Evolve Yoga Anchorage Virginia

My first encounter with yogic powers was in my early twenties. I had gone to Atlanta with some friends for a rock festival and we had slipped into some shops on Peach Street. This was the late sixties and although the flower era had ended in San Francisco, it had just caught up with Atlanta. Day-glow colored buildings, tie-dyed shirts and psychedelic rock abounded.

One of my compatriots wanted to check out a really weird shop with clouds of incense that would shame any Catholic church. At the time, the music sounded really, really strange to this southern boy from Virginia. The music? Sitars. The shelves were filled with books about yoga and other exotic things. Then, as we were leaving, my eyes caught a book entitled Autobiography of a Yogi by Parmahansa Yogannanda. A photo of him adorned the cover; our eyes met and the world instantly changed. I stood transfixed and was unable to move. It was like I was suddenly transported into a dream, those strange dreams where you can’t move.

My friend called out to me as he started to leave. I turned around in really, really slow motion. And it seemed that the book was pulling at me, drawing me over to its shelf. With extraordinary will power, I forced myself away from the book and pulled myself out of the shop. Only when I had gotten out the door and onto the street did the strange powers of the book stop affecting me.

I did not know it at the time, for I had no context for such an experience, but I had experienced yogic power first hand. When I finally read the book, a few years later, I understood the strange affect it had on me.

Reading Yogannanda’s words activated memories from my many past lives in India, and they reconnected me with one of my primary spiritual lineages. His yogic powers (siddhis) were considerable and everything he touched or wrote carried some of his energy. This is a typical trait, I later discovered, of all accomplished yogis and yoginis (women yogis), as well as certain saints and mystics.

The siddhis or yogic powers are not limited to yogis or yoginis, however. There are many well-documented cases of Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, Jewish and Taoists saints and mystics who have attained the siddhis as well. In addition, it is well known among indigenous cultures that shamans often exhibit such powers as well.

Several years ago, I had an experience with the siddhis of a mystic in one of the most unlikely places on earth–Kodiak, Alaska.

I had been invited to teach a series of workshops in Anchorage and the following weekend I taught a workshop on Kodiak Island. After the final workshop on the island, I had a few days off. My organizer gave me a few options, and I chose the boat ride to a small island inhabited by Russian Orthodox monks where an Orthodox saint had lived. I was told that visitors more often than not, had to turn back due to rough seas. In fact, I was told the prelates of the Church in charge of the monastery had never been able to see it, as every time they went for a visit, high seas forced them back.

This was a source of immense humor among the native peoples.

We took a small airplane ride to a nearby island and landed on a spit of land that ended abruptly into turbulent and frigid waters. We were greeted by a local fisherman’s wife driving a pickup truck, and I hopped in the back of the Ford. My organizer got in the front.

It was summer, but there was a light snowfall as we headed for her house by the sea. I remember feeling quite cold and wondering how in the hell people survived here in the winter. We pulled up to a small house surrounded by cedar trees and went inside. Sitting by a large wooden table we sipped tea. Now anyone who has been to northern Alaska knows that time is a strange bird in these parts. We just sat and sat, talking a little here and there, waiting it seemed for some opportune time to leave. Finally, our host announced that it was time to go, and we piled back into the Ford pickup, and headed for the dock where her husband was waiting with a fishing trawler.

We took off across an amazingly placid sea. Our host sat next to a boom, knitting, and commented how unusual it was to have such a calm passing. I sat looking out at the rich unbelievably beautiful landscape of the neighboring islands as our boat chugged along at a fairly crisp pace. Seals followed us part way.

Passing an outcropping of boulders, we came into a small natural harbor. The water was too shallow for the trawler, so we got into a dinghy and headed to shore. The scene was like something out of the Middle Ages. A group of men were on the beach burning brush, the air thick with billows of white smoke which swirled in eddies against a stark blue sky. The monks wore long beards, typical of Russian and Greek Orthodox clerics, and they were wearing long grey robes with thin ropes tied about the waist. Each one of them also wore a crucifix.