Miriam Goldstein, holding her dog with Marcy Goldstein next to her, and friends at a Peace Seminar in Jacksonville, March 2017.

I found myself, through a series of interesting experiences, directed to go to an MSIA home seminar in South Miami. This was in 1978. I was living in Miami at the time, and at that seminar there was a guided meditation. By the way it was an audio seminar, I don’t think the videos were out yet. And so, I participated in the meditation that was conducted.

In that meditation we walked up a mountain etc., etc., etc., listening as we went and seeing as we went, and I found myself with a Master. The idea was to receive a gift from the Master. My gift was a rose. When we came back into awareness of the room and our physical consciousness, I was asked, and all of us were asked, what the gift was that we received. The gift I received was a rose.  All of the people at the seminar wanted to know what color it was, which had no meaning for me. I didn’t realize at the time that they wanted to know if it was a purple rose. But it was a red rose.

I later read in the old Movement Newspaper that the color of the red rose signified personal love.  It was an absolutely perfect gift for me at that time. I haven’t mentioned that all of the people that were present had just done the first Insight Training in Miami. They were looking into each other’s eyes and loving each other so fully.  I didn’t quite understand what was happening, but I felt the love and connected to it. Much of it was directed at me, even though I had never seen these people before.

So, I went away from that MSIA home seminar knowing something had changed inside of me. It was very direct. I had gone to the seminar listening to some kind of slow rap music and I left putting classical music on. The vibration had changed inside of me. So that was number one.

I did start going to whatever else was available. The next thing that came forward was a Three Selves seminar on a Saturday — it was like one of our PTS classes today. Actually, that is where I met my husband, Marcy. It was a day-long seminar/class. That was my next adventure on this path.

Shortly after I met Marcy, in early February 1979 I went on Discourses. Marcy had already started on Discourses and waited for me to catch up.  And so, we were on this journey together. When I read the first Discourse, my goodness I knew I was where I was supposed to be.

There was an opportunity to have a dinner with John-Roger in a very small intimate setting. There were four of us who went into another room after the dinner and John-Roger spoke about anything that was asked. Mark Penzer was there and Terry (I forget Terry’s last name) and Marcy and myself. What an experience that was. I didn’t quite know what was happening. It was amazing.  J-R answered questions from A-Z kind of thing.  What happened inside of me — what I reacted to most — was when J-R was asked “What is Spirit?” (The question may have been ‘What is Soul?) the answer came forward very, very quickly. The answer came forward “Love.” Again, I knew I was in the right place.

What followed was me wanting to take this mysterious Insight training.  I didn’t know anything about it except that the people were so loving with each other. It obviously had changed something inside of them. So, I was in Miami, and I helped to organize and set up the Insight Training.  Matter of fact, I put twelve people in that training not knowing anything about it.

So, when the time came to take the training, it was exciting, it was beautiful, and it was very, very inspirational and impactful. And guess who was there? J-R. It was a period when, during the quiet time, I started seeing the color that everyone was wanting to hear me say in that first home seminar. I went over to J-R and told him that I was seeing all this purple. He just smiled and said, “Go ask Joy”, who was an assistant, “She’ll tell you about that” and “It’s a good thing.”

So, there I was again taking another step in the direction of what this was.  I signed up immediately with Marcy for Insight Two. I was hooked. Once I took Insight Two there was no question in my mind that this was my spiritual path.

Marcy called J-R and asked if he would marry us, if he would conduct the ceremony. He said he “doesn’t do that anymore but he will send Light and be with us. I saw the aura of marriage around you both” — an interesting thing to hear. We did get married in 1980. We had been living together as married and we were moving to St. Louis, Missouri.

I decided to bring Insight to St. Louis. Marcy and I worked together in the acupuncture practice. I had loads of people who were looking for healing in their lives. This was a perfect opportunity   for me to build that first Insight which we did in 1982 January. Russell Bishop was the facilitator.

My meeting of J-R was amazing. I knew immediately, just from the home seminar, that I had tapped into something that I had been looking for. So basically, that’s how I met the Traveler and got so entrenched in the Movement. From there I just went on and on. I eventually worked for Insight in California.