Do you ever look back over a period of your life and retrace your steps to a pivotal moment that altered your path? Of course it is bound to happen when you enter a new relationship, or experience a big life event, but sometimes a seemingly remote circumstance can have an unexpected impact on our life’s journey.
It has happened to me now and then, and recently I was reflecting on some of the new interests and activities I have been pursuing. I was pondering the series of events that led me to this point when as little as six months ago I wouldn’t have known a thing about some of the topics I’ve been studying.
It all started when Dr. Wayne Dyer made his transition a few months ago. Prior to that time I was familiar with some of his work and had read a few of his books. To honor Wayne, Hay House made his Kindle books available at very low prices for awhile so I took advantage of the opportunity to pick up a few. I had seen an interview where Wayne had talked about his memoir, “I Can See Clearly Now”, and had especially wanted to read that. In reading that book I was struck by how scholarly Wayne was. In his lifetime he read and studied many, many philosophers, poets, sages and more. He was impressively knowledgeable about a wide variety of religions, philosophies and spiritual teachings.
In the course of reading his memoir I noted several books that I wanted to read based on his comments about them. One of these was “Autobiography of a Yogi”, which I had heard of from time to time over the years. I read the book and found it fascinating. The Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda, was also a scholar and expert in the world’s religions and spiritual teachers. I learned so much reading that book that I decided I wanted to better understand the Yoga Sutras. I have a very light physical (asana) yoga practice, and understood at some level that asana is only a small part of yoga, but didn’t really have any appreciation for the depth of the teachings in the Sutras. I will devote my next blog to some thoughts on the Sutras and what I have gotten out of my studies so far, but I want to finish my thought on how this path unfolded, all as a result to Wayne Dyer’s passing.
When I decided I wanted to delve into the Sutras I asked my yoga instructor for recommendations on a couple of good translations. She obliged me by giving me several suggestions, including what she liked and what I would potentially get out of each of them. I chose two of them and started looking over one of them. Within a day or two I received a notice from my yoga studio that they were offering a class in yoga philosophy and an in depth look at, you guessed it, the Yoga Sutras. The textbook for the class was one of the books I had just purchased. Coincidence? I think not. I took the class about a week ago and have been studying the Sutras on my own since then.
The saying goes, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. As I look back over the past few months it seems clear that this was meant to be a next step for me. This all started because I decided to pick up a copy of Wayne Dyer’s autobiography. You just never know how the Universe will conspire to lead you down a path.
As an aside, I highly recommend picking up one or more of Wayne’s books, especially his more recent, spiritually-inclined books. I hope one of his books will lead you on an adventure too!
Love is always the truth.