Swami Kriyananda

May 19 is Swami Kriyananda’s 84th birthday. We invite you to post your greetings and birthday wishes for him here.

Thank you,

Ananda Sangha Worldwide.

Dearest friends,

Many of the Ananda India staff and devotees from Gurgaon – Delhi – Noida (also known as India National Capitol Region - NCR) went to Pune the weekend of March 27–29 for a retreat on our new community land.

It was hard to believe just how much things have progressed in just one year! The last time most of us had been there was the Bhoomi Poojan - land blessing in February 2009.

Dinner in the new dining area of the Retreat

Ananda India monks headed up the extremely complicated guest transportation schedule between Pune airport and train station, Ananda apartments and hotel in the city, and the community land, which is about one hour outside of Pune.

They led sadhanas (spiritual practices) in the grass-roofed temple, and a kirtan (devotional chanting) on Saturday evening. They took us on land tours which included new houses, kutirs (cabins), monastery, roads, and garden.

They, and many helpers, prepared three delicious meals a day for about sixty or seventy people. Dharmini from Ananda Gurgaon led our choir practice and singing. Dharmadas, Jaya, Sundeep and Amol (leaders of Ananda India) did a presentation on next phases for building, and for creating Ananda businesses to support the community.

As you can probably imagine, it was one of those wonderful, joy-filled Ananda weekends when everyone feels a part of a much bigger plan and can feel Yogananda’s grace throughout.

Walking from morning meditation to breakfast past the bath house. Small kutirs (cabins) are further up the hill.

Bramhacharis Jemal and Ditya (in yellow) lead the walking tour of the land.

Exterior of Swami Kriyananda’s house.

Inside Swamiji’s living room. It was designed to hold many people!

Lunch is served.

Kirtan (devotional chanting) under the stars.

Swami Kriyananda is answering questions from the audience.

We had the very good fortune to spend considerable time with Swami Kriyananda. We watched him recording two 2-hour sessions of TV programs based on the Bhagavad Gita commentaries, to be broadcast later throughout India and Asia.

Brian McSweeney, who is visiting from Ananda Palo Alto in California, was behind the camera, and there was a gorgeous Himalayan-themed backdrop behind Swamiji. On Sunday morning, instead of filming more programs, Swamiji lovingly and patiently answered the questions of many devotees who were squeezed into his living room.

Click below to listen to the audio recording of the Q&A, 105 minutes, 48 MB

We know Swamiji was tired from filming, but he seemed in top form and looked wonderful, as you will see in the photos. It was a deeply inspiring, precious time it was for all of us.

After Yogananda told Nayaswami Kriyananda that his life’s work was “writing, editing, and lecturing,” Kriyananda asked, “But Sir, haven’t you already written everything that is necessary?”

Yogananda looked shocked. “Don’t say that,” he replied. “Much more is needed.”

Since then, Nayaswami Kriyananda has gone on to write almost 100 books. And even so, I doubt he has covered even a tenth of all the ways of bringing Yogananda’s teachings into every part of life, if that! I expect the number could even be as small as a thousandth.

Kriyananda has said that he writes “seminally” — he wants his writing to inspire other works. I could see these delving more deeply into specific concepts, or into how those concepts apply in new fields. An effect of him writing in this way is that passages in his books often have deep meaning.

A small example: he wrote two plays, The Peace Treaty and The Jewel in the Lotus. But in each, how full of meaning the lines are! A close study of them, as an actor playing one of their parts must make, yields a wealth of insight.

Right now we’re rehearsing The Jewel in the Lotus at Ananda Village, which we’ll perform on March 6. The beginning of the play reveals a conflict between father and his son. The father is trying to get the son, who only wants God, to work for him in his shop. “My dear boy,” he says, “It’s perfectly obvious. Didn’t you yourself just say God is the money that we spend? Well, then — the more you have of money, the more you’ll have of God. Simple!”

I love that argument — the reasoning is perfect on it’s own level of ignorance!

The struggle between the father and his son represents the timeless struggle between material consciousness and soul aspiration. The son says, “I want to find God,” and the father responds by trying to pull him back into the father’s own very material world.

Nayaswami Kriyananda’s and Yogananda’s works reward exploration. In fact, as a “live” experiment, let me open a random page of Swami Kriyananda’s The New Path, and we’ll see where it takes us…

* * * * *

My eyes fell on this sentence on page 231, in the chapter, “Paramhansa Yogananda”:

Daya Mata [a direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, and the president of Self-Realization Fellowship] tells a story dating back to when she was a teenager and new on the path. At first, in her association with him, he had treated her lovingly, like a daughter (which indeed she had been to him in a former incarnation). Once her feet were planted firmly on the path, however, he began to teach her the superior merits of impersonal love. To her now, feeling for him as she did the affection of a devoted daughter, he seemed all at once aloof, even stern.

One evening in Encinitas he addressed her that way. She went out onto the bluff above the ocean behind the hermitage, and prayed deeply for understanding. At last she reached a firm resolution. “Divine Mother,” she vowed, “from now on I will love only Thee. In beholding him, I will see Thee alone in him.”

Suddenly she felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her. Later she went indoors and knelt before Master for his blessing, as she always did before retiring for the night. This time he greeted her gently, saying, “Very good!”

From then on he showed himself once more affectionate toward her. Now, however, their relationship was on a deeper level, for the disciple saw him at last in that impersonal light in which he beheld himself.

Nayaswami Devi once told me that, if ever she related to Nayaswami Kriyananda in a personal way, it was like a wall went up between them. I realized later that he didn’t put up that wall; it was the inevitable result of holding a personal attitude towards anyone. We have a choice in how to relate to people: as personalities; or as souls, unique expressions of God.

I’ve noticed this with Devi herself. I often relate to her as a personality, and at these times she can seem distant. But the more impersonally loving I am, and the more I think of God instead of “Devi,” the more expressive her friendship is.

And I’ve sometimes thought, What a gift! She places my spiritual needs above everything else. And she isn’t just doing this for me, she’s doing it for many, many people — maybe everyone. Wouldn’t you call this Divine Friendship?

This past week at Ananda Village and The Expanding Light has been filled with inspiration and spiritual friends. It seems impossible that 12 different talks in six days about the spiritual path could hold one’s attention from beginning to end. But it did. The theme for Inner Renewal week was: Going Deeper into God.

The weather generally has been pretty gray all week with some rain. Inside the Expanding Light temple was warm and cozy. The choir sang many of my favorite songs.

The talks were very insightful, encouraging and challenging.

Anandi gave a great talk on the energization exercises. If you need any new inspiration to fuel your love for these exercises you will like this talk. You can click here to watch it.

All the talks can be accessed through ananda.org or here. I am always amazed at the depth of spiritual understanding of our teachers and of the devotion of my fellow disciples.

The week also included Kriya initiations and the very special Pilgrim initiation.

This was a special evening for me. My husband, Dave, and 102 other people took Pilgrim Vows. I felt very blessed to be part of this ceremony. These are the vows:

I understand, and intend from now on to live by my understanding, that life is a pilgrimage, of which the final goal is to find and merge back into God.

Bless me, and direct my footsteps ever to the summit of Thy holy mountain.

They are beautiful aren’t they? You can find out more about them here. There was such a sweet devotion and spiritual power in the room as we took our vows. I saw alot of joy in everyone’s face.

So, next week Dave and I will be going to India! We will be with Latika, and Jyotish and Devi. I can’t believe it is only one week away! We will be in Gurgaon for the Inner Renewal Weekend there. Swamiji is planning to be there. We will also get to celebrate Master’s Mahasamadhi in Pune. I am thrilled to be able to see the great work happening in India and to be with Swamiji and my gurubhais. I plan on trying to post to this blog and also onto my Twitter account. If you would like to see some of my posts you can follow me here. I don’t know how connected I will be to the internet, but I will try to update as best as I can. I hope you will connect with me!

May the Masters bless us all. Let us radiate peace outward and create a web of joy around the world. I have been visualizing joy as an unbreakable silver string through the center of my body. It connects me to the cosmos and God’s divine joy. It connects us all.

With love,
Barbara

Do you feel joy when using your physical skills to learn and grow and experience life? Perhaps you lead with your heart and feel most alive when you are in a beautiful natural setting, or caring for animals or babies. Maybe you live for a challenge – such as tackling a new project, or raising money for a cause or finding a solution to a problem. Then there are those who love to make lists and use their mind to discover and learn.

Body, Feeling, Will and Intellect – those are the four tools of maturity that Swami Kriyananda describes in the book Education for Life, which is the foundation of the Ananda Living Wisdom Schools.

I teach at the Living Wisdom School in Beaverton, Oregon. We recently had a workshop for parents and experienced the tools of maturity in a fun, interactive way. Learning through direct experience is an important tenet of Education for Life and Living Wisdom Schools. So we didn’t sit around all evening talking about the tools of maturity; we played games, built towers out of blocks, looked through animal pictures, wrote about our feelings and had a great time.

The parents went home with a real understanding of how we teach and how Living Wisdom Schools approach education differently than the mainstream schools. They were all smiling and laughing and asking for more classes as they left. I could tell that the evening they had anticipated – important perhaps, but an imposition on other, more entertaining activities – had turned into an engaging and enlightening time with people they enjoyed.

Education for Life will change the way we learn and teach all over the world. The technology available now is making it possible to share with other educators and parents who are not near a Living Wisdom School, or who really want to create one. With online classes teachers in India can share with those in Wisconsin.

Find out more about Living Wisdom Schools and Education for Life. What is your dominate tool of maturity – body, feeling, will, or intellect?

In joy and friendship,
Lorna

My inspiration in writing this was Swami Kriyananda’s new book on renunciation, A Renunciate Order for the New Age. Also my own desire to be a monk… but also to be married.

The old cloistered form of monasticism says you need to renounce and “get away from the world” to find God. One might say that monastics living a reclusive life are selfish in the sense they are not being a service to society. Others might say they are doing more for society since they are trying to live in accordance with the Divine, and that their prayers are doing more than social works could ever do.

On the opposite side of the spectrum you have the worldly person trying to live his life, primarily driven by what he or she can do to find happiness: good job, family, career, etc. But as we see, most worldly people aren’t truly happy in comparison to the saints who are immersed in the consciousness of God.

Now let’s say you have a non-monastic person who is religious in the sense that they attend Mass every Sunday, pray ever day, and do their best to live a God-Centered life. While this way of life is indeed admirable, unfortunately  the “idols” of the world are able to pull us into delusion much too easily.

As Yogananda said, “environment is stronger than will power.” Thus, wouldn’t the practical solution be to bring both environments together, the monastic and non-monastic lives? At Ananda, instead of trying to run away from the delusions of the world to find God, we try to see God in every life experience.

And most importantly, as Yogananda advised, we try to make our hearts our “hermitage,” so that wherever we go, there is our church, there is our God. At Ananda we have cloistered our hearts and have tried to bring that light into our service to society. As St. Francis said, “Preach the Gospel, use words only if you must.”

From my own experience I have found it truly is much easier to live in the presence of God where everyone is trying to do the same.

I came to Ananda with a deep desire for God and to share his joy with everyone, a desire that “typical” life did not fulfill for me. Being here a year and a half I am able to see how Ananda’s model of living can’t help but spread in time throughout society.

While things here aren’t perfect, there is an underlying spirit in the people, an underlying attitude of cooperation, harmony and peace, that is saturated all over the land. It is born not of pretense, but rather of the deeper inner joy found in the stillness of meditation, and in serving everyone as images of the Divine.

As I walk the forests and meadows, and see the houses and people that live here, I can’t help but imagining God speaking through every part of this community, every person, tree and building, this holy phrase: “Be still and know that I am God.”

Ananda’s founder, Swami Kriyananda, spends his time primarily in 3 countries: America, Italy, and India. As he recently quipped, “Well I have these [8] communities that I’ve started, and I have to check in every now and then.”

Today Swamiji arrived safely and soundly in Gurgaon, India. As he stepped out of the car, he said, “So nice to see you all! Wow! You’re all looking well.”

Mr. Bij–who met Swamiji in India in 1959 and received kriya initiation from him then–said, “We’re glad you are looking so fine.”

“Yes, you know it’s a miracle,” Swamiji said. “When I left here, I nearly died. I had a mini-stroke the day before I left. Everything went black. Anyway, suddenly [in Italy] I had a miracle and I was well.” Smilingly, he added, “Maybe you’ll be stuck with me for a few more years now.”

The devotees in India are thrilled to have Swamiji back in India after 8 months. On January 4th he has a large lecture in Delhi, “A Celebration of Paramhansa Yogananda’s Life and His Mission”. On this evening he will launch his 100th book, The New Path: My Life with Paramhansa Yogananda, and another book, A Renunciate Order for the New Age.

And on the next day, January 5th–Yogananda’s birthday–Swamiji will conduct the first initiation in India into this new order (the third initiation worldwide).

Please keep Swamiji in your thoughts and prayers during these two historic events.