A memoir of spiritual awakening and travel in the 60s and 70s, sacred dance in the 80s and 90s, and astrological insight in the 90s and 2000s
A Sacred Planet Book, an imprint of Inner Traditions
After coming of age and graduating in the tumultuous sixties, Ahad Cobb found himself wandering without direction. A chance road trip with a friend led him to Ram Dass, thus beginning an enthusiastic journey of spiritual awakening and deep involvement with three spiritual communities originating in the sixties and still thriving today: the Ram Dass satsang, Lama Foundation, and Dances of Universal Peace.
Sharing his opening to the inner life, his poetry and dreams, his spiritual passions and astrological insights, Ahad Cobb’s memoir begins with his summer with Ram Dass and his satsang, immersed in meditation, devotion, and guru’s grace. His path takes him to New Mexico, to a newly established intentional spiritual community, Lama Foundation, where he lives on the land for thirteen years, experiencing the disciplines and rewards of communal living and spiritual practice. At Lama, he is initiated into universal Sufism in the tradition of Hazrat Inayat Khan and the Dances of Universal Peace. He travels overseas to spend time with Sufis in Chamonix, Istanbul, Konya, and Jerusalem.
After the birth of his son, Ahad moves off the mountain and serves as sacred dance leader and musician for 35 years in Santa Fe and later Albuquerque. When Lama Foundation is nearly destroyed by a forest fire in 1996, Ahad serves as a trustee, guiding the rebuilding of the community. He imparts insights from his personal work with Jungian analysis and trauma release, shares his search for and discovery of his soul mate, and details his twelve years of study with Hart DeFouw in the wisdom stream of Vedic astrology.
Offering a poignant reflection on life lived from the inside out, and the delicate balance between spirituality and psychology, this memoir leads readers on an outer and inner journey steeped in poetry, music, astrology, dreams, inner work, and spiritual practice in the context of community devoted to awakening.
Ahad Cobb is author, editor, and publisher of six books, including Image Nation and Early Lama Foundation. A musician and leader of Dances of Universal Peace, he has also served as a continuing member, officer, and trustee of the Lama Foundation. He studies and teaches Jyotish (Vedic astrology). He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“What a wonderful telling of a mystical life, an awakening life dedicated to manifesting loving kindness and compassion throughout life’s changing conditions. Through Ahad’s journey we meet so many of the great teachers of the 1960’s to present and experience first-hand living in spiritual community and in some of the great places on our planet.”
Pir Shabda Kahn
Spiritual Director of the Sufi Ruhaniat International, author of Physicians of the Heart – A Sufi View of the Ninety Nine Names of Alllah
“Ahad Cobb’s metaphoric journey from neurosis to apotheosis vividly evokes the spiritual awakening that exploded in the 60s. Ahad writes with humor, insight and a compass needle aimed at Truth that few manage to maintain. His love is magnanimous, his recollections are luminous, his prose is visionary. He has a gift for transmitting gems of wisdom embedded in personal parables. A searcher for life’s meaning will find plentiful hints herein.”
Rameshwar Das, coauthor with Ram Dass of Be Love Now, Polishing the Mirror, and Being Ram Dass
“There are so many wonderful stories and wisdoms and raw confessions and juicy descriptions here. I am deep into it. I find it deeply revealing and resonant with so many of my own experiences. Poetic moments have been so many in your life and your difficulties so great and yet you never laid them on others.”
Asha Greer, co-founder of Lama Foundation and Murshida in Sufi Rhuaniat International
“You really convey a life lived beyond concept running concurrently with the conditioned life, the events, the human experience. I am so impressed with your ability to speak of that which is not containable in words. It is a very beautiful bringing together of two worlds — human and spirit. Your words sparked my soul all throughout your story.”
Karin Arielle, former Coordinator of Lama Foundation and former co-owner of Ark Books in Santa Fe, NM