A celebration of swami Kriyananda’s discipleship anniversary to Paramhansa Yogananda
“Life is our Dream. Time, like a stream, carries our burdens away.”
Padma:
Today we’d like to invite a few of our friends who’ve agreed to be invited to come up and share something they learned of Swami Kriyananda’s discipleship to Yogananda.
Ethan:
It’s a big topic to talk about briefly, because the thing that we have all gained from his discipleship, I think, was Ananda. Ananda is so big that I’ll try to break down a few aspects of it and narrow that down to one single thing that he gave us.
So, the first thing that Ananda gives us is community and people. You can live with these people and serve these people and serve with these people, and that’s really hard to do, but it would be even harder to do if there was no Ananda. The fact of the matter is that there are other churches and there are people without a church or a community or a neighborhood or whatever word you’d like to use. But we have that and we can’t take that for granted. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a community to raise a devotee.
So, there’s people. It takes a lot to bring people together. Some of you know that I work on the website and I do some of the marketing. In that world, there’s cost per click. We measure how difficult it is to get people to click on a button, and major companies spend millions and millions of dollars to get people to click on one button. The commitment it takes to commit to click on a button is very little, even if it’s a sign-up button or a registration button, or an add to cart or purchase now. It’s very little commitment. The commitment at Ananda can last years or a lifetime or lifetimes. It goes all the way.
Even so, there are so many people here across the world. In fact, I learned the other day, not so long ago, that we really are across the world. I was looking at the Ananda Worldwide page, find Ananda near me, and the list goes on forever. There are little groups all across the world. I learned one thing that shocked me so much when I heard about it, that Swami’s teachings are reaching a place where it is illegal to learn. We are teaching (I don’t know if I should say, because people could get in trouble, but anyway) girls English in a place where it is illegal for girls to learn English. So, whatever you want to do, you can do it at Ananda and you can just step in and not only receive the vibration or the work, but you can add your own energy to the current that is already flowing.
So, cost per click, and now we have thousands of devotees around the world. What does it take to get all these devotees to commit to a lifetime of work? That’s what Swami gave us, which was his magnetism.
Vahini:
Thank you, Ethan. I want to, share a story that I hope will answer the question of Padma’s. I didn’t understand that I had to talk about this. I just realizing now, I thought I was going to, say what it transformed in me about him. And maybe it’s the same; sometime years ago, Swami was recording some talks for the TV in India. There were talks about the Bhagavad Gita, and it was recorded in Assisi. He was very sick at that time. He was feeling really unwell, but he was determined. He was joyfully, fully determined to do what he felt was as good as well.
These talks were meant to reach millions of Indians. And so, he gave the talks and the community was invited to participate. We were in his house downstairs. It’s a very small room, so only around 20 of us could participate. So, we were rotating. One day was my day. And as I was preparing myself to meet him, I felt: I don’t want to be in this feeling. I’m going to meet Swami and be in his presence and receive his blessings today. I want to feel really, I’m there to support him. I wanted to give him energy. I wanted to support what he was doing.
So, I went to this room. It was all a little dark. Only the stage where he was, was full of light. He was sitting there. So, I sat in the back of the rows so I could do whatever I wanted to do, which was praying unseen. I was there, and without any external sign, I was just praying inwardly. He was giving a talk. At the end of the talk, we all had a moment of a pause before the next talk. He got up and we all were talking and just greeting him. At some point, it happened that he came toward me and he said, “Thank you.”
I wanted to tell this story for two reasons that are the things that I felt the most transformed me about Swami. One was that he was completely, as I said, joyfully dedicated to do as good as well. I don’t know why I always had this image of Terminator. I don’t know if somebody has seen this movie where only one finger remains, and it’s still going to where it’s going. He was totally up for it. No matter how difficult, how uncomfortable the situation was. He was there at hundred percent to do the will of his guru the way he felt it. This was emanating from his presence to me when I was with him. It was totally apparent for me, his integrity.
The second thing that really changed me, touched me, was how Master changed him as he was trying to attune with him. Swami was like a transparent window for a power that was not him. It was Master. That’s why he was able to do these incredible things, both in big things and in very small things like this day in this room where he knew what was going on in our consciousness. He was taking care of us. He was taking care of me, a little girl. He was giving me a life lesson that giving is more blessed than trying to receive. He said toward the end of his life, “I don’t know where Swami Kriyananda ends and Yogananda begins” to say that the unity he was experiencing with his guru.
I want to share some of the words that Yogananda told him that Swami so much embodied, “If you attune your will to mine, you too will find freedom. To act only on the inspirational whims and fancies is not freedom, but bondage. Only by doing God’s will, you can find what you are seeking.”
Jaidhara:
Hi everyone. I want to tell a story of, actually it was before I met Swami. I was a young man coming to Ananda. I was completely enamored. I left everything because I just fell in love with the people. I fell in love with the place, the lifestyle. There was only one thing that I was a little bit hesitant on, and it was this Swami Kriyananda guy. I read his books, they’re nice, you know, I really appreciated him, but I couldn’t understand why people seemed to revere him.
Months went by, I was living at Ananda, and this was festering inside and I wasn’t sharing it with anybody. Then one evening at a Satsang, I just let it all out. To my dismay, I just went on a tirade. Afterwards, everyone was silent. I was like: oh, man, what did I say? But what was interesting is the minister who was there at that time, he said, “You know, when Swami Kriyananda and his wife separated, soon after I went over to his house. I went inside his bedroom, and when I opened the door, he was sitting on his bed and he was crying. I went up to him, I said, ‘Swami, are you crying because your marriage just broke up?’ He says, ‘No, that’s not why I’m crying.’ He says, ‘I’m crying because I’m concerned if I’ve done God’s will or not.'”
And to me, that totally shut me up that evening. That was just, I mean, what else can you say? I was really inspired, but I wasn’t completely convinced because I was a young American guy. No one can tell me how to feel about anything. I’m the type of person who needs to experience it for myself. So, it wasn’t until some months later that I had the opportunity to go to a tea that was happening in Palo Alto, and Swami Kriyananda was going to be there.
He opened the door, came inside, and nothing was said. Immediately I said to myself, “Now I understand his aura.” It filled the space with love and presence. I hadn’t felt anything like that to that magnitude. When we’re talking about Swami Kriyananda and his discipleship, it took me some time to really understand why we celebrate Swami Ji’s discipleship. It wasn’t until recently I came to realize that we’re celebrating our own discipleship. How are we, how are you asking God? Even to the minute things, like something so in-depth and detailed about your marriage splitting up. “Am I doing God’s will?” He constantly always asked himself, “Am I doing God’s will?” It didn’t really matter what was happening outside. “Am I doing God’s will?” So, thank you.
Christina:
When Padma asked that we share something special about what I learned from Swami Kriyananda’s discipleship, I froze a little bit at first, and then I quickly remembered that the best thing I learned, the most precious thing I learned, was finding Ananda and that memory of divine love. That journey, like all good journeys, mostly these days, started with a Google search. Thank you, Google. I worked in corporate America. I had a week of vacation I had to use or lose. So, I was like, okay, I really wanted to go on a silent retreat. I’d never been on one, but it just was in my head, ‘Go away, go in silence.’ So, I used Google to help me find that. I just Googled “silent yoga retreat,” and a bunch of places in California showed up. I’m sure Ananda was at the top of the list. I immediately said in my head, “I’m not going to California.” I’m like: Surely there’s some place here in Washington state I can go. So, I refined my search.
I had been practicing yoga. I lived in Edmonds at the time, and I had been to a lot of different yoga studios over the year, and it was just yoga. But in my head, this term, Hatha Yoga, came into my brain. I’d never used that word before, but I put it in the search bar. Lo and behold, Ananda Washington was the first on the top of the list. Thanks, Ethan. So, I saw that they have all these yoga classes at 10:30 every day, followed by a meditation at noon. I was like: Oh, this is the perfect setup for a staycation. Anyone done a staycation? So, I was like: I can do yoga, I can do meditation, and I can eat my own cooking at home and be home alone in silence. That’s what I did. I came to my first yoga class on Monday. Thanks, Lynne Steele. The first yoga pose in a yoga class is Tadasana, Mountain Pose. All of a sudden, Lynne yells out, “I stand ready to obey thy least command.” I was like: What did she just say? What is happening? You know, it was like a thunderbolt. It still gives me chills in my spine. I had been in a lot of yoga classes, but I had never had that feeling before. So, I enjoyed the rest of my yoga class. I came to meditation, and then I promptly went home and did my third Google search: Who is Swami Kriyananda? There was a lot of stuff, and I read some of it, but the most important link that I clicked on was a video of him singing “Peace.”
And that was my first experience of really a deep divine memory. It bypassed all of the little naysaying monsters on my right shoulder and in my ear and said, “Go back to Ananda.” And I did. I went back the next day, and I went into the boutique and bought Autobiography of a Yogi. The rest is history, thanks to Swami and that beautiful song, and this beautiful place and that treat of divine memory of us all being a big cosmic family together. So, thank you, Swami, and thank you, Master.
Sita:
I’ll be last here. So, what Swami’s discipleship means to me, how it inspires me, can be summed up in this little bracelet here. If you look at it from the outside, it’s just plain silver. There’s nothing very appealing about it. But on the inside, it has one saying. And then the other, it has a quote. The quote is “anything.” Those were Swami Kriyananda’s last words. To me, it just exemplifies his discipleship. Anything for his guru, anything to serve his guru. He didn’t cherry-pick. He didn’t do what was convenient or easy. I feel that more and more living inside of me. Now, that last word was to Miriam, his nurse. I think he was at the table; Geeta was making him pancakes for his breakfast. He wasn’t doing so well. Miriam said, “Can I take your blood sugar?” He said, “anything.” I’m sure he didn’t say ‘anything’ to Miriam all the time, but to God and guru, he did.
The other thing that inspires me deeply about Swamiji is his self-forgetfulness and his unity with his guru. The thing that always gets me is the essence of the Bhagavad Gita. He could have written so many different things on the cover of this book, but he wrote: The essence of the Bhagavad Gita explained by Paramhansa Yogananda as remembered by his disciple, Swami Kriyananda. He could have just written ‘by Swami Kriyananda as remembered by Swami Kriyananda’, but the fact that he wanted more than anything to be remembered as a good disciple. There are lots of examples of gurus. We even have financial gurus and fitness gurus, but to me, he just is an exemplary example of what it means to be a disciple.
Finally, a metaphor, maybe not the best metaphor, but if Master is the sun radiating light, and Swami through his discipleship was like a full moon, perfectly reflecting the light of his guru. By saying ‘anything’, by saying yes to life, by doing whatever’s asked, by not cherry-picking, and doing it more and more with calmness, with deeper attunement, and more than anything, with the grace of Swami and Master, that we too, all of us; that lake in our own mind becomes calmer. We can more perfectly reflect the light of the sun as it’s brought to us all through that great channel that Swami.
So, in closing, where would I be without Swami? I wouldn’t want to know. So happy discipleship to all of us.
Padma:
I love that picture. It’s just so perfect. I just wanted to close this segment with one thought. It’s interesting because none of us compared notes; I didn’t know what any of my friends here were going to say, but Ethan opened with that thought on magnetism because Swami Kriyananda would explain to us scientifically how the principle of magnetism is at play in the guru-disciple relationship. When we’re in the presence of an enlightened soul, a free soul, the sheer magnetism, the power, they are like a magnet that uplifts our consciousness by raising it upward to the spiritual center.
And Yogananda is that, and was that for Swami Kriyananda and many others. But when you experience being in the presence of a high soul, Swami Kriyananda was not the guru. He was the consummate disciple, but he was a high soul. When you were in his presence, when I was in his presence, it’s like all the problems disappeared, all the critical thoughts disappeared, all the, you know, ‘We have got to work on this or do that.’ I used to work with him closely on his special projects, his writing, his music, and so on, helping them to get out into the world. We had a lot of problems. But I would go and talk with him, and I couldn’t remember what the problems were. That principle of magnetism was present in absolutely every moment around him. Still, because it’s spirit, it’s not of the body, and it is present.
One day after I’d been living at Ananda Village for about 21 years, he asked Raman and I and our children to come to Seattle and to coordinate the work here. My very first thought was, “Oh, those poor people in Seattle,” because I knew that I wasn’t the magnet that he was. I wanted people to be able to have the blessing of and experience that magnet. They were going to get these smaller magnets, these lesser magnets. That’s how my mind went. When we got here, I realized that my efforts at trying to attune to the will and guidance of Yogananda to whatever degree I was able, but it took one-pointed concentration had to be added to all of you, to the musicians and the beautiful music they play of Master’s and Swamiji’s to all of us present in the room from day one.
When we arrived here, the ministers who were here, some of whom are still right here in front of me, they would be at absolutely everything all the time. They would come repeatedly to classes we were giving. They were always here on Sundays. We never had to talk about it. They knew we all need to gather together to create that magnetism, to add your magnetism to my magnetism, to your magnetism.
When we are all in the room together, where two or more are gathered, that magnetism that is created by that, by all of our intention and spirit and practice, we can experience the wisdom and the love and joy of God through the magnetism of Yogananda and his disciple, Swami Kriyananda, without whom we wouldn’t be here. He created these places and to the worldly eye that may not seem like much. Oh, you got temples and retreats and things. There are many organizations that have much more than that. It’s huge because the people who practice Yogananda’s teachings do it every day. They are dedicated to the search for divine attunement in their lives. That is what I wanted to simply mention. We’re all magnets for each other. We need each other. And we’re very blessed.
So, we’d like to show a little excerpt from the movie of Swami Kriyananda, search for Truth and Finding Yogananda, a movie called ‘The Answer’. It’s a brief excerpt.
Clip from The Answer (conversation between Yogananda & Kriyananda):
“Hmm. I am accepting only those now with good karma. In fact, I am taking very few disciples. You have good karma. God tells me to Accept. I give you my unconditional love. Will you give me yours?”
“Oh yes. With all my heart. I give you my unconditional love. I love you for not what you can give me, but as your spiritual son and disciple.”
“Come Kneel before me. Now. Repeat these words after me: I’ll live my life;”
“I will live my life”
“Only for God.”
“Only for God.”
“I will do his will.”
“I will do his will.”
“In Everything.”
“In everything.”
“Always.”
“Always.”
“I give,”
“I give,”
“My unconditional love,”
“My unconditional love,”
“And obedience,”
“And obedience.”
“To you.”
“To you.”
“My guru.”
“My guru.”
“And will no longer live,”
“And will no longer live,”
“For personal gratification.”
“For personal gratification.”
“Help me, Lord.”
“Help me, Lord.”
“In this,”
“In this.”
“My solemn Vow,”
“My solemn vow.”
“Aum,”
“Aum,”
“Peace.”
“Peace.”
“Amen.”
“Amen.”