This is one of my favorite stories, and it will be a central chapter in the new book I’m writing.
It’s from the time I was a young swami serving as director of the Los Angeles Sivananda Yoga Community in 1981. The photo below is of the building that housed the community in the early 80’s. The Liquor Locker is on the left, and you can make out its green dumpster just below the windows of what was our main yoga and meditation room. The road in front is Sunset Boulevard. For those of you familiar with L.A., the cross street is Selma, one block west of Laurel Canyon, and slightly east of Chateau Marmont.
One of the first tasks I had when I came on as director was to supervise the construction of the sign pictured below, which covered the chimney and window on the right side of the building. It was our way of getting some visibility on Sunset Boulevard for the community and Swami Vishnu’s best-selling book.
Below is a photo from Dec. 2012, when I re-visited the site of the old Yoga Community. It’s easy to see how close the windows of our meditation room were to the dumpster.
