Name: GuruTera Khalsa
Lives in: Espanola, New Mexico, USA
From: Born and raised in Long Beach, California
Job: I am an editor at 3HO Foundation International. I manage the digital newsletter (to receive it in your inbox: https://www.3ho.org/email-preferences ) I am honored and grateful to be able to share the awesome technology and lifestyle of Kundalini Yoga with our worldwide spiritual family.
Tell us your first three jobs (ever!): I worked for my father’s business on weekends and summers. It was a candy and tobacco wholesale distribution company. I wrapped cigars in plastic and swept the floors when I was a teenager. During college, I worked at Sequoia National Park making sandwiches in the snack bar. Next I got a job sorting Happy Face stickers into good ones and badly made ones. That was about the most boring job I ever had. 🙂
Zodiac sign?: Sagittarius with Cancer Moon and Rising
Enneagram type (if you know it)?: #9
What do you love about Greece? Since I don’t live there and have never been there, I can only say what I’ve seen on screens. There was a show on PBS about a family that moved to Corfu – The Durrells in Corfu. It showed a lot of the landscape which was so beautiful. There must be amazing history there. I once had a roommate in the Salt Lake City ashram who was Greek. She was a beauty and had the most curly, big dark hair! And I’ve done a bit of Greek folk dancing which I love.
Tell us something most people don’t know about you: I used to do the best Tarzan yell of anyone. I’m a very quiet person so it was a lot of fun to burst out with such a sound. It’s been many years since I tried it and I don’t know if I still have the voice for it. My neighbors might not understand my attempts. In the 4th grade, I did impressions of 3 comedians in the talent show. I was very shy but was determined to do these impressions because they always made my family laugh and I thought myself clever. It was Jimmy Durante, Jack Benny and Jackie Gleason, in case you know who they were. My teacher was very surprised, and I don’t think most of the kids even knew what I was doing.
Where we are most likely to find you in Lynn’s Kundalini Yoga? Reading Lynn’s enewsletters and occasionally posting her live facebook Kundalini Yoga classes on the 3HO facebook page.
The first time you tried Kundalini Yoga? I was in college at UCLA. I had done Hatha Yoga for 2 years. I went to a new yoga class where they were lying on their backs doing a belly laugh. I thought it was very weird and didn’t go back. A couple of years later I took a Kundalini Yoga class at Humboldt State College where I was in graduate school. I loved it and later realized that first class I took was Kundalini Yoga. I basically followed the teacher from class to class and after 6 months, he told me to start teaching! That summer I went to my first Summer Solstice in New Mexico and from there I got a ride to Utah for a modern dance workshop. I was dropped off at the University of Utah, found the gym, and asked where the nearest yoga class was. I walked to the class, and asked if there was an ashram because I needed a place to stay. I moved into the first Salt Lake City ashram 3 days later – I lived there for 14 years and ended up marrying the yoga teacher. I’ve been teaching and practicing Kundalini Yoga for over 45 years.
Tell us your top tip to combat climate change: We live in a small town and didn’t have opportunities to do recycling for several years. Now we do, though we pay extra to have it picked up. We recycle everything we can. We buy local organic food as much as possible. We also support the wonderful ashram farm program here. There are greenhouses for growing food full of prana year-round.