines our direction, much like our connection to the True Self establishes the direction we want to take on our voyage. The hull, the body of the ship, holds our precious cargo, that is, the body of our connections; we build between our open heart and others. The mast supporting our sails represents our resolve to catch the Spirit of our ship. With a strong relation to Spirit, based in our faith, we open our sails and move steadily towards our destination of fulfillment. The bow and the stern connect our many parts, assuring integration and establishing equilibrium that keeps our ship from tipping over in strong winds. With such a ship in place, we are ready to meet the challenge of the waters we confront.

All these elements rudder, hull, mast, bow, stern are necessary for a ship to get where it wants to go. In the same way, a strong relation with our True Self and Critical Connections is absolutely vital to us getting where we want to go. To discover the True Self we must understand and develop not only our knowledge of our self, but also our connections with others and our spiritual center. By attending to each element to the best of our ability, we will arrive at our destination of a meaningful and fulfilling life.

To get started on our voyage there are many questions to answer. How can we tell what kind of a boat should be constructed for our voyage? Will the boat we construct be a flimsy raft, susceptible to capsizing at the slightest trouble, or a ship built for the toughest seas? And what happens once we build our ship? Will we decide, despite our labors, to keep our boat safely in dry dock, never venturing out onto the water? Will we take on too much and find our self engulfed by a great wave or caught in a typhoon? Or will we construct a vessel as best we can, determined to prepare ourselves for a voyage into unknowns.

These are the questions integral to our True Coming of Age; we debate them as a way of preparing for our voyage. In building our ship as best we can, we will find our connection to the True Self. If our ship gets off course, by understanding our True Self we will be able to adjust, see what went wrong, and set out again.

I wish each ship calm tail winds and a fascinating course, hoping that each will reach his or her destination and experience True Coming of Age. It is truly within the reach of each of us.

Bon voyage!