Dr. Richard Moss - Complete Biography Page 4
Left Wing Flirtations
Like many Jews of that era (and today), I was drawn to the left side of the political spectrum. I wrote for an “underground” newspaper in High School, was a student activist, protested the Vietnam War, supported the Black Panthers and the SDS (the radical “Students for a Democratic Society”), announced in an English class that Ho Chi Minh, the Communist dictator of North Vietnam, was my hero, gave teach-ins at schools, burned my books, had long hair, referred to police as “pigs,” the whole obnoxious, stupid mess.
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But by age 18, I had given up the reckless counterculture behavior having decided that nihilistic, pampered, America-hating, Commie loving Left wing nuts were a little too rich for my blood.
I remember, for example, speaking with some bearded loon at a "socialist petition drive" who was urging "violent revolution."
I asked him whom he wanted to kill, favoring, as he openly stated, violent revolution. He became agitated. When I suggested, sardonically, my teacher, the cop on the street, or my Uncle Saul, a successful “capitalist,” all legitimate examples of the “status quo” against which he railed, the absurdity of his position was evident.
The Liberalism of older Democrats, of Truman and JFK, a pragmatic, reform minded governing philosophy that stood for the working man and defended liberty abroad, would become a victim of this sinister movement, ultimately taken over (in 1972, the McGovern year) by the anti-American, anti-Capitalist, hard Left.
Their rabid, incoherent nostrums (which persist) along with the ruinous mores and conventions of the counterculture, of which I had previously been a fan and participant, began to turn my stomach.
Yoga & Buddhism
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An older brother had drug problems. A cousin of ours (May his memory be a blessing), a former addict himself, ran a drug rehab center on the Lower East Side. He introduced my brother to Swami Rudrananda (“Rudi”), a powerful Yoga teacher. Rudi, a Jew, by the way, from Brooklyn (May his memory be a blessing), had Yoga ashrams around the country including lower Manhattan where we met.
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My brother entered his ashram in upstate NY (in “Big Indian”) and ended his addiction. Later, I, too, would join him in the ashram, to do “Rudi’s Work” or Kundalini Yoga, a combination of meditation and intense physical labor. I lived in the ashram for seven years.
In my later travels in Asia, I would spend time in Wat Satchatan, a Buddhist Monastery in southern Thailand (a “forest” temple), as an initiate under Acharn Jaroon, a learned Thai Buddhist monk.
I also learned much about Buddhism from Pra Uttamo (originally Robert Bender), another Buddhist monk (and American Jew)
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who lived alone in the forests of Sungai Kolok, a Thai village near the border with Malaysia. A former physicist who became a monk in 1959, he was a sage, a comedian (classic Jewish sense of humor), and great friend until his tragic murder in 1999 at age 70 (May his memory be a blessing).
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Afterwards, I produced a “Yoga for Health” television program on a local channel (13 half hour presentations). I have taught Yoga classes at a local college and various fitness centers (in Jasper, Indiana) and continue to practice Yoga everyday.