“Her liver is damaged.” The motherly Indian woman said in Hindi to the tall middle-aged man who accompanied her. He smiled knowingly as I impatiently studied the elevator panel awaiting our arrival on the destined floor. Never having seen a photograph, I had no idea that the woman I shared the elevator with was Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, the speaker I was rushing to see. My friend David suggested I attend her program because she could “raise Kundalini” effortlessly—a necessity according to eastern tenets—to achieve deeper spiritual awareness.

Seeking spiritual knowledge and the ever-illusive “self” was nothing new for David and I. As co-workers, we’d spent hours combing bookstores in search of answers to the spiritual hunger we both experienced. Part 60’s flower children and part revolutionaries; stable adulthood and organized religion in the 80’s left, for us, too many unanswered questions. It was this hunger that found us, in addition to raising families and being good corporate citizens, seeking our spiritual roots.

David’s interest in the program we attended came after Samuel, his minister brother, heard a lecture extolling Shri Mataji’s spiritual mastery in preparation for her upcoming U.S. tour. Because America, like most western countries, knew little of Kundalini energy, the lecture explained its ancient role in healing, balancing, and enlightening. Residing in the base of the spine, once awakened, he explained, the energy is said to work on our physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional selves with lasting and positive results. According to Shri Mataji, Kundalini awakening or “Self-Realization” is humanity’s birthright and so vital, it cannot be bought or paid for.

Hearing this was a relief because I’d always felt that true spiritual knowledge, a gift from God, could never be contingent on one’s ability to pay.

Shri Mataji’s visit to America from her native India that October of 1981 was just one stop on the continual world tour she began in 1970. Her mission is to inform and trigger mankind’s “en-masse” spiritual awakening through her discovery of Sahaja Yoga Meditation. My excitement grew. Could meditation provide answers?

“Truth is what it is,” asserted Shri Mataji, now at the podium. She explained how our subtle system, replete with “Chakras,” worked. Chakra, a Sanskrit word, means “wheel of energy.” There are seven placed along our spinal chord and each is charged with maintaining the health and well being in a certain area of our life. A blocked chakra can wreak havoc. Sahaja Yoga was specifically designed to help each individual identify which chakras are blocked and how to un-block them. The results are healthier approaches to life, the renewal and replenishing of vital centers, more energy, balance, and spiritual enlightenment.

Finally, Shri Mataji demonstrated the meditation used to awaken the Kundalini. You could hear a pin drop in the audience as she instructed us on moving our right hand along the left side of our bodies. Each area had its own affirmation. With our hand on the neck we affirmed “I am not guilty.” At the heart center, we stated, “I am the spirit.” In the pelvic area we asked the creator for pure knowledge and at the forehead we humbly said we forgave everyone. At the end, we asked for self-realization or self-knowledge, in compliance with the simple suggestion to “know thyself” iterated by most of the world’s great teachers. Suddenly, a deep peace and a subtle breeze surrounded my body and swept over the palms of my hands.

“Is this the cool breeze of the Holy Spirit?” Shri Mataji suggested we ask with raised hands. The answer was a cool sensation engulfing my palms. The experience was even more overwhelming when I realized that most of the people in the room were experiencing the same thing.

Since that day in October 1981, I’ve continued to nurture the experience of Sahaja Yoga meditation, embracing its practical and universal spiritual teachings. I’ve also learned a great deal more about Shri Mataji—that she had been a youth leader in Mahatma Gandhi’s movement to rid India of British colonialism. Also, it was her own self knowledge and experiences that shaped her determination to assist people in achieving spiritual liberation—even after political and physical freedom was won. I also learned that her discovery of Sahaja Yoga can cure societal ills as I met more and more people who positively transformed their lives and the lives of loved ones.

On a personal note, meditation and prayer have changed my life by removing blockages that, for me, caused fear and illness. Once asthmatic and phobic about public speaking, I am completely free of the disease and am asked to speak in public frequently. I’ve begun to understand that all the great enduring religions preach the same truths and have grown more secure in the knowledge of our connection to the Divine.

Fortunately, however, after almost 20 years of practicing Sahaja Yoga, it is still easy to remember the pained, self-effacing young woman who impatiently rode the elevator. She drank, smoked and lacked self-esteem. She was prepared, as generations before her, to live “a quiet life of desperation.” She was resigned to raise the next asthmatic generation because the disease ran in the family. It doesn’t anymore and, yes; my liver has been restored.

In fact, miraculously, in the caress of a cool breeze, and the silence of meditation, a powerful personal evolution started which continues to this day. An evolution reaffirming the message of Christ as we enter a promising new millennium. “Seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened....” Amen.