RADANATH SWAMI AT AYNY
A PUBLIC TALK AT ASHTANGA YOGA NEW YORK
The following transcript is from Radhanath Swami’s lecture at Ashtanga Yoga New York delivered Friday, December 11, 2009 in which he spoke with Eddie Stern and an audience in great detail about his book, The Journey Home, Autobiography of An American Swami. (Mandala Publishing, 2008.) Photographs by Alessia Elysee.

INTRODUCTION by Eddie Stern

Thank you all for coming. Radhanath Swami Maharaj, thank you for gracing us with your presence. It is a delight and an honor to be sitting here with you in our temple. Particularly, I’d also like to thank Kaustubha Das for arranging this whole evening. It is great joy of ours to have Kaustubha here in our yoga school organizing so many programs where we can enjoy the company of people whom we consider to be great and whose presence gives us peace of mind and happiness.
I want to give, by way of intro-duction, a few words about Radhanath Swami Maharaj for all of you who do not know him, or have not read his amazing book, The Journey Home, Autobiography of an American Swami. If you haven’t read it yet, I urge you to go ahead and read it after this evening is finished—I’m sure it will amaze and inspire you.
The story is fascinating on many levels. Everyone here to-night is basically a spiritual seeker of some sort. And so you have all heard the familiar saying “when a student is ready the teacher will appear.” But what happens when a student is so ready that every person who appears in front of him is a teacher? And not just in the way of mundane teaching but really every meeting with every person that comes your way transmits to you a deep spiritual teaching. And further, what in the case of a student is so full of yearning and so ready—that great teachers are pulled into his pathway like a magnet.

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