While hammering nails and cutting planks in the prop department at New York's Lincoln Center for the Metropolitan Opera in the early 2000s, Barry Silver never dreamed of a life in Japan.
After halting his youthful downward spiral with the help of meditation and yoga, Silver took a series of odd jobs in order to dedicate himself fully to his yoga practice.
As a trained actor in off-Broadway productions, Silver had imagined himself on stage more than backstage. "I always wondered why I was swinging a hammer," he recalls. "Yet it connected me to building Hindu temples for my yoga teacher in New York, and it's indirectly the reason I became a teacher myself. Many of the great blessings that happened in my life had nothing to do with me planning them, so I've gained a great deal of trust in what is coming."