September 12, 2024

“I WAS RAISED AS A CATHOLIC, AN IMAGINATIVE FILIPINO HAWAII KID, WHO ENJOYED THE PAGEANTRY OF (BELIEVE-IT-OR-NOT) THE MASS WITH THE “STATIONS OF THE CROSS!” I SOURED ON RELIGION WHEN I WAS TOLD ON THE WEEK BEFORE MY FIRST COMMUNION THAT MY DIVORCED MOTHER AND FATHER WERE “EXCOMMUNICATED” AND COULD NOT ATTEND MY FIRST COMMUNION MASS SO I QUIT.

As a Flower Child of the Hippie Generation I was introduced to pop-culture intellectual pedagogy alternative views, including the LSD of Timothy Leary and psilocybin of The Merry Pranksters. One can have only so many acid trips before one can experience a bad one. Mine was the week after I graduated from high school and to change the subject and with high anticipation (no pun intended) two of my high school buddies had saved our coins with every intention to go to the Dawning of the New Age of Aquarius and we did fly to ground zero of the hippies’ what they called “Happenings”— San Francisco Golden Gate Park.

In my generation, the incessant Youth Warning was, “Never trust anyone over 30!” That’s all well and good until I hit 30 and I am now approaching my 75th year.

As the previously noted aphorism about yogis and students, that a teacher will come when you are ready, and it was in my late teens’/early 20’s that a trusted simpatico friend recommended that I read “Autobiography of a Yogi,” by Paramahansa Yogananda, the revered yogi and master of Self-Realization Fellowship ( SRF). It was my spiritual invitation to become a student and then devote’ of Kriya Yoga under the exclusive guidance of the Paramahansa Yogananda lineage, sages ,who espoused a formal established Yogic way-of-life and presumably heaven’s “stairway-to-the-stars.” I was also informed that “When a spiritual seeker is ready, the ideal teacher will make himself known.

And as you can well imagine, there have been many authentic and appropriate “masters” that have contributed to my now current assessment of the Universe, but I digress.

AND an unexpected albeit relatively known Addendum - - each & every attendee at the memorial service of Bill Gates’ was gifted with a copy of “Autobiography of a Yogi,” by Paramahamsa Yogananda. Two guys who KNEW SOMETHING!”