Through the meditations and chantings, I have been able to look beyond.

　I feel that I am a lucky person, because I have found a practice of spiritual betterment filled with life. Jeung San Do is the most profound of discoveries, and I am moved and touched by the depth of its teachings.

　When I was a little child of six years old, my grandmother died. I remember asking the questions, “Where did she go?” “What happens when I die?” “Do we reincarnate? Or do we just turn to dust?”
　I know asking questions about a topic like reincarnation is remarkable for a little child, but that was the question in my mind. I asked, “If I have been reincarnated, why do I not remember who I was in my past life?” It gave me a chill to wonder this. My quest had only begun. I was excited and filled with wonder, eager to know the truth about life. I wondered where it all began and where we were going?t was important to me even at that early age.

　When I was nine years old, I had my first experience with the martial arts, and I had a small taste of meditation before my kata exercises. This gave me a taste of what peace and spirituality can really be. Like many boys my age, I was interested in Bruce Lee and the show Kung Fu, which depicted a Shaolin monk and the good he would do for people in trouble. After watching these shows, my quest became stronger.

　Death was my first spiritual question, and when I was approximately fourteen years old, I felt an even stronger desire to understand what death meant. I had a dream that I had died, and in that dream, when my spirit left my body, an angelic spirit came to me and gently inspired me, healing me. This experience reassured me, reconciling me to the idea of death. Knowing that the spirit can be healed, I felt a strong desire to know God.
　At age sixteen or seventeen, my back went out, and I learned that I had a slight case of scoliosis. This motivated me to seek healing. I discovered a Japanese healing book which told me to ease off eating red meat and to rub ginger wrapped in a hot towel on my back. Constant stress had caused tightness in the muscles of my neck. I began studying tai chi, and it seemed to be the only method that helped. I saw that my understanding of the East would be important.
　I went to a bookstore and found a book about Integral Yoga which described many methods of yoga, such as Bhakti-Devotion, Jhana-Knowledge, Hatha-Physical Yoga, and one or two other methods.

　I was fortunate enough to have a substitute teacher for a humanities class in college who was a Zen Buddhist, and he shared the idea of the middle path. And I read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, which dealt with the idea of not clouding the mind. Performing quiet meditation and walking meditation gave me an understanding of what it meant to concentrate and focus on something larger than just beer drinking and altering the mind in a not-so-natural way. I was very excited, even going to bars with friends and not drinking. I was high on life itself. A few months later, my studies with the Zen monk ended when he journeyed to the mountains of Japan.
　
　I then studied with a teacher in the University of Miami, which was offering a free meditation class. There, I learned many different techniques of meditation which opened my mind. I focused on a candle and on many different pictures of different masters, one of which was Jesus. Since I was familiar with this technique, I had a strong affinity for it. But I also felt open to studying with the Indian guru Sri Chinmoy on whom the class was based, and I received an offer from his followers to join them at their spiritual jagurti. I felt a very strong connection and a sense of purification which reinforced my spiritual quest to find God.

　Although I studied for two years with Sri Chinmoy, by age twenty-two or twenty-three, I felt a need to study on my own, no longer needing a powerful guru. So I left, struggled to strengthen my practice, and tried many techniques and disciplines, but none sustained my quest.
　
　Five years later, I read Autobiography of a Yogi, and this book inspired me to find a teacher again to support my practice. I then found, through a psychic awareness, a new teacher, Sri Sri Ananda Murti, of Ananda Marga. His group was a very positive humanitarian group which helped indigenous people in need as well as conducted varied forms of spiritual philosophy education focused on the betterment of society and on readying yourself for a holistic approach to life. We fed the homeless and learned many techniques and practices for the development of mind, body, and spirit. I practiced in Ananda Marga for twenty years, then I felt the need for more inspiration. After the teacher died, there were many changes that gave me a need to breathe somewhere else.

　While at the New Life Expo in Manhattan, I stumbled across a serene group of spiritually minded people that I felt had a purpose which I intuitively understood to be greatly important. I was intrigued and asked questions of these pleasant people. Michele, Jaenam, and the other men dressed in robes of soft healing colors were chanting a mantra that also drew me.
　
　In support of my journey toward inspiration, I delved deeper, purchasing The Jade Flute. I met with Michele, whom I felt I had a bond with as a soul sister. She was very polite and concise in sharing the teachings, and I felt blessed to meet her, because she was training me and sharing her knowledge, which encouraged my interest in Jeung San Do, in Sangjenim, and in the teachings of the Dojeon. The Eastern philosophy seemed clearer than any I had found in many other teachings, adding to my knowledge and expanding my understanding.
　
　Afterwards, I began attending a local group in Manhattan with Jaenam, Hasong, Jeong Pojeongnim, and Jakyung. Working with a patient, thorough, and sweet teacher such as Jaenam, I felt inspired to learn, as the information was also feeding my spirit. After completing the preliminary studies, we continued at the dojang in Queens, where the studies became more serious, testing my ability to learn refined teachings and spiritual pursuits. With each visit, my experience and those of the several other students broadened. A study group afterward helped me to understand the teachings of Sangjenim and of many others such as Matteo Ricci, and it broadened my knowledge of Western religion as well.

　Through the meditations and chantings, I have been able to look beyond. I feel like there is a voice guiding me in Jeung San Do, inspiring me to create intuitively, lovingly, and meaningfully.

　I have been able to bring my two children with me to the dojang every week, and I practice Taeeulju Mantra meditation and conduct the ceremony of prayers to Sangjenim with them at home. I am happy that in this spiritual journey I am sharing rituals that are positive and uplifting with my children.
　
　I opened my heart, and now after these several months, I am ready for an initiation into the healing gifts of the Taeeulju Mantra?nd for other important tools for the healing of the grief and bitterness of my ancestors, of the sages, and of great spirits who have gone before me. I feel a connection to something very important, and I hope to be able to work in a humble and dynamic way as a Jeung San Do spiritual warrior.
　I thank Taesabunim and Sabunim for their boundless teachings and efforts, which have led me to Jeung San Do. Thank you for continuing an important dao lineage that will save many souls.