This morning I took Swami Veda on a five-mile hike with me: Not in body, but in spirit. I was about halfway through a breathtaking pass on Mount Kuchumaa when I began to worry that the length of this trek would make me late for morning meditation. “You’ve got to hurry up and meditate,” I told myself. But then I heard Swami Veda’s voice – clear as the Baja morning sky – saying, “Relax your forehead.” (I’m a big forehead scruncher from way back. Give me a worry and I paste it over my eyes.)

“Okay” I agreed. I instantly felt better. I took a few diaphragmatic breaths, and began to walk consciously, appreciating what was around me. This sacred mountain is where native Indian shamans “kissed the earth with their feet,” as Phyllis Pilgrim says. I decide not to enter a race with myself. I make it down the mountain and decide not to gobble breakfast either. Swami’s voice says, “One sip of orange juice can send you into ecstasy if you know how to taste it.”

Amazingly, without scrunching or gobbling I enter the meditation gathering before Swami Veda begins his morning instructions. I’m not the first one there, it’s true. Okay, I’m one of the last. But I am where I’m supposed to be, and my mind is there with me. And, not incidentally, I am smiling. “Your mind shows on your face,” says Swami Veda. That’s the best beauty tip I’ve ever gotten.

Dr. Mehrad Nazari, a key organizer of this ashram at the Ranch, said during our orientation, “Every time I see Swami Veda there is a shift in my system. I go in running DOS and I come out running Mac.” Now I know just what he meant.

Before I sign off for today, a word of thanks, by the way, to Mehrad. He has played a major role in putting this many-faceted event together with infinite sprezzetura. That’s not a Sanskrit word, but an Italian one, meaning “the ability to take a difficult thing and make it look easy.”

Ciao and Namaste