By Sandra Marroquin —
In 20 years of teaching kundalini yoga, Kara Seymour never found peace. Then she retired, moved to North Carolina and accidentally fell into a Bible study group — something she was loathe to do.
“A peace came over me that day that was so palpable and so profound,” Seymour says. “It was the peace that I was after for so long in my New Age life. It happened without me meditating, without me getting on my mat, without me doing anything except literally saying, ‘I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior.'”
Kundalini yoga brought Seymour acclaim and riches. Christ brought her peace.
Her story begins with the divorce of her parents when she was 12. Her dad was her world at the time, and she learned only then that he was alcoholic. “I was thinking, ‘You can’t stop drinking to save our family?'” she says. “Part of me felt less important than alcohol.”
She got into yoga looking for answers to the turmoil of her childhood.
Seymour was first both a disciple and teacher of Vinyasa yoga, which employs physical poses are linked together in a flowing sequence coordinated with breathing to achieve peace and healing from trauma.
Then she discovered Kundalini yoga, which “awakens” the latent spiritual power or energy believed to reside near the base of the spine.
For 20 years, she taught in her own exclusive studio and raised a daughter with her partner.
“On the outside, my life looked pretty good. I had a relationship. We owned land and a house. We were traveling a lot,” she says. “Yet I was not at peace.”
But when she separated from her partner and moved to North Carolina, she got the epiphany that she was supposed to retire from teaching yoga. She also got a mystical sense that she was going to meet a woman who would lead her into truth.
The lady took her to a Bible study. As a New Age practitioner, she was loathe to listen to the Bible. But the ladies were so nice.
“You ladies are awesome,” she told them one day. “But I need you to know that I have never read the Bible. I don’t know anything about Jesus.”
At first she was confused by what was being read in the Bible. Then she felt resistance. But curiousity took over and she started liking the learning.
Eventually, her lady friend asked her if she wanted to receive Jesus as her Lord and Savior.
“I was like, ‘Yeah,'” she tells.
Some time later, she visited her dad, whom she hadn’t seen in five years.
She felt the conviction to stop practicing yoga — and the desire was removed instantly.
When she visited her dad, she found out he’d been sober for a year.
“That’s a miracle. That’s amazing,” she said. “My identity now is just a child of God. My life has become so much more simple and peaceful.”
