Our three kids are grown. In June of 2009, my husband, Ed, and I went on a short vacation to Port Aransas, Texas, to rest, rejuvenate and reminisce. Our youngest daughter, Katie, had just graduated from high school and, being our most demanding child, we went all-out for her. We were exhausted and badly in need of a break. The gifts were given, the party thrown, the diploma was in hand and the relatives had gone home. Because money was tight and we were trying to save at least something for the August tuition payment, we opted for a “cheap” vacation at a destination only a short eight-hour drive from home. We had gone to a beach wedding there two years ago and at least I had been dying to go back ever since. From my recollection, Port Aransas was calm and peaceful and I felt my spiritual life in need of a jump-start. I had been meditating for some years and the beach seemed the perfect place to deepen my practice.
I started my life as a Catholic attending Catholic grade school and a Catholic girls’ high school. From my earliest memories, I prayed frequently and felt God’s presence in my life. During high school I went to Mass nearly every day. I even thought of joining the convent, and believe I would have if it hadn’t been for my overwhelming desire to be a ballet dancer. However once I got to college and boys became a big part of my life, God took a back seat. Even after I married, and perhaps because my husband wasn’t devout, I continued to live a rather secular life. And I can’t say that I was happy.
In 1973, my first husband, Mike, and I became members of a small touring ballet company in residence at the University of Idaho. Mike was brought up Presbyterian but wasn’t particularly religious or spiritual. We were on the road a good percentage of our yearly 11-month contract and church-going was something we just never did. After five years in Idaho, we moved to Dallas to join Dallas Ballet. With Dallas Ballet we hardly traveled and usually had the months of May, June and July off. Nearing my 30th birthday, I felt my youth slipping away and with it an urge to explore life’s quintessential questions.
After about a year in Dallas, a dancer friend introduced us to St. Alcuin’s Community Church which opened up a whole new world for me. The church was lead by Father Taliaferro, a senior member of the Rosicrucian Order, an ancient religious society dedicated to the study of mysticism. Talk about the difference between night and day! Fr. Talliaferro’s weekly sermons were eye-opening and often baffling. It was hard for me to put into words what they were about. I just knew they mesmerized me and I wanted to know more.
When Father Taliaferro spoke, it was as if he were in a trance. He never spoke from notes and the amount and depth of the information he disseminated seemed monumental. I wondered how any individual could remember so much and speak about it so effortlessly and eloquently. He spoke of Jesus being the Buddha reincarnated, that Sir Francis Bacon actually wrote the Shakespeare Plays, that many of the founding fathers of the United States believed in mysticism and designed the dollar bill using mystical symbols, to name a few of his sermon topics. He spoke of the guidance of the ascended masters, meditation and reincarnation. It was all fascinating and mind-blowing. He spoke with such conviction that it touched something deep within me. I felt what he said was true and I embraced it.
Because of my interest in Father Taliaferro’s teachings, I joined the Rosicrucian Order to “develop my inner wisdom through their home study system of metaphysics and mysticism.” I don’t remember how many years I was a Rosicrucian or even much of what I learned. I do recall deciding to discontinue my studies at the point when the materials were teaching out-of-body travel. I never had any truly eye-opening experiences while a Rosicrucian. I wasn’t ready. I had too much earthly stuff yet to experience.
Living in Dallas offered many spiritual avenues. I started using my summer vacations to explore where I was being led. After being in Dallas a few years, I enrolled in an Astrology class at the Constellation Bookstore. I had always been interested in Astrology because, as a Virgo, my personality characteristics seemed to match so exactly what little I had read about my sign. Upon delving deeper into Astrology, I learned we are much more than our Sun sign and that many additional planets in my chart are also in Virgo. Constellation Bookstore held classes in other subjects too and I began taking advantage of what they had to offer. I watched a movie about Nostradamus; took a workshop on Palmistry; a seminar with astrologer, Alan Oken; and even started weekly Yoga classes.
Things began to change rapidly in my life. The Director of the Dallas Ballet, George Skibine, who had hired me, died suddenly. At the end of a tour of South America with the Dallas Ballet, Michael and I contracted hepatitis and were in bed for two months. Luckily, it was during our summer break; but not so luckily, Michael suffered a severe stress fracture in his shin when he started dancing again. He was forced to drop out of the ballet for the year. Randy, a friend who later became more than a friend, gave Michael a job in Nevada working a surface gold mine. That was the beginning of the end of our relationship and our marriage.
In my desire to increase my awareness and influence the events of my life, I signed up for a week-long seminar called Silva Mind Control. It was my first taste of prolonged meditation, although what Silva teaches could more accurately be called creative visualization while in a meditative state. The meditation of Silva usually has a material end in mind—landing a new job, finding a new boyfriend or winning the lottery (which Jose Silva actually did using his methods). During the seminar, I remember hearing about a book called “The Name It and Claim It Game” written by Helen Hadsell, better known as the Contest Queen. She purportedly won every contest she ever entered because she believed she was going to win. She used Silva Mind Control techniques to cement her beliefs. After the Silva seminar, I was meditating three times a day for fifteen minutes at a time. I continued this type of meditating with varying results for many years.
To further expand my horizons, I started going to classes, meditations and workshops at the Alphabiotics Center. The Center offered so many exciting activities it was hard to choose which to try first. I began by attending the weekly healing meditations. The participants would sit on the floor in a darkened room directing their collective energy to people in need of healing. I also signed up for a 6-week class on Handwriting Analysis with Mary Lynn Bryden, founder of the Institute of Graphological Science. After the first lesson, I was hooked. I began a ten-year intensive study of handwriting analysis.
Mary Lynn had spent years developing her handwriting course and having it certified by the Texas Education Agency. The first study manual was comprised of twelve lessons and when completed the title of Certified Graphologist was awarded. Each lesson focused on a different aspect of analyzing handwriting—for example, slant, size, spacing, zonal balance, and the shape of individual letters. Passing the lessons of the second study manual conferred the title of Certified Master Graphologist. After I had been studying with the Institute for several years, Mary Lynn developed a third course. In passing that series of lessons, the student became a Master Graphotherapist. Those lessons were based on codependency and addiction issues and taught methods the Graphotherapist could use to help a client change his behavior based on changing his handwriting.
After passing all three levels, I worked many Psychic Fairs in Dallas, Austin and Houston. There was good money to be made and my specialty was Compatibility Analysis. I would analyze a sample of handwriting from each person in a relationship and discuss with them the similarities and differences in their personalities. In doing the comparisons, I also brought in Astrological aspects. The Fairs were held on weekends so they didn’t interfere with my regular job. After years of study, I worked part time for Mary Lynn grading the lessons. I continued as grader even after Mary Lynn was strangled to death by her boyfriend. The Institute was taken over by a long-time friend and former lover of Mary Lynn’s. Alan and I worked together to keep the Institute going until it was sold to a woman from Oklahoma about three years after Mary Lynn died.
My life continued amid all the changes. Mike and I got divorced. Randy and I lived together for seven years until we too parted ways. I remained friends with both of them. I dated a bit and tended to go from one monogamous relationship to the next looking for Mr. Right. During one such relationship with someone I cared about deeply, I discovered I was pregnant. I couldn’t have been happier. Luckily at the time, I was immersed in a spiritual program that helped me deal with everything that was going on.
“The Course in Miracles” was my new spiritual savior. I heard about it from my best friend, Lynn, who had been attending a study group in the home of a man named, Kurt. She urged me to go with her and I am very glad I did. The Course describes in detail many of the misconceptions that have developed over the teachings of Jesus. The message of the Course is forgiveness and the book is summed up in the statement: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God.” The Course contains a Workbook of 365 lessons. The year I was pregnant, I practiced a lesson every day and they helped free me of resentments and anger. I believe I took many steps forward on my spiritual path that year. It was definitely a year of new beginnings—a miracle baby and a freer mind. Unfortunately, about a year into my study, Kurt died of AIDS.
After Ali was born, I drifted back to St. Alcuin’s and Father Taliaferro. He was the one who baptized her when she was 3 months old. I attended services sporadically over the next 4 to 5 years until Father Taliaferro passed in 1993. I attended his Memorial service as did hundreds of others.
In 1994, I enrolled Ali in a Montessori School in Oak Cliff. Father Taliaferro was instrumental in my decision as he had often preached about Maria Montessori and how her methods help children stay connected to the spirit within them. Father Taliaferro was one of the founders of the St. Alcuin Montessori School in North Dallas. I wanted Ali to attend St. Alcuin’s but it was too far away and too expensive. I soon found out that D.C.W. Montessori School was the place God wanted her to be because that’s where I met my husband, Ed.
Once Ed and I got together and I was the mother of three, we started attending Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Duncanville, Texas. Ed had been brought up Catholic so it seemed like the next best step. I always felt like an outsider at Holy Spirit even though I had my first marriage annulled so Ed and I could be married in the Church. We enrolled the kids in Faith Formation where they spent Sunday mornings for the next ten years. They received the Sacraments of Reconciliation, First Holy Communion, and Confirmation. We were happy when Father Timothy became Pastor because we loved his sermons. He was young, cute and the kids could relate to his sense of humor. I continued to believe in Reincarnation and the fact that everyone is saved. I cringed whenever I heard, “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.” I tried to keep my mouth shut and not confuse the kids too much.
In the year 2000, after years of searching, I found my spiritual home. My cousin, Ted, who has always been a spiritual seeker too, was the one who introduced me to Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings. I began by reading one of the Guru’s many books, most of which are made up of his early lectures. I was very attracted to his teachings which “emphasize the underlying unity of the world’s great religious and teach universally applicable methods for attaining direct personal experience of God through meditation.”
Yogananda was born in India in 1893 to a devoutly religious family. His mother and father meditated regularly and were devotees of Lahiri Mahashaya. It was this Guru who saved Yolanda from certain death by curing him of a serious illness when he was a small child. When he was just 17, Yogananda went searching for a spiritual teacher and found him in Swami Sri Yukteswar, a disciple of Lahiri Mahashaya’s. Yogananda lived in Yukteswar’s hermitage studying the science of Yoga for nearly ten years. He graduated from Calcutta University in 1915 after attending very few classes—he prayed and passed all his tests. Shortly thereafter, he became a monk of India’s venerable monastic Swami Order where he was given the name Yogananda, which means bliss through divine union.
In 1920, Yogananda was invited to the United States to attend an international religious conference in Boston. While here he founded the Self-Realization Fellowship which is a religious organization whose aim is to “disseminate worldwide his teachings on India’s ancient science of the philosophy of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation.” He established its headquarters in Los Angeles. Yogananda toured the U.S. for from 1920-1935 giving lectures and teaching dedicated students.
After an 18-month tour of Europe and India where he lectured and met other spiritual leaders, he returned to Los Angeles to begin a contemplative and more private time of his life. He gave smaller classes only to his closest devotees who became the first monks and nuns of the Self-Realization Fellowship Order. He wrote his life’s story, Autobiography of a Yogi, which was first published in 1946 and has since been translated in 18 languages. In 1952 he entered mahasamadhi, which is the permanent conscious withdrawal of the life force from the body. In other words, he passed from the material world to the spiritual world when he desired it and without any loss of consciousness. Twenty days after his death, no decay or disintegration of his body was visible to the Director of the Forest Lawn Cemetery who signed a notarized statement to that effect. He said the body of Yogananda was in a state of perfect preservation.
The SRF home-study lessons teach “scientific techniques of concentration and meditation that lead to the direct personal experience of God.” After years of practicing the techniques, a devotee is able to withdraw the life force from the senses and direct it to the higher spiritual centers. That is where the direct experience of God is felt as new, ever-changing joy. Once a person is able to reach that state by repeated practice, meditation is no longer work but complete contentment and bliss. The meditation experience spills over into all areas of his life and, no matter what his earthly circumstances, he is supremely happy. After eight years of meditation, I have begun to scratch the surface. In my meditations I am finally reaching the state of interiorization where the outer world becomes insignificant.
After I completed the classes, which took me approximately three years, I received Kriya initiation. Kriya is a “sacred spiritual science originating millenniums ago in India.” This science was brought into modern times by Yogananda and the ascended masters of Jesus, Krishna and others. Practicing Kriya dissolves negative karma and saves a person countless incarnations. It helps the devotee attain enlightenment at a more rapid rate. Yogananda promised his devotees that, if they practice Kriya faithfully, no matter at what stage of their life they begin, they will achieve enlightenment in this lifetime. That’s why I tell everyone—tongue-in-cheek—that I am not coming back. This is my last incarnation.
During the first week of August every year, the Self-Realization Fellowship holds an International Convocation in Los Angeles. I have attended this Convocation twice. It consists of a week of classes, meditations and lectures guided by the monks and nuns of the SRF. Nearly 6,000 people from 54 countries attend annually. It is truly an enlightening and monumental experience—meditating and chanting with so many people from so many different countries who have such a strong, common bond—dedication to the Guru and his teachings. I always return from that experience resolved to meditate with more attention and devotion.
Unfortunately this summer I was unable to attend the Convocation—mainly because of the fact that starting this Fall, I will have three kids in three different colleges. Port Aransas was my spiritual retreat. Each morning Ed and I would get up and run for an hour on the beach. It was brutal—but the rest of the day was pure bliss. We followed our run with a leisurely breakfast and then shopping—for groceries, towels, beach chairs, t-shirts for ourselves and souvenirs for friends. At about 1:00 p.m. we would go back to our cottage where I would sit on the balcony overlooking the ocean and meditate. I found that with the wind and sun on my face and the sound of the waves in the background, it was the perfect environment for meditation. I was spiritually rejuvenated. At about 3:00 p.m., I would make my way down to the beach, jump in the waves, and thank God for my life and all its blessings.
And if I wasn’t lucky enough to find my Guru, I also found my Church home. The Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff is nurturing me in ways I never would have thought possible. I am learning what it means to truly believe that “all men are created equal”. I now know more than ever “what I stand for” and I am making my voice heard by my writings and emails. I am growing in empathy and compassion through the Social Justice Ministry. The First Tuesday Films are opening my eyes to injustices everywhere and I am doing what I can to “walk the walk”. Best of all my kids are finally seeing what I am all about. I am a member of the Dallas Peace Center and the Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty. I walk in the Gay Pride Parade. I am a vegetarian because I am incensed at the way animals are treated on factory farms. I write the “Green Tips” for the UUCOC Monthly Newsletter. We recycle, use organic fertilizer and have a compost pile. I have finally found the peace that I have sought for so long. I am not complacent, but I am finally happy.
I started my life as a Catholic attending Catholic grade school and a Catholic girls’ high school. From my earliest memories, I prayed frequently and felt God’s presence in my life. During high school I went to Mass nearly every day. I even thought of joining the convent, and believe I would have if it hadn’t been for my overwhelming desire to be a ballet dancer. However once I got to college and boys became a big part of my life, God took a back seat. Even after I married, and perhaps because my husband wasn’t devout, I continued to live a rather secular life. And I can’t say that I was happy.
In 1973, my first husband, Mike, and I became members of a small touring ballet company in residence at the University of Idaho. Mike was brought up Presbyterian but wasn’t particularly religious or spiritual. We were on the road a good percentage of our yearly 11-month contract and church-going was something we just never did. After five years in Idaho, we moved to Dallas to join Dallas Ballet. With Dallas Ballet we hardly traveled and usually had the months of May, June and July off. Nearing my 30th birthday, I felt my youth slipping away and with it an urge to explore life’s quintessential questions.
After about a year in Dallas, a dancer friend introduced us to St. Alcuin’s Community Church which opened up a whole new world for me. The church was lead by Father Taliaferro, a senior member of the Rosicrucian Order, an ancient religious society dedicated to the study of mysticism. Talk about the difference between night and day! Fr. Talliaferro’s weekly sermons were eye-opening and often baffling. It was hard for me to put into words what they were about. I just knew they mesmerized me and I wanted to know more.
When Father Taliaferro spoke, it was as if he were in a trance. He never spoke from notes and the amount and depth of the information he disseminated seemed monumental. I wondered how any individual could remember so much and speak about it so effortlessly and eloquently. He spoke of Jesus being the Buddha reincarnated, that Sir Francis Bacon actually wrote the Shakespeare Plays, that many of the founding fathers of the United States believed in mysticism and designed the dollar bill using mystical symbols, to name a few of his sermon topics. He spoke of the guidance of the ascended masters, meditation and reincarnation. It was all fascinating and mind-blowing. He spoke with such conviction that it touched something deep within me. I felt what he said was true and I embraced it.
Because of my interest in Father Taliaferro’s teachings, I joined the Rosicrucian Order to “develop my inner wisdom through their home study system of metaphysics and mysticism.” I don’t remember how many years I was a Rosicrucian or even much of what I learned. I do recall deciding to discontinue my studies at the point when the materials were teaching out-of-body travel. I never had any truly eye-opening experiences while a Rosicrucian. I wasn’t ready. I had too much earthly stuff yet to experience.
Living in Dallas offered many spiritual avenues. I started using my summer vacations to explore where I was being led. After being in Dallas a few years, I enrolled in an Astrology class at the Constellation Bookstore. I had always been interested in Astrology because, as a Virgo, my personality characteristics seemed to match so exactly what little I had read about my sign. Upon delving deeper into Astrology, I learned we are much more than our Sun sign and that many additional planets in my chart are also in Virgo. Constellation Bookstore held classes in other subjects too and I began taking advantage of what they had to offer. I watched a movie about Nostradamus; took a workshop on Palmistry; a seminar with astrologer, Alan Oken; and even started weekly Yoga classes.
Things began to change rapidly in my life. The Director of the Dallas Ballet, George Skibine, who had hired me, died suddenly. At the end of a tour of South America with the Dallas Ballet, Michael and I contracted hepatitis and were in bed for two months. Luckily, it was during our summer break; but not so luckily, Michael suffered a severe stress fracture in his shin when he started dancing again. He was forced to drop out of the ballet for the year. Randy, a friend who later became more than a friend, gave Michael a job in Nevada working a surface gold mine. That was the beginning of the end of our relationship and our marriage.
In my desire to increase my awareness and influence the events of my life, I signed up for a week-long seminar called Silva Mind Control. It was my first taste of prolonged meditation, although what Silva teaches could more accurately be called creative visualization while in a meditative state. The meditation of Silva usually has a material end in mind—landing a new job, finding a new boyfriend or winning the lottery (which Jose Silva actually did using his methods). During the seminar, I remember hearing about a book called “The Name It and Claim It Game” written by Helen Hadsell, better known as the Contest Queen. She purportedly won every contest she ever entered because she believed she was going to win. She used Silva Mind Control techniques to cement her beliefs. After the Silva seminar, I was meditating three times a day for fifteen minutes at a time. I continued this type of meditating with varying results for many years.
To further expand my horizons, I started going to classes, meditations and workshops at the Alphabiotics Center. The Center offered so many exciting activities it was hard to choose which to try first. I began by attending the weekly healing meditations. The participants would sit on the floor in a darkened room directing their collective energy to people in need of healing. I also signed up for a 6-week class on Handwriting Analysis with Mary Lynn Bryden, founder of the Institute of Graphological Science. After the first lesson, I was hooked. I began a ten-year intensive study of handwriting analysis.
Mary Lynn had spent years developing her handwriting course and having it certified by the Texas Education Agency. The first study manual was comprised of twelve lessons and when completed the title of Certified Graphologist was awarded. Each lesson focused on a different aspect of analyzing handwriting—for example, slant, size, spacing, zonal balance, and the shape of individual letters. Passing the lessons of the second study manual conferred the title of Certified Master Graphologist. After I had been studying with the Institute for several years, Mary Lynn developed a third course. In passing that series of lessons, the student became a Master Graphotherapist. Those lessons were based on codependency and addiction issues and taught methods the Graphotherapist could use to help a client change his behavior based on changing his handwriting.
After passing all three levels, I worked many Psychic Fairs in Dallas, Austin and Houston. There was good money to be made and my specialty was Compatibility Analysis. I would analyze a sample of handwriting from each person in a relationship and discuss with them the similarities and differences in their personalities. In doing the comparisons, I also brought in Astrological aspects. The Fairs were held on weekends so they didn’t interfere with my regular job. After years of study, I worked part time for Mary Lynn grading the lessons. I continued as grader even after Mary Lynn was strangled to death by her boyfriend. The Institute was taken over by a long-time friend and former lover of Mary Lynn’s. Alan and I worked together to keep the Institute going until it was sold to a woman from Oklahoma about three years after Mary Lynn died.
My life continued amid all the changes. Mike and I got divorced. Randy and I lived together for seven years until we too parted ways. I remained friends with both of them. I dated a bit and tended to go from one monogamous relationship to the next looking for Mr. Right. During one such relationship with someone I cared about deeply, I discovered I was pregnant. I couldn’t have been happier. Luckily at the time, I was immersed in a spiritual program that helped me deal with everything that was going on.
“The Course in Miracles” was my new spiritual savior. I heard about it from my best friend, Lynn, who had been attending a study group in the home of a man named, Kurt. She urged me to go with her and I am very glad I did. The Course describes in detail many of the misconceptions that have developed over the teachings of Jesus. The message of the Course is forgiveness and the book is summed up in the statement: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God.” The Course contains a Workbook of 365 lessons. The year I was pregnant, I practiced a lesson every day and they helped free me of resentments and anger. I believe I took many steps forward on my spiritual path that year. It was definitely a year of new beginnings—a miracle baby and a freer mind. Unfortunately, about a year into my study, Kurt died of AIDS.
After Ali was born, I drifted back to St. Alcuin’s and Father Taliaferro. He was the one who baptized her when she was 3 months old. I attended services sporadically over the next 4 to 5 years until Father Taliaferro passed in 1993. I attended his Memorial service as did hundreds of others.
In 1994, I enrolled Ali in a Montessori School in Oak Cliff. Father Taliaferro was instrumental in my decision as he had often preached about Maria Montessori and how her methods help children stay connected to the spirit within them. Father Taliaferro was one of the founders of the St. Alcuin Montessori School in North Dallas. I wanted Ali to attend St. Alcuin’s but it was too far away and too expensive. I soon found out that D.C.W. Montessori School was the place God wanted her to be because that’s where I met my husband, Ed.
Once Ed and I got together and I was the mother of three, we started attending Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Duncanville, Texas. Ed had been brought up Catholic so it seemed like the next best step. I always felt like an outsider at Holy Spirit even though I had my first marriage annulled so Ed and I could be married in the Church. We enrolled the kids in Faith Formation where they spent Sunday mornings for the next ten years. They received the Sacraments of Reconciliation, First Holy Communion, and Confirmation. We were happy when Father Timothy became Pastor because we loved his sermons. He was young, cute and the kids could relate to his sense of humor. I continued to believe in Reincarnation and the fact that everyone is saved. I cringed whenever I heard, “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.” I tried to keep my mouth shut and not confuse the kids too much.
In the year 2000, after years of searching, I found my spiritual home. My cousin, Ted, who has always been a spiritual seeker too, was the one who introduced me to Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings. I began by reading one of the Guru’s many books, most of which are made up of his early lectures. I was very attracted to his teachings which “emphasize the underlying unity of the world’s great religious and teach universally applicable methods for attaining direct personal experience of God through meditation.”
Yogananda was born in India in 1893 to a devoutly religious family. His mother and father meditated regularly and were devotees of Lahiri Mahashaya. It was this Guru who saved Yolanda from certain death by curing him of a serious illness when he was a small child. When he was just 17, Yogananda went searching for a spiritual teacher and found him in Swami Sri Yukteswar, a disciple of Lahiri Mahashaya’s. Yogananda lived in Yukteswar’s hermitage studying the science of Yoga for nearly ten years. He graduated from Calcutta University in 1915 after attending very few classes—he prayed and passed all his tests. Shortly thereafter, he became a monk of India’s venerable monastic Swami Order where he was given the name Yogananda, which means bliss through divine union.
In 1920, Yogananda was invited to the United States to attend an international religious conference in Boston. While here he founded the Self-Realization Fellowship which is a religious organization whose aim is to “disseminate worldwide his teachings on India’s ancient science of the philosophy of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation.” He established its headquarters in Los Angeles. Yogananda toured the U.S. for from 1920-1935 giving lectures and teaching dedicated students.
After an 18-month tour of Europe and India where he lectured and met other spiritual leaders, he returned to Los Angeles to begin a contemplative and more private time of his life. He gave smaller classes only to his closest devotees who became the first monks and nuns of the Self-Realization Fellowship Order. He wrote his life’s story, Autobiography of a Yogi, which was first published in 1946 and has since been translated in 18 languages. In 1952 he entered mahasamadhi, which is the permanent conscious withdrawal of the life force from the body. In other words, he passed from the material world to the spiritual world when he desired it and without any loss of consciousness. Twenty days after his death, no decay or disintegration of his body was visible to the Director of the Forest Lawn Cemetery who signed a notarized statement to that effect. He said the body of Yogananda was in a state of perfect preservation.
The SRF home-study lessons teach “scientific techniques of concentration and meditation that lead to the direct personal experience of God.” After years of practicing the techniques, a devotee is able to withdraw the life force from the senses and direct it to the higher spiritual centers. That is where the direct experience of God is felt as new, ever-changing joy. Once a person is able to reach that state by repeated practice, meditation is no longer work but complete contentment and bliss. The meditation experience spills over into all areas of his life and, no matter what his earthly circumstances, he is supremely happy. After eight years of meditation, I have begun to scratch the surface. In my meditations I am finally reaching the state of interiorization where the outer world becomes insignificant.
After I completed the classes, which took me approximately three years, I received Kriya initiation. Kriya is a “sacred spiritual science originating millenniums ago in India.” This science was brought into modern times by Yogananda and the ascended masters of Jesus, Krishna and others. Practicing Kriya dissolves negative karma and saves a person countless incarnations. It helps the devotee attain enlightenment at a more rapid rate. Yogananda promised his devotees that, if they practice Kriya faithfully, no matter at what stage of their life they begin, they will achieve enlightenment in this lifetime. That’s why I tell everyone—tongue-in-cheek—that I am not coming back. This is my last incarnation.
During the first week of August every year, the Self-Realization Fellowship holds an International Convocation in Los Angeles. I have attended this Convocation twice. It consists of a week of classes, meditations and lectures guided by the monks and nuns of the SRF. Nearly 6,000 people from 54 countries attend annually. It is truly an enlightening and monumental experience—meditating and chanting with so many people from so many different countries who have such a strong, common bond—dedication to the Guru and his teachings. I always return from that experience resolved to meditate with more attention and devotion.
Unfortunately this summer I was unable to attend the Convocation—mainly because of the fact that starting this Fall, I will have three kids in three different colleges. Port Aransas was my spiritual retreat. Each morning Ed and I would get up and run for an hour on the beach. It was brutal—but the rest of the day was pure bliss. We followed our run with a leisurely breakfast and then shopping—for groceries, towels, beach chairs, t-shirts for ourselves and souvenirs for friends. At about 1:00 p.m. we would go back to our cottage where I would sit on the balcony overlooking the ocean and meditate. I found that with the wind and sun on my face and the sound of the waves in the background, it was the perfect environment for meditation. I was spiritually rejuvenated. At about 3:00 p.m., I would make my way down to the beach, jump in the waves, and thank God for my life and all its blessings.
And if I wasn’t lucky enough to find my Guru, I also found my Church home. The Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff is nurturing me in ways I never would have thought possible. I am learning what it means to truly believe that “all men are created equal”. I now know more than ever “what I stand for” and I am making my voice heard by my writings and emails. I am growing in empathy and compassion through the Social Justice Ministry. The First Tuesday Films are opening my eyes to injustices everywhere and I am doing what I can to “walk the walk”. Best of all my kids are finally seeing what I am all about. I am a member of the Dallas Peace Center and the Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty. I walk in the Gay Pride Parade. I am a vegetarian because I am incensed at the way animals are treated on factory farms. I write the “Green Tips” for the UUCOC Monthly Newsletter. We recycle, use organic fertilizer and have a compost pile. I have finally found the peace that I have sought for so long. I am not complacent, but I am finally happy.
