QUIET MIND CRAZY HEART

In this memoir, a jet-setting socialite remembers rock ’n’ roll shenanigans of the 1960s and her eventual discovery of the healing power of yoga.

To say that Edwards was simply a ’60s scenester would be a gross understatement. She not only hung out with the Rolling Stones, but also ran with Andy Warhol’s crowd at Max’s Kansas City in New York. Her remembrance in these pages is forthright and revealing. For instance, she notes that she did lots of drugs and had lots of sex, but that she didn’t experience an orgasm until LSD “unlocked the magic door.” She studied fashion design at the London College of Fashion and almost immediately found success in the industry as a designer in New York.But in 1972, when the author was 28, Edwards felt worn out and decided to walk away from it all. She was later diagnosed as having bipolar disorder, she says, and she experienced two marriages that ended unhappily. Along the way, though, she stumbled upon the practice of yoga, readAutobiography of a Yogi (1946) by Paramahansa Yogananda and the Bhagavad Gita, and lived in an ashram, emerging from the experience in 1975 with the new spiritual name of Sri Gopika Dasi. This is a whirlwind narrative that careens from one star-studded encounter to another, but it never feels superficial; instead, Edwards’ memoir brims with compassion for others and for herself: “I learned to see that everyone in the world is suffering in some way,” she candidly writes. “No one, even the wealthiest and most successful, is free from the vicissitudes of the material energy, which changes constantly.” She’s equally generous with her insights about becoming a mother-in-law later in life, telling of how she learned to use her mindfulness practice to “step waaaay back” and learn how to “shut [her] mouth.” She also proves to be exceedingly straightforward about the challenges of aging and persistent loneliness. Edwards writes that she saved herself from hard times through spiritual practice, and her book could help others to do the same.

An intimate, vulnerable remembrance that’s full of heart and soul.