The night I found Yoga (or maybe, Yoga found me) 

My breakthrough moment came in the middle of a yoga teacher certification course. I had already been practicing asana for decades but the training curriculum required us to practice daily pranayama, japa (chanting), and sitting for meditation as well — practices I hadn’t really engaged in previously.

One night, back home after another 12-hour day of intensive practice, I collapsed on the couch and turned on some music. I don’t remember the song, but behind my closed eyes the notes began to take on color, and then shape, and then they morphed into intricate patterns — and suddenly the entire universe opened up to me. So vast, it literally stopped my breath.

There are no words to describe such an experience, as those of you who have ever had one well understand. It is a state in which words can’t even operate — in which you can only Know, because you are inseparable from That which is witnessed.

All wisdom, all Truth was accessible to me. I witnessed that physical reality is an illusion; that “we” are essentially points of Consciousness in a field teeming with information, speeding by in all directions at all times. Where it coalesces, we perceive “matter.”

I saw that Consciousness is non-local, meaning “we” can be anywhere and everywhere at any time. I perceived the mechanisms behind prodigy, speaking in tongues, and other mystical phenomena.

There was much more, of course, but to try to describe it would be pointless. Awakening is something you can only experience for yourself. I told a few people afterward that I believed I had seen the “mind of God,” and years later, that description still holds.

But that experience — which I now know was probably a spike of Kundalini rising — was only the beginning of my unfolding.

The experience itself lasted just a few minutes, but it changed my fundamental understanding of reality, and that greatly upset my ego. I worked 1-on-1 intensively with a teacher for the next five years doing my inner work and clearing psychological baggage.

Meanwhile, I read voraciously, investigated a variety of traditions, modalities and practices. I wanted to fully understand what was happening to me, and why.

Many more experiences —some blissful, some heart-wrenching, and everything in between — followed, until finally, a fundamental peace settled in.

I recognized it — it was the proverbial “Peace which passeth all understanding” mentioned in the Bible.

Also known as Yoga. 

 ***

This Course wasn’t really written “by me,” but, as I see it, arose spontaneously as part of the organic “flowering” of my practice and my journey. I don’t even remember deciding to create it, frankly, but once the process started, it was unstoppable.

The reason may be this: One Truth that is emphatically clear to me is that Yoga — both the system of practices and the state of experience to which they are meant to deliver us — is not something to be jealously guarded. Yoga is a powerful force for good in the world and something all humans are capable of by our very design.

The shift happens in an instant. It may manifest for you in this lifetime or require many more— but right practice is a powerful accelerant. And when one of us ignites, we carry the potential to illumine many more.

Alow me to humbly share with you my “spark.”