book written in this old font before. I giggled with enjoyment
trying to decipher the writing. But, the subject of the book was
so fascinating that it was worth the effort. The author was
describing the great benefits of yogic breathing and a
connection between the breath and the mind. The second part
of the book was teaching readers how to use the flow of the
breath to meditate and to attain spiritual awakening, or
“enlightenment.”
To pique my interest even more, my grandmother told me
that her mother, my great grandmother, was a yogi and a
meditation practitioner. She was born before the Russian
Revolution and had had in her possession a book on meditation
and yoga. It was a large and beautiful book, as my
grandmother remembered it. Its black leather cover was
embossed with golden ornaments and the text was generously
sprinkled with delicate illustrations and curly vignettes. When
the Red Army commissars came to raid the house in 1917,
grandmother hid the book under a floor board. She offered her
possessions (money, jewelry, clothes) voluntarily, so the
commissars would search no further. The book was saved, and
she kept it close at hand her entire life.