Many people in the yoga world talk about taking yoga off the mat, spiritualizing daily life. Eileen Pearkes writes about an autobiography of someone who’s done just that.

Car­ried by a Promise: A Life Transformed by Yoga, Swami Radhananda’s new spir­i­tual mem­oir, begins with her first expo­sure to the Divine Light Invo­ca­tion in spring, 1977. As she stands in a cir­cle in the dark, dingy church base­ment in Leth­bridge, Alberta, she sees stream­ing droplets of light.…shining bits like heaven’s rain. This first scene in her ambi­tious and far-reaching account of spir­i­tual life demon­strates Radhananda’s nat­ural recep­tiv­ity and visual imag­i­na­tion, both of which guide and instruct her through­out her trans­for­ma­tion from Mary Ann McDougall, mother and edu­ca­tor, to Rad­hananda, pres­i­dent of  Yasod­hara Ashram in Koote­nay Bay, B.C.

Yasod­hara Ashram was founded in 1963, by a pio­neer­ing yogini, Swami Radha. Born in Ger­many as Sylvia Hell­man, Radha had already lived through the effects of two world wars and lost two hus­bands to tragic cir­cum­stances before she immi­grated to Canada. A chance expe­ri­ence and a pow­er­ful dream led her to Rishikesh India, where she worked inten­sively with her guru, Swami Sivananda. His instruc­tion to her after her spir­i­tual ini­ti­a­tion – that she take yoga back to the West – resulted in the estab­lish­ment of Yasod­hara Ashram in the remote moun­tains of south­east­ern British Columbia.

Perched on the shores of an expan­sive lake, cra­dled by peace­ful forests, Yasod­hara Ashram is imbued with a love­li­ness that always delights those who visit, though few rec­og­nize how the center’s beauty and bal­ance reflect the tra­di­tion of divine fem­i­nine wor­ship. Oper­at­ing in the lin­eage of the god­dess Saraswati and founded by a woman, the Ashram cul­ti­vates a safe and nur­tur­ing atmos­phere for peo­ple from all spir­i­tual backgrounds.

Until I read Radhananda’s mem­oir, I took for granted the effort and focus required to cre­ate and main­tain a place like Yasod­hara Ashram in today’s world. I knew it was spe­cial, but I wasn’t sure why. My first visit was for a week­end retreat in 1996, only about a year after Radha had died. I was unaware of the period of insta­bil­ity the Ashram faced as its found­ing guru’s pow­er­ful pres­ence dropped away. Vis­it­ing the Ashram sev­eral times over the next decade, writ­ing for Ascent mag­a­zine and even­tu­ally pub­lish­ing a mem­oir with Time­less Books, I con­tin­ued to be largely obliv­i­ous to the chal­lenges and com­plex tasks that Rad­hananda faced as a female spir­i­tual leader.

Read­ing Car­ried by a Promise fixed all of that. The book has renewed my appre­ci­a­tion for what the Ashram does, and for the adept, often unseen skills of the gra­cious woman who guides it. Woven through­out Radhananda’s evo­lu­tion from mother and wife to spir­i­tual leader is the meta­mor­pho­sis of the very Ashram itself. The author’s com­bin­ing of these two nar­ra­tive strands – one per­sonal, one insti­tu­tional — is a great strength of this book.

But there are many oth­ers. Draw­ing on her diaries, Rad­hananda gen­er­ously shares her intu­itive process of trans­for­ma­tion, describ­ing dream expe­ri­ences and sym­bolic mes­sages from the nat­ural world: but­ter­flies, hum­ming­birds, trees and water, among oth­ers. Once, when she visu­al­izes an open white lotus flower float­ing on a gar­den pond, she approaches it and peers inside, where she dis­cov­ers a dia­mond, shim­mer­ing with Light.

A hum­ble atti­tude and will­ing­ness to ask hon­est self-reflective ques­tions are both a part of Radhananda’s approach­able style. She de-mystifies spir­i­tual expe­ri­ences with­out shat­ter­ing their inex­plic­a­ble won­der. There are many rich exam­ples of her humil­ity and clar­ity in this mem­oir, such as when she real­izes that she is grow­ing lighter and more pos­i­tive in all areas of her life but at the same time acknowl­edges that being brighter also means see­ing what she needs to work on.

As Mary Ann McDougall’s spir­i­tual life grows over the years, her work­place con­duct and rela­tion­ships with co-workers are also enriched by Swami Radha, her guru, a woman who believed that yoga’s prin­ci­ples are uni­ver­sal and prac­ti­cal. On the path toward becom­ing Rad­hananda, McDougall describes start­ing a busi­ness, com­plet­ing a Master’s degree and rais­ing her chil­dren. Through­out, she calls on the power of yoga for inspi­ra­tion, strength and guid­ance. Her account of these accom­plish­ments would serve to inspire any woman who jug­gles many roles.

My expe­ri­ence of the Ashram over the years has been like the pat­tern of breath I fol­low in my yoga prac­tice, an inhala­tion of beauty, peace and har­mony, so that I might exhale a new com­pas­sion and gen­tle cer­tainty into the every­day life to which I return. In my gar­den, home, com­mu­nity and yoga prac­tice, I will now carry a deeper under­stand­ing of how the Ashram works, as well as the courage and clar­ity its female spir­i­tual leader has sum­moned to do her work.

We are all lead­ers of our own lives, and the lessons Rad­hananda has shared inspire me — to trust my intu­ition to guide myself with strength where I need to go.

Eileen Delehanty Pearkes is  the author of The Glass Seed (2007),  The Geography of Memory (2002), co-author of The Inner Green (2005), and a major contributor to River of Memory (2006). She lives in southeastern British Columbia, where she writes in an old garden shed converted to a studio, amidst an expansive garden of fruits, vegetables, flowers and ponds.