"Path to Transformation: My Journey from India to Everest Base Camp"

This journey began in March, as I left Bali (my home, my cocoon) for India after three months of deep rest, reflection and loving my beach life!  I turned 60 this year. A milestone not of age alone, but of gratitude. Gratitude that I am still teaching, training, traveling… evolving.

This time, India felt different. I softened. I allowed myself to receive.

Arrival in India: Choosing Presence Over Persona

Rather than staying in hotels or Airbnb’s, I said yes to the gracious invitations from students to live in their homes, to share meals, daily rhythms, and the sacred messiness of family life. I didn’t show up as “the teacher.” I showed up as myself_real, weathered, grateful, human. And the beauty is… the more real I allowed myself to be, the more real I experienced others. No performance. No projections. Just presence. Absolute Gratitude.

Students became my angels and my guides. We met without judgment, without masks. And from this space, something far deeper emerged: grace, mutual growth, and a sense of evolution I hadn’t planned for.

Arriving in Delhi just before Holi, my host family welcomed me like one of their own. It was the kind of care you only feel inside a family’s embrace_simple, genuine, unforgettable. Even the teenagers became my teachers. And I left for Goa to teach the 21 Stages of Meditation more grounded, more connected, and more real than ever before.

Teaching in Goa: Real Meditation, Real Life

Meditation, is not about looking or sounding enlightened. It’s not a badge. It’s a mirror. The 21 Stages of Meditation  invites us into the raw, honest layers of our mind and habits. A journey of self-inquiry and life skill integration that is,  if we’re willing to look.

On my first morning in Goa, I walked out of my cabin just outside my door on my porch,  a dead bird with soft yellow feathers, unmoving, eyes closed. Which in my efforts to identify, please those of you reading this correct if I mis-identified it,  as a White-Browed Bulbul, native to South India. I took it as a message. A transition. A question.

What part of me is ready to be released, laid to rest, or transformed?

Turning 60… something in me knew: it’s time to honor what has lived long enough and give it back with gratitude. Death isn't always literal. Sometimes it's the closing of an identity, an old pace, a pattern.

Learning From Death: My Father’s Gift

This wasn't the first time I met death. That came at my father’s bedside. David Allen. In his final breath, he taught me something precious: that death can be met without fear, without resistance. That BEing present is the only thing that fills and heals  the heart completely.  That lesson shaped how I taught the course and how I received the people who crossed my path before I left for Nepal.

The course in Goa ended earlier than planned due. And with that unexpected time, I shared powerful days with my colleague,  co-trainer, KRI ATA mentee  and dear sister in divine Gunjan Amrit Nam Kocharr. Together, we sat with raw truth and mapped out the foundations for India’s 2nd Kundalini Yoga Level One Teacher Training, March 2026  in Goa. Our theme? The Path to Transformation.  And how fitting because we were walking it ourselves.

Returning to Delhi: Nourishment and Blessing

I returned to Delhi, to the same student-family who felt like my own. Their care, again, held me as I prepared for the next chapter. On my final evening, I was invited into the warm home of Gunjan Amrit’s family,  who fed me not only nourishing food but soul-nourishment: a surprise satsang with the local community, steeped in devotion, sealed with the presence of Guruji.

That blessing carried me all the way to Nepal.

Presence in Nepal: Angels Along the Way

Nepal greeted me like an old friend. With open arms. With familiar faces, dear ones from Delhi, Bali, and new ones I met along the way, my earth angels who surrounded me with grace. There were moments, before the trek even began, when fear almost took the reins. Worry sat heavy in my belly. Insecurity tried its best to control my BEing.

But then I remembered all the love I’d been sent off with. All the presence I had been gifted. All the prayers and cheering from my family and friends.  And I stepped forward.

Not because I wasn’t afraid. But because I was ready to live beyond the ordinary.

To celebrate this life. Fully.

One breath at a time.