Finding Something More

Tucked into 400 acres in the Pocono Mountains is a place where tens of thousands of people have come simply to sit quietly.

The Himalayan Institute has called Honesdale, Pennsylvania, home for almost 50 years. What began with yoga and meditation has grown into a global nonprofit devoted to wellness, education, humanitarian service and the belief that people can reach their fullest potential.

But what are all those people looking for?

On this episode of HarmonyTALK, host Lisa Champeau talks with Retreat Center Director Brian Fulp about the enduring appeal of a place that has spent decades inviting people to slow down and look inward.

Brian takes us inside the Institute’s Sri Vidya Shrine, a meditation hall intentionally left open for visitors to bring their own beliefs and practices. He talks about the Institute’s roots, its humanitarian work around the world and the surprisingly entrepreneurial history that helped introduce the Neti Pot to millions of Americans.

But Brian’s own journey may say the most about the place.

He discovered yoga as an 11-year-old Boy Scout in Indiana. As a teenager without money for classes, he asked if he could work in exchange for them. His teacher told him to take the classes and promise to pay the Institute back someday.

Twenty-nine years later, Brian jokes that he is still working on it.

What began as an interest in yoga became a life built around service, community and a place he says gave him something he had been missing: purpose.

It is a conversation about what happens when we make room for stillness, what service can give back to the person doing it and why, after more than half a century, people continue to find their way to a quiet corner of the Poconos looking for something more.