For Jyoti, a yoga instructor and healer who has gained knowledge from gurus and shamans throughout the world, a journey is more than passing through the time/space continuum. The spiritual journey is paramount.

In her own description, Jyoti’s journey has "taken a turn."

This past autumn, she experienced "a bad cough." According to Jyoti, "I did my yoga, my herbs, my healing, and it went away."

Several months ago, "my kidneys somehow shut down. I went into the hospital and tests showed a suspicious lobe on my lung." Doctors determined that Jyoti had lung cancer that had spread to her spine and the meninges, or protective membranes, around her brain. A small, lithe person, Jyoti lost 20 pounds and was unable to eat almost anything beyond rice gruel.

Through extensive medical treatments, Jyoti regained weight and is feeling much better.

"I have three little naps a day," she said. "I’m meditating, practicing my yoga. Without that practice and meditation, I couldn’t sustain all this good energy."

The founder and director of Starseed Yoga, Jyoti continued to teach in her yoga studio on Glenridge Avenue, but the cost of her medical treatment is gargantuan.

Knowing of her struggle with healthcare costs, many students, supporters and friends such as Yomi Karade are organizing a three-day gala to raise donations for Jyoti and heighten community awareness of cancer. Details of gala events are on page C3.

"It’s a huge extravaganza," said Karade, who is unrelenting in getting the word out and soliciting sponsors. "That’s Jyoti. That’s what she’s about. I’m hoping the community will pull together for her. The buzz is out there, which is great."

Karade and colleagues have rounded up many performers, venues, and local restaurants and businesses to contribute to the musical, comedic and dance festivities, which are to occur in Montclair from Thursday, Oct. 2, through Saturday, Oct. 4. It’s another turn in Jyomi Chrystal’s passage.

"I officially started on this spiritual path in 1972. That was the year I encountered my guru, and that marks the beginning of my conscious awareness of self-discovery," said Jyoti, who "spent 16 years going in and out of the Amazon jungle."

In her meditation studio on Glenridge Avenue — the third facility she’s operated in Montclair — is her kiva, or a room for meditation.

"A kiva is an underground room/womb which all tribal societies have, where sacred ceremonies and rituals take place, where the vibrations build up over time," Jyoti explained. "I have had a kiva for 35 years, wherever I’ve lived, where I do all my healing work, where I do all my consultations."

On the kiva’s door are mounted feather and leaf wands, and rattles, along with other handcrafted items created by Native Americans, South Americans, Tibetans and other people. "These are shamanic power tools," Jyoti explained. An intricately illustrated Buddhist mandala is placed on the kiva wall behind her, representing the core of Tibetan Buddhism. There’s a Hindu mandala nearby.

"It’s an amalgam of my studies," she said of the kiva’s mystical items. "Each of these things represent something I have studied and have gleaned from my teachers.

"We learn from all these other people, only to learn we have the knowledge within ourselves."

Jason Martin, Jyoti’s husband, assisted her in the kiva. She has two sons, Bill in London and John in California, and, she said, "I’m the grandmother of a beautiful 3-year-old girl, Daisy."

Accessible from her studio’s Web site, starseedyoga.com, Jyoti’s blog contains numerous images of herself, family members and friends. She includes images of herself sans hair, lost through the ongoing radiation therapy she’s receiving.

Her blog states: "Welcome to this phase of my journey. The definition of a journey is: crossing, drive, flight, excursion, expedition, hike, holiday, odyssey, passage, pilgrimage, trek. And here we are together. I am reminded of the words ‘true discipline’ — to be a disciple unto one’s self. To commit all of one’s energy to rise to the occasion of inner liberation."

As a healer, she was not expecting to need healing.

"The diagnosis just stopped me. My life changed with those words," she said. "I downshifted to first gear after driving in fifth gear on the highway at 65 miles per hour."

Jyoti praised the medical care she’s received in Mountainside Hospital and from several local doctors, such as Dr. Benjamin Safirstein, a pulmonary physician; Dr. Victor Groisser, gastroenterology; Dr. Konstantin Walmsley, urology; Dr. Robert Zager, oncology; and Dr. Jose Barba, radiation oncology.

"The Cancer Care Center [staff] are so competent and so caring," she said.

With extensive medical treatment, Jyoti’s regaining weight, if not her hair, which she lost during the radiation treatment. During an interview last week with The Times, Jyoti, 63, wore a blue scarf atop her head.

The upcoming three-day benefit to raise funds for Jyoti and to enhance awareness of cancer has inspired the yoga master: "I know I’m not doing this alone."

Calling herself "a no-nonsense person," Jyoti said: "We’re all going to die. I got to interface with the imminent possibility of my death.

"My attitude is: It’s closer than I thought. Or not," she said. "I’m in the experience of experiencing it."

Jyoti said her spiritual teaching and meditation, along with family, friends and students, sustain her.

"I think a spiritual practice gives you detachment. Not passivity. There’s a big difference between detachment and passivity. We don’t get overpowered by it or absorbed into it," she said.

In the kiva, Yomi Karade and Jyoti Chrystal sat amid deftly constructed shamans’ tools, and icons and illustrations of religious figures.

"You’re glowing," Karade told Jyoti.

"When you’re doing what you’re meant to do," the healer replied, "you’re happy, cancer or not."

"That’s called destiny," Karade said.

"That was my destiny," Jyoti said. "The universe is telling me to take a turn."

Contact Mark S. Porter at porterm@montclairtimes.com.