In the spring of 2018, I hit a spiritual plateau. I knew there was another level, but I didn’t know how to access it. 

 

​I was listening to a talk given by Mark Houston on the 11th step of the 12-step program, focusing on prayer and meditation. He recounted a time when someone approached him, saying that meditation didn’t work for them. Mark then asked this person how long they’d been meditating. After hearing they had only been trying meditation for a couple of weeks, he said, “If you haven’t been meditating every day for at least six months, you aren’t entitled to have an opinion of whether or not it works.” I thought that was a very bold statement. Then I said to myself, “Challenge accepted!”

 

I fumbled around for a while, keeping the promise I made to myself to keep going, but I was surely not getting the breakthrough I was looking for until I heard one of my friends say, “Yogananda and the Great Ones.”

 

After my friend left, I typed "Yogananda and the Great Ones" into Google. I discovered- Yogananda was Parahamansa Yogananda, and his Self Realization Fellowship was here in town where I live, and I had been visiting the meditation gardens for years! I immediately read his book Autobiography of a Yogi, and my life was changed forever. Every question I ever had about God, religion, and why we’re here, for which I never received a satisfactory answer, was fulfilled. I could feel the Truth in his words. I knew I needed to learn Kriya Yoga. 

 

I spent the next two years studying Yogananda’s work, reading his books, and practicing his meditation techniques. Now I was getting somewhere. For the first time in my life, I felt a sense of stability, peace, contentment, inspiration, and joy. I knew I could handle anything life threw my way. It felt absolutely amazing. I felt my soul and spirit awakening. 

 

At yet another spiritual crossroads in the Autumn of 2021, I rediscovered Ryan Kurczak’s book, Kriya Yoga- Continuing the Lineage of Enlightenment, and soon after, I applied to his upcoming two-year Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship Program. Upon being accepted and studying the curriculum for the first six months, I made plans to travel to Rochester, NY, to meet him in person at the Assisi Institute annual Kriya Yoga retreat. 

 

This is when the divine plan began to unfold, as I also met Isha Das and Swami Nirvanananda for the first time. Looking back, it’s quite interesting how God arranges the situations and events of our lives to ensure we meet the people we’re meant to meet, thereby making it possible to fulfill our life’s purpose. I immediately knew that our meeting held more for the future. 

 

A month after the retreat, Ryan reached out to me and asked if I would be inspired to serve as a Kriya Yoga teacher in our lineage. At first, I was dumbfounded. Why me? After taking some time to let that possibility settle, I have come to realize that everything that has happened in my life has led me to this kind of seva.

 

Isha Das invited me to join the Friday Class in October of 2022, and I’m so glad I took him up on his offer. I got to know him and Swami better through this time, as well as the wonderful people who make up the fellowship of the Assisi Institute. I have rarely missed a Friday Class in three years! I also participated in the first, fourteen-month Mysticism Course offered by Isha Das.

 

In April of 2023, Ryan tasked me with writing a commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. A daunting prospect indeed! Remembering a passage from the Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda, when Mahavatar Babaji similarly tasked Swami Sri Yukteswar with writing what became The Holy Science, I accepted and did not worry about how it would get done. Who is the doer anyway? When we get out of the way and allow God to work through us, amazing things happen.

 

For the next two years, Ryan guided the process of writing my commentary by providing insights into some of the more nuanced and abstract aspects of the Sutras. I finished this project in March of 2025. The work and process of writing a commentary on the Yoga Sutras was both challenging and deeply transformative. It changed the way I see myself and the world, and it invited me further into living the teachings rather than just understanding them on a conceptual level. That experience will always remain a milestone in my spiritual journey.

 

Separately, in 2023, Isha Das had hinted at my becoming an ordained Kriya Yoga teacher after we had recorded an interview on his Wrestling with God Podcast. Then, in December of 2023, Isha Das invited me to participate in a 24-month preparation process for becoming an ordained minister in our Kriya Yoga Tradition, which I accepted without hesitation.

 

I also deepened my relationship with Swami Nirvananada during this time. Each year after the Assisi Institute retreat, Swami travels to Encinitas, where we meet up to share meals and visit the Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens at the Encinitas Ashram and Hermitage of Paramahansa Yogananda. My wife Emma and I have attended Swami’s fundraising kirtans for the Shantipuri Friends Foundation, and we’ve been sponsoring two students for the past three years. I had been hinting at him to attend the Maha Kumbha Mela for the past three years, and we finally made it a reality in February of 2025. 

 

Emma and I met Isha Das, Swami, and some other European devotees in Puri, Orissa, India. We all stayed at the Ishopanhti Ashram with the priests who are actively involved in running the school that Swami helps support through his charitable fundraising efforts throughout the year. We were able to meet the students we sponsor, as well as the outstanding teachers and faculty. Seeing the Karunalaya Leprosy Care Center and some of the residents was one of the most powerful and humbling experiences of my life. I realized in that moment that we can be happy in any situation. Happiness is a choice. A state of mind and being. It’s there if we want it. 

 

After Puri, we all traveled together to the Maha Kumbha Mela in Prayagraj. The holiest of the four sacred sites that hold the Kumbha Melas. This year’s gathering was the Maha (great in Sanskrit), the twelfth cycle of the celebrations held every twelve years, making this Maha Kumbh very auspicious since it occurs only every 144 years. Millions upon millions of devotees from all over the world came to absolve their sins and to attain Moksha (liberation) from the cycle of birth and death. This year, approximately 660 million devotees made the pilgrimage to the 45-day festival. We met more friends from Italy and Germany once we arrived at our Kumbh Mela camp at the Sangam (confluence) of the three holy rivers, the Yamuna, Ganga, and the Saraswati: two physical rivers and one mythical. 

 

We spent eight divine days in meditation, puja, bathing (snan) in the waters of the sangam, eating, resting, exploring the other acharyas, practicing Hatha Yoga, and in Satsang. We all had our private ordeals providing purification, such as illness, loss due to theft, travel hardships, constant noise, chaos, and relentless energetic overwhelm. The sacred bond between our group of old and new friends alike was never broken, but instead amplified, which ultimately strengthened it into a lifelong bond. 

 

After returning from India in March, I began teaching a 12-week course on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Soon after I started the course, I knew we needed to take a deep dive into the vastness of the Yoga Sutras. Isha Das gave me his blessing to continue in this way, creating a new model of a 9-month journey. This experience has helped shape my teaching style, which will carry our tradition into the future.

 

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