1. What is your book about?
My book tells a personal story showing how a boy from Brooklyn grows up to become a yoga and meditation teacher who travels around the world. This memoir is not only about my story, it also sheds light on many of the events of the past 70 years including the Cold War years, the turbulence of the 1960s, the emergence of Eastern Spirituality in the Western world and the continuing social and spiritual events that are shaping humanity’s future.
In the book I recount my meetings with iconic counter-culture personalities like Ram Das, Brian Wilson, Allen Ginsberg and others. Those encounters, however, were only a preparation for the most significant part of my life, and of the story, my meeting in India with the spiritual teacher Shrii Shrii Anandamurti (1921-1990). Anandamurti was a towering yoga master and the founder of the Ananda Marga (Path of Bliss) movement. My life was transformed through his teachings and guidance.
I detail the story of my meeting with Anandamurti and share some of the wisdom that he imparted to me and to others. I also describe my adventures as a yoga monk traveling and teaching in Europe, the Far East and the Middle East, all on the flimsiest of shoestrings, and the spiritual lessons that I learned from these travels. I conclude with an account of my evolution as a singer-songwriter and how this brought me full circle back to the U.S.
2. Why did you write it?
Ever since I started on the spiritual path in 1970 I have been striving not only for self-realization, but I have been working to spread the essential message of spirituality to as many people as possible. I wrote the book hoping that my experiences will encourage others to realize, just as I did, that it is important to meditate and to do whatever is necessary to experience the presence of God, not just in books, but in the very core of our being.
Another reason why I wrote the book is that some of my experiences, especially those with my guru, are unique to me but may be of interest to others who are on the same path that I am traveling. If I didn’t write down my stories, then they would be lost when I leave this world.
3. What was it like having first-hand observations about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the last days of the Soviet Union, how did your travels lead you to each of those historic events?
When I first embarked on my path I had no inkling that I would witness or be part of momentous events. In 1979 when my guru visited Europe, he instructed us to work behind the Iron Curtain. At that time I was teaching meditation in France. Subsequently, during the 1980s, I and my colleagues visited the countries of Eastern Europe that were then satellites of the Soviet Union. We received a tremendous reception from young people who were searching for something new and this gave me great hope for the future of humanity. In the late 1980s the grip of the communists was weakening by leaps and bounds and we were surprisingly able to teach yoga and meditation in Eastern Europe and even the Soviet Union without much hindrance.
Having grown up in the Cold War years, when it was unimaginable to think about even visiting communist countries let alone going there and teaching things that were contrary to communism, this was an amazing experience. I was deeply moved when I sat in a large yoga retreat in Poland in 1991 and met a yoga nun who hailed from Mongolia, a country which had recently shed its communist government.
4. What did you experience in Syria and the Middle East?
After working in Eastern and Western Europe for 14 years, I took up an assignment in the Balkans and the Middle East and again witnessed important events. I took part in a relief effort in Albania to help ethnic Albanians who were forced out of the Yugoslav province of Kosovo in 1999, and later visited Kosovo which had become a European Union protected territory. We worked closely with the Kosovo refugees. They were nice people, but when one of them told me “we have to kill the Gypsies and Serbs” then I knew that it will be a while before the Balkan nations reach a peaceful solution to their problems.
My visit to Syria in 2005 was more inspiring. There I was amazed to see large numbers of Syrians, mostly from the Druze community, embracing our form of yoga and meditation. Whole families from toddlers to grandparents were practicing meditation. Somehow the Assad government didn’t stop our activities. In fact, we even held a large seminar in Damascus that was broadcast on the national TV network. Sometimes when we went to countries run by totalitarian governments we were forced to work “under cover” and didn’t wear our orange robes, but in Syria there we were, on television in our full monastic dress! In the following years our monks and nuns were no longer allowed to enter Syria, but to this day the local people continue to practice and teach meditation without us, even in the midst of the civil war.
5. And, from a spiritual perspective, what do you believe each of those events mean for the evolution of humanity?
These events are very important. A basic human characteristic, which is part of our dharma, is that we want to expand our minds and we don’t like to be constrained by arbitrary boundaries. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain show that physical force cannot permanently stop the desire of people to exercise their full capacity to develop as spiritual human beings.
In the Middle East there are terrible conflicts going on but I also know that even in this troubled zone there are people who are practicing meditation and doing whatever they can live as true human beings. The present conflicts, as bad as they are, will only serve to teach humanity that adherence to narrow dogmas is a dead-end path.
6. As a yoga and meditation teacher, what advice would you give to people who have been meditating for over 10 or 20 years and still are having trouble clearing their mind or finding more balance in their lives?
This is a big question! The ancient yogis gave some advice about living a balanced life. They formulated a path of eight-limbed yoga and the first two limbs (Yama and Niyama) address the problem of balanced living. Yama comprises practices that help us live in harmony with those around us, and Niyama are those practices that help us get inner harmony and purification. If someone tries to follow Yama and Niyama his or her life will gradually become balanced and meditation will become more fulfilling.
When it comes to clearing the mind, there are some techniques and practices that will be helpful. First of all, it is important to know that whenever we meditate, we face three obstacles. First, there is noise and stimuli in the outside environment that may disturb us. That’s why it helps to meditate early in the day when it is quieter and take other precautions to minimize outside disturbance. There are also some meditative techniques which are helpful in withdrawing from the world.
Secondly, our own physical body is calling attention to itself (in the form of an aching back or knee, for example) and that’s why it is important to keep the body in good shape. Proper food, proper exercise (including yoga postures) and a sensible lifestyle go a long way in preventing our body from getting in the way of blissful meditation. In addition, withdrawal from the body can also be aided with a proper meditation process.
Finally, the last obstacle is a mind cluttered by a constant flow of random thoughts. Chanting and listening to spiritual music before meditation is helpful in preparing the mind for meditation. In addition, if you make a good effort to follow all of the other points that I have already mentioned, then this last hurdle is not so difficult to overcome and you will be able to sit in silence and feel like a still point surrounded by a vast sea of infinite consciousness.
7. Where can we get a copy of your book?
If you want an autographed copy you can visit my website www.dadaveda.com and order a copy there. Or you can go to Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and other online booksellers and purchase the book either in paperback or in an electronic format.