Kali Devi
My spiritual yearning started when I had just turned seven and was in Catholic school. I remember sitting there being so sad when the nuns told us that the babies in Africa couldn’t go to heaven because they weren’t baptized. I had a few sleepless nights after that session worrying about those babies in Africa. Then a few weeks later some missionary nuns came to our school. One of them was very beautiful. To this day I remember her face. She wore white and had these clear blue eyes and brightest smile I’d ever seen.
She was so different than the nuns that taught us with their black habits and grim faces. So, I happily went home that day informing my mother and grandmother that I was going to be a missionary nun so I could go to Africa and save the babies. I found a private place in the hallway that led upstairs and starting praying the rosary for a couple of hours every day. Every day that is until I overheard my mother and grandmother talking about me. My grandmother said, “Well, you know nuns run in our family.” Next thing I knew I was in public school and my ambition to be a missionary nun faded quickly. Good thing for me because while that’s a great path for some people, it wasn’t my path.
My interest in Catholicism came and went throughout high school and college until the day a priest sent me walking. I attended a Catholic University, and in one of the required theology courses, there was a discussion about sin. I’d been taught that if you didn’t consciously think something was a sin, it wasn’t a sin. When I brought that up, the priest who was teaching the class said, “but if a priest tells you it’s a sin, surely you accept what he says.” I said no, if in my heart I didn’t think it was a sin, it wasn’t. At that point, he fell down on his knees and started praying for me, and I walked out of the class and Catholicism.
At 22, I married the guy I’d been with since I was 18. At that time, I thought we were a great pair. Twenty years later, when we were getting a divorced, my daughter asked me if I’d married him because he was cute and funny. I have to say my answer was yes. However, we had quite an adventure during those years we were together.
The adventure started after that inner drive of mine to serve humanity that had surfaced earlier as saving the babies in Africa came up again. After getting very involved in civil rights and other causes that would make life better for everyone, we took off on a journey traveling around the US and Mexico in a bus and Europe in a tent.
Che Guevara was my hero. He was someone who put everyone on the line to “better the plight of all people.” But, as I read his books, and, believe me, I practically memorized all of them; he started talking about a new man with a new consciousness. He had discovered that the people he was liberating became just like their previous oppressors when they were in power. He wrote about a new kind of person that had a more universal kind of consciousness. So, I started reading everything I could find on consciousness. And, that is how Che took me to the spiritual path I’m on now.
The first books I found were on Zen, and while I found them interesting and dabbled in there meditation practices, it didn’t take me anywhere. Since the Zen books say you shouldn’t meditate when you’re pregnant, I stopped then and didn’t pick up meditation until four years later when I found the Yoga Center.
I found the center by accident—that is if there are any accidents. I was looking for a Zen master, but I couldn’t find one, which is interesting because they are all over the place in Southern CA. Then I started watching a yoga TV program. I mentioned to a neighbor that I’d like to find a place where I could study yoga—real yoga from a master—not the kind of yoga that was taught in a gym.
She said there’s this place she tried and didn’t like it, but she said, “You’d probably love it.” And she was right.
The minute I walked into the Yoga Center I knew something important had happened in my life. I felt for awhile that I was on a plateau of growth and needed to take the next step. But I didn’t know what the next step was until I got to that first meditation when my heart opened and for days I felt like I was madly in love with the world.
Even with all this goodness happening, I still thought I would do three months and move on. Clearly that didn’t happen. What did happen was I met a Yoga master, someone who obviously had experienced the higher states of consciousness I was seeking. His teaching soon took me to a more balanced, harmonious place than I’d ever experienced.
For me, selfless service, or karma yoga as it’s called, made all the difference. I wanted to help the Yoga Center and others find the peace and joy I was experiencing, so I offered to help out with just about anything that came along. With no expectation of reward, I received the great reward of transformation.
After about 10 years of yoga, I got divorced. I knew it was the right thing, but it was a difficult time, and my yoga practice was the light in all that darkness that kept me balanced and moving forward. And then at Yoga Center, I met my current husband. This time, although he was cute and funny too, I was with someone who I have a deep relationship with—one that is spiritual, human and fun at the same time.
My daughter and I are very close. And she has grown up to be a person I want to be friends with, even if we weren’t related. She works as an attorney, and is motivated by her ideals and sense of integrity she developed growing up in yoga.
To be continued with yoga growth stories…..
