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.
"This Incredible Longing demonstrates that a reader needn't share the author's spiritual longing in order to see the beauty and peace it brings her and others...As excellent memoirists do, [Glaser's] uncovered the familiar in the foreign - the universal truths beneath all of our stories." -Hippocampus
"... a memoir about multiple comings-of-age, coming to terms with oneself, and finding a personal rhythm and inner peace...The prose is honest and empathetic. The dissonance Glaser experienced between gratitude and critique of the ashram is used to showcase its captivating world." -Foreword Reviews
"This isn't a story about finding the light. It's about walking through the dark and learning how to see." -Kaitlyn Herman, ICF Certified Life Coach / Wellness Influencer
