A cross between Glennon Doyle's Love Warrior and the classic Yogananda Paramahansa's

Autobiography of a Yogi, This Incredible Longing: Finding My Self in a Near-Cult Experience is a memoir about devotion, discernment, and the complicated beauty of spiritual seeking.

Blair Glaser thoughtfully stepped onto a path promising peace and purpose when she found Siddha Yoga, a movement led by a charismatic Indian guru and shaped by a community that would later be called a high-control group. What she found there wasn't exploitation: it was healing. Within the ashram's structure, she discovered confidence, calm, and belonging she'd never known.

But when the guru returned to India, cracks began to show. Blair's depression resurfaced. Hypocrisies emerged. A looming exposé of the heinous truths about Gurumayi and her teacher, her parents' intervention, and a flicker of envy sparked by a "Friends" episode created a reckoning she could no longer ignore.

This Incredible Longing is a story about the willingness to seek, and how looking for oneself by idealizing another human is simultaneously thrilling and dangerous. It is a story of awakening without bitterness that explores the fine line between transformation and entrapment, and the strength it takes to walk away with both eyes open.