The Abode of Yoga

Swami Vivekananda was nothing if not decisive. When invited to make the journey to Chicago to attend the Parliament of Religions, however, the wandering sadhu and heir to Sri Ramakrishna wavered. How could he go? His master had relentlessly driven home the message of renunciation. A true aspirant was to shun the world, shun women and gold, shun fame and philanthropy. For six years after Thakur’s death, that’s exactly what Swamiji had done -- and yet. Accepting the trip to America felt right. Finding himself on the southern coast of India at the time, Naren decided to swim out to a nearby rock and meditate. ("Vivekananda Rock" as it is known and appears today is pictured above.) Afterwards, mustering the kind of self-confidence that his brother disciples were not yet capable of, Swami Vivekananda accepted the invitation and opened the West to yoga. Now, more than a century later, it is time for Sri Chinmoy’s disciples to take up the mantle of Swamiji’s boldness. In this respec...

It took 139 posts and more than a year, but I'm finally at the end. I hope you've enjoyed the story. Before summing up, I thought I'd share some of the motivations and principles that have guided me as I've written. Initially, I wanted nothing more than to share Sahishnu's account of Guru's last hours. I had fully expected that in the days -- or at most weeks -- following Guru's death, the Center as an organization would release a detailed account of what happened from all those who were with Guru at the time. Inexplicably, that was not to be (and still hasn't happened as far as I can tell). After more than a month -- with no official word from the Center and no account of Guru's death whatever to be had-- I began to think about how I could get Sahishnu's account of what had happened out to those who would no doubt like to know (like Guru's thousands of active and former disciples). That's when the idea of a spiritual memoir hit me. Asid...

I left the Center in 1990. Since then, I've kept in contact with just a handful of disciples, none of them more so than Sudhir. Aside from my brother and sister, Sudhir was the only person I spoke to about spirituality with any frequency. We emailed mostly, perhaps once a week. Every few months or so, though, we'd catch up on the phone. It wasn't all (or even mostly) spiritual talk. We'd talk about Center gossip, the latest developments in the world of professional cycling -- the Tour de France was of particular mutual interest -- and we'd talk about Sudhir's health. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer and we'd discuss the latest treatments he was trying, some with apparent success at the time and all with harsh side effects. Through all of that, I had become closer to Sudhir than I was with any other disciple. It was fitting then, I suppose, that Sudhir was the first person to call me with the news that Guru had died. As I explained in my very first p...

In the three remaining years of his life, I saw Guru twice, when he made visits to San Diego to give concerts. The two visits were very different. The first was in October 2004. Guru gave a concert at the local Scottish Rights Temple and Ketan had called me and invited me to attend. I didn't see Ketan before the concert, but we did get a chance to chat for a little while just afterwards. Apparently after the concert, Guru and the disciples were headed over to the disciple-run restaurant -- Jyoti Bihanga -- for an impromptu function. Ketan invited me there, too, but I demurred. I couldn't crash a disciple function, I told him. So, we said our goodbyes and I went home. It had been nice to have had the chance to see Guru and sit in the back of the concert hall and meditate. I was satisfied. When I got home, though, Ketan called. He said that he'd asked Guru if I could attend the next morning's function at their hotel and that Guru had said I could. Early the next mornin...

A few days before Bryon passed away, I was sworn into the California Bar. It was the culmination of three years of classes and an intense three months of post-law school study for the bar exam. It was the start of my reentry into the working world. For three years, I had commuted to and from school on my mountain bike, in shorts, with my ever present backpack full of books. From then on, it was suits and ties and daily shaving. While still in law school, I had secured a clerkship at a small, high-end business litigation firm in downtown San Diego. Upon graduation from school, the firm hired me full-time. With my positive bar exam results, my cushy student life was over. I took solace in Sri Aurobindo's final masterpiece: Savitri . As I've written before, the most significant books I read during my three year law school career were Aurobindo's Essays on the Gita , The Synthesis of Yoga , and The Life Divine . In Savitri's 24,000 lines of blank verse , Auorbindo weaves...

The Center had no monopoly on unique and noble individuals who had a deep impact upon my personal development. Bryon Granmo is a prime example. I met Bryon in the summer of 1998, just after I graduated from the Monterey Institute . I had just landed a job with a college text book publisher and when I started there, Bryon was a co-worker. As I recall, he was an assistant acquisition editor at the time and had an office just across from my desk, which sat out in the hallway. I wasn't initially attracted to him. He always had a spring in his step, was cheerful and naturally gregarious. I was a little withdrawn. One day early on, however, I heard him say something like "...when I was in the Navy..." as he walked down the hallway talking to someone on his wireless headset. When he came back, I called him over. "What'd you do in the Navy?" "I was stationed on a ship in Japan," he responded. "Officer or enlisted," I asked. "Enlisted." ...

I've never felt quite so helpless as when my daughter Erin suffered from nightmares. About halfway through my law school career -- sometime in 2002 -- Erin began having bad dreams. She was about four years old, and just about an hour and a half after she'd fall asleep, it would start. They were more than bad dreams or plain nightmares. It was as if she were being attacked. Literally. Her eyes would be open, terrified at some sight invisible to my wife and me. For 15 minutes or so, Erin struggled to physically push her unseen attacker off of herself. It looked to me as if someone was pawing at her and she was struggling for her life. And I was powerless to intervene. I chanted silently in her ear. I synchronized my breathing with hers, opened my heart, and identified myself with her. We tried various fragrant essential oils and kept fresh flowers in the bedroom. Nothing worked though. After months of this torture, I suggested that we ask Guru for help. Elaine agreed. I looked t...