My transition out of Rennie life back into conventional society was messy. Still a ship without navigation or a rudder, I cruised through different jobs; I helped write and produce a play, acted in a few shows, tried to design costumes, worked in a health food store again, and started working at an office temp agency. I look back at that floundering now and realize that that period of my life wasn’t about finding my role, career, mission, or purpose. It was about healing, awakening, and ending generational trauma. The commitment I made a few years earlier in college, that “it will stop with me,” had a power and momentum of its own. It was taking me on a journey that my intellect couldn’t fully understand.
After amicably breaking up with my Rennie boyfriend, I eventually found my way to a rented room in a Chicago apartment with an old college friend and his jazz musician buddy. One day, chatting with my college pal about spirituality, he volunteered, “Have you ever heard of Sri Mahayogi Paramahamsa? He’s in town. I think you should check him out.”
Honestly, normally I’d be a little more skeptical; I was deeply spiritual, but not necessarily into the guru thing. I can’t explain exactly why, but I didn’t even blink about committing to Sri Mahayogi’s first satsang (gathering). I remembered being a little surprised with myself as I drove on a cold winter evening to see this spiritual teacher I knew next to nothing about.
Sri Mahayogi was a slight Japanese man with a powerful emanating presence. I learned that he’d had a spontaneous awakening to Oneness in his childhood that sustained. He received visions of yoga asanas and went to India for a period to immerse himself in the practice of yoga. He dedicated his life to supporting others to awaken to non-dual awareness through yogic paths and practices.
On that windy Chicago evening, he sat on a cushion in front of a giant Buddha statue at the Vietnamese Buddhist temple and invited us to sit on the floor with him. He spoke in Japanese, and his translator was an endearing and earnest young Japanese woman who sat faithfully next to him, translating his words to us in the service of our awakening.
He spoke about the small self – ego – and the Big Self – Consciousness. He talked about liberation from the beliefs that we are separate from all of Creation, from Oneness. He expressed his own experience of living in a unified experience – still, deep, and one with all life.
The morning after this first meeting with Mahayogi, I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling a bit like I’d been struck by lightning. I recognized something in me that was ready to awaken, and even had already decided to awaken. The phrase, “This is the final frontier,” kept repeating itself over and over in my mind.
I proceeded to meet with him as much as I could during his brief visit to Chicago. I went to all his public talks and yoga classes. At one of these events, as I was walking into the sanctuary, one of the disciples greeted me by taking my hand. We both stood still and gazed into each other’s eyes. In that moment, with this relative stranger, I felt truly seen… but not just for my personality, qualities, or my humanness. I felt seen as part of the essence of creation. And her seeing me invited me to see her back. We were two humans in our bodies facing each other, and we were eternal at the same time. It was both profoundly intimate and bigger than both of us. It was the first time I experienced anything like that, and it is permanently etched in my memory.
Eventually, I got to have a private dialogue with Sri Mahayogi and his loving translator. I asked him if I could be his student. He asked, “Do you mean student or disciple?” I asked, “What’s the difference?” He just laughed. He told me to read three books by Swami Vivekananda: Jnana-Yoga (the path of logic), Raja-Yoga (the path of the body), and Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga (the paths of service and love). He advised me to meditate daily, do his prescribed yoga-asana practice, and meet once a week with the other disciples in Chicago.
Don’t let the word disciple scare you. I’ve since met countless spiritual seekers who got sucked into cults, and this was certainly (and thankfully) not one. There was always freedom to choose and no judgment on the choice, whatever it was. The only request was that if we chose to walk with Magayogi, we give ourselves fully to the structure he invited us into, trust that he was speaking from his authentic, alive knowing of Consciousness, and put aside any arrogant resistance to receive and allow the truth to flower within us.
Before this time, I frankly sucked at consistent discipline with practices like meditation and yoga. I tended to be more scattered, creative, and spontaneous. Apparently, I just needed the right motivation. I devoted myself to a rigorous routine of daily yoga (as much as 2 hours a day), fasting before and after yoga, meditation (an hour or more a day), and reading the books Sri Mahayogi recommended. It was intense. That structure had the intended impact on me; it was a crucible, allowing me to begin to see the conditioning and illusion that could be burned away so that I could see the truth of God, Oneness, and True Self.
It wasn’t all glory. I was prone to depression, especially in Chicago’s long and hard winters, and this quiet and internal practice exacerbated that depression. I persevered nonetheless, even though I’m sure my friends and family thought I was nuts.
When Mahayogi saw my devotion, on his next trip to Chicago, he gave me a new name – Amrita. He wanted us to have new names, not to be cool-and-hip spiritual seekers, but to have a name that reminded us of who we truly are. He told me that Amrita means “What is ultimately timeless and immortal.”
It might seem like I made a sudden departure from Christianity and nature-loving traditions. Even though I put my whole heart, mind, and body into these new practices, I never lost the fundamental love, respect, and relationship with these two paths. In fact, over time, I felt like I gained intimacy with all of it. What’s more intimate with nature than to be one with it? What’s more intimate with Christ or Mother Mary than to expand in the love that they transmit? Many years later, I realized that the seeds of non-dual awakening had been planted in me much earlier with books and practices from The Course in Miracles (which my mom gave me in high school), and The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Funny how Consciousness winks at us even if we can’t fully recognize it.
As with all meaningful teachers in life, Sri Mahayogi gave me so much that it humbles me to my core. He taught me about the experience of non-dual awakening and activated the seed in me. One of the many pieces that I have kept from Mahayogi is that when we calm the body and give it what it needs, our minds and hearts can also find a way to peace. He showed me how the body isn’t separate from awakening, it’s part of it. This teaching has revealed its many gifts to me throughout my life. It certainly helped me stay grounded through my awakening process.
Later in my life, after having a series of awakenings, I remember being on a plane, feeling so much gratitude for knowing Oneness, and I silently wept. I thanked Mahayogi for being the grandfather of my awakening. He was the first to open the door for me. There would be another who kicked me through the door… but meeting him required a radical life change.
