Monday, September 28, 2009

Transcendental Meditation & American Indians

My mother was adopted.

In Kansas, the open information adoption policy retained the genetic parents on my mother's birth certificate. For my maternal genetic grandfather, under the "race" section, is "part Indian."

My genetic grandparents were too poor to sustain themselves and their newborn girl, so they gave their child to my other grandparents, the Goods, who were known to be good people and who wanted to be parents.

The American Indian Sustainability Conference this weekend reminded me of what my mother has said about her heritage. It reverberated with the comments of the conference speakers of the loss of language and culture and connection to the land experienced by so many American Indians.

I am glad that many American Indians are now starting the practice of Transcendental Meditation and are finding relief from stress and are also gaining greater health. I am glad that, as conference co-host Prosper Waukon said, Native American Indians can now regularly experience twice a day what they had experienced before only in their cultural ceremonies.

If all spiritual paths lead to God, and if the particular path of my Native American Indian ancestral tribe has been lost to me through the cultural travesties of ignorance, then I am fortunate to share that one path to God that is common to all--the path of transcendence. And I am fortunate to practice Transcendental Meditation, an effortless meditation technique in accord with the nature of the mind, one that allows me to find my individual path--beginning from the home of all paths.

Copyright 2009 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

1 comment:

  1. Loved the picture of your mom and enjoyed your writing very much, Tom.

    ReplyDelete