Meditation at Song of the Morning
On Saturday, a friend and I drove over to the Song of the Morning spiritual retreat center near Vanderbilt, Michigan for a 3-hour meditation. The retreat center is located on the Pigeon River amidst 800 acres of beautiful woods.
Song of the Morning was founded in 1971 by Oliver Black (Yogacharaya), a disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda.
J. Oliver Black was making a fortune as an automobile parts industrialist when he decided to give up financial power to search for personal strength. It happened after he met Indian yogi Paramhansa Yogananda, who is credited with bringing yoga to the Western world.
The 3-hour meditation was a breakthrough event for me as I rarely meditate for more than 40 to 50 minutes. As we sat in the second hour of meditation, my right hip started to scream at me. In the past, I would have changed positions to relieve the stress on it, but that day I found myself curious about the pain, the body and the one suffering. As the pain went through it’s cycles with waves reaching excruciating levels, I kept wondering about who it was that wanted to react and move. The body wanted relief, but what is pain?
As I continued the meditation at the Song of the Morning retreat center, I found it relatively easy to maintain my concentration through the pain as boundless awareness increased. I believe that most of the others meditating are followers of Paramahansa Yogananda in some fashion, though I am not sure how many of them are initiated into Kriya Yoga as taught by Paramahansa Yogananda.
When I was 19 or 20 years of age, I was introduced to Roy Eugene Davis, a disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda, through my friend Pat Yarbrough who now owns the Yoga & Rejuvination Center in Sherman Oaks, CA. Pat & I were both involved in Eckankar at the time. Eckankar was founded by Paul Twitchell and at that time taught “soul travel” as a means of leaving the body and traveling into spiritual worlds and other dimensions of consciousness.
Roy Eugene Davis, initiated me into Kriya Yoga. I don’t recall whether that happened prior to me reading Autobiography of a Yogi or after. Autobiography of a Yoga is a wonderful book and though it’s been over 40 years since I read it, I recall much of it. I think I will order a new copy and give it another read.
Here are a few books on spirituality I have read over the years that stick with me:
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