Author’s Note:
This piece includes descriptions of childhood sexual abuse, dissociation, suicidal ideation, violent ideation, and spiritual warfare. I’m naming these experiences plainly because they were real in my life and essential to my testimony. Please read with care for your own nervous system.

If I had to pick one thing at the core of why I follow Jesus, it would be this: the New Testament teaches that whatever healing or wisdom you gain should show up plainly in the actual fruit of your life.

The Heartbreak of Ritual Religion

I think that’s where the biggest heartbreak of religion lies.

Most religions—almost all of Hinduism except the strands that emphasize yoga and martial arts, and many parts of Christianity too—have drifted into a kind of hollow ritualism.

A calendar of rituals, where you do things in a very particular manner with a group of people, periodically. Ideally you do these things in a language you don’t even understand. Sanskrit. Latin. You wear pompous clothes, make particular sounds, use the right hand instead of the left or the left instead of the right.

It can be quite fun.

It’s fun to do these things in these particular manners, periodically with a group of people.

It becomes a form of party culture. A different flavor of what you might think of when you read the term “party culture”. The kind where you go to a club, take some shots, hit on some women, hookup, dance, take selfies. With others in the club are also doing these particular things in a particular manner, periodically. Happy hours on Thursdays. Half-price tacos on Tuesdays. Snorting coke on Saturdays. Popping ibuprofen on Sundays.

Ritually.

A different flavor of party culture, but a party culture nevertheless. And there’s no expectation whatsoever that any of this can actually heal you or release you from the suffering in your life.

That is what religion has become. But God—the Living God—is the source of all life. Nothing can overcome Him. He has already overcome everything that stands against life. He demonstrated clearly how to overcome all of that through the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A relationship with that Living God blesses you with the same energy that brought Christ back to life. And if you look at the New Testament, it’s full of stories of the Christ walking around healing diseases, raising people from the dead. Miraculous, immediate, physical healing.

People, who are religious—whether Hindu or Christian, or something else—have almost entirely lost that expectation. They do their religious rituals and then do entirely other things to take care of their physical and emotional ailments, their soul ailments, their relational ailments. But their ailments continue. Most of the things they do simply manage the forces of Death.

The Fruit of Death

All ailments come from Death. Everyone knows this at some level. As you grow older, you get more diseased until you die.

Disease can be physical, emotional, mental, relational. We’re now, thankfully, at a point where science has finally realized that all of these things are related. If you live in a marriage filled with arguments, it adds stress to your body. It shows up as higher inflammation. It leads to diabetes. And so on and so forth. A life full of ailments.

In the New Testament, Jesus says prophetically that many will come in His name, and in the name of His Father, and you’ll know them by the fruit of their life. What diseases are they managing? Addictions? Impulsive tendencies? Their relationship with the people around them. Their relationship with their family?

I’ve spoken quite openly about my food and sex addictions thus far. Honestly, the biggest shift for me as I came to the Lord and was filled with God’s grace—grace given freely, in the sense that I wasn’t doing anything to deserve it—has been my relationship with my family. It brings me such tears. It tenderizes my heart to write about it.

The past few years before coming to the Lord, my relationship with my mother was so bad. I hadn’t spoken to her for 8 months. Perhaps even more. I was so angry with her for not tracking that her dad was doing things to me that should never have happened. Angry that she didn’t know boys also get sexually abused so she didn’t bother tracking me as much as she did my sister. When I did speak with her before that, I’d get angry that she would say things that triggered me. I lashed out so many times. Before I came to the Lord fully, I wondered, as a part of my “healing” journey if she was a part of it all. I sat with a hypothesis that maybe she had done some things to “relieve” me of my trauma-driven hypersexuality, not knowing that it was retraumatizing me.

Looking back, I realize I was stuck. Deeply stuck in the past, trying to figure out things that cannot be conclusively figured out.

What Trauma Healing Missed

The trauma healing world says that when something happens in the now and you get triggered; it is triggering something from your past. So book a session with a therapist and go back into the past to resolve it—both the trigger incident that is in the recent past and what happened in your childhood. Only then can you integrate it and be whole. But these are abstractions you’re working with. Given the fragile nature of memory, both recent events and childhood events are incomplete information fragments. I’m not saying this strategy doesn’t work. It can, to a great extent. But at some point you have to come back to the now. You don’t have any literal inner children inside. These are models. Use them, but don’t become them.

The fruit of your life is what matters.

Are you living disease-free? Are your relationships with your mother and father improving?

One of the biggest heartbreaks of childhood sexual abuse is that people often end up in broken families. If you were abused by a caretaker, can you get to a place where you can hold the fullness of their complex human nature? Where you can hold that they did many good things for you in addition to abusing you? Or are you zoning in more and more on the bad things they did?

The past few years before coming to the Lord, my relationship with my family was challenging in many ways. It was a landmine of triggers.

I thought I could live without my family but, to be honest, I couldn’t escape from the deep yearning to be harmoniously connected to them. A deep yearning to honor and love my mother and father, as God commanded. Even before I knew that God had commanded that.

Quite literally, without your mother and father, you would not be born. And if you don’t recognize that, you’re not living in truth. You’re not speaking in truth. Even if they sexually abused you. It’s still not true to speak of them in a way disconnected from the reality that they channeled life into you.

How I Realized Evil Was Real

There’s another layer here that feels extra vulnerable to reveal. It was easier to talk about it while I was carrying that disease. But now that I’m cleansed of it, it feels even more vulnerable to admit it.

I have spoken about going in and out of suicidality. I never made plans or took steps, but it was active. I would bond with suicidal fire periodically, in the depths of my agony as the trauma cycles worked their way out of my body almost like a woman’s menstrual cycle moves.

And then I discovered a trick.

I negotiated with the suicidal energy and redirected it at the perpetrator who was alive. I struck an internal deal. Back then I considered myself a Kali worshipper. I spent a lot of time imagining how I would kill him. I imagined torturing him and livestreaming it. I imagined his head around Kali’s neck. I explored some of the logistics. What would it take to get a gun? Was it feasible to execute a kidnapping? What were the legal logistics of escaping from India back to the US? What countries did India not have an extradition treaty with? Every now and then, my creative mind would come up with a less scary alternative. Oh, let’s explore lodging a criminal case. I reached out to a Supreme Court advocate who had moved some CSA cases through court. Only to learn that I might fall prey to the long drag of court cases moving in the Indian justice system. Afraid of how triggered I’d feel if, unbeknownst to me, my lawyer and the opposition lawyer had agreed together to drag the case out so they both could feed their families. Defeated I’d come back to the vengeance fantasies.

Every time I cycled through this suicidal/vengeance phase, I’d be quite prone to raging against anyone who was unfortunate to cross paths with me. I lost quite some friends and got even more isolated. Satan smiled. Kali urged me on to bring her the head of my abuser. Righteous rage is a drug.

Sometimes I created art from my vengeance fantasies. But looking back, those outlets provided temporary creative release and yet strengthened my connection the energy. No wonder, then, so many dark artists end up dying horrible deaths.

And then I started noticing what I call the slippery slopes of Death.

When I’d be stuck into this suicidal portal, I’d nudge the energy onto the perpetrator who was still alive. When I was out of the portal, I’d sometimes wonder—what do I do if he dies of a natural cause?

How I landed in the vengeance in the first place was that I heard a voice inside me go “okay, if you’re going to kill yourself, you might as well kill him first.” That sounded quite reasonable to me. I agreed. Then later after I had rooted myself into this vengeance possibility, I heard the same voice say “if you are going to kill him, and that might, you know, end up threatening your life too, who else should you knock out before you take off?”

I was quite shocked, to say the least. That was the beginnings of me realizing that Satan actually exists, even though I might not have used that term back then. Realizing that non-duality is utter non-sense. The duality of Good and Evil is absolutely real. Truly, it was Satan whispering. Satan loves Death. Absolutely adores it. My sense is that because he is so disconnected from the source of Life—in Sin: meaning quite literally, without God—he sources his life energy by sucking it from living human beings, through a variety of sacrificial offerings—ejaculates, aborted babies, suicide, murder.

If all humans stopped sinning, Satan would extinguish or be forced to bend his own knee to the Lord, our God, our creator Father in Heaven.

When the Holy Spirit Flooded In

There was a time in my trauma healing journey where I was in the throes of it all, that loud machines—cars on the freeway, lawnmowers—would really pierce me and trigger me into uncontrollable panic. A year and a half ago or so, this was at least a weekly ritual for me as the lawnmower guy would show up every Tuesday morning, put on his ear muffs and hop onto this loud lawnmower.

It drove me nuts. It felt like nails piercing through every inch of my body. That’s the best somatic description I have for what my sexual trauma—related panic attacks felt like once I turned away from a lifestyle of numbing. This is why I relate so much to the crucifixion of Christ. The nails. The agony. To me, it reflects the torture of somatic dissociation in response to a strong sexual violation.

So this guy would be on his lawnmower for over an hour or so. And I’d feel these spikes of agony. I’ve talked before about the first memory of sodomy I recovered. In the recollection of that memory, I witnessed myself from above my body. Dissociated. My body was bent over. I was hovering above it. Right before I recovered that memory, I recovered memories of being masturbated (my introduction to the abuse) and then multiple memories of being fellated all over. Then there was a pause. There was a split within me in the pause. A part of me wondered if all the memory recovery was over. Another part knew something worse was coming. This was during the Ayahuasca ceremony where I recovered these repressed memories. Three months prior to that ceremony, I had gone from a sense of having had a “normal childhood” to wondering for the very first time whether I was sexually abused as a child. I did not know prior to the recovery of these memories who the abuser was. In my innocence, I had wished for it to be a one time thing with a stranger. Ideally, a hot older woman who I had sex with as a child. And I believed that was likely the case. Till these memories floated up of being masturbated and then fellated with the unmistakable presence of my maternal grandfather and his shame. A presence I knew always but didn’t know what it was about. It was quite heartbreaking.

And then after that dissociative pause, I received an upgrade on my heartbreak. I don’t think I have experienced a greater heartbreak than remembering that I had received a man’s cock in my ass while being frozen and weeping. Multiple times.

There’s nothing that lives in me as more humiliating as a defeat for a Warrior. Being overpowered in the most intimate manner possible, when you thought you were just headed out with your grandpa on his scooter because he took you for a haircut every now and then and got you doughnuts.

The sounds and vibrations of the lawnmower would bring all of that up.

I’d lock myself in the bathroom—the farthest room from the walls—to escape the vibrations. Sometimes lie down in the bath tub.

Week after week.

Then one week, this massive rage flowed through my body. Absolutely demonic rage.

I heard a voice say, “Shoot him. Just kill him. How dare he bring such misery to you.”

I was aghast even as I heard it. These voices come as thoughts. That’s how these demonic spirits operate. They come as thoughts you identify with. But remember, my dear friend: if a thought about another person isn’t loving, it isn’t coming from you.. it’s a whisper. A Satanic whisper. Through your identification with and obedience to these whispers, Satan sources life.

I shared this with my therapist that week and she was aghast too. Of course, she was!

There was a real slippery slope to this death energy. And then, in February this year, when I got ostracized and cancelled locally for being a “Trump supporter”, I went into another agony-suicide-vengeance portal. These phases would keep coming periodically.

Back then, I had begun church hopping. But I hadn’t received the Christ into my heart. I hadn’t fully rooted myself in God’s grace. I hadn’t understood that Christ died for my sins and also for the sins of those who hurt me.

When His blood flowed from the nails, all our sins flowed out. My own sins. The sins of anyone who bothered me, hurt me, abused me. The forgiveness through God’s grace is hanging thick in the air. One just needs to gently open one’s heart and it floods in. I had not rooted myself in that truth yet.

So when the cancellation happened, I went into agony again. Not suicidality this time, but agony. It was quite the peak moment of spiritual battle within me. You can track the shift happening in my essays from around that time—from agony to the grace of Christ.

Not everyone experiences agony. Only a few of us are blessed with this most human of experiences. Some people live lives too flat to know agony. Not yours truly. In this lifetime, I have been chosen as a soldier of God. Soldiers of God carry their cross through agony.

So in the midst of all that, this voice goes “now how about all these people that hurt you?” referring to the folks in the community that either partook in my ostracization for my political views or silently stepped away from me because being associated with me meant revealing yourself to have MAGA inclinations.

“How about your uncle and aunt in Toronto who dismissed you immediately when you told them that both of their dads raped you?”

“Why don’t you kill some of the local folks first? Then go to Toronto, then to India.”

“A world tour of murder.”

I was aghast again. All the logistical calculations I had done to only knock off my perpetrator would fail, I said.

“Oh yes, but what a powerful way for you to exit that’d be, wouldn’t it?”

That was the moment. I got fully convicted that something had to change. I had seen the slippery slope of cultivating the energy of Death. It just wants to kill as much as it can.

I continued going to Church. Kept letting the Holy Spirit flood me. Kept releasing the tears. Being born anew.

You know, the Holy Spirit is a real entity. A ghost of sorts. The holiest of all spirit beings. When It floods you, there is no space for other spirits or ghosts. No space for those thoughts. But you have to be willing to let it in. You have to be willing to cry, because as demonic spirits leave you, you cry for the wounds that let them in. Then you get this final gulp of breath, and the Holy Spirit has fully entered you. It almost has the same penetrative force that the sodomy had at a spiritual level, and yet there is no associated agony with it. Only breath and life and fullness.

There were times where I’d come in physically sore into the Church, worship—which is just singing songs of praise for God—my heart out and leave feeling like a new born baby. When they talk about being “washed in the blood of Christ” and “born again,” it’s quite literal. You come out with life instead of death.

In the beginning, Pastor Matthew asked me if I was willing to take Jesus into my heart, and I said No. He was gentle. Jesus knocks; He doesn’t break in. God respects your consent. Over time, as I noticed the fruit of worship in my life, I understood intellectually what it meant for Christ to die for our sins. And I felt the truth in my body. This was a man who was also God, nailed to the cross in a way that reflects the agony of dissociative panic attacks from sexual trauma. And He stayed sinless. He stayed connected to the truth that everyone abusing Him was made in the image of God. Because of that, He was able to hold the sins of all of humanity as those flowed into Him, and out as a ritual sacrifice through His blood.

The word sin literally means “without”—any act that takes you away from God. Jesus lived a sinless life, so every action stayed aligned with God’s will for how humans should live. It’s a template for human life. That’s why Jesus says “you’ll do greater things than me”. Because the life he lived demonstrated the standard for a human life.

But on the cross, our sins flooded into His body. At the point where he was filled with the sins of all of humanity, He said, “Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?”

Prior to really getting it, that moment had remained a mystery to me. Why would He feel forsaken if He lived sinlessly? Now I believe it’s because He had taken on the sins of humanity. He was filled with the disconnection from God that all of us carry. That separation was essential so He could be sacrificed to Death to pay the debt of all of our sins. Pagan sacrifices were always about paying debts for past actions. In Hindu temples today, they still break coconuts or sacrifice calves. It’s the same idea. And what God did was send His Son to live sinlessly so He could hold the sins of humanity, and then in the crucifixion, as the pain increased, His capacity increased. The sins of everyone flowed into Him until He was fully disconnected from God. That’s when He lamented—Father, why have you forsaken me? And then He died. Satan thought he won. But because Christ took all the sins into His body, the battle was lost, yet the war was won.

A Living Testimony

I am a living testimony to that.

I have been freed from the clutches of death. My relationship with my family is so good now. I’m back in tender connection with my mother. I have been talking to her regularly now for months. Today, we closed the phone call with a reciprocal “love you”. I can hold grace for who she is. I can forgive the ways she failed. Same with my father. My sister. My uncle. My grandfather. All those who “cancelled” me. I get to taste the delight of familial connection. My cousins. Oh, praise the Lord! I hope you get a taste of why in my essays through out since March or so, I have been praising the Lord non-stop.

I haven’t had a panic attack in ages. Hardly felt any anger towards anyone. No suicidality. No vengeance. I have even managed to bridge some of the community divide from the past year and recognize the ways in which I contributed to it and sought repentance for those ways in my prayers.

There is no scenario now where my life ends with me being a serial killer. Oh, praise the Lord for that!

Have you seen the mugshots of the Menendez brothers who turned a shotgun on their father and mother because their father consistently raped them well into their late teens?

There’s a demonic relief on their faces—the relief of vengeance. Back when I was vengeful, I thought that was the dream.

But demonic relief doesn’t stop. That’s why you have repeat offenders. Once you taste demonic relief—whether by aborting your unborn baby, murdering your abuser, or ejaculating to a hot woman online—it’s sinful relief. It’s a trap. Now you are a willing servant of Satan.

But you can end your servile relationship with Satan instantly, if you pray and ask God for relief. He’ll remove the demons. He won’t forcibly remove the demons from you, because He honors your free will. But demonic relief will keep you in disease forever. And you’ll think you’re having a good time while you’re in deep disease. Satan delights in entrapping people thusly. Leading them gradually so that their own free will turns against their life. He loves it.

So I close with a prayer.

A prayer to the Father, our Creator in heaven.
Holy, holy, holy is your name, Lord.
Truly, holy is your name.
Everywhere I look, the world is full of your glory.

Father, I pray that anyone reading what I’ve shared is released from the temptation to say yes to demonic relief.
Any unclean spirits that may tempt such a person toward the ephemeral delight of demonic relief—may they be fully banished, released in this instant, in the mighty name of your Son, Jesus Christ.