Mysticism and mathematics don’t seem like a usual mix, but Bakersfield College professor Kathleen Rush combines the mathematical and the spiritual.

“My scientific background comes from being curious about life, curious about nature,” she said.

Rush, a mathematics professor, began practicing Iyengar Yoga while living in Katmandu, Nepal in 1994.

She met Lieve Powell, a Belgian woman who had studied Yoga in India. Rush, who had been raised Catholic, took up the religious practice in the same year. She doesn’t consider herself a convert to Buddhism. “One takes refuge in the Buddha, sanga, and the dharma,” stressing refuge, not conversion.

“It was a fifth-world country,” Rush said, describing the living conditions in Katmandu. There was no heat and many people lived on the streets. But “it was hard to leave,” said Rush.

Rush developed an interest in Mahayana Buddhism after reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead in 1988, and found herself “captivated by Buddhism.” A New Jersey native, she decided to go to Katmandu to live the religion, rather than to just talk about the ideas of the practice.

Rush would spend the next 5 years based in Nepal, and visiting India, Thailand, Tibet and Pakistan. She encountered little difficulty traveling as a woman, and she prefers to travel alone. When traveling alone, “you meet more people and it’s more adventurous,” she said.

“I wanted to see a Buddhist country. I wanted to see the world,” she said. “Living in a different culture, you learn a lot about yourself.”

For Rush, knowledge of self is a large part of her practice.

“Yoga to me is a philosophy. It’s a way of self study,” she said. “It’s not easy. Being self reflective isn’t always easy.”

Rush, who has her masters in physics and psychology, came back to the United States in 1999.

She moved to Bakersfield to teach at CSUB and be close to her twin sister who also lives in town. Rush became a full-time instructor at Bakersfield College in 2005.

Rush will go back to India this summer for one month to study at a center headed by the founder of her practice, B.K.S. Iyengar where she studied yoga four years ago. Rush also plans on spending a month studying in France over the summer break.

Rush teaches yoga at the Bakersfield Racquet Club, and views yoga as “more than just a physical exercise,” she said.

For Rush, the body is a metaphor, and meets objects with tolerance and compassion, helping the practitioner to “[learn] how to handle difficulties,” and to discover insights about one’s own self.

“I found my happiness within,” she said.