In 1965 I was forty-two years old.

For the previous six years I had been actively searching for answers to my long unanswered questions about God and the meaning of existence. This search had taken me on a convoluted route that began at the Willoughby, Ohio Public Library.

Reincarnation was a fact as far as I was concerned.  I had been born believing it.  Since I had been raised in a strict Methodist family needless to say I had not been encouraged in my belief.  In fact, it seemed that practically everything that I instinctively believed in was at variance with what I was being taught in church.  Since there seemed to be no answers available to me, and I had been so thoroughly indoctrinated by my parents, teachers and those in authority, I tried to fit into the pattern that had been given to me of the life I was supposed to live.  Even though I was always fighting with my intuition I pushed onward trying to fit into the mold that was presented for me.

By 1959 I had acquired a family and four children.  I was living the “good life”.  My parents were pleased with me, and I was a dutiful wife.  I loved being a mother.  That was one phase of my life with which I was at peace.  But the rest of my life was empty and meaningless, and I was desperately struggling to find a reason, aside from my children, to continue to fight for sanity.  That is what life at that point had become for me; a fight for sanity and a valid reason for continuing a seemingly meaningless existence.  My voice of intuition had turned from a whisper to a shout that I could no longer ignore.

I had no one to whom I could talk about such things.  Reincarnation was looming in my mind as something that I needed to explore first.  A friend of mine was the head librarian of the Willoughby library.  I went to her asking for books on reincarnation.  There was nothing available on the subject or on any matter even remotely relating, except for one relatively new book that the library had recently purchased.  It was the Autobiography of a Yogi by Swami Yogananda.

I told my friend that even though I was not interested in Yoga or Swamis I would take the book. In the meantime, she wrote to the state library for any books that might be available on reincarnation.

After reading Swami Yogananda’s book I had an entirely new perspective.  I then knew that there were people out there who spoke to my intuition.  Books from the state library started to arrive, and gradually opportunities for further exploration began to present themselves to me.

Over the next six years my spiritual path was a busy one.  My mother left her body in 1961.  Armed with intuitive knowledge of the continuance of life I was able to put my mother’s passing into perspective.  All other members of my family were devastated as my mother had been the linchpin of the family.

My searching soon led me to a man who claimed to be a spiritual teacher. I found out about this man from my friend at the Willoughby Library.  He had an organization that was called Wayne Temple.  He had managed to get a tax -free exemption for this group, and also had a diploma as a spiritualist minister.  My friend and I attended several of his lectures.  She was not attracted to what he had to say, but I was.  He was speaking of many things that addressed long held questions in my mind.  I soon became a member of that group.  Eventually my husband also joined the group.  It became routine that every Friday night my husband and I, along with our two youngest kids would pile into the car and head for downtown Cleveland.  Wayne Temple was located in a second-rate hotel, the New Amsterdam.  It was located in a seedy section of town. The “minister” lived in an apartment in the hotel, and that is where his services were held.  The children would remain in the lobby of the hotel under the watchful eye of the desk clerk while my husband and I attended the meeting.

I was truly mesmerized by this man as the words I was hearing from him were like balm to my ears.  These words were providing answers for many of the questions that had been with me for my entire life.  I met with this man at least once a week in addition to the Friday night general meeting.  Through his guidance we were led to explore much on the path of spiritualism.  While spiritualism was fascinating it did not provide the substance for which my heart yearned.

By the summer of 1965 I had been a student of this man for over two years.  I was slowly becoming aware of the fact that though he said the right thing, his actions often did not match his words.  The crass materialism of the operation further provided at discordant note. It was becoming clearer all of the time that it was getting to be time for me to look elsewhere for more substantial answers.

It was a beautiful, sunny July day in Willoughby, where we then resided.  I had changed all of the beds, washed the sheets, and was hanging them in the sunny backyard.  As I pinned wet sheets to the clothesline, I was taken aback by the strong smell of something that I could only identify as incense.  It was a delightful experience that vividly remains with me to this day. There was no visible source of the fragrance. The smell of incense was something unusual to me, and left me filled me with happiness and hope.

During that same period in the summer of 1965 I had several other notable experiences.  On a number of occasions, each one happening while I was at the kitchen sink preparing food or washing the dishes, I experienced a flood of spiritual ideas that were electrifying.  Ideas followed one after the other, each one a gem.  They came so fast it was almost as if I were mentally hearing a lecture, as indeed I must have been.  This happened at least three times, each about the same time in the day, and each while I was working at the kitchen sink.  I tried to remember what I had heard so that I could make a note of “my thoughts”.

Though I could never put the ideas to paper they lifted my spirits, and gave me hope and courage to continue on.

Within that time period I read in our local paper, the Willoughby News Herald, about a man by the name of Swami Rama.  There was picture of him in the paper telling about his experience of healing a local woman by the name of Alice Christensen.  I knew of Alice as she sang in the choir of the local Methodist church that I attended.  She also had children who attended school with my children. She lived in my neighborhood, and only a few blocks away.  In the newspaper article an explanation was given of an experience Alice had had in which Swami Rama had intervened.  The article stated that Swami Rama could be reached through her, and that it would be possible to set up a meeting with him. I was fascinated by the possibility of meeting this man.  I even went so far as looking up Alice’s telephone number in the local directory.  However, I felt shy and uncomfortable about contacting such an unusual person.

During my husband’s wartime service, he had been stationed in India for the better part of a year.  He had had nothing but glowing experiences to report about his time spent there.  It was on the basis of his reports that I asked him if he would contact Swami Rama so that we could both meet him.  Somehow this meeting never materialized.  I was not to meet Swami Rama until March of 1968 in Ram Kunj.