Helen Schulman

Helen Schulman was an only child who was born September 5, 1937 in New York City, where she grew up. She attended the City College of New York from 1955 to 1960 from where she received a B.A. in English. Later she went into Social Work and in 1968 received a Master's degree in this field from New York University. She was married twice, but now lives alone in Boca Raton, Florida as a retiree. She was always interested in poetry and writing and began writing poetry in 1958. One of her influences was Cecil Hemley, a poet of the times who had his own publishing company. He was one of her professors at CCNY. In 1968 she became involved with the path of yoga, meditation and Eastern spirituality. Her main influence on this path was Blyth Patel, her spiritual mentor of the last 44 years. Her involvement with spirituality is reflected in her poetry since that time. Helen has a special love for oriental poetry - especially the haiku form. As a result, a section of this poetry collection incorporates haiku that she has written through the years. During the 1970's, she lived in an ashram in Poona, India under the auspices of Osho, an enlightened master, then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, with her second husband who is Indian. While living in the ashram, she was Osho's editor-in-chief of English publications and edited 14 books of his lectures. She also started and edited a bi-monthly magazine that gained some popularity in India during the 1970's in spiritual circles connected with Osho.For the past 22 years she has lived in Florida. Helen says living in Florida is like being on vacation all year round and that retirement in Florida is one of the best things that ever happened to her. Among her interests are astrophysics, from a layman's perspective, and spiritual self-discovery, both of which are reflected in her poetry.