I began my spiritual journey over 26 years ago as a monk who explored yoga and Indian spirituality in ashrams and temples of southern India. In the last two decades of living in the west, all the spiritual practices I had learned in India became truly valuable. Living as a married person, working exceedingly long hours to pay my bills, building a career and dealing with all the stresses of an urban lifestyle challenged and refined what I had learned as a monk. Here, in these United States, which I love deeply, I learned to apply all of these practices in real life situations and I understood how to apply the ancient wisdom I had learned in India to continually transform my day-to-day life and consciousness. The fruit of my journey is what I wish to share with you through the special program that is, without double, one of the most intimate, systematic and well organized methods through which any student may study with me over an extended period of time. 

My interest in creating this program is to empower others with the knowledge and the spiritual experience that I have garnered over the past 26 years of being consciously engaged on the spiritual journey so that you, in turn, can embody it in your life and then pass on the methods to others. It is not my intention to offer you solely esoteric knowledge that is distant from the world and its affairs, but well-tempered spiritual applications which includes the esoteric in ways that can help you to deal more effectively with everyday life situations, empower you spiritually and increase your energy. The objective is to learn to transform our negative mental content and connect to a deep and lasting sense of spiritual fulfillment. I am inviting you to join a dynamic spirituality program akin to a Mystery School that is yogic in nature, the likes of which began in India in antiquity and flourished in the Middle Ages in the great temple cities of India, where I received much of my spiritual education. Such schools have their counterpart in the west, as in the Essene community that formed in desert of Qumran around the 2^nd century BC and the Egyptian mystery schools, both of which had strong influences on Christian mysticism and monasticism, which was also a part of my training as a Benedictine monk. 

Today, many of us who live in the western world feel spiritually impoverished. We live in societies that in its popular culture defiantly ignores the spiritual dimension of life -- not necessarily in terms of religion or morals or ethics -- but more in the domain of authentic and profound spiritual experience that truly touches upon the nature, vision and depth of human consciousness. Authentic spiritual experience naturally moves us into the flow of energy that includes morality, ethics and religious values while transcending all three at the same time.  

THE GREAT SPIRITUAL NEED OF OUR TIMES 

What, then, is authentic spiritual experience? Is it whatever we make it? Or is there more to it than meets the eye? Is our regular spiritual practice meeting our deepest needs? Are we being spiritually nourished by what we are doing? Are we truly feeling the pulse of what it really means to be in touch with the sacred, the transcendent? If these and other similar questions spark some inner flame inside you, you may be ready to embark on the interior journey of being part of this post-modern Yogic Mystery School. 

At a basic level, many of us are in search of alternatives to boost our health and spirit. Depression is at an all time high because modern living does not connect us meaningfully and experientially to the world of spirit. We are, for the most part, estranged from spirit. This program will train you to reconnect powerfully to the hidden and mysterious dimension of our existence by developing a three dimensional spiritual life. This multi-dimensionality is activated through the tracks of mantra, music and meditation that form the three-dimensional approach to this program. My vision is that this multi-dimensional model provides you with a level of spiritual fulfillment and spiritual experience that you may not have realized possible before. 

From a loftier perspective, the vision of this program is panoramic, not only empowering you with spiritual tools that enhance your personal and professional life, but also inviting you to join in a continued venture to partner with me as a program associate and share what you have mastered with others. In other words: to fulfill yourself first and then to use that fulfillment to fulfill others. Together, we can build a sense of community worldwide around the spiritual practice of sacred sound as a yoga path.

THE VALUE OF THE SONIC DIMENSION IN SPIRITUALITY

Why Sacred Sound? It is evident that sound is a vital link in our efforts toward our immediate personal balance as well as in the onward evolution of our species. Sound represents an aspect of life whose healing and spiritual powers that we are just beginning to rediscover. For the last 400 years we have been obsessed with information that has come to us through our eyes.  Ever since the birth of the printing press we have moved out of the body and onto the page. Today, sucked into computer monitors and distracted by billboards everywhere, we have lost the visceral power of language and we see the results of this imbalance in our spirituality, which is often confined to the head. We are feeling it in our educational systems, from which we have banished art, and, as a consequence, the heart. What is even more tragic is that the spiritual dimension is lacking in our art.  

Now is the time to reclaim the profound significance of the ear and reinstate the feminine power of spirituality which is embodied in the mystery of sacred sound. The essence of a spiritual perspective that is based on sound is the understanding that “sound is form” and “form is sound”. To relate vision and hearing in a healthy balance is the great challenge of our times and will form the heart of our practice together. This is also the essence of my work, “The Yoga of Sound”, and the three tracks of the program -- meditation, music and mantra -- form the triangle of empowerment that supports this system. Each of these components will be explored as distinct yet integrated tracks of the program. And do not be concerned about the musical dimension: both musicians as well as non-musicians are simultaneously accommodated, each in their own capacity to participate fully in what this track offers.  

I look forward to exploring this learning process with you. 

In One Spirit, 

Russill Paul