An introduction (as requested)
From the Bhakti List Archives
• 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 -------------------------------------------------------------- - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH - To Post a message, send it to: bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com Group Home: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bhakti-list Archives: http://ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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