Celebrating The First International Day of Yoga

LET MY LIFE BE A PRAYER
sing. I remember feeling like one of the nurses had weighed
me down, when in fact they had strapped my arms so that
I wouldn’t disturb the intravenous system they had set up.
I could hear my wife’s voice, but I wasn’t able to communicate
out loud to tell her I wanted to be released. I could hear a good
friend of mine singing to me (he was in the room singing) and
I wondered why he was singing one of my songs on the radio.
Other experiences I definitely perceived as “out of body”
Ken giving a concert at Sivananda
Ashram, Val Morin, Canada
“Throughout this whole experience
I actually felt incredibly lucky. I had
the immediate love of my family and
the support of many friends. I had
had a life saving medical intervention
and not died. The gurus had been
present with me throughout. I felt that
God’s grace never left me. ”
experiences. I experienced going to a small African Canadian
church in Nova Scotia where there was to be a rehearsal for my
funeral. The next year when I was on tour there, I tracked down
the church. Although I’d never seen it before, the setting was
just like my hospital experience: a small bay, a lone pine tree, a
gravel road and on the other side, a small white church. Inside,
the church in Birchtown, N.S. was much smaller than what I
remembered, but I felt it was the same place. Perhaps even
more striking was that I felt the hospital had been visited by
Swami Vishnu and he had conferred on it a status in his True
World Order. My perception of the space kept changing, but
throughout I could see the large pictures of Swami Sivananda
on one side and Swami Vishnudevananda on the other and
in between them some swirling colour that was sometimes
a dancing Siva and other times a beneficent Saraswati.
After nine days in the hospital a new doctor became in
charge of my case. I was on life support and getting worse.
Fortunately she ordered new tests and they revealed that I had
a torn mitral valve in my heart. I was wheeled underground
across the street to the hospital where they did open heart
surgery and on Sept. 22 they operated and were actually able
to repair the torn flap in my heart. (On another bright note,
while I was opened up they were able to see that my arteries
were very clear, with no sign of plaque – another testament
to my years of vegetarianism and daily yoga practice.)
Finally four days after my surgery I knew where I was.
I could barely move by myself, I had tubes all over me and the
only sadhana I could do was to “rest in dharma”, trusting in
the universe. It felt to me that it had been much longer than
two and a half weeks since I had first entered the hospital.
Somehow though, throughout the whole time there, I felt
incredibly supported. Family and friends had been right there
the whole time. There were many communities praying for me.
Almost all of the hospital staff were great. The hospital physio -
therapist began working with me. I told her I was a yoga teacher
as well as a musician. As she later said to me, “The idea isn’t
just to be able to function when you get out of here, but to be
at least as good as before you came in.”
It wasn’t until I got out of intensive care and moved up to
the regular cardiac ward that I realised in what bad shape I really
was. I still had a feeding tube through my nose and I had
become concerned about my steady diet of genetically modified
soy with vitamins as my only source of nutrition. However when
I asked for a pencil and paper to write a note to the hospital
dietician, I found I couldn’t even write. I had been asking for
several days for someone to bring in my smallest guitar and
when they did I found out that I couldn’t even hold it!
But now I had the actual picture of the gurus in front of my
bed as well as a healing Buddha my brother had brought in and
an image of the Last Supper. Although I still couldn’t walk, I was
now able to prop myself up in the hospital bed. I began getting
up at 6am and doing my meditation. I couldn’t do asanas, but
I could still practice bhakti and I began chanting and singing
spiritual songs after my meditation. Between 6.30am and
7.30am all the nurses were on a shift change so I was undisturbed.
I was diligent with my exercises and the physiotherapist
worked with me every day. I regained a lot of the movement
of my arm, I was relearning to walk and before I could go home
I had to accomplish going up and down stairs. Finally after forty
days in the hospital I was sent home.
It felt so good to be where it was quiet and where I could
eat organic food again. I had cancelled all my work for the rest
of the year so I was able to focus on healing. A great physio -
therapist came to the house and he knew that my goal was to
be able to do the sun salutations and stand on my head again.
Shortly after Christmas I accomplished that goal. I made my
first singing appearance at the Toronto Centre for the annual
Christmas party. When I finally got in to see the cardiologist
he said to me, “You are, in three and a half months, where
I’d expect someone to be in six months to a year.”
Throughout this whole experience I actually felt incredibly
lucky. I had the immediate love of my family and the support
of many friends. I had had a life saving medical intervention and
not died. The gurus had been present with me throughout. I felt
that God’s grace never left me. The one time I actually cried tears
was near the end of my hospital stay and I could finally play my
guitar again. I was singing a song that I had written a number
of years earlier and suddenly the words were much more profound
to me:
Our time upon this planet is surely but a span,
And things are bound to happen which we cannot understand.
So in both joy and sorrow, I take Your outstretched hand,
And let my life be prayer
YOGALife |Autumn/Winter 2015
49