Memoirs from India

Magic carpets, Yogi's levitating, incense burning smoke trails like an exhaust pipe behind my capet ride, I was taken up with visions of India as my wife, Kelly, woke my meditation with the words, 'Boyd, it's time to go'. And go we did, our plane for India and to the Ashram of Satya Sai Baba, Avatar to India, leaves today! Memoirs from India is my own personal experience at the Ashram of Sai Baba in Puttaparthi, India. It would be the experience of a lifetime and the transformation of my spiritual vision for years to come. Like many of you, I have tried to find truth wherever it shows itself, either by self discovery or by God's good graces. This spiritual pilgrimage to India was a huge blessings in disquise and something that one has to experience for themselves to fully understand and absorb its full meaning. What I have done in this offering is to invite you with me, to share with you my moment by moment, day by day experiences, both challenging and inspirational as the Journey unfolded. Each day held a golden nugget of truth if one dared to look deep enough inside. It was a divine learning experience from the get go, from the Indian people, animals, the land, food, climate, from my wife, Kelly, and of course, from Sri Satya Sai Baba himself. Each chapter was written as it happened and was experienced without editing, additions or subtractions. This live journal method gives the reader the moment by moment of each experience as it happened to me and inside of me. Sometimes as an author, we get so caught up in editing that we lose the art and inspiration of the truth in the present moment in exchange for some eloquent or rich writing style. But in the process we lose the experiential value of the truth in plain sight and words that our readers could benefit. I tried diligently to bring an atmosphere of honesty and truth to each offering and chapter so that you could experience along with me the great challenges, rewards and spiritual unveilings that meant so much to me. From the opening words and preparations to the final landing of our plane in San Diego and kissing the ground of our beloved American soil, Memoirs from India will take you deep. But not without some good humor and self discoveries which take some of the seriousness out of a spiritual pilgrimage.From selections such as "Teeth in the Dark", "The Sheik with the Sliver Blade", to the "Steambath Execution", all is not what it seems and many times, the joke was on me. And there were the serious times as well. Finding my own value after confusing self doubt plagued me, finding solace in the eyes of Baba, learning how to deal with my own life's Karma through forgiveness and much much more allowed me to recieve from this expereience a new way to look at my life and spiritual journey. I will be forever grateful for this journey into my own depths of soul and psyche as well as being grateful to my lifelong companion, Kelly, and to this One called Satya Sai Baba, who inspired my soul through his daily love and devotion. I offer this taste of new wine to you now called, "Memoirs from India" with many blessings, ~Ray~ boyd sibley