Autobiography of a Naked Yogi

There are moments in our lives that stick--the image, the feeling, the very essence of what happened leaving an indelible imprint on our minds.

What occurred near Tapovan, India, at an altitude of 4463 meters (14,640 feet) in the Himalayas, is one of those moments--and not only because this is one of the most majestic places I've visited during a lifetime of travel.

Descending on foot toward Gangotri in 2007, some 24 kilometers (approximately 15 miles) from Tapovan, everything I had practiced as a Tantrik was tested in the instant after I heard my group's cries, "look up!" And that was it--a boulder twice the size of a basketball flattened me, my leg in pieces.

My leg was shattered. Genuinely, painfully, dangerously broken.

So many times throughout my life until this very second, I had been beaten down--physically, emotionally. But here in what's known as the "Abode of the Gods," I found myself truly fractured, and realized it would take all I knew about the will, the spirit, the mind and the breath to put the pieces together again.

Chapter 1. The Early Years

"You cannot force the creative process--life unfolds in its own time, in its own way."

Most kids come from plain old copulation.

I, on the other hand, am the product of a pagan fertility ritual.

The moment I was conceived--in a quaint room above a Cornwall, UK pub on the eve of Beltane, a colorful maypole visible just outside--a series of events was unleashed that inextricably linked me to the great mysteries of the cosmos.