My story begins at the Mr. Iowa bodybuilding contest in Des Moines, Iowa, as my two training partners and I competed for the title. I had begun bodybuilding as a fifteen-year-old sophomore at West High School in Waterloo, Iowa. West High was a famed freestyle wrestling mecca with Dan Gable and Dale Anderson wrestling greats and coach Bob Siddons at the helm while I was attending high school. I first began bodybuilding to increase my strength to be able to compete against 225 lb. Tom Mc Gowan while “sand lot” wrestling on a mattress in our basement. He was giving me mat burns while consistently beating me. Don Matthews, my older training partner won the 1966 Mr. Iowa that day, and later that fall, Gil Hanson, my other older training partner, won Mr. Midwest. I was the younger kid on the block at seventeen, placing a consensus fourth place among the finalists. They only awarded three official places. Not long after this stage of my life, I began wrestling with truth.
The next fall I began attending the University of Northern Iowa and became a member of Psi Omega fraternity. A Delta sorority girl I was dating invited me to a campus Presbyterian Church. As we listened to the minister preach about the New Testament church, the miracles they experienced, and the personal, supernatural relationship believers had with Jesus as He walked the shores of Galilee, suddenly the Holy Spirit swept over me for the first time in my nineteen years of living. I thought, “I am not a Christian. I do not have what those early followers of Jesus had.” That moment ignited a hunger within to find a genuine relationship with God and Jesus. My fraternity brothers had just voted for me to be the vice president of Psi Omega fraternity and I loved being a part of our membership, but I realized that some of the things I was doing (like “woodsy” beer parties and the general tenor of my conduct, at times) were not consistent with how I perceived Christianity.
The next summer I met with our Methodist mister while at home in Omaha, Nebraska, where my parents had moved. He recommended a small, pre-seminary college in Nebraska named Hastings College. I mixed up becoming a Methodist minister with becoming a Christian. I still was not born of the Holy Spirit, so becoming a minister was putting “the cart before the horse.” I wonder how many active denominational ministers have mistaken the drawing of the Holy Spirit to receive Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit with the call to the ministry and have become ministers without ever having been born of the Holy Spirit.
To the surprise of my fraternity brothers, after two years at UNI, I transferred to Hastings College. While at Hastings College, I prayed with the Methodist youth minister one evening to ask Jesus to come into my heart, but nothing happened. He asked me to share my “testimony” at his Methodist Church. As I was sharing about Jesus, I knew I did not have the very relationship with Christ that I was sharing about. As I sat in the religion classes at Hastings College, I did not really understand the Bible or its teachings. I felt like a “duck out of water.’ I was tormented by my uncertainties about Christianity. Then, the Methodist youth minster made homosexual advances toward me. That was the last straw for me! “He is only claiming Christianity to hide from his homosexuality,” I thought. “Maybe there is nothing to this Christian faith after all. I’m not sure I believe after all.” So, after only six weeks at Hastings College, I withdrew.
I was majoring in business but had no real interest in being a businessman like my dad. Having been raised in provincial, rural Iowa, I thought “I don’t even know what is going on in the world around me. I’ve got to get out of here!” I had read Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking and I knew his church was in New York City. I thought, “Maybe I need counseling to understand myself and Christianity,” so I decided that I was going to go to New York City to live and go to Dr. Peale’s church, hear his preaching, and go to his counseling center. So, I had my dad pick me up and informed him of my decision. My dad did not agree and thought I should finish college first, but he said he would support my decision, and I would always have a home with them. I will always appreciate Dad’s support!
I had my parents take me out to the interstate highway, with my suitcase, to hitchhike to New York City. My Mom cried. Off I went! My story continues with me entering Grand Central Station in New York City after hitchhiking from Omaha, Nebraska. After first arriving in New York City with only $400 in my pocket and knowing no one in the city, I rented a hotel room in Manhattan and began looking for a job. As I walked down Park Avenue and stopped at a crosswalk, a well-dressed man stuck up a conversation with me and offered to buy me a cup of coffee. Little did I know that he was a well-known television producer who had been the videographer for television specials of John F. Kennedy. His name was Gabriel Bayz and he had been the associate producer of the Jack Paar Show, the forerunner of the Tonight Show. Gabe contacted David Anderson, then the personnel director of NBC Studios. David Anderson hired me as an NBC page even though forty-six people were waiting in line to for the job. I worked on the Guest Relations Staff with the Tonight Show, starring Johnny Carson and other NBC programs in Rockefeller Center. I regularly saw stars such as Della Reese and Muhammad Ali as I interacted with the audiences and stood in the studios while the Tonight Show and other programs were being aired or taped. Gabe Bayz also contacted the Bernard Rubenstein (modeling) Agency, created a portfolio for me, and I began interviewing for television commercials and off-Broadway plays. I signed as a model with the Bernard Rubenstein Agency.
I regularly attended the Marble Collegiate Church on 33rd Street and Park Avenue on Sunday mornings. I do not recall much about Dr. Peale’s theology, just that he told dozens of anecdotal testimonies, spoke of the power of positive thinking, and talked about Christ. Though I found out later in life that he did not present Christ accurately and embraced many New Age ideas, at that pre-Christian time in my life, God used Dr. Peale’s messages and book to nudge me towards the true Christian faith. His teaching focused upon the power of mental imaging, not the power of a personal Savior, Jesus Christ. Dr. Peale did not believe that Jesus was the only way to God, as I do now. On the Phil Donahue Show he said:
“It’s not necessary to be born again. You have your way to God, I have mine. I found eternal peace in a Shinto shrine … I’ve been to Shinto shrines and God is everywhere. … Christ is one of the ways! God is everywhere.”[1]
Dr. Peale would enter the packed sanctuary, which seated about four hundred people, in his bright red robe with no notes in his hand. I tried to apply Dr. Peale’s teachings and went to his counseling center in Manhattan, but there was no power in my life to succeed with his positive thinking principles. I had not yet been born of the Holy Spirit.
I worked out as a bodybuilder at the famed mid-City Gym in Manhattan, where the great Reg Park, Harold Poole, and Arnold Schwarzenegger sometimes worked out. The owner of Mid-City, the renowned bodybuilding coach Tommy Minicello, took me under his wing personally and mentored me as my trainer. My work-out partner, Merrill Sindler, was Johnny Carson’s set designer and worked on his personal staff of six persons. Merrill and I would walk together after work at NBC Studios to Mid-City from 48th to 42nd St. and Times Square for our workouts.
The door to bodybuilding competition, television and modeling success was wide open to me, but as I worked out and pursued modeling, I made a crucial decision that I did not want my success in life to be determined by just my looks. So, when my mother went through a divorce and moved to Sarasota, Florida, the attraction of the beach and living in Florida to finish my college education caused me to leave New York City behind. After lifeguarding at Lido Beach and Siesta Key Beaches for one year, I returned to college to finish my degree at the University of South Florida. I began studying Hatha Yoga as a form of exercise at the YMCA in downtown Tampa, under the leadership of Joanna St. Cyr. She was a disciple of Roy Eugene Davis, who lived in nearby Clearwater Beach, Florida, who had been an in-person disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda. I religiously attended Joanna’s classes and began also practicing the yoga asanas in my apartment while attending college.
Joanna began introducing me to the teachings of Yogananda and the principles of yoga meditation as a part of practicing the asanas. Her sessions always ended with a time of meditation. I began sensing a peace. I also began reading the yoga classic, The Autobiography of a Yogi, written by Yogananda. Since I had an interest in Christianity and was looking for answers in life outside of the Christian faith, Yogananda’s teachings were enticing because he claimed visions from Jesus and wore a cross. I soon went to Roy Eugene Davis’ house and had him lay hands of me to be initiated into Kriya Yoga, since he was a personal disciple of Yogananda. This made me a disciple of Yogananda and a receiver of the Kriya Yoga line.
My time spent doing Hatha Yoga postures and practicing Kriya meditation soon expanded to two-to-three hours daily, while also attending weekly classes downtown with Joanna St. Cyr’s Hatha Yoga classes. My reputation began to spread throughout the Tampa Bay area because of my dedication to Hatha and Kriya Yoga. Then, one evening came my pivotal experience in Kriya Yoga meditation. I had recently read about yoga spiritual masts while reading the life story of Meher Baba, a famous yoga guru in India. These spiritual masts were in frozen catatonic, psychological states while experiencing samadhi, the ultimate yogic meditation experience of oneness with the universe (God consciousness). I did not understand why it would produce mental illness in the spiritual masts if this were the ultimate experience with God. When I asked Roy Eugene Davis about this, he did not have a satisfactory answer, only that the masts were better off being in a higher astral plane.
This answer was not reassuring to me in my Western logic. As I meditated that pivotal night, deep into my meditation, a magnetic force (samadhi) opened supernaturally in the spirit world and began drawing my soul irresistibly into its center. In that instant, I remembered the state of the spiritual masts, and, in my spirit said, “NO!” Suddenly the force threw me backwards onto my yoga mat in adrenaline shock. My heartbeat raced out of control as I lay there. Concerned that I could die, I tried to use yogic mental concentration to bring the heart rate back to a normal level. Gradually, it returned to normal, but I was still looking for answers. At this point in my life experience, I did not think in terms of evil, but just that I did not want to be stuck in the state of a spiritual mast.
God knew my situation. Soon after this experience, I was in a nearby occult bookstore in Tampa, browsing, when I met a fellow USF student named Winston Powell. He began sharing his yoga and occult background with me but added that he had recently become a Spirit-filled Christian.
In the meantime, while working on a work scholarship in the USF bookstore, I met a fellow student named Lily Hun. She had come from Thailand to America. Some other students and I were discussing philosophy during a break time when Lily interjected, “Well, I don’t know about all of those philosophies. All I know is that I love my Jesus.” Her face shone with God’s glory as she said it and I took note of her boldness and happiness. Within the next few days, I encountered Win again on the USF campus. He described his recent Christian conversion experience to me and spoke in tongues for me. When he spoke in tongues, a tangible force hit my chest. Soon after, I again met Win in an organic vegetable market. Win asked if he could come over to my apartment that evening to share with me about his experiences. I said “Yes,” but I did not think he would come.
That night, at 1 AM in the morning, after debating the truth of the Gospel with Win for five-to-six hours, my life changed forever. I finally told him that I was willing to try Jesus, but that I did not want to speak in tongues because that sounded weird. Win wisely said, “Let’s just pray to Jesus!” I looked over at Win and his girlfriend Rhee, whom we had called to come over to pray, as they were quietly praying in tongues and worshiping with a Divine glow around them. I thought to myself, “I don’t have what they have,” so I prayed silently from my heart, “Jesus, if you are real, let me feel something.”
Suddenly my soul was lifted into a heavenly realm, whether in my body or not I do not know. A roaring noise like a powerful wind or a train coming down the tracks filled my consciousness. The power of God hit me on the top of my head and rushed through my body as a mighty, supernatural force, saving me and baptizing me in the Holy Spirit in the same instant. Soon after, I began praying in tongues as the Holy Spirit welled up from deep within, as the three of us continued worshiping. My soul knew that this was the true presence of the living God, in contrast to the impersonal, magnetic pull I had experienced in the earlier Samadhi experience. I now experienced no fear, only the comforting warmth and power of Jesus’ supernatural presence.
When I returned to my practice of Hatha and Kriya yoga, trying to combine yoga meditation and my newly found Christianity, I made a disturbing observation. After I meditated, it was more difficult to pray. I realized Yoga meditation and praying to God through Jesus Christ were invoking two vastly different spirits, the serpent spirit (described in the Bible as Satan) and the Spirit of God. As I further considered related issues like the Hatha yoga asanas, I realized that it was all an integral part of Satan’s spirit, the one who disguises himself as “an angel of light” (see 2 Corinthians 11:14-15). I had been deceived in my spiritual search. Satan had also fooled Yogananda in his false visions. I ceased doing all forms of Kriya and Hatha Yoga, dedicating myself to Biblical, Spirit-filled Christianity.
I continue as a follower of Jesus and the Bible today. All glory to the True and Living God and His Son Jesus the Christ who rescued me from the falsehoods of mental imaging, yoga, and the occult!
“There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2: 5-7)
You may contact Kent Sullivan personally at the following email address: kentsullivanesl@gmail.com
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A special note from Mike Shreve, founder of the True Light website:
It is especially meaningful for me to post Kent Sullivan’s story on the True Light website, because Kent was the person God used to lead me away from eastern religions and Kundalini Yoga to become a follower of Jesus. The day he picked me up hitchhiking, I immediately knew who he was because I had heard through the grapevine of the “yoga community” in Tampa, Florida, that Kent had departed from a far eastern worldview to embrace Christianity. It was very surprising to all of us and it seemed like a step down, that he was opting for a lesser spiritual path (we considered it was just “Bhakti Yoga”: devotion to an individual deity among many gods and goddesses).
Kent had also heard about me. A few weeks prior, the Tampa Tribune had run a half-page article on my activities in the area, explaining how I was teaching Kundalini Yoga at four universities (University of South Florida, University of Tampa, New College, and Florida Presbyterian) and running a yoga ashram. The article also highlighted some of the beliefs I embraced at that time. Someone in Kent’s home church (House of Hope with Pastor Bertha Madden) saw the article and submitted it to their 24-hour prayer chain. So, Christian believers were interceding in my behalf, every hour of every day, until I came into the knowledge of God.
Then, God supernaturally and providentially guided Kent to the exact location where I was hitchhiking the very day I asked Jesus, “If You are the only way to a relationship with God, please reveal Yourself to me.” To read the complete story, download the free booklet titled, The Highest Adventure: Encountering God on the home page of this website.
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[1] https://libquotes.com/norman-vincent-peale/quote/lbr4c0e accessed 12/18/21.
Thank you sharing the story.
I am glad that you were interested. Are you a follower of Jesus too?
Something always seemed “off” about the power of positive thinking stuff. Thanks for this.
You’re welcome, David. Where are you in your spiritual path?