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HINDU TO CATHOLIC
CONVERTED THROUGH POLITICS
by Kailash Duraiswami
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On the day of the 2016 election, I was an atheist living a pleasure seeking life in San Francisco. Today I am a daily mass attending Catholic Christian who holds all dogmatic teachings of the faith as my own. Everything changed for me the night Donald Trump became President of the United States.
My parents are from India and I was born and brought up in a small town in Florida close to the Tampa Bay area. I was exposed to Christianity growing up through school parents and neighbors, but the Gospel message was never preached to me clearly. The Hindu faith was very important to me and I was even the president of the Hindu Students Association of my college.
After college I moved to San Francisco to start a career as a software developer and be a part of the technology startup scene. Once I moved here my Hindu relationship with God evaporated and I started to spend more time partying, mindlessly dating and seeking pleasure in this Created world. I started many side businesses that all failed and I was going nowhere in my life.
The day after President Trump got elected I messaged a friend, “I feel like I am waking up in a new America.” I began to ask the question of why anyone voted for him. Living in a progressive city like San Francisco, I knew not a single person that took him seriously as a political option whatsoever. I had to reach out to those people I grew up with in Florida to get the perspective of why anyone would vote Trump.
The more I spoke to people I knew, the more the point of “Christian values” came up routinely. I was increasingly interested in conservative political ideas and morality, but the Jesus Christ fellow was not for me. I was an atheist who did not even believe a man named Jesus Christ existed on this planet - I thought the whole Christian idea was a hoax. Eventually, all other lines of inquiry were exhausted and I had come to a dead end. The only way forward was to hear what Christianity had to say for itself.
The testimony of conversion helped me hear from others who admitted their struggles with drugs, alcohol and other temptations that they could not refuse. Their stories resonated with my struggles with a complete inability to say no to temptation. I never knew as humans we are weakened by original sin and cannot withstand the temptations of the enemy on our own. I wanted a way out of my sins and failures, I needed a way out from destroying myself over and over again.
The more I tried to say yes to God from outside the Church, the more things in my life started to shift. Eventually I found myself looking at all the failed relationships, failed businesses and mistakes I had made over the course of my adult life and I said, I am done with this. I am done destroying myself and I will do whatever it takes to say yes to God. I was baptized a few months later and finally started a successful business and my life has completely changed since. I gave my life to God because I knew I did not have the power to do the right thing with it.
The Lord will always use imperfect instruments to share the Truth with us. It may sound crazy, but the shock of the 2016 election sent me on a path to answer the question of what else I was missing. I am grateful that the result of the journey was to find a new home in the Catholic Church and finally have a relationship with God that allowed me to say no to the temptations the enemy continued to destroy me with. Thanks be to God that I have been sober for years now and can treat people with dignity as children of God as they deserve to the best of my ability.
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes." Romans 1:16
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KAILASH DURAISWAMI
Kailash was born in the Tampa Bay, Florida region. He graduated college from Emory University in Atlanta and moved to San Francisco to start a career in the technology sector as a software engineer. He was most recently the founder of a technology startup, Pantenix. Pantenix is an artificial intelligence platform that helps wealth advisors automate manual data entry workflows from unstructured data. Pantenix was acquired by financial advisor end-to-end technology vendor Orion Advisor Solutions in Spring 2021. Kailash has now moved back to the Tampa Bay area and is working to expand the Kingdom of God however he can.
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Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ,
Our world is pining for good news. God's supply is you. Your short, moving story of "God with us" will make a big difference in someone's life.
Right now you can think of at least one moving moment in your life. An example of "God with us." Please take a moment now to simply email me the possible subject of your story. If you're motivated, sure, write it out (no more than 500 words). We'll help you land it. Many will be blessed. We want to feature a new story every week.
Thank you in advance!
So blessed to be united in building the Kingdom, |
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Greg and Stephanie Schlueter
Image Trinity | Mass Impact
Email: Greg@MassImpact.us
Call: (814) 449-8808
WEB: ILoveMyFamily.us |
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CHALLENGE TO CATHOLIC MEN
National 33-Day Consecration | Boot Camp September 10 - October 13
Weekly 8:30-9:30P Gathering | Toledo Area Group
Because the world won't wait for men to get the hell out and heaven in. |
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| FREE REGISTRATION. A FEW SEATS LEFT... |
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TUESDAY NIGHT
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BUSINESS OWNERS:
HERE'S A DEAL WE HOPE YOU WON'T REFUSE
Every week we reach thousands who are highly motivated to support faith-filled, quality business owners. This includes our weekly radio program, video and this e-zine. We are eager to advance your business.
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"The future of humanity passes by way of the family."
~ Pope St. John Paul II
We are families seeking to make our homes places of ever-deepening encounter with Jesus Christ.
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