| My father went
to college only briefly, not completing a single year, and served in the army during World
War II. Though both my parents were open minded they never oriented me in the direction of
India or any-thing mystical. Yet my mother in particular did encourage a religious
attitude in me according to her Catholic background. I myself went to Catholic
school until the fifth grade (age ten). We were taught to look on Protestants with
suspicion. Asia was like another world, a land
of backward, primitive people needing conversion, and we were taught that Asian religions
like Hinduism or Buddhism were pagan, if not demonic. After much moving of our residence
from city to city, and from state to state, as my father was a realtor, we finally settled
down in Denver, Colorado in the Rocky Mountain region. There, owing to the financial
burden of so many children, we switched to public school which brought us out of the shell
of Catholic beliefs, and first exposed me seriously to the realm of science, which I found
much more appealing and expansive to my mind than the church. |
