The Long Pilgrimage of the Heart: How India Led Me Back to Christ

The Source Is One

A journey from Kyiv to India, and back to Christ

I was born in 1972 in Kyiv, part of Soviet Ukraine at the time. Religion was not completely banned in the USSR, but it was not encouraged. It existed quietly in the background, for those who wanted to follow. Otherwise — going by the Communist Party tutorials — it barely existed in the Soviet Union; it was simply ignored by the ruling party.

Despite this quiet ban on Christianity, my father’s family was religious. Perhaps for a reason. My grandmother lost her husband in 1941. He was mobilised when the Second World War started, and shortly after he was killed — not by the Germans, but by the Stalinist battalions kept behind the front line.

When my father’s sister reached 17, she decided to become a nun at the Kyiv Pokrovsk Monastery. She left the house with a tiny backpack of personal belongings and never returned to the worldly life of her maternal home. I was not even born at that time.

When I grew up, we visited her at the monastery regularly, and as a young boy I was always surprised how quiet the place was — peaceful and serene as a blue sky. She stayed in a small room full of icons and religious books. The presence in that room was very noticeable — like a quiet stream of something tender and beautiful flowing in the background. She was always very happy to see me, smiling at my every visit, always feeding me with simple monastery food and lovingly scolding me, from time to time, about my lack of interest in formal religion and ritual. And I was too young to feel any interest in religion or spirituality. I was a normal boy with normal interests: football, reading, and later on — rock music. I loved rock. We formed a band at school, and I practised guitar all the time — long hair, playing day and night. The guitar was, for me, a way of expressing myself, my teenage worries and hidden emotions. It was my escape. It was my religion.

The Search

Then at 21, a musician friend lent me a book on Indian spirituality — it was Sri Aurobindo’s book. I started reading with interest, seeing unknown words for the first time: prana, shakti, purusha, kundalini. I did not understand a thing. But I liked the sensation I got while reading it: some invisible light, glares of something ethereal seemed to surround the book, and it felt wonderful and new. Shortly after, the same friend suggested I learn to meditate with a mantra. A Transcendental Meditation course was available at the time, and I went and received my mantra and instructions. I started waking up at 5am to recite it. I was barely able to keep practising — drowning in sleep as I recited — but it was a nice, deep feeling. It was a meeting with my unconscious mind. And it led me further in my search, until I found Osho.

When I read Osho’s first book, I felt my body melting and relaxing as I read — something new and unusual I had never experienced before. As in my waking state, gaps between the thoughts began to happen, and my body relaxed tremendously, because my mind was slowing down too.

I started attending Osho seminars, which were called “groups.” Many became true revelations — new, deep experiences and openings. One was organised by Zahira, a German lady who had spent 17 years with a Sufi Master from Turkey before moving to Osho, who told her to lead the Sufi groups. We breathed, whirled, did zikr, sang and opened our hearts. This is how I met Sufism. It was a different path. It had a different vibe, a different smell to the energy — calling, mysterious, promising. I was immediately drawn into it, deeply and totally. The music of Omar Faruk Tekbilek helped; I could feel those Sufi vibes in his music, as if the brotherhoods spoke to me through it. Then, in 1998, I decided to go to Turkey and meet my first Sufi Sheikh — Abdul Kadir Tayyari. I travelled by bus to Istanbul, then Ankara, and then local disciples of the Sheikh drove me to the dargah in Eastern Turkey, close to Elazig, next to Harput mountain. It was a Qadiriyya tariqat — a little different from what we had been doing at the Osho Sufi seminars with Zahira: more traditional, more Islamic, more structured. I spent two weeks at the dargah, taking part in communal zikr and sitting in the presence of the Sheikh. It was a beautiful time, and I returned to Kyiv.

After this first period of spiritual exploration, I began visiting my aunt at the monastery again. She knew I had started going to different meditation groups, and that I had gone to Turkey to meet a Sheikh. But she never condemned me, never scolded me for moving away from the Christian faith — not a single word of criticism slipped from her lips. Perhaps she knew that searching was important for me, and that nothing could stop me.

The following year I travelled to India and spent nine months meditating and working at the Osho ashram. I was completely drawn into the spiritual search, and when I returned I brought back not only bags of the most beautiful-smelling incense sticks, but also many new experiences I wanted to share with other people. I decided I would run the seminars myself — I had received proper training in Pune, and I was ready to teach others. How naive and mistaken I was. Some seminars were enjoyable and light; others felt heavy and unsuccessful. Everything depended on my state, on the people in the group, even on the astrology of the day. After the difficult ones, I felt a negative energy build up, and I would stay in, trying to digest it and move on. In those moments I went to my aunt at the monastery, and after spending time with her I always felt lighter and happier. The quality of her presence was unique and healing. She was always in a state of prayer — beads in her hands, or the holy scriptures open before her. Once I opened the door to her room and caught her smiling face for a moment, and half my worries dropped away on the spot. By the end of a visit I was a new person: renewed and light, full of energy and hope again.

It was a purification by prayer and faith.

Coming Home

Many years have passed since then. I travelled to India many times, and found another Sufi teacher in Northern India who became my guide for ten years — the most beautiful years of my life. After my Sufi Master passed away, I started going to Tiruvannamalai, to Sri Ramana Ashram. Somehow, there, I was able to find the same energy I had felt in the presence of my Sufi Master. Sitting beside the Virupaksha cave always reminded me of the long meditations with my Guru — I felt very deep, very still, completely absorbed, as if his physical body were disappearing.

Then we started Bhagwan Incense. The name is Sanskrit — Bhagwan, the Blessed One — and I chose it with love, for the power and the blessing it carries. But I never meant the brand to belong to a single faith. Cosmic. Gracious. Blissful — but not sectarian. I have always believed that God is one. The paths and religions are many, but the source is one. Pure Advaita Vedanta, or Wahdat al-Wujud — whatever you prefer to call it.

After 35 years of spiritual searching and travelling in India, I came to a deep appreciation of my Christian roots. It happened naturally, as I revisited the spiritual experiences of my life and started drawing some conclusions — like the one above, about the unity of God. I also realised that, in the search for truth, I had to travel very far away — to India and many other countries — yet the essence of spirituality is the same everywhere: love, compassion, acceptance and divine grace. I came to believe that the message of Christ is truly unique. This is the highest teaching of all: simple, yet difficult to follow. It is the crescendo of human spiritual evolution, the vibration of cosmic Divine Love. There is nothing higher in this world than love, and “God is Love” are not simply words, but a reflection of the true reality of existence. All the Sufi Masters I met, and many of the Advaita Vedanta masters too, pointed to the spiritual heart as the point of connection with God — and to love as the fuel that carries us into His presence.

The Collections

As with everything I do, I decided to express my gratitude and awe in something I could make. So I created three Christian spiritual collections: the Christian Sacred Incense Collection, the Biblical Sacred Incense Collection, and the Virgin Mary Devotional Incense Collection. Yes — you will find incense sticks from India inside them. But that is how my life has been: everything interconnected and interwoven, because the source is the same.

Please read the descriptions of the incense in each collection. We have tried to convey our own understanding of Christianity, and of the mission of Christ, in the products we created. These are not simply scents. They are the stories of the Old and New Testament, the life of Christ, his service to humanity, his selfless sacrifice for the good of us all — his love of God, and his trust.

I hope you will enjoy the scents, and feel the presence of the One who enlightened humanity over 2,000 years ago — whose spirit is alive and with us, and within us, in our hearts.

Love and Blessings,Eugene