In the spring of 2018, I hit a wall. I sensed there was another level of understanding, but I had no idea how to reach it.

I was listening to Mark Houston give a talk on the 11th step of the 12-step program - prayer and meditation. He told a story about someone complaining that meditation didn't work for them. Mark asked how long they'd been practicing. A couple of weeks, they said. His response: "If you haven't been meditating every day for at least six months, you aren't entitled to have an opinion on whether or not it works."

 

Bold statement. Challenge accepted.

 

I fumbled around for months, keeping my commitment but not experiencing any breakthrough - until a friend mentioned "Yogananda and the Great Ones" in passing. After he left, I googled it. Turns out Yogananda was Paramahansa Yogananda, his Self-Realization Fellowship was right here in Encinitas, where I live, and I'd been visiting the meditation gardens for years without knowing the connection.

 

I immediately read Autobiography of a Yogi. My life changed. Every question I'd ever had about God, religion, why we're here - questions that had never received satisfactory answers - suddenly made sense. 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. For the first time in my life, I felt stability, peace, contentment, inspiration, and joy. I knew I could handle whatever came. It felt absolutely amazing. My soul was waking up.

 

In autumn 2021, I rediscovered Ryan Kurczak's book Kriya Yoga: Continuing the Lineage of Enlightenment and applied to his two-year Kriya Yoga Apprenticeship Program. After six months of study, I traveled to Rochester, NY, to meet him at the Assisi Institute's annual retreat.

 

This is where the divine plan began to reveal itself. I met Isha Das and Swami Nirvanananda for the first time. Looking back, it's clear how life arranges itself - how we end up meeting exactly who we're meant to meet at exactly the right moment.

 

A month after the retreat, Ryan asked if I'd be inspired to serve as a Kriya Yoga teacher in our lineage. I was stunned. Why me? But after sitting with it, I realized everything in my life had been leading toward this kind of seva. Isha Das invited me to join the Friday Class in October 2022. I've rarely missed one in three years. I got to know him and Swami better during this time, along with the wonderful people who make up the Assisi Institute fellowship. I also participated in the first fourteen-month Mysticism Course Isha Das offered.

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In April 2023, Ryan asked me to write a commentary on Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras. Daunting? Absolutely. But I remembered a passage from Autobiography of a Yogi - when Mahavatar Babaji similarly tasked Swami Sri Yukteswar with writing what became The Holy Science. I accepted without worrying about how it would get done. Who's the doer anyway? When we step aside and let God work through us, remarkable things happen.

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For the next two years, Ryan guided the process, providing insights into the more nuanced and abstract aspects of the Sūtras. I finished in March 2025. Writing that commentary was both challenging and profoundly transformative. It changed how I see myself and the world. It invited me to live the teachings rather than understand them conceptually. That experience will always be a milestone in my spiritual journey. The commentary is now being published and will be available in spring 2026.

 

Separately, in 2023, Isha Das hinted that I might become an ordained Kriya Yoga teacher after we recorded an interview for his Wrestling with God podcast. In December 2023, he invited me to participate in a 24-month preparation process for ordination as a minister in our tradition. I accepted immediately. I will be officially ordained in July 2026.

 

I also deepened my relationship with Swami Nirvanananda during this time. Each year after the Assisi Institute retreat, Swami travels to Encinitas. We meet for meals and visit the Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens at Yogananda's ashram and hermitage. 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'd been hinting at attending the Maha Kumbha Mela for three years, and we finally made it happen in February 2025.

 

Emma and I met Isha Das, Swami, and other European devotees in Puri, Orissa, India. We stayed at the Ishopanhti Ashram with the priests who run the school that Swami supports through his charitable work. We met the students we sponsor, along with their outstanding teachers and faculty. Visiting the Karunalaya Leprosy Care Center and meeting 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 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, held every twelve years, making this one particularly auspicious since it occurs only every 144 years. Approximately 660 million devotees made the pilgrimage to this 45-day festival, coming to absolve their sins and attain mokṣa (liberation) from the cycle of birth and death.

 

We met friends from Italy and Germany at our camp at the Sangam - the confluence of three holy rivers: the Yamuna, Ganga, and Saraswati (two physical, one mythical). We spent eight divine days in meditation, puja, bathing in the waters of the sangam, eating, resting, exploring other acharyas' camps, practicing Hatha Yoga, and in satsang. We all had our private ordeals - illness, theft, travel hardships, constant noise, chaos, relentless, energetic overwhelm. The sacred bond between our group, old friends and new alike, never broke. Instead, it amplified, strengthening into something lifelong.

 

After returning from India in March, I began teaching a 12-week course on the Yoga Sūtras. A few weeks in, I knew we needed to go deeper. Isha Das blessed the decision to expand it into a nine-month journey. This experience has shaped my teaching style in ways that will carry our tradition forward.