07/31/2013
This photo was taken in 1986, when I was living as a monk in India. I was 21 and it was the year of my first major spiritual awakening. Two years had passed. I had joined the monastery at age 19, and, since then, had lived an ascetic life, shaving my head, fasting, meditating and doing yoga practices. My day began at 3:30 am with Hatha Yoga. In my book, Jesus in the Lotus, I describe the transition as follows:
“Zealous for spiritual experiences and spiritual awakening, I had neglected the most important reason I had come to the monastery: I had come in response to the call of the Beloved. Excessively preoccupied with various kinds of meditation techniques, I had forgotten the very essence of the spiritual life …all about being in a living relationship with Spirit. Engrossed in learning to control mind, breath, and body, I had forgotten to seek the Divine as a person, as a being whom I could interact with and, perhaps more important, who could interact with me.”
It was the breakthrough into such a living experience of the divine that moved me out of asceticism and, eventually, out of the monastery into living a spiritual life as a householder. From time-to-time, it is so important to revive the core of the spiritual journey which is that of being in an active, living relationship with the invisible that is bidirectional. In a few hours, we begin this process as an online spiritual community with “Hidden Path of Love”, a nine day online course. We invite your good thoughts and prayers to support us on our journey inward as we share the same with you. All spiritual practice is for the world. Wonderfully, we, the spiritual practitioner, benefit as well.
http://www.russillpaul.com/articles/article/8789257/173643.htm
