A REFLECTIVE MOMENT
The year was 1976 and I was on sabbatical from my college in Los Angeles. I had submitted a doctoral proposal for developing a competency based curriculum in yoga for the community colleges. When the proposal was accepted, I contacted several yoga centers throughout India and soon after was on a plane with a ticket so fat it impressed even airline personnel. The first of my thirty-two scheduled stops was Germany followed by three touristy weeks in Egypt. Then I boarded Japan Air to fly on to India. I had been with family and friends up to this point, but for the next five months I would be on my own. Nervous but elated at the thought of finding a yoga teacher who could answer my questions, I sat in my window seat and watched white fluffy clouds gently disappear into the blue sky. Finally, when the 747 made its approach into Bombay, now called Mumbai, I viewed the ancient city in the morning’s first light. My excitement soared.
As my cabby drove wildly through the littered streets, I drank in the early morning sights. Life was still quiet. Men, women, and children clothed in lightweight white cottons slept on sidewalks close to doorways of paint-peeling apartments. Were they escaping India’s unbearable heat? This early September morning was already hot and humid. Our Indian Ambassador taxi had no air-conditioning, and my clothes were sticking to my body. Relief flowed over me when I checked into the air-conditioned Taj Mahal Hotel. I quickly unpacked eager to start my interviews. I had assumed yoga was a way of life in India, and I wanted to understand that life-style. I’d hoped to meet that someone special who could teach me life’s secrets. When the student is ready, the teacher will come. Isn’t that what all the books said? And I was ready.
It didn’t take long to discover that being ready was not enough. I realized many of my questions would never be answered. My first interview was my first betrayal.
As I entered an old building that advertised a Bombay yoga center and walked up the creaky narrow stairs, I found myself in what looked an ordinary apartment with no furniture. I had traveled thousands of miles only to be greeted by a twenty something American girl. The yogi, her teacher, was out of town. So instead of interviewing an Indian yogi, I observed this young 26 year-old American from Florida teaching yoga postures to Indian teenage girls. Was this why I had traveled to India?
I refused to be discouraged. I had many more interviews scheduled. One, in particular, held intrigue. A government sponsored research center housed a hospital, a medical doctor and a swami. Research on the effects of yoga postures on insulin production of diabetics was in progress. This one interview would prove that the books and all their claims of yoga’s healing powers were true. But when I arrived, my heart sank. The small hospital was dirty, the doctor with whom I had corresponded was away in Madras, and the excited swami who was expecting me had Richard Hittleman’s yoga book, A 28-Day Exercise Plan sitting on his desk. I’m sure he thought I was going to take him to America and make him famous. That was the day the magic ended.
What I learned is what my teacher said to me:
Look into a man's eyes
Learn to read his spirit.
His countenance and his eyes
Tell you what quality is in him
More than the words he speaks.

Kay Mouradian is author of REFLECTIVE MEDITATION and A GIFT IN THE SUNLIGHT: An Armenian Story