When something, or everything is lost— it helps to retrace our steps. This week’s newsletter isn’t looking back. If anything, years of meditation shows us the answers are right here where we left them. As I embark on a work and healing journey out West, I'm seeing once again God never needed me to choose.
Midwest, or West Coast? Both. Rat Race, Family Man, or Artist? All 3. When we surrender into our unfolding, we trust the Divine Plan has plans for us. All these trials and triumphs are here to soften our edges.
To roll us in the waves of our love, our grief, our gales of laughter. Our jagged edges softened by the sand and the tide. This is the journey of a lifetime— so long as we find Grace in its unfolding, and enjoy the ride. Walk the beach with me today in the California sun. Feel the sand between our toes.
Tomorrow I leave our family for nine days in California. That's a chunk of time. I almost hate leaving everyone as much as I need the time away. Time away wins. Am I running toward the sun, or away from home? Both, honestly. I'm teaching The 4 Permissions to sixty CEOs, reconnecting with allies, and going on a desert meditation retreat in my spiritual home. The Hidden Valley ashram and men's retreat center. Yogananda spent much of his final years there, in superconsciousness. Downloading and writing his commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita and the gospels of Christ. He wrote his spiritual classic, Autobiography of a Yogi in Encinitas. California continues to play its epic role in my life.
I've lived in Cali three separate times (and counting). Only twice was I a physical resident. In 1998, I went West as a 22 year old, like the Tom Petty song into the great wide open. That lifetime was only about music and our band. We lived in Venice Beach and I worked as a bank teller in Marina Del Rey. I took classes at Santa Monica College, wrote mostly bad songs, and played mostly killer shows. The highlight of that year was a small feature in Bass Player magazine. That mag was my Bible, but the write-up and photo was from years prior when I was touring full time. As a teenager I'd wake up in a bus on Sunset Blvd, couch surf with DEVO, or play shows up and down the coast.
Gayle and I got engaged on the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. An immaculate drive up Highway 1, floating in the California Dream. Even the traffic was good to us. I moved home to Ohio that Winter to finish school. My Dad was kind enough to cover Ohio tuition. We moved back to Cali as a minted married couple 12 months later, landing this time in Silver Lake. Halfway between Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles. This stint lasted five years, from entering adulthood after college, to being a married unit 3000 miles from family. I learned to sing in Flea's Conservatory of Music. Elliott was born the Summer we started talking about leaving. I drove cross country with our Pitbul, Lilah. Listening to American Idiot on a loop. That bitch ate my giant burrito, foil and all!
It would be seven more years, and living in two cities before Yogananda entered my life. Chicago was short-lived, the takeaways being 1) the rat race sucked for sure, and 2) I could now perform 3-4 hour seamless sets of music. Our family was tiny, and those memories are some of the cutest, and the coziest. It's crazy getting married so young that even once you have kids, you still look like kids in the pics. I finished Autobiography of a Yogi the first time as our son Leon entered the world, in Akron OH, 2011.
As my career and our family grew, we'd take vacations back to California. My body hasn't resided there since leaving in 2004, though my soul never left. Yogananda's temples, ashrams, and meditation gardens often feel more like my home. Executive clients still remark that I speak and carry the vibe of a surfer bro. What never ceases to blow my mind— is how God retraces your steps through the teachings of the Guru.
"See? This is how we guided your development and unfolding. Even at your most disconnected, running full speed in the opposite direction."
The temples have always been up the block. Yogananda left his body in 1952, speaking at a hotel on the opposite corner from where my band practiced. As my life, and his immortal Autobiography have guided me back to California countless times— that state has transformed. It was no longer an obstacle course, packed with too many cars and too few dependable people.
California was always Holy Ground. I hadn't been ready to walk it. Now when I'm called home it's to recharge all the batteries. To receive my next round of marching orders. Sometimes it's to gather students and clients for an epic retreat. This week I have the great honor of being invited up to Yogananda's Mother Center. It's a couple miles from our old apartment. Self-Realization Fellowship is Yogananda's spiritual organization, created in 1920 to spread his teachings. Somehow, I’ve become a resource for the expansion of yoga in the world, sitting on the Board of Directors for Yoga Alliance.
Many times when I am overwhelmed by my many responsibilities, reassurance comes in knowing I am right where guru needs me. His omniscient presence always right where I need him, ready to lead me through whatever comes next. My purpose is to apply ancient spiritual science (Yoga) to meet the demands of modern leadership. California, and Yogananda gave me this mission. I just work here, on the days I'm not resisting the process.
My off-ramp out of the corporate rat race was born in the temples. Each of the 4 Permissions a gift from God, whispered in countless meditations above the Pacific. Practicing and refining each Permission, with every retreat guest and client Divine Mother sent me to work with. Many teachers, 1 guru. I am blessed to be his loud-mouthed, wordy messenger. Sometimes the messages I received were fully audible, and jarring. Leaving the temple in Encinitas, after a 4 hour New Year's meditation. "Prepare yourself. Reconciliation is coming." What?! My career cracked loose, and my mission was born. Similar messages were sent recently, though I may have ignored them. Our lives can crack loose. Our faith creating something better on the other side.
I’m trying to teach this to our kids. Expect better, and it will come. “It always works out in the end— so if it’s not working out, it’s not the end.” My Poppa died on that hill, and some day my ashes will be scattered on it.
My first time at Mother Center, I sat to meditate in a section of the patio called The Temple of Leaves. As the sun streamed through the willows, a deep peace washed over me. After some time in absorption, I glanced at a placard with a photo of Yogananda meditating right here. Likely from the 1920's. A visceral sense of familiarity flooded my consciousness. Had an earlier version of myself sat right here, at his Holy feet?
We always knew one another, definitely physically up the line. Our physical and nonphysical forms dancing together, across centuries, in the temple of leaves. As I've run away, all over the globe establishing my work in the world and providing for our family— my spiritual family is always happy to have me home. That same trip, my dearly departed teacher Dr. Alice Bandy gave me a healing. She asked: "Do you want to know how many prior lifetimes you've been a monk? Nine. Nine times. Each time you died before 40."
In closing, what do we do with this?!
We channel all of it into service. We surrender into further unfolding. We rejoice in the beauty that we ain’t done yet! Our lineage smiles upon us, and within us. As we stumble, learn, and inevitably triumph again through our service. “Baking nicely!” they say, with their oven mits on.
Sometimes we catch up to the Divine plan, and can see it working in its immaculate perfection. I’m often given lyrics, which feel like really hard work. The work in writing is to prime yourself for the download. These came many years ago, and are only now making perfect sense to me. They weren’t me writing another verse and chorus. They were God and guru lighting this next chapter.
Where have you been?
The storm’s kicking up
What isn’t nailed down
soon will be lifted up
When it always settles down
See all you really have
You only get to choose what you hold on to
You only get to choose what you hold on to
We only get to choose what we hold on to.
I’ll rework this song for an upcoming co-headlining show with our daughter Elliott. But first, I’ll walk in Master’s footsteps. Commune deeply in meditation. Serve to the best of my God-given abilities. Float in the waves beneath my beloved California sun.
Jai guru.
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I’m playing a co-headlining show with our daughter Elliott Carter at Akron’s Rialto Theatre on Friday, May 17th. Learn more and purchase tickets here.