| Cougar Press PO Box 894 Meadview AZ 86444 |
| My Beginning with Yoga |
I began the practice of yoga in 1966. I was eighteen years old. With two years of college under
my belt, I had dropped out with the intention to replace formal classes with serious study of my
own choice.
My plan was to read the collection known as The Great Books of the Western World. I did read
quite a few of them. I didn’t own the set, but I found that each of the individual works was
available in the public library for free. I started with the Iliad, followed by the Odyssey. Next
came Plato and Aristotle.
During this time I was surfing every day and working at night in a circuit board factory near my
home. I was still living with my parents. After awhile I began to feel that I was learning more
from the surf then I was from the ancient philosophers. Aristotle was wrong a lot.
I went back to college when the government threatened to draft me. I graduated in 1969 with a
Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology. I went to work for another factory assembling oscilloscopes
and power supplies. I got married and moved with my bride into an apartment in the city.
Yoga had become a big part of my life by then. Every day I would get up early enough to do a
couple of hours of asanas and meditation before I left for work. Also there was sex, which is a
kind of yoga in its own right.
My wife and I had both grown up in the country, and we didn’t last too long in the big city.
Through the grapevine we found a place, a shack back up in our neck of the woods, and we
moved there. Now in addition to yoga and sex there were long walks in the country, well water,
cats and dogs and privacy. Life was good.
We had two reasons to be vegetarian in those days. One was that we believed it was important
for health and for progress in yoga. The other reason was that it was a lot cheaper. We filled up
on brown rice and navy beans, whole wheat bread and cheese, tortillas and frijoles and lots of
fresh fruit and vegetables. The years went by.
In 1973 three things happened. The war in Vietnam was over. My wife got pregnant. Those
two things led to my decision to join the Navy. There’s nothing like impending parenthood to
stimulate the sense of responsibility in a young man. Until that happened I was content to survive
on low wages working in factories, gas stations and odd jobs. Whenever I would get laid off I
would start to collect unemployment.
We could live on next to nothing. The vegetable garden, the night time sky, the sunrise and the
sunset, the long walks, the yoga and, of course, the sex made up for the poverty.
But with a baby on the way, things suddenly looked different. When I started in the Navy I was
immediately earning more money than I ever had before. I had health, wealth, love, success,
prosperity, money and happiness. By my standards I had these things in overflowing abundance.
When I got out of the Navy in late Spring of 1973, I had lost most of these things. My wife had
left me for some Oregon hippy. My health was in jeopardy. My physical, emotional, mental and
spiritual well-being were all at risk. My Navy career, which had started so well with high scores in
bootcamp and “A” school, my choice of a rating, an exciting six month cruise, rapid promotions,
acceptance to Officer Candidate School, a comission and a billet in Hawaii, was in ruins.
I wasn’t broke; the Navy had given me separation pay and an honorable discharge, but I was
broken. I retreated to a camp in the mountains, to lick my wounds, and to do yoga.
my belt, I had dropped out with the intention to replace formal classes with serious study of my
own choice.
My plan was to read the collection known as The Great Books of the Western World. I did read
quite a few of them. I didn’t own the set, but I found that each of the individual works was
available in the public library for free. I started with the Iliad, followed by the Odyssey. Next
came Plato and Aristotle.
During this time I was surfing every day and working at night in a circuit board factory near my
home. I was still living with my parents. After awhile I began to feel that I was learning more
from the surf then I was from the ancient philosophers. Aristotle was wrong a lot.
I went back to college when the government threatened to draft me. I graduated in 1969 with a
Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology. I went to work for another factory assembling oscilloscopes
and power supplies. I got married and moved with my bride into an apartment in the city.
Yoga had become a big part of my life by then. Every day I would get up early enough to do a
couple of hours of asanas and meditation before I left for work. Also there was sex, which is a
kind of yoga in its own right.
My wife and I had both grown up in the country, and we didn’t last too long in the big city.
Through the grapevine we found a place, a shack back up in our neck of the woods, and we
moved there. Now in addition to yoga and sex there were long walks in the country, well water,
cats and dogs and privacy. Life was good.
We had two reasons to be vegetarian in those days. One was that we believed it was important
for health and for progress in yoga. The other reason was that it was a lot cheaper. We filled up
on brown rice and navy beans, whole wheat bread and cheese, tortillas and frijoles and lots of
fresh fruit and vegetables. The years went by.
In 1973 three things happened. The war in Vietnam was over. My wife got pregnant. Those
two things led to my decision to join the Navy. There’s nothing like impending parenthood to
stimulate the sense of responsibility in a young man. Until that happened I was content to survive
on low wages working in factories, gas stations and odd jobs. Whenever I would get laid off I
would start to collect unemployment.
We could live on next to nothing. The vegetable garden, the night time sky, the sunrise and the
sunset, the long walks, the yoga and, of course, the sex made up for the poverty.
But with a baby on the way, things suddenly looked different. When I started in the Navy I was
immediately earning more money than I ever had before. I had health, wealth, love, success,
prosperity, money and happiness. By my standards I had these things in overflowing abundance.
When I got out of the Navy in late Spring of 1973, I had lost most of these things. My wife had
left me for some Oregon hippy. My health was in jeopardy. My physical, emotional, mental and
spiritual well-being were all at risk. My Navy career, which had started so well with high scores in
bootcamp and “A” school, my choice of a rating, an exciting six month cruise, rapid promotions,
acceptance to Officer Candidate School, a comission and a billet in Hawaii, was in ruins.
I wasn’t broke; the Navy had given me separation pay and an honorable discharge, but I was
broken. I retreated to a camp in the mountains, to lick my wounds, and to do yoga.
| Yoga for Carnivores by Jay Dyck |