I’ll start my story. I can’t remember the exact date, but I remember the place vividly. It was a shopping mall in Chennai. I was in 11th grade, and my mom took me to Chennai for a medical check-up because I had been experiencing joint pains and couldn’t climb stairs to attend my classes. I felt like I was aging very fast. That day, after returning from the doctor, my aunt and my sister decided to take us out, as my mom was feeling a little down after I was diagnosed with SLE, systemic lupus erythematosus.

I love reading books, and while I was in that mall, I came across a book with a brown cover that caught my attention. The title of the book was ‘The Secret‘. I was fascinated by it, and it stayed on my mind. I wanted to read it, so I secretly asked my sister to get it for me. I’m very grateful to her for buying me that book. I remember the feeling of that book, as if it was calling out to me, as if it had something to tell me.

It wasn’t easy for my brain to accept it because I wanted to test it first, but even to test it, I had to believe it. I remember small tests I did with ‘The Secret’. One of them was when I wanted to eat pizza and waited for my sister to come early to take me, but she came late, and I was disappointed. However, I didn’t give up the feeling that believing gave me, and as a surprise, my sister ordered a pizza to be delivered at night. It was a magical feeling that made me more determined to finish reading ‘The Secret’.

The SLE started to show its effects, and I began to fall more and more sick, so I couldn’t attend my junior college. Although I was able to score good grades, I couldn’t achieve a good rank in the entrance exams as I was completely engulfed in fear from listening to everyone around me. My family said they were disappointed, except for my mom, who gave me hope. There was one seat left in my favorite field of Mechanical Engineering at my engineering college. I took out ‘The Secret’ and read it and reread it until I felt that the one seat was meant for me and only me. The next day at the counseling, I got that one seat. I was thrilled, and my best friend and I got into the same college. She also believes in ‘The Secret’, so she became my support system.

During my four years of engineering, I had many beautiful experiences with ‘The Secret’, and I used it fully for my education. I asked for good grades and believed I would get them. I studied to maintain the feeling that what I believed was what I would receive because I knew that if I didn’t study my subjects and just believed, it would be an empty, fake belief. When I worked wholeheartedly for the exams, I found my papers easy and scored good marks, even though I could not attend college due to my SLE.

Everyone used to wonder how I was able to score without attending college. I never cheated in my exams, and that made me feel that the Universe would help me. I could not explain ‘The Secret’ to everyone because people laughed and made fun of me when I talked about thinking positively and following ‘The Secret.’ Some said they wanted to try it, but what I realized was that to read ‘The Secret’, one has to be ready. One has to be ready to give themselves a chance by thinking in a positive way and having hope in themselves. My friend and I tried to encourage people to read or watch ‘The Secret’ to help them, but we realized that ‘The Secret’ chooses its readers.

Fatigue, pain, and depression, all the effects caused by SLE, took away my college life. I enjoyed being with friends, but only to an extent. I don’t know why I never had the courage to use ‘The Secret’ to gain control over my health. That’s when I got my hands on ‘The Power‘, during my third year of college.

The book was so bright and energetic that I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. It was as bright as the sun. I read ‘The Power’ when I was on a college trip to Ooty. After my return from Ooty, three of my friends from abroad suddenly got in touch. It had been more than two years since we had heard from them, but they suddenly appeared like fairies. I was depressed then because I had tried so many medicines, and my body was swollen like a balloon. I was completely tired of taking around ten tablets a day. I was starting to hate my life. But then my three friends from abroad and my best friend decided to help me. They said that if I use ‘The Secret’ for everything, why not for health? I should give it a try. They made me think that I was healthy by engaging in role-playing games, discussing good health, making me do light exercises, and doing things that made me feel healthy like them.

Then suddenly, one day, one of my friends found a book that said I could control my SLE with diet, exercise, and sleep, without medicines. I asked my mom if she could get me that book, and surprisingly, she said yes. It was like the genie was moving the pieces to make all the jigsaw puzzles fall into place. Today, I don’t take any medicine, and with a little caution, I live a normal life like all my friends. In my final semester, when I attended classes regularly, my teachers were all surprised to see me like that. They used to say that I was so hyperactive, how could that be?!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!