Setbacks as Blessings in Disguise

Setbacks Can Sometimes Be a Blessing in Disguise

In New York, after a grueling two week audition process from 2000 applicants to one winner, I was cast as Orphelia for the Broadway production of a new play by Tom Stoppard called Rosencrantz and Guilderntern. This was my first Broadway audition and I was both relieved and thrilled. My husband wanted to return to India and I made a vow that if cast in this play, I would stay in NY and focus on the acting. If not, I would go to India. Three days after I won the role, my agent called me to tell me that as I was six inches taller than the Hamlet being brought from the London production, I was not to play the role after all. Instead, I was offered to understudy Orphelia and play a maid in waiting. In my early twenties and new to NY Theatre, after the shock, I decided to honor my pledge and go to India with my husband and son who was almost two.

A setback one would call this and yet it turned out to be the greatest of blessings.

For the past three years I had longed to go to India to find a Teacher. Thanks to my husband, I found a great Sage – a Householder Sage- who lived privately with his wife and three children.

The first time I saw the Sage I recognized him from a recurring dream I had experienced since age 7 until recently. I knew I had come home – spiritually. The planned one month in India turned out to be the most important two years of my life. After two years studying with the Sage, my son and I returned to America and I soon resumed a career in acting. However, the two years in India became a foundation for the rest of my life.

Since then, whenever a seeming setback occurs either in my personal life or professional life, I ask myself, “Why?” and then tay open for the answer.