A Mother Talks About
Life in a Spiritual Community.
Tina Madison, mother of three, moved to the Ananda Community at the very beginning.

Tina Madison's family moved to the Bay Area from Taiwan when she was two years. Tina has lived for most of her life in Palo Alto, and graduated from Stanford in 1974 with a B.S. in human biology. "I was really interested in how the body works and how you could enhance your quality of life," she recalls. Tina worked as a physical therapist in private practice before marrying and becoming a full-time mother.

We talked with Tina at her apartment in the Mountain View Ananda Community, where she now lives with her husband, Don Madison, an electronics engineer, and their three children, Liana, Benjamin, and Anjali. Tina and Don have been married for 17 years.

Q: How did you become interested in the spiritual path?

A: I had taken yoga classes since about 1975, and I've always liked to stay in shape. I was involved with gymnastics in school, and my one great love is dancing. Yoga was part of my fitness program. One day, I was doing a yoga posture when I entered into another state of consciousness. I wasn't able to recapture that experience for a long time, but I think yoga helped me become aware that my true nature was not really "of this body." That's been a major pathway for me, approaching the spiritual through the physical.

At one point, I was feeling very stressed from events that were happening in my life, when Don said, "Why don't you take a meditation class?" I saw a flyer for a class at the Ananda Church on "How to Meditate," so I called and spoke with David Praver.

I attended the first class, and afterwards I went to the church office looking for Autobiography of a Yogi. They were out of stock, but the woman working in the office gave me a copy of The Path, Swami Kriyananda's autobiography. I had been reading books by Carlos Castaneda and Lynn Andrews, but when I read The Path, I began having incredible dreams. The book had a lot of power for me. It was very, very powerful.

Don and I decided to take the beginning class series in meditation. That was in 1987 or '88. Looking back, it seems like there was a huge vortex of spiritual energy for us at that time, because within a year we had moved to the Ananda community. It was a grace to be able to do that, and to be able to come into the community together, as a couple.

Q: What has it meant for you to live in the community?

A: The community was just starting then. We didn't think we'd be among the first people to move in because we were so new on the spiritual path. I spent a week at the Expanding Light retreat at Ananda Village, taking a hatha yoga course, and during that time I felt very strongly that we should move to the community.

Q: Was it because you wanted to be with other people who were following the same path, or were you attracted by the idea of living in a community?

A: I can't really put my finger on it. We just felt guided to move in, and it was very difficult, because the apartments were really hovels when Ananda first acquired the place. We put lots of money into improving our own apartment, because I don't think I could have lived here otherwise. It took me at least a year, and maybe more, to feel like I wanted to stay. When you move into a spiritual community, you're letting go of lots of attachments--living in your own home, having your own space. In this country, everyone wants to have their own little single-family home. But after a year or so, I remember very clearly thinking that we just couldn't leave, because it was so good for Liana, our oldest daughter. We had seen her blossom--not that she had ever been a problem child, but you could see her open up, feel her open up. I remember saying that if we left the community, I was afraid that she would just shrivel.

Q: What was it about living in the community that helped her?

A: I think it was having so many loving souls around. The children are so blessed here, because they grow up with so much spiritual support. People who live in their own little houses probably aren't home all day, and the kids are in school, or they're in daycare. You don't have as much contact with other people--you go to work, come back to your home, and then you're behind closed doors. You don't see your neighbors outside chatting and doing things together, as you do here, routinely. They might chat, but you don't have this great space that we have here in the community, where the children can go out, and I don't actually have to know where they are.

There are so many different people that the children can talk to. It is a such great thing for a child to grow up with validation not just from their own parents but from everyone. They can see how other people live, because we do live very much as a big family here, so you get to see the struggles that other people and their children are going through. And you see lives being lived spiritually.

Of course, raising children poses difficulties when you're trying to walk the spiritual path. Raising children is not something you can hide from. Where are you going to find seclusion, where you can be alone with God? Where are you going to find time to meditate? How are you going to take the classes you wish you could take?

Q: How do you resolve that?

A: Oh, I haven't. I've never been a great meditator, and often I've felt guilty about that. It's a struggle, but I do find an attunement through my yoga postures. I've also been able to do work that's spiritual, teaching classes at the Ananda Sangha. I find that I'm able to go within while I'm teaching, and that while I'm there, I'm a better teacher, because the vibration of God's help is flowing out through me to others. That work is a discrete entity where I can go and really focus and draw on the spiritual presence. But in the chaos that's family life, it's more difficult.

There's no greater blessing in the world than the spiritual teachings. When I talk to friends who don't have a path, I pray for them, because life can toss things at you, but with the teachings that give you a direct inner experience, you know why you're here. All your deep questions about life are answered inwardly.

Q: They're not just answered as ideas?

A: They're answered very much through the heart, through how people strive to live their lives. On the spiritual path, you realize that everything that comes to you is exactly what you need. It's wonderful to go through life together with other people who recognize that, and with whom you can talk about it. You go to a meeting about planning a new building for the community, and of course you do have your own feelings, but there's a great reassurance in knowing that everyone's trying to do God's will.

When you're a child, you know that Mom and Dad will take care of you. Do you have a problem? Well, they'll take care of it. But it's also true in a larger sense, that God is taking care of you. You do your best, but if you screw up, still He'll take care of it for you. I feel a thousand times blessed to be on this path, and to be living in the community. It's a life that you feel you want to shout about and help everyone understand, because it helps everyone so much. I know that people can only take what they're ready for, but for me, it's been just the greatest blessing.