Old Court House and grounds before 1878. See SUSAN, Chapter 1, "City of Three Rivers"
My Spiritual Life
My father was a minister and inspired me with his weekly sermons. I remember a particularly meaningful sermon about Jacob, who wrestles with an angel all night long, declaring to the angel, “I will not let you go unless you bless me!” The message—for my father and for me—was that our problems in life are blessings in disguise and we are given the chance to gain something—a gift really—from even the most difficult of life’s challenges. I learned this from my father when I was just eight years old.
My mother nearly died of polio when I was two years old, and later she told me about her near death experience. She had seen a light and sensed that it was full of radiant love; she wasn’t afraid of death. I was always moved when she told me her story, the two of us shedding tears and holding hands.
I started practicing Transcendental Meditation at the age of twenty-one. I traveled to France and studied to be a teacher with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I taught TM in Dayton, Ohio, for eight years, then moved to Fairfield, Iowa, the home of Maharishi International University (now Maharishi University of Management).
My father was a minister and inspired me with his weekly sermons. I remember a particularly meaningful sermon about Jacob, who wrestles with an angel all night long, declaring to the angel, “I will not let you go unless you bless me!” The message—for my father and for me—was that our problems in life are blessings in disguise and we are given the chance to gain something—a gift really—from even the most difficult of life’s challenges. I learned this from my father when I was just eight years old.
My mother nearly died of polio when I was two years old, and later she told me about her near death experience. She had seen a light and sensed that it was full of radiant love; she wasn’t afraid of death. I was always moved when she told me her story, the two of us shedding tears and holding hands.
I started practicing Transcendental Meditation at the age of twenty-one. I traveled to France and studied to be a teacher with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I taught TM in Dayton, Ohio, for eight years, then moved to Fairfield, Iowa, the home of Maharishi International University (now Maharishi University of Management).
Historical photographs courtesy of the Dayton Metro Library
