The Abode of Yoga

It's a "she said - he said" situation. That's the first thought that occurred to me as I rode home from school that day , unable to study for my fast approaching law school exams. Sevika had said that she'd had sex with Guru. Guru, presumably, denied it. They couldn't both be right. A classic "she said - he said." Nobody -- save Sevika and Guru -- would ever know the truth. I acknowledge that. I'll never know whether Guru had sex with Sevika (or in the alternative, whether Sevika's allegation is a false one). I'll never know. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, my dissatisfaction with the realization that I'd never know the truth about Sevika's allegation led me to turn to the law in the hope of finding an answer. Courts deal with these types of conundrums every day, I'd reasoned. Judges and juries must have a way of deciding who is telling the truth when the stories of two people conflict. Sure enough, I discovered, they do. When the...

February 24, 1955 - January 20, 2009 To the still heights and to the troubled depths His equal spirit gave its vast assent: A poised serenity of tranquil strength, A wide unshaken look on Time's unrest Faced all experience with unaltered peace. Please take the time to check out this beautiful slide show of Sudhir set up by his good friend Ian "Harsha" Prior: http://web.mac.com/ianprior/iWeb/Site/Sudhir.html . Photo of Sudhir by Unmesh. Opening poem is an excerpt from Savitri , Book One, Canto Three, by Sri Aurobindo.

I no longer remember why I did it. I suppose it was boredom or, perhaps, my natural inclination to put off the inevitable -- I had an entire day ahead of me devoted to studying constitutional law, property rights, contracts, or whatever subject was on tap for my upcoming law school finals. The first exam was three days away and I was having trouble getting started that morning. It was December 2001. With finals complete, I'd be exactly halfway through law school. For whatever reason, though, I logged out of my email account that morning and instead of getting up and walking out of the computer lab to start studying in the library, I Googled the term "Sri Chinmoy Ex-Disciple." From there, it took me just a few seconds to find the Board. The "Board" is a Yahoo Groups message board , which had been set up by a disgruntled former disciple and which had quickly gained attention both inside and outside the Center for some of the salacious allegations posted there. I ...

Before moving to San Diego, my grandfather and namesake passed away. Generously, he left each of his grandchildren a modest inheritance. Mine disappeared immediately into the coffers of Visa and MasterCard, whose services I had used to leverage my education. Jeevan and Nirbachita , however, became entrepreneurs. Jeevan, who had settled in Santa Cruz after leaving the Center, used his money to open a yoga studio in Aptos, which he named Yoga Within . He ran it successfully for a few years before selling it. Nirbachita, too, went into business for herself. She was still in the Center and as I recall, even before she moved to New York permanently -- before she had even inherited any money -- Guru had suggested that she open a cafe of some kind. So, naturally, that's what she considered doing when she eventually came into the money. By then, however, Nirbachita's relationship with Guru was tempestuous. At the time, we were talking on the phone with each other fairly regularly and...

What a relief to be a student again, particularly in San Diego! In the summer of 2000, my family and I settled in the community of Ocean Beach and I began preparing for my first year of law school (or "One L"). The first thing I did upon arrival was to buy a mountain bike, which I used to commute to school each day. With few exceptions, for the next three years I'd wear shorts and t-shirts every day. Hard to beat that. As for law school itself, for better and for worse, it wasn't what I had expected. On the bright side, I found the experience nothing like the brutal experience described by Scott Turow in his classic memoir of his first year at Harvard Law: One L . That's probably because I didn't go to Harvard, and because my personal disposition was a little more laid back than Scott's was when he started school. At the outset, I had decided to treat law school like a job. I kept bankers' hours (and not lawyers' hours). Typically, I got...

Shortly after my reawakening , I began writing letters to Guru. Not all the time, mind you, but once every four or five months. I'd usually start such letters by giving Guru a basic update of my career and family life, and then summarize any dreams or experiences that I thought were of significance. From time to time, I'd also ask Guru rhetorical questions (generally speaking, Guru did not answer letters). In the late spring of 2000 -- after Nirbachita had made her permanent move to New York -- I wrote one such letter to Guru. I started by telling Guru that I had decided to go to law school in San Diego. I had quickly become bored with my duties at the textbook publisher and had applied to four law schools. Of the three schools that accepted my application, the one in San Diego had the most to offer my family. We were set to move down from Monterey come July. I then related, in my letter to Guru, some of the recent experiences I had been having in my walking meditations. Final...

By 1999, Jeevan was no longer in the Center. In the years just before, he had been working with our sister, Nirbachita , to re-establish a Sri Chinmoy Center in Santa Cruz, the very Center where I had started my journey so many years before. They had been making some gains in attracting seekers and had even put on a successful swim-run biathlon. Then word made it back to Guru that Jeevan had become romantically involved with someone. He was summarily kicked out of the Center. Shortly thereafter, Jeevan asked Guru if he could return to the Center. In response, Ashrita told Jeevan that Guru had expressed surprise to hear that Jeevan wanted back in, but that if he did, then he must move to the San Francisco Center (where, presumably, Jeevan would have less "freedom"). It didn't take long, however, for someone to spot Jeevan getting out of a car driven by a female disciple. Guru kicked Jeevan out of the Center for the second (and last) time. Much later, Jeevan told me tha...