Rudrakul

Rudrakul 🔱: A Kul for Spiritual Seekers and Conquerors

Welcome to Rudrakul, a vibrant online community where spirituality meets personal development. We are dedicated to empowering individuals on their journey of self-discovery and providing a safe space to seek answers, share experiences, and conquer challenges.

Hi there!

I'm pleased to announce a project that I've been assigned to deliver - Rudrakul🔱 and I'm very excited to invite you to a journey of how this idea was coined and how it was assigned to me!

It's going to be more than just a tech blog but more of a part of my life's journey so, I hope, I'll be able to add some value to your life with this article.

Feel free to skip the backstory if you'd like to understand the technical aspect of this project. However, if you'd like to give it some time, then please go ahead and read the backstory, It will be worth your time😊

Backstory⏱️ (It's going to be looooong)

Back in 2019, I used to be an avid procrastinator, spending almost 12-14 hours binge-watching anime and roaming outside with my friends. It continued for the whole damn year, little did I realize how important the year was for my career, It was my 12th standard in ISC.

It wasn't until December when one day I realized, that there was no time left for me, and the pre-boards and JEE exams were on my head. Regret engulfed me as all the wasted time flashed in front of me, only to realize it left me with a body that had been almost destroyed in terms of health and a mind that couldn't focus on my studies anymore.

I desperately looked for anything that could justify me and provide me hope but the reality stood in front like a mirror showing me my mistakes. Having left with no made-up reasons for my actions, the only thing left for me was to accept life as it is right now.

Acceptance might be the most meek word, but carries in itself a seed of transformation. I said to myself, what's done is done, I can't go back and change the past, but it's the present that's in my hand.

I had two problems to solve, an unhealthy body (full of anxiety-induced inflammation, and heart palpitations) and a hopeless mind. It's correctly said, that when we look for something with full hope, the universe answers it. The one who came first to my rescue was none other than Krishna himself, in the form of the Bhagwat Gita followed by Yoga and meditation.

I used to do yoga and meditate in the morning before starting to study and at night I used to listen to Gita as an audiobook, which provided me with hope in my Vishaadh (Hopelessness).

However, there was no denying the fact that no matter my efforts, the time was very little. For JEE, and being from a household where my father retired while I was still in class 10th and my schooling was done through whatever life savings were left with my father. I had two choices

  1. Take a year drop, and prepare for competitive exams so that I could get into a good college with a scholarship.

  2. Take a year drop, prepare for a state college entrance exam, and focus heavily on developing skills that could help me get employed and make me capable of living without having to depend on my parents for financial support.

I didn't have much interest in going through academics again, and the vision of being able to relieve my parents from my financial responsibility seemed more promising to me. So my journey as a developer began

I started from WordPress, learning Elementor and Divi on a laptop borrowed from my friend daily for about 2-3 hours (I'm very grateful, to him for if it hadn't been for his laptop, I could never have practised and improved). Later I built sites for his father's business. We both, even did a start-up during COVID to provide vital aid to our locality at low rates when the inflation for items like sanitisers, and masks was skyrocketing.

Within this time, I also wanted to connect with Successful people who overcame adversities and did extraordinary things in life, so that I could learn a thing or two from them, I went through a lot of platforms finally ending up on Linkedin in February 2020 where I met my mentor, who guided me throughout my journey and is still standing by my side as my strongest supporter from the shadows.

While COVID continued for the year, I continued my learning journey from WordPress to HTML, CSS and JS, and even got a job at a branding agency a year later as a WordPress developer. I was happy, the pay wasn't very much (1-5K/month) but I was happy with the progress. I continued the job working like crazy 12-14hrs a day for 6 days a week, tackling new challenges in different technologies every day.

This forced me to work across different technologies like PHP, Codeigniter, Wix etc. There were times when they didn't have work for me, and at that time I used to learn new skills like ReactJS, NodeJS, ExpressJS, MongoDB, AI, Python and so on. It all didn't seem like a necessity but I studied them because I wanted to explore, and that exploration gave me happiness. Fast forward a few months I gave TSEAMCET and got an 8.9k rank and got a decent college (Unlucky for me since I couldn't sit for counselling as I didn't have a domicile, but the college agreed to not take donation seeing the rank)

The job continued with my college, I even took up a content writing job in the same agency to earn some more, since it was all an hourly job (75Rs/hr). By God's grace, things went on, tough times came and also their solution in some magical ways. Later in 2022, I got an internship as a ReactJs intern where I used to work on the development and deployment of React apps on Google Cloud. The internship was for 3 Months and ended in 2023 January. Then I started learning React Native and managed to get another internship in April, which was for 1 year. It was rough, considering I was the sole person handling the mobile department, without any KT, but it provided me with confidence like nothing else.

And here I am now, After completion of the internship in April of 2024, I started learning spring boot. This time the opportunity came for me from my mentor. He wanted me to create a platform where people who wanted knowledge and a community of like-minded people who were hungry for a change in their life be it physical or spiritual life, and that was the birth of Rudrakul

I know that the backstory was way too long, but that's the reason why I'm so determined to carry out this project. When I was searching for answers to life, there was not such place I could go to, so I wanted to create it for the generations to come!

About my mentor

His name is Mr. Manash Mishra - Life Coach, Author, & Peak Performance Coach

Feel free to explore his spiritual life in his book Encounters with the Supreme and his spiritual sessions in the main channel Aham Brahmasmi

I also encourage you to check out his aspect as an exceptional life coach having transformed lakhs of life The Manash Mishra

and here's his LinkedIn profile

Features of Rudrakul

I want to create a social media which will serve as a community where people can share their life's challenges and seek guidance from fellow members.

Not only that we'd be providing them with processes that would help them ascend to new realms of spirituality with the knowledge long lost in time. I'm also going to scale it to a learning platform where people can enrol in life-changing spiritual sessions and processes under the guidance of my mentor.

Architecting Rudrakul: A Journey of Growth and Innovation

Embarking on the Rudrakul project was a pivotal moment in my career, marking the first time I was entrusted with architecting a web app from the ground up. This opportunity pushed me to extend my development knowledge, emphasizing the critical importance of meticulous planning, organization, and collaboration.

Technical and Business Responsibilities

Beyond the technical realm, I was also tasked with a strategic business role—monetizing our channel’s content. This involved curating and uploading relevant clips to a new channel, drawing in traffic across different social medias like Quora and Instagram, and facilitating the organization of workshops and events without external funding. This dual responsibility underscored that Rudrakul was not merely a coding project but a visionary seed entrusted to me.

Continuous Learning and Technological Evolution

Working on Rudrakul is a continuous learning journey, where I strive to transform my knowledge into a tangible reality while constantly exploring new, optimized solutions. The following technologies are at the core of this project:

Frontend

The front end is designed to offer a seamless experience for users to explore our offerings, share their spiritual and life experiences, follow each other, and access course content.

  • Next.js: For a dynamic and responsive frontend.

  • ShadCN: UI Component Library

  • QuillJS: Integrating a rich text editor.

  • Redux Toolkit: Effective state management.

  • Tailwind CSS: Crafting a visually appealing and responsive UI.

Backend

The backend supports the front end with robust, scalable, and maintainable code, featuring role-based authorization and JWT-based user authentication with refresh token rotation. The backend development process has been an invaluable learning experience in creating efficient, scalable schemas and optimizing query performance.

Authentication

  • JWT-Based Authentication: Secure token-based authentication with refresh token rotation.

  • HttpOnly Cookies: Enhanced security by storing tokens in HttpOnly cookies.

  • Admin Controls: Robust moderation capabilities for admins with admin role specif endpoints

Processes/Events

  • Admin Management: Admins can post processes with card images, banner images, and detailed content.

  • User Experiences: Users can share their experiences for each process (limited to one experience per user).

  • Security: Unauthorized modifications to experiences are prevented through stringent security checks.

Blogs

  • User Contributions: Users can post blogs in two categories: Spiritual and Personal Development.

  • Engagement: Users can like and comment on each other's blogs.

  • Rich Content: Blogs support rich text, banner images, and card images.

File Hosting and Database

  • Amazon S3: Utilized for reliable and scalable file hosting.

  • Amazon RDS (MySQL): Chosen as the database for efficient data management

Miscellaneous

  • Swagger API: Enabled for easy access to models and API endpoints.

  • Postman Workspace: An invite link is provided in the README.md for testing and collaboration.

  • Docker Compose: Simplified setup and local testing using Docker Compose.

  • Automated Scripts: Bash and batch scripts for streamlined builds and deployment to the local Docker engine.

Conclusion

Rudrakul is more than a project; it’s a daily pursuit of a vision, blending my acquired knowledge with new learnings. As I discover more advanced and optimized tools, I continue to enhance the app, ensuring it evolves with the latest technological advancements.