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An introduction (as requested)

From the Bhakti List Archives

Samantha Atkins • May 20, 2002 


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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