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 -- ...