Spiritual Life Society & Yoga Center

Yoga was weird in 1970s America. But Larry Terkel and his wife were fascinated by it, so they bought a one-way ticket to India to study yoga and meditation with masters there as well as Sri Lanka. The life-changing year included learning from the famous Swami Satchidananda alongside John Coltrane’s wife and anti-war folk singer Laura Nyro. Full of vigor upon their return, the couple bought a church on the Hudson green in 1978and started the Spiritual Life Society & Yoga Center, one of the region’s oldest that’s still going strong today with Terkel and others teaching yoga and meditation. Terkel’s practice has shaped his life, leading him to be a successful businessman, a Kent State University comparative religious studies professor and a U.S. swimming champ, winning silver and gold medals in the 2017National Senior Games. He’s also the author of several books, including "How to Meditate," which outlines his technique of mantra plus mindfulness plus more. The 70-year-old Hudson redsident tells us how meditating and doing yoga every day for the past 48years has transformed him. 

We were ahead of the curve. In the mid-‘80s, yoga came out from under the rock. I remember a class with 50 people. The church was not big enough. They were hanging out the front door and off to the side offices to be able to hear me. They were all around me on the altar. 

The meditation I teach is how to tune this instrument that is your mind. I’m really going to teach you how to think more effectively. I can’t imagine a day without doing it. I might miss something. I use it very practically. I have run businesses with meditation. If I have an issue in business, I meditate first, and I know what to do. My teaching at Kent State comes right out of my meditations. [So does] my relationship with my wife. We’ve raised three great kids and four grandchildren. 

One of the things that I teach in yoga is asanas. Asana comes from three Sanskrit words. To be in happiness is an asana. The “Larry” definition of an Asana is a potentially uncomfortable position that we put ourselves in and challenge ourselves to smile. The whole point is that’s what our life is about. Relationships are potentially uncomfortable positions that we put ourselves in and challenge ourselves to smile. Work, school: potentially uncomfortable. How can we find the smiles in it? Life is the asana. It’s not what you do on the [yoga] mat that is helpful; that works your body. But you can’t leave it on the mat. You want to take it into your life.— as told to Kelly Petryszyn

3 Ways to Find Peace:

LABYRINTH WALK Crown Point Ecology Center, Bath

NG ENERGY TAI CHI Main Library Park, Akron, select Wednesdays in June 

NATURE DRAWING Summit Metro Parks, June 13& 27