bio....and how I came to enter the realms of the chakras:

In the early 1970s I had a debilitating muscle/organ problem, and in desperation I tried 'keep fit' to help correct it....hated it. My mother, a very intuitive woman, suggested I went to yoga (the condition became corrected within 6 weeks of yoga). Neither of us knew what yoga was, but off I trotted.

Stood in the doorway of a hall, and felt that whatever yoga was, this was 'it' for life. And so it has been. Lucky for me, the teacher, Swami Karmayogi Saraswati was a western swami (whatever that was!!), who taught asanas, pranayamas, yoga nidra, kriyas. It was most fortunate to meet and learn from him. At the end of that 1st year, I had my first chakra experience, but of course didn't know what it all meant, nor did I realise what had actually happened, but, I was acutely aware that I was never the same after. Nor were the people close to me.

 A couple of years later, I went on to study with a wonderful woman, Melissa Jones (nee Carven), who was probably the first Satyananda disciple in New Zealand. I knew without a doubt that I had been lead to the person whom I had waited my whole life to meet, whom I'd had many visions of as a child: Paramahansa Satyananda, through Karmayogi who taught Satyananda's Yoga Nidra, and then through Melissa

Life took it's twists and turns, another massive experience happened: I was still totally ignorant of what was happening to me. Later on, my life fell apart about 7 years after starting yoga, a very bad marriage collapsed, and 5 months later I came across a new Satyananda Centre in Auckland. Seven months later I went to the large Australian Ashram at Mangrove Mountain, and was given, yes, given!! full Sannyasa initiation!!

 I lived in the NZ Centre, taught there and in a residential countryside ashram, for 7 years, where I lived Satyananda's teachings 24/7. Throughout this time, the internal experiences were fast and furious, however it took many years before I completely understood what had been going on: I read Satyananda's Kundalini Yoga book, the most definitive and accurate book of this type, ever.

What I did learn during those ashram years was a wealth of deep inner spiritual experience, what it all meant.....up to the level that I was at, of course. And something very important: what to do to have those same experiences. Because Yoga is a science, and. doing specific techniques produces definite results.

I truly feel that what you need to do, depending where you are at, to progress spiritually, is one of the hidden keys of  spiritual life. Anyone can get hold of the teachings, but it requires experiential knowledge to know how to apply them.

 It is so amazing that there are hundreds of Satyananda disciples around the globe who have lived, breathed, kundalini yoga, and who in turn are able to pass on this knowledge, not as a Guru (which one does need for kundalini) but as a teacher.

(1984 with my son, Ali)