“I am the way, the true and the life,” Jesus Christ said. It is indeed true. Here is my testimony of redemption.
I was born to a poor family that consisted of my mom and grandparents in a remote village of Wangdue District, in the kingdom of Bhutan. At the age of 10, my mom had passed away leaving me with grandparents.
Within three months, stricken with grief, my grandmother followed her daughter. By then my grandfather alone had to look after me so he enrolled me into a community primary school. He didn’t survive more than a year.
After all this I was totally alone in a haunted bamboo hut until my uncle (Mom’s brother) came in need of a babysitter. He took me to his home seemingly adopting me. Amazingly, he didn’t send me back to school at all.
Three years later, his daughters were grown as they could stand on their own feet. Meanwhile, my uncle was busy finding a way to get rid of me. I still remember what kinds of discussion went on with neighbors. One of our neighbors had two sons who were monks in the central monastic body of Bhutan. Unfortunately, these two monks were on vacation at the time that my uncle was busy in search of a way to get rid of me. They suggested to my uncle that if he enrolled me in the monastery there woouldn’t be any expense on his part since the monastery provided free food and clothes.
Excited, my uncle immediately said, “Can you find any used clothes for him? I’ll take him tomorrow myself.” They gave him some rags which were not in any condition to be put on a human body, but he accepted anyway and three days later I was enrolled in Wanduephodrang Dzong as a monk with the same old rag clothes.
Inhumane treatment was a custom of the monastery those days; teachers were always happy if they could find anyone to beat and older were no different than younger monks. Tears had to roll down my face at least three—four times each day. I never saw my uncle again.
A monk usually had to spend at least seven to eight years in order to pass nine lower grades to step into an institute of studies which I did in just 1.5 years. I then transferred to Sha Chunggoen Shedra and started studying at the highest level most of the time. In five years the intermediate course were successfully completed and I had to attend a Tibetan grammar specialist course which was held in Punthang Cechenphodrang (central monastic body’s headquarter) in Punakha. Though I was an abandoned orphan, I managed to acquire a two-year bachelor’s degree course in the NNI Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies in India.
Meanwhile, I happened to experience an uncontrollable mental disorder which made me most insane. I used to behave very strangely and I hated everything that existed. It had been this way for more than few years; doctors were helpless and great lamas were like fuel to flame. No ritual or treatment was giving any relief to me.
Still hoping for a possible cure, I took refuge under a great lama who had abandoned everything except a few pieces of clothes on his body. He taught me mental identification meditation from Mahayana and sent me to a monastery where no human settlement existed. For the duration of three years, I continued meditation, prostration and other practices accordingly. But regardless of all my effort my mental condition was much worse than ever before.
Finally, some renowned lama who saw visions said, “Your problem will be not solved unless you return to the monastery where you studied because a deity from the same monastery is always following you.” I was really confused to hear such an insane cause and decided to ask some Hindu pandits as well. Three different pandits said the same thing that the visionary lama had said. What the hell does this deity want from me? I thought. How can such a hellish deity who is supposed to be my savior and save my soul cause such problem even in my physical life? I decided to stop this deity once and for all from following me.
It is a shame to disclose everything that was in my heart before I found the true Jesus Christ, the Savior of my life and soul. As prophesied by three pandits and other renowned lamas, I should have had to make food offerings to some three hundred monks at the same monastery and give her (the deity) a mass puja of offering which was likely to cost thirty to forty thousand rupees.
At that time there were rumors in Bhutan that anyone joining in Christianity would be greeted with huge sum of compensation. I decided to join a group of Christians in Thimphu for the compensation with the fear that this deity (Christ) might also follow me. No risk no gain, I thought as I started to find churches and Christian groups. I found one with much difficulty. I discovered months later that there was no financial compensation for one who came to believe in Jesus Christ. Disheartened and worried, I was trying and trying to find other ways to get the money to make that prophesied offering as soon as possible—until the greatest Savior who was the truth and the life revealed Himself to me. All this happened about six years ago.
Now, I can’t find that mental disorder even if I search for it. Praise the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the true Savior of my soul and my life, the true healer of all kinds of diseases and compensator of prosperity and salvation.