How I Came to Yoga - An Awakening

How did I come to yoga? In 1996, I was teaching English in Beijing, China and my friend loaned me two books by an monk, or swami, from a yoga tradition.

The swami said to sit in a quiet and pure place and repeat the mantra Om Namah Shivah which means I honor God within me. I made time each day to sit this way for a week. I would arrange a little puja table with a picture of the teacher that my friend had given me, a flower in a vase, and a candle. I lit the candle, bowed, and sat for meditation. One evening as I meditated, my breathe began to steady and deepen and my body relaxed. Suddenly something happened. With my eyes closed, I saw the swami's face clearly looking at me. I felt an energy strongly move in my spine and then I actually left my body through the top of my head. I was hovering somewhere above my body looking down on it.

But this kind of thing didn't normally happen to me. I'm not a new age flake. I kind of believe in astrology, my parents were hippies, and I once ran through a forest with no clothes on, but I had not “left my body.” But here it was happening plain as day and it wasn't spooky. It was unusual yet it felt natural. Then the thought occurred to me...what if I just died? Oh @#%*, am I actually dead? Somehow that one fearful thought brought me right back down into my body. Feeling relieved and disappointed at the same time, I opened my eyes. I was sure something big had just happened to me. Maybe it was the awakening called Shaktipat which the swami had spoken of in his book.

Shaktipat awakening is an inititation that is given from guru to student and has been handed down this way, so the yoga scriptures say, since the dawn of time. For yogis, the body is made of more than flesh and bones. The body is a place in which one can reunite with God. There is a dormant spiritual energy called kundalini at the base of the spine in the muladhara chakra. Once this dormant kundalini is awakened by an enlightened teacher, one can begin his or her spiritual journey and know God in this body, in this life.

Right after my body leaving experience, the phone rang and my neighbor asked me to meet him at a restaurant down the street. So, I walked down the street in Beijing, China with a new awareness that evening. I was overcome as I saw that everything and everyone seemed to be bathed in light. Chinese people smiled and laughed with their families. I could feel their happiness in my own heart and see light shining from their eyes. I felt connected to them. I felt connected to the trees as they swayed with the wind. My senses were heightened with a sweetness. I was drawn to see the light, the best, in everything and everyone. I had received Shaktipat. I still have it. And thanks to my teacher and my ongoing practice, the experience continues to grow and deepen.

The next morning I had a glimpse of how this Shaktipat awakening had affected my life. I was not a depressed person before this experience, but I did awaken each day with a slight feeling of heaviness and a touch of worry. It had been a normal feeling for me and I never thought much of it until it was gone. I noticed that I was now waking up feeling a sense of happiness every day. Though still riddled with life's ups and downs, there was a newfound sense of lightness and joy about living.

One day shortly after the awakening, I was on a bus in Beijing. Of course, I was stressed from: having to fight the old ladies as we all had to customarily squeeze into the bus door at the same time, the screetching bus attendent demanding “Mei peow (Buy Ticket!)" at me as if I was going to try to not pay, and then settling into the noisy, dirty, bumpy ride to my destination. Despite the stress, my breath began to deepen and the mantra “Om Namah Shivaya” welled up from within me. ONS rose up on my in breath and descended on my down breath. The mantra had powerfully seized me and I found myself again shifting back into seeing and feeling the lightness in everything again. Over the years, I've come to feel that enlightenment is that state of experiencing the light, the good, in everything. With practice, this state can grow.