And the Welcome to the Joseph Goldstein Inside Hour.

This podcast is an expression of our shared interest in self-discovery.

Join Joseph as he shares his deep knowledge of the path of mindfulness.

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please go to be here now network.com slash Joseph. I first got interested in Buddhism when I was in the peace car in Thailand.

This was in the mid-60s. When I finished my time there, I had started going to the

Buddhist temples and just had my first griefest taste of meditation, came back home, started to practice by myself, and

realized very quickly that I needed a teacher because I was just getting very confused.

I was mixing up a lot of different things.

So I went back to Asia thinking I would go back to Thailand but on the way I stopped in India.

I had been given the names of various teachers and Ashrams so I went on this little tour to these places.

I went up to the mountains, to the hill stations.

This was in December. I didn't realize it would be winter up there.

So I was just going in my summer clothes and up in Dalhousie was freezing.

And the Tibetans had all gone south.

So I left there.

I went to Sikh Ashram and wasn't quite right. Came back to New Delhi, didn't know what to do.

I was going to walk down to the airline office and go back to Thailand.

As I was walking, it was just some force that stopped me.

It was quite an unusual experience. I couldn't take another step forward.

You know, it was unusual. Hadn't happened to me that way before. So I turned

around, went back, had the thought, I'll go to Benaris, and I'll just sit by the ganges and contemplate my future.

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