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An introduction (as requested)

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Hi,

 

My name is Samantha. I am a disciple of Yogananda (second

generation) and my main spiritual home is Ananda. I was first

exposed to yoga many years ago when I was 15 and came across

"How to Know God, the Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali". This was

quite amazing considering I grew up in the heart of the 50s and

60s Bible Belt and I found this in a rack at a drugstore.

Naturally I had to see what it was about. I was totally amazed

by this book. I had fallen out with my birth church (Southern

Baptist) as despite my pestering all the ministers, deacons,

theology students and so on since I was 9 years old - no one

seemed to have answers that I needed. Worse, it seemed like

they had not asked the questions. And the God of Love that I

intuitively felt and that I wanted to learn to live fully in

Love as Jesus had, didn't seem to be talked about in the

hellfire and damnation circuit I grew up in. But when I read

Patanjali I knew instantly, intuitively and to my core that this

was Truth. Of course, at this age I was not remotely centered

and calm enough to really practice. But it started me on a

quest for all things Eastern.

 

By about 18 or 19 I first read Autobiography of a Yogi. I was

totally entranced. Here was one who had lived and acheived what

that earlier book talked about! Those glorious eyes melted me.

But again I was too restless. And somehow it never occurred

to me that the SRF on the other side of the country might accept

or at least be of help to someone like me.

 

It was many, many years of many different ways of thinking and

living before I came back to the spiritual path again. For a

while I was in the diaconate of a very wonderful metaphysical

Christian church. I had discovered the book, "A Course in

Miracles" and it had floored me because it talked in Christian

terms about how to live in Love and what that means and how to

get there from here! It covered everything I had thought as a

child and adolescent and so much more! I studied it and taught

it for a time at my church. Watching souls bloom right in front

of my eyes was a very great joy - one of the greatest of my

life. I was sure I would eventually give up my high-tech

software goddess career and become a minister. But something

was missing still.

 

It felt like, although I was being of service spiritually to many

in the church and outside it, that I simply was not immersed

fully enough into Spirit and that I was really only a bare

beginner on the Path. I didn't feel like I was well enough

acquanted with and immersed in Spirit to be of as much help to

those who came to me (or where brought to me) as I felt called

to be. I decided that the first thing I needed was a good

formal meditation practice. Almost the very day I decided that

I walked into a bookstore and saw a magaizine for Ananda with a

large ad on the front, "Learn Meditation - accelerated course".

So naturally I grabbed it up.

 

When I looked inside I first opened it to a picture of some of

the children in the group. There was a light in their eyes that

I very much was intriqued and touched by. Then I looked at the

pictures of the church ministers, teachers and other leaders and

I saw the same light except deeper. Unless this was very

skillful photography I knew I had to go and find out what this

was about! The meditation class was very straightforward and

proceeded by chanting. I had no idea chanting would touch me

like it did. The instructor was a very wise and kind man with

that light in his eyes also.

 

To make a long story short I soon had a talk with the minsiter of

the church I was at before and told him that I believed that my

spiritual growth required I join Ananda for a time. It was

difficult to do this as I consider him a dear friend as well as

a mentor and I had many ties in that church. But I felt as if I

had found a deeper end of the spiritual pool and I had to jump in!

 

I took many classes at Ananda, became a discple of Yogananda and

received Kriya initiation in 1997. One of the most surprising

things to me has been how devotional my nature turns out to be.

I always considered myself mainly intellectual and I am

strongly intellectual. Yet devotional things melt my heart and

give wings to my soul.

 

And so, here I am.

 

- samantha

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