Dear All!
With my warmest regards, here is my “Howdy”!
- After graduation from West High I enrolled in the University of Iowa.
- I soon got into psychedelics and was thoroughly charmed by their effects. I believed that the psychedelic experience ought to be the normal experience of life and consequently sought to understand it and somehow make it a permanent reality.
- I read “Autobiography of A Yogi”, said to myself, “This is it!” and signed up for the lessons recommended by Paramahansa Yogananda.
- Before receiving the lessons, my Mom suggested I and my girlfriend, Denise Philips, start Transcendental Meditation. We did! (1974) We liked it!
- However, then the lessons from Yogananda’s organization, The Self-Realization Fellowship, arrived and I quit TM and started their program of meditation.
- Denise continued to practice TM and signed up for an “in residence” course during which the participants do an extra meditation in the morning. THANK YOU DENISE!
- Fortunately, I decided to join her on the course.
- I saw Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on videotape and coupled with the experience of extra meditation, had a conversion experience!
- Totally sold out to TM!
- Realized the Self in December of 1994 and started reading a book entitled “Vasistha’s Yoga” (the second “s” is pronounced “sh”) translated by Swami Venkatesananda (available on Amazon).
- If I were on my death bed, the last words I would say are, “Read ‘Vasistha’s Yoga’ “.
I would also like to deeply apologize to each and everyone who was hurt by the profoundly ignorant, uncompassionate, and blindly egotistical behavior during my high school years!
Happy 50th Reunion!
Mark