I found out first about MSIA from Carl of the Beach Boys. I had been a Beach Boys fan for quite awhile, and was fortunate enough to meet him by way of a friend. During a Thanksgiving phone call (how appropriate!) Carl mentioned Insight to me, and told me it was the best thing he’d ever done. Knowing that Carl had traveled the world and experienced many things since he was a teenager, and also knowing he was pretty grounded, I took this as quite a remarkable recommendation. I asked him if there was an Insight meeting in New York or New Jersey, and he gave me the Insight NYC phone number. Then he mentioned MSIA. I said, “What’s MISA?” He said, “MSIA – Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness.” He described it to me, and gave me another phone number to call.
From there, I called those numbers, and went to my first Insight home event at Lois’ house in Fanwood, NJ. Dick and Josie facilitated the event, and among other things, we did a closed eye process called, “Walk in the Forest.” It was during this closed eye process that I had the experience of being Home in a way that I’d never experienced before, and never so vividly! That was it for me. I knew I wanted more. Sandy was at the event, and told me how to sign up for Discourses, which I did as soon as I could, and wrote away to become an initiate and seminar leader.
From there, I went to my first MSIA seminar, also in Fanwood, and I heard J-R’s voice for the first time. I don’t remember much, except that the tape began and after a while, the tape ended. What happened in the middle seemed to go really quickly and I wasn’t conscious very much. I remember going to my first live seminar around the same time, and told Sandy that I felt as though I was going to my own wedding. Everything seemed exciting and “about to happen.” I saw J-R and our eyes connected for a brief moment, and something stirred inside me.
After that, I signed up for Insight I, and I remember sitting on the floor in the Halloran House in NYC outside the ballroom, waiting to do my first day of Insight I, reading Discourse #1. It was all so very exciting! J-R was one of the facilitators, and the energy from him, and in the room, was “other worldly,” and during the training the room became many different places, with so many experiences (even more so during Insight II and Super II). Little did I know how much was going to happen over the next 30+ years! Thank you, J-R, for all the loving, all the experiences, and so much more yet to come!
