Chapter 13 Care of the Soul Allison Parr-Plasha and I dated long distance for about three years while she earned a Master’s degree at Case Western. Most of the kids were with me during the week then some would go see their mom on weekends and I would visit Allison in Cleveland. This arrangement eased the kids into the idea we would be getting married in the future. I loved seeing Erie in a rearview mirror! Don’t get me…
Chapter 12 Moving Forward After the Erie Siddha Yoga Meditation Center closed in 1991, I focused on family, work and an evolving Sadhana. During the years from 84-89, I had worked at a rehabilitation hospital as the public relations coordinator. One hat I wore was marketing our services to families and professionals at educational conferences in the Midwest and east coast. If I would have any downtime, I would go to any available yoga or meditation classes. The Rochester…
Chapter 11 The Guru Years Part 2 I had already had experiences in meditation where my consciousness would expand outside myself and I felt like the entire universe was happening inside me. The feeling tone of this luminous expansive consciousness was love, joy, and peace. Even though this was an occasional experience, it gave me the conviction that this part of me was different from my mind and body. No matter how preoccupied I might get with my worries, concerns,…
Chapter 10 The Guru Years Part One The word Guru is one of those Yoga words like karma, mantra, dharma and even Yoga that have become so ubiquitous in our culture that the original meaning gets lost. There are financial, sports, fashion, fitness and cooking gurus. The traditional meaning is a teacher who can remove the darkness from the student’s mind so they can experience their spiritual light. The understanding is the inner light is our true nature and has…
Chapter 9 – Family Sadhana Swami Chidvilasanda once said that family sadhana was the highest. Sadhana means spiritual practices or perhaps from a broader perspective any conscious action or practice that supports knowledge of the mind-body concept or ego leading to the knowledge of the higher Self. Know thy self and the unexamined life is not worth living are the great maxims from the Greek Philosophers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unexamined_life_is_not_worth_living. I began my quest for that knowledge as I roamed the…
Chapter 8 The Adventures Continue… I went to my first Hatha Yoga class at the Glenwood YMCA. It was with Lee Kirkland, who had learned the Kripalu approach to Hatha Yoga. She taught a gentle style of traditional Hatha Yoga and was a perfect teacher for me. I enjoyed dropping into her classes for several years. She eventually would attend my gentle hatha and meditation classes at my home beginning in 1980. At that time in Kripalu which was started…
Chapter 7 Integration The next few years, from 73 to 76, deepened my love for knowledge and exploring spiritual experiences. I was reading the great Western classics in literature and philosophy. I was attending a Catholic college which took my mom a long time to warm up to. The most amazing experiences I had now was having my mind expanded by the range of ideas I was learning and by the meditation experiences that were unfolding. There would be times…
Chapter 6 The Play of Yoga and Meditation What is Yoga? I discovered many different definitions of Yoga in these ancient texts. How do you define Yoga? Today, the common perception and understanding are yoga is for stretching or a way to workout. Today, I hear that yoga is having a strong and flexible body. Or Yoga is sweating to purify the body. Yoga is for stress management. Yoga is for relaxing. Yoga is good for overall health. And if…
Chapter 5 Becoming Grounded My attachment to drugs had been replaced by spiritual highs but Ram Das reminded me to stay grounded. “Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.” At this time in my life, I was not grounded. I was very restless chasing meaning through people, places, things and my inner self. Shifts had happened but restlessness remained. I had…
Chapter 4 Big Mind Country Ram Das and his book Be Here Now was my guide. Ram Das was the former Richard Alpert, who along with Timothy Leary, Huston Smith and Andre Weil formed the Harvard Psychedelic club, and he realized LSD was not a sustainable lifestyle. He went to India and met his Guru, Neem Karoli Baba. Through the practices of yoga and meditation he had similar consciousness expanding experiences as he had had on LSD. I wanted the…
