exile

The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 3: In Exile in My Own Country

In the third part of my interview with yoga teacher Charu Rachlis, she describes jettisoning promising careers in psychology and theater, discovering meditation, and reaching the decision to move to the U.S.

In Exile in My Own Country

S: Where did you go to college and what did you study? 

C: I attended Universidade Gama Filho in Rio de Janeiro and majored in psychology.  

S: What if anything do you feel you gained from that experience? 

C: It expanded my horizons. I took classes in psychotherapy, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology. I’ve always liked to study subjects related to body-mind-spirit.

College graduation night. Charu is in bottom row, second from left.

College graduation night. Charu is in bottom row, second from left.

S: Did you ever practice as a psychotherapist? 

C: After I received my college degree, two friends and I started a career counseling service in Rio de Janeiro. We called it Orienta Servicos Psicologicos. We administered psych tests and used the results to help people choose professions. I did that for about 2-1/2 years. But given how young I was, I didn’t think I had enough life experience to be advising people. After a few years I broke down. I cried and cried and told my friends I liked providing a service but didn’t feel authentic doing it. 

I dropped that. My family was upset with me for quitting. I ended up working in the television industry, like the rest of my family. I did production, scenery, casting. But it was a hard, depressing period. Eventually I quit that work too. I was kind of floating, which concerned my family. 

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My father had friends who worked for an insurance company that was half-public, half-private. It provided good benefits. He said, why don’t you take the placement test? I did, and I passed. I ended up working there for six years as a secretary. I earned a good income, so I was able to work part-time. At first I was taking acting classes in the evening. I attended the best acting school in Rio de Janeiro—and it was not cheap. It was a very rigorous program. If you studied there, you had to give it everything you had. I didn’t have enough time to study in the way that I wanted to without falling behind at work.  

I stopped after two years. The teachers tried to convince me to stay. They said, You have real talent; you could be an actress. And I knew I was good at acting, but I also saw that I wasn’t willing to do whatever it took to keep studying. I decided I wasn’t meant to become an actress.  

Looking back, though, I see that acting helped me later as a yoga teacher. Despite what you might think from seeing me teach, I’m quite shy, and all that improv, singing, and dancing taught me how to be in front of a group of people. 

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My secretarial job allowed me to pay the bills, but it didn’t satisfy me. A psychologist friend told me about a meditation course taught by a visiting Tibetan Buddhist from Berkeley’s Nyingma Institute. I was intrigued, because I’d always been fascinated by how we can transform ourselves and become more authentic. I took the course. I thought, this is everything—meditation, Tibetan yoga, lots of introspection. 

After almost a year, I told my meditation teacher I wanted to keep studying. He said, We’re inviting people to study at the Nyingma Institute. It’s a work exchange; we offer room and board, and we’ll pay for half of your plane ticket. It’s a year-and-a-half commitment. I said, OK. A big doorway opened up for me in that moment. I didn’t quit my job at that stage but I took a leave of absence. 

S: How did your family react to the idea of your going to live in the US? 

C: Oh my gosh, it was a big drama. I had some Buddha statues in the apartment where I was living at that time, and my mom took them and threw them in the trash.  

My dad had passed away by then. We had been close. We both loved books and reading, and he had always told me I was a dreamer. But aside from the pull of that relationship, even though I loved my family, I didn’t feel like I belonged in Brazil. I felt like an exile in my own country. If my dad had remained alive, I don’t know if I would have felt the freedom to leave everything behind like that and take on the world. But being invited to Berkeley so soon after his death felt like a sign that it was time to go.

Next: The Heart Is the Major Target—Part 4: Wow, This Is Me