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WAYNE TEASDALE
W.T.: But as long as the business community and government ignore the moral issues involved which are more pressing than the financial benefits— there is blood on that money. And there are karmic consequences to that.
L.M.: How did the call to sannyasa happen to you? How did you hear it, experience it?
W.T.: Well, the call: since I was five years old, there was my wanting to be a priest. No one told me to be that.
L.M.: You were growing up Catholic in Connecticut?
W.T.: Yes, I saw the spiritual journey through my limited knowledge--and that was the priesthood. I always wanted to be a priest. But really, it was my nature as a contemplative—an awakening of the mystic in me—which is in everyone. Everyone is a mystic-whether we accept that or not. It is up to us to accept our vocation as a human being: to be a mystic. It came very early to me, and by the time I was a teenager, it became clearer and clearer. I realized as a teenager that I was a monk, that I was called to that. And later, sannyasa opened up for me.
L.M.: You were a Benedictine for a while.
W.T.: Yes, I was a scholastic at Saint Anselm; and then later, I was at Christ in the Desert monastery in New Mexico. I also went through the Trinitarian novitiate.
L.M.: Those are largely traditional monastic options in the Catholic Church.
W.T.: And then the whole thing of sannyasa opened up for me in my relationship with Bede. Eventually, I did make that commitment. Now if others approach me, I'm very open to initiating others into sannyasa.
L.M.: Is there a formal initiation?
W.T.: Well
yes, there is—it's very ancient-I went through a formal initiation.
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