The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

In 1950, Paramhansa Yogananda invited the young monk, “Walter,” (later Swami Kriyananda) to assist him with editing his writings. Three times Yogananda prayed to Divine Mother to ask who to invite and three times Walter’s face appeared to his inner sight. But Swami Kriyananda’s life work of editing, commissioned directly by his guru, was not to find an opportunity for many decades until after Swamiji himself had become an experienced and prolific author in his own right. It wasn’t until 1995 that Swami Kriyananda published an edited version of Yogananda’s original writings on the great scripture of the Rubaiyat. (is it scripture, or poem?)

The depth of wisdom contained in Omar Khayyam’s “Rubaiyat” is not generally appreciated even in his own land of Persia. But Yogananda had a deeply mystical experience of its inner meaning. He gave no explanation beyond this experience for “why?” the Rubaiyat. In the West this scripture was initially treated as a hedonistic paean to the joys and pleasures of earthly existence. But no hedonist would dwell so insistently upon life’s fleeting experiences. As Yogananda reveals in his commentaries, the “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” is a deeply spiritual and wise, if poetically veiled, scripture whose time has come. Blending the characteristic poetry and imagery of the Persian mystics with the profoundly practical yet esoteric wisdom of the rishis of India, “Here begins an adventure such as you have never undertaken before…..”

Beginning Friday, January 22, Nayaswamis Hriman and Padma McGilloway began reading the first of seventy-five quatrains: one each Monday through Friday, broadcast live at noon and then posted for later viewing on the AnandaWA.org website, the Ananda Washington YouTube channel, and on the Facebook page Ananda Seattle and Bothell. In ten to fifteen minutes each broadcast, they will begin with Swami Kriyananda’s singing of that quatrain, and then they will share insights from the commentaries blended with their personal comments and stories, and the broader teachings of Self-realization.