Shopping with the Guru–

Shopping with the Guru–

Part II

 

It’s an odd thing, this getting old.
Along with it tags its companion, memory, another weirdo.

Sometimes I look back, peeking over my shoulder at the iterations of my life.
It feels like dozens of lifetimes have been squashed into this one.

The Kripalu Ashram!
Reading my story, Part I, last week, was so evocative—for me.
The ashram was a lifetime of lifetimes ago and oh, how I loved it.

I was a member of the community from 1989-1995, when it disbanded after the guru’s most spectacular and public fall from grace.
I stayed on, hired as a department head and core faculty member for the balance of these years.

I am grateful for all of it.
Yep, every single minute of it.
Even the moments I despised.
Even the moments
That terrified me.
All of it.

For all of it,
I 
Am
Grateful.

Shopping with the guru, being with him in Pennsylvania, took place probably in 1992-ish.
How many lifetimes of experience and evolution
Have I been carried through
Since then?

Quite sincerely, my ashram years were the happiest, the richest of my life.

I want to repeat something I said in last week’s blog:

If you call Kripalu your spiritual home—
Or—
If you have been there once and never attended a class
Or—
If you have never been there—
Or—
If you have never heard of it…

You must know that this organization today and every iteration of it literally stands on the shoulders of the Kripalu ashram and on the shoulders of those ashram members who created its programming and culture. 

Whatever the new iteration of Kripalu might be, come August 18, upon its reopening, one thing I know to be true:

We are blessed to have Kripalu’s work in the world.  

This I know to be true.

~~~
And now, what you have been waiting these past seven days, surely with bated breath…

Thanks for abiding my slightly less than perfect recording…

Here it is:

Shopping with the Guru, Part II.

Listen Here

~~~

Non-violence and compassion—
Ahimsa and karuna
Happy birthday, to His Holiness the Dali Lama