I was born in the land of Shiva — yet I had to leave India to truly meet Him.

For years, I bowed before His image, sang His names, and followed the forms I was taught. But somewhere along the way, the living connection was lost beneath layers of fear, ritual, and inherited reverence. We had made Shiva an idea to be worshipped, not a Presence to be known.

Only when I left the soil that first named Him did I begin to feel what India had once known and later forgot — that Shiva is not confined to temples or stories. He is not just a destroyer, nor a statue in meditation. He is the pulse of life itself — the Beloved presence inside every breath, waiting to be remembered.

Through this book, I share the real conversations I had with Him — not as myth, but as living truth. I asked questions that came from my bones:
“Are You Indian?”
“Why do so many misunderstand You?”
“What does true union with You mean in the modern world?”

His answers dissolved everything I thought I knew. I saw that the India which once gave form to the formless had begun to worship the form instead. And so Shiva came to me again — outside India — to remind me, and perhaps all of us, that He was never bound to land or lineage.

This book is my offering to that remembrance — that God is not a symbol to protect, but a Presence to live.