Jon Michael Miller grew up in a working class family in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. After earning an undergraduate degree in education at Penn State, he taught high school English a few years and went on to graduate study at Ohio State where he was introduced to Transcendental Meditation as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Then came twelve years in the TM movement in which he rose steadily to become a member of Maharishi’s staff at the international headquarters of the movement in Seelisburg, Switzerland. After leaving the organization, he completed two graduate degrees in English at Penn State and went on to teach and write in Saint Petersburg, Florida.