The Abode of Yoga

It's impossible for me to overstate the importance of Christopher Isherwood's spiritual memoir, My Guru and His Disciple , to my own spiritual development. I read it in late 1998, after my reawakening and the birth of my daughter. At that point, it immediately became the third book in what I then considered to be my spiritual canon, along with Autobiography of a Yogi , and The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna . While Autobiography inspired me to look for a guru and take up the spiritual life, and The Gospel inflamed my spiritual desire to its peak, Isherwood's loving and critical look back at his own guru, his own "Center," and his own spiritual life was instrumental in my ability to critically understand my Center years and to understand them in context. Isherwood was born in England and educated at Cambridge. In 1939, he emigrated to the United States to avoid being drafted at home. While living in Germany during the 1930s, Isherwood had fallen in love with a young...

In December 1997, I completed my undergraduate degree, and because I had gone to school full-time over both summers, I was on track to finish my graduate degree just a few months later. Before that final graduation from the Monterey Institute, however, I had an interesting experience at the local shopping mall. While walking behind a young couple and their five or six year old daughter, it occurred to me that having another child would be nice. At that point (in early 1998), Elaine and I had not discussed having another child. Sean was about four at the time and until then, I had thought that one child was enough. My focus was on finishing up school and then getting a career of some kind started. Having more children had been the last thing on my mind. And yet, that's what I was thinking as I watched that little girl walking along with her parents at the mall. Later that week, Elaine told me that she was pregnant -- the baby was due in November 1998. The news of Elaine's pregn...

I loved my time at the Monterey Institute . Part of that, of course, was the loose structure of student life. In almost four years in the Navy, I shaved every weekday and not only never missed a day of work, but was never even late for a day of work. The pace of student life was just much more relaxed. As a bonus, I loved what I was studying: international trade, national security issues, economics. My mind was like a sponge in the way it soaked up information. That summer (1996), I began studying Japanese at the Institute's summer language intensive -- five days a week of full-time Japanese immersion. I loved that, too, though the pace of instruction was brisk. From that point forward, language studies were an integral part of my coursework through the following fall and into the New Year. I spent my second summer (1997) at the Institute just as I had my first: at the summer Japanese language intensive. As I had been doing for the past year, I memorized Kanji characters from flas...

I'm intrigued by the experience of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, which she presents in this video . If you haven't watched it, do take the time. It's about 20 minutes long, but you'll think about it for the rest of the day and beyond. Dr. Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist who suffered from a massive stroke on the left side of her brain in 1996. Surprisingly, she found that the stroke opened her up to an entirely different -- and blissful -- experience of existence. She has since called it her " stroke of insight ." She recounts that, as a scientist, she had lived her whole life sensing the world through the left hemisphere of her brain. The left hemisphere of the brain processes sensory data in a logical, linear way. The stroke changed that for her. As a result, Dr. Bolte Taylor was forced to experience the world through the creative, intuitive right hemisphere of her brain. Her description of the experience is mystical. What intrigued me about her talk was the idea...

On November 21, 1995, I walked off the USS Nimitz for the last time. What a feeling to stand at the head of the pier that cold morning, with my sea bag slung over my shoulder, and look back upon that awesome and horrible ship, which had been my home for the previous three years. I didn't stand there for long though. One of my closest shipmates -- Brandon -- was released from the Navy the very same day and he was giving me a ride to the Seattle-Tacoma airport. My wife and son had moved back to California about a month earlier and were living in Santa Cruz, where we were renting a house with my mom. The Monterey Institute of International Studies had accepted my application and I was to start classes there in January. In the meantime, I had about six weeks to relax, to grow accustomed to being a civilian, to process the many dreams -- nightmares, really -- of seeing stripes on my sleeve and being told that I was back in the Navy. It's only with hindsight that I now realize how i...

The Abode of Yoga reaches the one year mark. To date -- and not counting this one -- I've written 120 posts. I estimate that we're about 30 or so posts from the end. At the rate I've been going, that should take about three months or so. The pace, however, might slow down. As I left the Navy -- and as I'll explain shortly -- I experienced a spiritual reawakening of sorts and had to struggle with the question of how to synthesize a mystical daily experience, an occult experience, with my new thoroughly material life. I was to find great insight in this regard from the writings of Sri Aurobindo. Translating this sythetic process in a few, snappy blog posts will be a challenge. So, too, will be addressing some of the public challenges Guru and the Center faced in the last few years of his life -- challenges that many of my friends both inside and outside the Center would prefer not be addressed at all. Dealing with those issues -- and for those unaware of what I'm allu...

With one year left in the service, I had some thinking to do. My original plan had been to become a Navy SEAL and complete my undergraduate degree all in one four-year enlistment period and then get out of the Navy. As the Nimitz left dry dock and prepared for sea trials, however, not only had I not become a SEAL but neither had I completed my college degree -- I was still a few credits short. These twin failures had a devastating impact on my mood until I read a brochure from the Monterey Institute of International Studies or "MIIS." I had known about MIIS for years. It was a small graduate school devoted to international affairs with a particularly strong emphasis on foreign language acquisition. It was founded in 1955 by former instructors of the Defense Language Institute or "DLI." Outside foreign policy circles, MIIS was little known. Inside -- particularly inside intelligence circles -- graduates of MIIS were sometimes referred to as the "Monterey Mafia...

It was 7:00 a.m. and all those in the intelligence division were gathered for morning quarters. We had just left the Gulf to begin our six week journey home and were on our way for a few days of liberty in Thailand. Lcdr. Segura walked in to read whatever notices there were to read. "I have a message to read from Amcross," he began. "This message is to the USS Nimitz, received 2323 zulu last night, to Seaman Kracht." Mr. Segura looked up from the paper he was reading from with a slight smile on his face before continuing on. With mention of my name, I began listening. "Wife Elaine requests advise birth of baby boy. Verification by Dr. Frank Zarka of O'Connor Hospital this city. Doctor states baby born 26 June 1993 at 1530 hours, 7 lbs. 15 oz., named Sean Jeffrey. Mother and child doing well." Applause broke out from the rest of the guys. It was a nice moment and as soon as quarters broke up, I told my best friends in the division -- Scott and Mark -- ...

"USS Nimitz, CVIC , how may I direct your call?" Since entering the Gulf, I had been assigned to the night crew. We worked the 12-hour shift from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Our primary mission: waxing and buffing the tile covered decks in and around the carrier intelligence center or "CVIC." Our newest responsibility, however, was answering the secure "hotline" to the ship. That should have been the responsibility of the Radiomen in the Communications Department, but they had fucked it up. Apparently, they had shown some disrespect to a big wig who had called the ship. So, now I had to answer it. "This is White House operator number nineteen," the female voice on the other end of the secure line said. "I'm calling for the Commander of Carrier Group Seven." It must have been one or two in the morning. "Okay," I said. "Just a moment and I'll transfer you." According to procedure, I wrote the details of the call -- the ...

In hindsight, thinking about these old sea stories makes me laugh -- the utter absurdity of it all. At the time, however, I was very depressed. In the wake of my failure at BUD/S, separation from my pregnant wife, being thrust into the oppressive conditions of life at sea aboard an aircraft carrier, my constant sadness was crushing. I didn't let it show though. I shined my shoes and ironed my shirts and did what I was told to do. But like its psychic opposite , my depression permeated my consciousness, unseen by others. It left me with nothing but a desire to be alone. On our first night of liberty in Hong Kong (after a month at sea), I followed a group of guys to an Australian bar, which was rumored to be the hot spot in town. When we got there, it was packed with squids. I took one look at all the drunken sailors already there and walked out. After walking alone for about a mile, I found a secluded British-style pub nearly empty, where I had dinner and the best tasting draft Gui...

Mail call was infrequent that first month as we headed to Hong Kong. We picked up a load in Hawaii, but after that it was infrequent as we headed further west over the Pacific. But when it came, people were excited. It arrived on a particular plane -- called the "COD" for carrier onboard delivery -- and many of the veteran sailors could recognize the sound and vibration of the COD's twin propellers when it landed. Once the postal clerks sorted it all by department and division, the call would go out over the 1MC : "mail call, mail call." Those were happy words to hear. Me and a couple of the other guys were usually sent to pick it up. The Nimitz itself was an industrial labyrinth. It took me a week or two just to feel confidant that I could make my way between our birthing, the office, and the mess decks without getting lost. So, on that first mail run, I just followed the other guys. The mail itself was given to us in huge, unwieldy nylon bags, which made nav...

It's not easy to be a vegetarian in the Navy. I became a vegetarian in 1980, when I was 15 years old. Though it seemed to be the thing to do for those like me who were intending to tread the path of Hindu mysticism, there weren't that many of us. In the early '80s, you couldn't get a salad at McDonald's and there was no such thing as the Souplantation . If you weren't shopping for and cooking your own food, then your vegetarian choices were few. At that time, the best option for eating out was usually the all-you-can-eat salad bar option at the Sizzler steak house. I found the food aboard the Nimitz (in the mid-'90s) to be a throw back to those earlier times. Breakfast was fine -- always plenty of "scrambled egg product" available. Getting a good lunch or dinner, however, proved to be more challenging. The Nimitz did have a dedicated salad bar, which was pretty well stocked for our first few weeks at sea. Once the iceberg lettuce ran out, though, ...

The tide had changed. About a week after arriving in Bremerton, Washington (in January 1993), my ship -- the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz -- got underway. It would be a six-month voyage to the Persian Gulf. (By the way, the Navy refers to the Gulf as the "Arabian Gulf," not wanting to cede anything, even nominally, to the Iranians.) It would mean I'd miss the birth of my son. Absent prison, it's difficult to conceive of a more oppressive occupation than serving as a junior enlisted man aboard an aircraft carrier. Here's a short list of what I -- and literally thousands of others lowly swabbies -- faced aboard the Nimitz: ● we were at the bottom of a crowded, status-conscious pecking order; ● we worked, at minimum, 12 hours on, 12 hours off, seven days a week; ● with few exceptions, the food was horrible even for carnivores (and I was a vegetarian); ● we had zero privacy; ● noise pollution -- we slept beneath the flight deck, planes launching and la...

"I'm pregnant." It was Elaine on the phone from San Jose. Though Hell Week was over for me, I was still in San Diego awaiting orders to a new duty station. I had another three years of active duty to serve in the Navy. Without a doubt, I would be sent out to the fleet. In the meantime, I would get some time off for Thanksgiving (1992). I planned to meet Elaine in Santa Monica for the holiday and told her not to worry. We'd talk again then and figure out what to do. After I hung up the phone, though, I felt sure there was only one option. Elaine and I had been together about two-and-a-half years to that point. I had originally planned on proposing to her in April 1993 -- when Class 187 was due to graduate from BUD/S. That dream -- becoming a SEAL -- was dead now, however, with my inability to withstand the cold of Hell Week. While I was still at the BUD/S compound in Coronado, I was no longer in SEAL training. Instead, I was assigned to X-Division with all the other q...

I quit. I quit at the "Steel Pier" on the first night of Hell Week. Sailors have filthy mouths. I can attest to that. In the Special Warfare community, however, there's no dirtier word than "quitter." Like everything else in the Navy, there's an official term for what I did: Drop on Request or DOR. But have no doubt, I was a quitter. Class 187's Hell Week started in early November 1992 with a pizza party and video on Sunday afternoon. By majority vote, the class chose to watch Point Break with Patrick Swayze. Horrible movie, but it didn't much matter -- it was hard to concentrate on the movie knowing that in just a few hours Hell Week would kick off. It must have been around 7 p.m. or so when the party ended and we were moved to the beach. A couple large military tents had been constructed right on the beach, complete with cots for the 60 or so guys still left in Class 187. We all laid back on the cots fully clothed and the instructors ordered us to...

Bob loved his hair. That's what I remember most about our class-up party. The class-up party is a BUD/S tradition. On the weekend before your class starts First Phase, there's a kegger on the beach which is open to the BUD/S instructors. The one mainstay of the class-up party is the haircut. The classmates take turns shaving each others' heads. I didn't mind, but Bob was not very excited about it. He had no choice though. It was the beginning of what would be a tumultuous five weeks culminating in our own personal Super Bowl: Hell Week. Before I continue, though, a caveat. These posts aren't meant to be an in-depth source of information about BUD/S per se. This is a memoir about my personal experiences and development. BUD/S was a significant part of that, but if you want to know the ins and outs of BUD/S, there are now lots of other sources available. The best is probably the video series done by the Discovery Channel: Navy SEALS: BUDS Class 234 . It's also av...

I had been training so hard for so long that I thought the day would never come -- that something would prevent me from going to BUD/S . I had worried that perhaps I'd injure myself, or that the doctors at boot camp would find some kind of disqualifying physical defect, or there'd be some kind of bureaucratic SNAFU with my paperwork. Something, I'd thought, would get in my way. But after almost a month of vacation back in San Jose with Elaine after graduating from intelligence training, Bob called me at home. Bob had gone to Florida to see his family after graduation. He'd bought a truck there and then drove west to pick me up. The next day, I loaded my sea bag into Bob's new truck and we headed south from San Jose on an eight hour drive to San Diego and Naval Amphibious Base Coronado . The only part of that long drive that I remember is getting our first glimpse of the Coronado Bay Bridge , which spans the San Diego Bay, linking San Diego proper with Coronado. Bob...