My journey toward the healing effects of yoga began in 1993. At the time, I was seeking relief from emotional stress on both a conscious and an unconscious level. During my first year at college, I was a mess inside. I desperately lacked inner peace, although this wasn’t outwardly apparent.

My parents had recently gone bankrupt, so I was exhausted from working three jobs between high school and college to pay my tuition, and I continued to work part-time while in college. The daily grind was unfulfilling, to say the least. Meanwhile, my twin sister, Alanis Morissette, exploded onto the music scene with her groundbreaking album Jagged Little Pill, which went on to become the highest-selling debut album of all time. With her rapidly mounting success, I felt more emotionally and spiritually lost than ever before and longed to find my own identity and path in life.

I was studying to become an environmental lawyer, a vocation I had an interest in, but one that didn’t fully satisfy me. Deep down, I knew academic study wasn’t going to fulfill my quest for inner peace and happiness. Most of the books I was required to read focused on theory. I needed truth—an unwavering, blatant truth with no smoke and mirrors. In the end, I decided not to complete a degree in environmental law. Ironically, though, the time I spent at college led me in a different and unexpected direction: toward a new sense of spirituality.

It was my university roommate—a hippie at heart studying to be a librarian—who had a hand in changing the course of my life. He suggested I read The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power, by Vernon Howard. The book’s conversation about God and how to attain a connection to spirit interested me most. Could leading a more spiritually conscious life allow me to feel more peace, joy, and unconditional love? In search of the answer, I delved deeper into readings on Eastern mysticism and philosophy, often reading until five in the morning then sleeping late in the day. My peers thought I was crazy, and in a way, they were right—I was going crazy as I yearned for inner peace and mental composure. Through my exploration of all things pertaining to God and a higher power, I realized that I needed to adopt a daily spiritual discipline. I explored karate-do but didn’t care for the sparring aspect of it. I tried Taoist tai chi, which I enjoyed, but found too gentle. At that time, I still didn’t know about yoga.

After leaving college, I moved from eastern Canada to Vancouver, British Columbia. I was drawn to Vancouver’s socially conscious community, but I also saw it as a geographical step closer to Asia, the home of all the spiritual readings I had pored over and the continent I hoped to visit someday. That dream became a reality after I began to feel a strong pull toward India. To this day, I can’t explain why I was drawn there, except that it brought me closer to my life’s calling: yoga.

I quit my job at a health food store and booked a flight to Chennai (formerly Madras). Once there, I hopped on a bus to Mahabalipuram. I vividly remember walking down the street in that small village and spotting a sign: "Hatha Yoga—Upstairs, 5:30 p.m." I went to the advertised class, and from then on I was hooked. I sampled as many yoga classes as I could during my travels around India.

I became a sannyasin (Sanskrit for "spiritual seeker") at a meditation center called Osho Ashram in Pune. In Varanasi, I meditated with sadhus, yogis dedicated to meditation and contemplation of God. Once, after we’d sat for hours in meditation, a sadhu said to me, "This is the real yoga." He meant yoga was more than doing a series of physical postures without mindfulness. I realized then that yoga is as vast as the ocean, and that meditation is the ultimate key to yogic transformation.

Since my initial introduction to yoga, I’ve studied with some of the world’s greatest teachers and masters, in both India and the West. My practice continues to grow deeper and more diversified. And although I now train other yoga teachers, I still consider myself a student of yoga. It keeps me humble and open to learning.

My opportunity to learn from many enlightened yoga masters has taught me that there is no right or wrong way to practice yoga. Yoga isn’t something you learn, and then you’re finished. Yoga is a lifelong journey and commitment. And it doesn’t matter what style of yoga you practice; there is no one way. The most important gauge for determining whether you’re practicing yoga correctly is how you feel. If you feel better after practice, you’re doing it right! On the other hand, if your practice makes you feel worse, that’s a sign that something needs to be adjusted.

This book isn’t about categorizing yoga into nice, neat boxes. It’s about practicing yoga in the broad sense in which it was meant to be practiced. It’s about cultivating a discipline that is ever-changing—adapting it to serve you wherever you find yourself—in space and time, and in body and spirit. Your practice should change as you change. The only constant is this: What you experience through yoga should feel good to you. And that’s where the koshas—your keys to inner bliss—become especially important.

Excerpt from Transformative Yoga: Five Keys to Unlocking Inner Bliss by Wade Imre Morissette.