Introduction
A soul traveling through the creation in search of a way to speed up the journey can have no greater good fortune than being embraced by a fully qualified guide and a spiritual family of fellow travelers who have banded together to help each other along the way. Swami Vijay of the Nayaswami Order
The Yoga teachings of India say, “When the disciple is ready, the Master will appear.” So it was for me when I read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda. As a new disciple I had no concept of how God through Paramhansa Yogananda would, or could, take me by the hand and heart to transform my life. Up until that time my life had been rife with inner tumult. What an incredible relief it was to find out that help was at hand. I was filled with a buoyant optimism that felt as if it would never diminish.
The joy of meeting one’s true guru (Satguru) can sometimes delay the disciples understanding that the spiritual life is not, and nor should it be, an easy life. Sister Gyanamata, Yogananda’s foremost woman disciple, put it this way, “An easy life is not a victorious life.”
Whoa! Isn’t the spiritual life supposed to lead to the end of all sorrows? Well, yes…but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any bumps along the way. It also doesn’t guarantee a specific arrival time!
The story is told that St. Theresa of Avila was once fording a stream and was unexpectedly swept into the rushing water. She disappeared for a time and her companions thought that she had drowned. When Theresa arrived cold and soaking wet on the opposite bank she suddenly beheld Jesus and asked him, “Why has this happened to me?”
Jesus responded with a smile, “Don’t feel bad Theresa, this is how I treat all my friends.”
Entering into Jesus’s playful words, Theresa responded, “Ah, no wonder you have so few!”
Theresa was practicing a precept that she shared with all her sisters: A sad nun is a bad nun! Even amidst adversity, she responded with a joyful reaction. The novice in the spiritual life may not be able to maintain unshakable equanimity in the beginning, but there is an unquenchable wellspring of joy awaiting those who persevere on the path. So when we talk about the end of all sorrows, we must look deeper than just signing on the dotted line and expecting instantaneously a complete transformation.
Many people equate the spiritual life with religion, certainly there have been Saints in all of the major traditions – and outside of them! Unfortunately there also have been many of this world’s greatest tragedies associated with the misunderstanding and misuse of religious teachings. History tells us that often deep spirituality presents itself in spite of religion and not because of it. Why would this be so? Because no matter the high ideals and good intentions of any group, people can and will make mistakes. It is the nature of our circumstances in this life for things to go wrong so that we can eventually go right.
Religions are often presented as a set of beliefs that you are supposed to memorize, live by and have faith in – meaning for most, blind belief, which means you don’t find out until you die if the teachings are true or not. They also include various practices that can deepen spiritual awareness, but often this aspect of the teaching is neglected for the sake of making things easier for those who are less motivated. The promotion of blind belief is one of the reasons science and religion seem incompatible to many. Believers say “You just have to have faith,” while scientists say, “Prove your hypothesis through repeatable personal experience (experimentation).
The yoga teachings bridge the gap between science and religion by providing a methodology without a set of required beliefs. I am not referring to just the practice of Hatha Yoga (yoga postures) but to a complete set of practices and guidelines for body, mind/emotions and spirit that lead the practitioner (yogi) to the goal of Self-Realization.
What is Self-Realization?
One of the ways that Paramhansa Yogananda defined Self-Realization is the conscious knowing in body, mind and soul that you are now in the possession of the kingdom of God.
Whoa! Whoa! I have to believe in God to experience Self-Realization? Are we back to blind belief?
The difficulty here is that most people define the word God in terms of what they believe, based on the story that their religion or lack of religion has told them. Each person’s conglomeration of stories, opinions, and limited inner experience becomes what they believe. Belief doesn’t make their distillation correct or incorrect. Since most religions have a different story to tell and often preach that their story is the one and only true story, it leads non believers to not believe and believers to just believe – thinking that believing is as much as we can do about the situation.
The Yoga Teachings don’t require a person to believe or not believe in any given religion, it just shifts the definition of God from being based on belief to an experienceable universal truth. It is through direct personal experience that one can develop true faith – belief based not on opinion or hope, but on direct experience.
What is that experience?
The classical definition of God according to the Yoga Teachings is Satchidananda – Truth, Consciousness, Bliss. Paramhansa Yogananda further clarified this translation as: ever existing, ever conscious, ever new bliss. Additional descriptions of God/Spirit explain that this eternal infinite consciousness has eight main attributes: Peace, Calmness, Light, Power, Sound, Wisdom, Love and Joy (Bliss).
There is one idea that most religions will accept as a universal truth: Love. It is further agreed that love is experienced in the heart. No one can gain a following by preaching, “I love you with all my elbow! I love you with all my foot!” It just doesn’t work. Yet no cardiologist doing heart surgery has, to the best of my knowledge, ever said, “Oh, look at the love of that heart!” or “Boy, their isn’t any love in there!”
Yogananda explained that the reason we experience love in the heart is that each person’s soul connection to God/ Universal Love, Peace, Joy is a point of intuitive perception in the heart. Through this understanding we can come to realize that in each of our hearts is the connecting point to all hearts…the universal heart.
The reason that the techniques of Yoga work is that they utilize the inner mechanism of energy/consciousness flow within us. As we attune ourselves to ever deeper levels of inner awareness we will in a very natural way experience increasing access to the eight aspects of universal God consciousness.
How do we know that this is true? We don’t, unless we experience it. How do we experience it? We do the experiment within the laboratory of our currently limited consciousness and see what happens. This is why in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna as an expression of the Divine says to Arjuna who represents all disciples, “Oh Arjuna, be thou a yogi.”
The Yoga tradition in ancient times was called Sanatan Dharma (Eternal expression of truth – right action in thought and deed). Perceiving and expressing the Divine Will (Universally Rooted Good) in every life experience is the essence of this path. Why would we want to do this? In the most basic way, human actions can be attributed to the urge to be happy. Even the ego’s instinct for self-preservation, can be seen as: I will be happier if I am alive!
People generally say, “I will be happy when I experience things that I enjoy and unhappy when I have experiences that I don’t enjoy.” So the most common approach to happiness is to seek more of what I like and avoid, as much as possible, things that I dislike.
The problem with the seek pleasure and avoid pain approach to happiness is that it simply doesn’t work. No one can avoid all of the things they don’t enjoy. The majority of people feel constantly bombarded by things they don’t enjoy. According to their level of discontent many indulge in the use of alcohol, drugs, television and various other sense stimulants to dull/distract their discomfort. If we look at those who have the wherewithal to live surrounded by outward pleasures, we find that they are not generally happier. And in fact, when they discover that the experience of endless enjoyments doesn’t provide the lasting happiness they expected, depression or ennui often ensues.
The solution to this dilemma is not a Yogic secret! It is a truth of which most people in the world today are aware. Just in the same way that we know that love is associated with the heart, we all know instinctively that happiness can be found within. Enjoyment through outward experiences is by its very nature ephemeral. How to consciously connect to inner well-being is not generally well understood. And in fact, finding lasting dynamic happiness within is seemingly out of reach for most people.
Why is this true?
The essential component of life itself is eternal, never-ending, ever-new happiness that we try to describe by using words like Peace, Love, and Joy. Communion with this cosmic consciousness is the lasting happiness that all souls seek. This is the home that we will return to at the end of our journey through the creation.
Yogananda described the soul as individualized Spirit. Each soul is a unique expression of Divine consciousness. The ego is the soul identified with the body/personality. As human beings we are souls who have been drawn into and identified with the body/personality. Most people are absolutely convinced that they are only a body/personality. Very few, even of those who sincerely believe in God, are able to access very much of their higher spiritual potential. When we are identified with our higher Self we experience our nature as a soul: Joyful Spirit. When we identify with the little self, we take on the likes and dislikes of the ego and thus are subject to emotion based pleasure/pain reactions to the material world.
Living a lifestyle that helps us to be connected to soul consciousness leads to greater awareness of inner happiness. The more we live in ego consciousness we feel disconnected from the soul’s natural state of well-being. Since this is the common circumstance for the vast majority of planet earth’s population it is considered the normal state for humanity, when in truth, it is common, but not normal.
The question at this point is not about belief. The true scientist doesn’t believe or disbelieve. The scientist seeks truth and does experiments based on a hypothesis. In this case, the hypothesis is: If the soul exists, is it possible to be more aware of the soul consciousness (Universal Consciousness), and will living with an increasing amount of soul awareness lead to greater lasting happiness? The methodology is the practice of a yogic lifestyle based on time tested techniques and guidelines. More specifically in this case study, the yoga teachings as they were brought to America in 1920 by Paramhansa Yogananda.
Paramhansa Yogananda shared the Yoga Science all across America from 1920 until his passing in March of 1952. Yogananda’s message to the world was that each of us can experience Cosmic Consciousness directly and that the inevitable result of that communion will be the death of all sorrows in Divine Bliss. You don’t have to wait until you die to find out if this is true.
When I first read the Autobiography of a Yogi I felt Yogananda’s presence so vibrantly it was as if he was in the room with me. I kept turning back to a picture of him in the front of the book to drink in his vibrations with more focus and then push forward with reading stories and teachings that just felt like home. I had no idea that this most sacred secret to happiness was not a secret! It had been passed down in India through thousands of years from Guru to disciple. Gone was the sectarianism that I had associated with religion. Here is the antidote to modern society’s endless quest to find fulfillment outside of the Self. These truths are available to all, according to each person’s level of interest. Through this great ambassador of Truth who has experienced what he is sharing, millions of lives have been and will be uplifted.
In 1949 Paramhansa Yogananda gave a speech at a garden party in Beverly Hills, California. James Donald Walters, later to become known as Swami Kriyananda, was present at that moment of spiritual history. Of Yogananda’s words that day Swami Kriyananda wrote in his own autobiography The New Path:
I remember especially how stirred I was by a talk he gave at a garden party in Beverly Hills on July 31, 1949. Never had I imagined that the power of human speech could be so great; it was the most stirring lecture I have ever heard.
“This day,” he thundered, punctuating every word, “marks the birth of a new era. My spoken words are registered in the ether, in the Spirit of God, and they shall move the West…. Self-Realization has come to unite all religions…. We must go on – not only those who are here, but thousands of youths must go North, South, East and West to cover the earth with little colonies, demonstrating that simplicity of living plus high thinking lead to the greatest happiness!” I was moved to my core. It would not have surprised me had the heavens opened up and a host of angels come streaming out, eyes ablaze, to do his bidding. Deeply I vowed that day to do my utmost to make his words a reality.
Often during the years I was with Master he exhorted his audiences on the subject of this cherished dream of his: “world-brotherhood colonies,” or spiritual cooperative communities – not monasteries, merely, but places where people in every stage of life could devote themselves to living the divine life.
There were 800 people at that garden party, but only one person made the inner commitment to help those words to become a reality: Swami Kriyananda.
In 1967 Swami Kriyananda purchased the property that became the Ananda Meditation Retreat and in 1969 started the first Ananda World-Brotherhood Colony, which has since been called for simplicity’s sake, Ananda Village. Located on approximately 1,000 acres in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Nevada City, California, Ananda Village is the international headquarters of what has become a worldwide group of disciples who are dedicated to living and sharing the ideals of “plain living and high thinking” that Yogananda taught. Along with emphasizing the need for the personal experience of God’s presence in meditation, Yogananda also spoke of the practical value of using spiritual principles to achieve success in every life endeavor.
There are, as of this writing, Ananda Communities in America, Italy and India, totaling about 1,000 resident members. Ananda Sangha (Ananda – Divine bliss or joy and Sangha – fellowship) is the name of this truly international group of people from all walks of life who have discovered the joy of living spiritual instead of material values. There are also many thousands, possibly millions, of people who connect to the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda through the Ananda Temples, Meditation Centers and Meditation Groups around the world, as well as, Swami Kriyananda’s many books, CDs and television programs. There are also a number of Ananda websites – including the main site, Ananda.Org – which provides free access to an incredible resource of inspiration and spiritual education.
Swami Kriyananda’s journey from birth to American parents who were at that time living in Romania, to the doorstep of his Guru’s ashram in 1948 at Mt. Washington in Los Angeles, California, and then representing the teachings of Yogananda around the world, is chronicled in his deeply inspiring autobiography The New Path, and in A Place Called Ananda. So I needn’t fill you in on the details covered in those works. My own reading of Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi in 1969 and subsequent arrival at Ananda Village in the summer of 1972, I have shared in book one of the Journey of Discipleship series, titled Traveling with Swamiji. In that volume I described how I arrived at Ananda and my experiences with Swami Kriyananda and life at Ananda Village up to the fall of 1977. The narrative in this volume will start where the previous volume leaves off. I had just returned from an epic 7 ½ month trip around the world with Swami Kriyananda.
My purpose here is to share with you a practical view of the spiritual life as I have lived and understood it under discipleship to Paramhansa Yogananda and the guidance of his direct disciple Swami Kriyananda. It isn’t that I am personally of much interest. It is the subject of discipleship and the very real challenges that present themselves along each soul’s journey, bathed in the light of Swami Kriyananda’s example and the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda that gives value to this tale. Through my own ups and downs in applying these teachings I hope that others may be helped in their own spiritual adventures.
Swami Kriyananda didn’t come into this world alone. He drew to himself a family of spiritual seekers who have followed joyfully in his footsteps. This family isn’t so much a group of followers, but of leaders who have learned through his example how to follow in the highest way. This spiritual family is now a dynamic power that is living and sharing the ancient tradition of Sanatan Dharma (the eternal religion) through the Path of Self-Realization all around the world.
I remember hearing a Chinese proverb: May you live in interesting times! As a young man I would have taken this as a thought of blessing, for I was intensely interested in all that this world has to offer. But now I realize the wisdom of the curse that this proverb is meant to be. This world is designed in such a way as to draw us into its web of outward involvements so that we don’t take the time to develop our ability to see the truth of life underneath the surface of the Lila (Divine Play). We are compelled by forces that we can’t perceive to seek happiness outside of ourselves.
Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda have written extensively on the details about how the Creation was made and how it works. There isn’t any point to me duplicating what has already been so beautifully and powerfully expressed in words wiser and more poetic than I can offer. At the same time, I will need to explain at times the what’s and why’s that are guiding the issues being discussed. It should be understood that further study of those subjects would be of great benefit to those who have not yet been exposed them.
It has been my observation over the years that many people have a very unrealistic view of what the spiritual life should look and feel like on a day to day basis. I was certainly one of these people even after many years on the path. The distance between our aspirations of oneness with God and the day to day ups and downs that we experience leaves us without a clear sense of where things stand. How am I doing? Am I headed in the right direction? How long is this going to take? Why haven’t I experienced Samadhi (conscious oneness with God) yet? What am I doing wrong? What can I do to improve my life? What should a life of discipleship look like? Do I need the help of others on the path? The questions are endless.
We all have preconceptions and expectations that float on the waters of our optimism – and sometimes desperation, yet those very thoughts are colored by the limitations from which we are seeking to free ourselves. One of the great values of spending time with other spiritual seekers is that they can help us to develop a comfortably realistic perspective while we traverse the terrain of our lives. We can learn from the way others have faced their challenges and we can offer support or be supported by others as the needs of the moment present themselves.
Through close observation of Swami Kriyananda I have discovered in him and the way that he approaches life, many opportunities to understand and improve myself. As a result of these observations I have come to realize that it isn’t only Kriyananda’s incredible talents and innate spirituality that are of benefit to us who aspire for self-improvement, but also through the way that he has faced his own life challenges. In his courage, tenacity and loving dedication to right action, we can find ideas and inspiration for our own lives.
If Swami Kriyananda were born perfect, well that would be beautiful, but he has never claimed perfection, omniscience or even any kind of greatness. Yet still, people try to project on him their own view of who he is or who he should be. One of the things that I admire most about him is that as long as I have known him he has simply been himself. He has adhered to his best understanding of what is right in his life no matter how challenging that path may be.
As I describe some of my observations about Swami Kriyananda please don’t think that I am being critical of him. It is true that I haven’t agreed with every choice that he has made, but then his choices were not mine to make, they were his. I know for a fact that he hasn’t agreed with every choice that I have made, but he has never loved me less because of that.
It became clear to me one day that if I wanted others to accept and love me just the way that I am, I need to offer the same towards them. As Jesus taught: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; one of the great most basic teachings.
For myself, I have never known a person in this life that I have loved or respected more than Swami Kriyananda. It is that simple for me. And the Ananda Spiritual Family is my family. We might wrestle occasionally as siblings are wont to do, and occasionally get a bruise or two, but the unity in mind and heart that we have shared through our discipleship is for me sacred ground. And knowing that, I feel that they should be represented in a way that is most truthful to the teachings that have been given to us. Not a version where life never gets messy, but an expression that will, with love and respect, help each of us to get through the challenges in our own lives with greater hope and dignity.
Since the day of Yogananda’s prediction that the idea of spiritual communities would “spread like wildfire” much has happened in the world. In the 1960’s and 1970’s there was a cultural and spiritual revolution in America that gradually made its way around the world. In the 1980’s and 1990’s the fall of communism and the rise of the internet – bringing truly global communications – has given access of information to all nations. We now live in the 21st century, our world is truly a planetary community which is tied together not only economically, but by the realization that each of us has a part to play in the future of mankind. But like many families, when you get too many relatives in a limited space, life can and often does erupt into chaos!
When I was growing up I received a standard reading, writing and arithmetic education. In all of my years of history, science, biology, literature and everything in between, no one ever talked about God or spiritual potential, or even how to simply be happy. It wasn’t until I read Autobiography of a Yogi that I realized some people do actually know what life is, its source and our most basic purpose during our time in this world.
The Path of Self-Realization is both the truth that all of life is at its core a spiritual experience and a body of specific practices that are applied creatively according to the individual needs and abilities of each person. No matter what techniques a yogi practices, there are specific attributes of experience and expression that will naturally occur as the soul reaches towards spiritual freedom.
Patanjali, the modern – having lived only a little more than 2,500 years ago! – exponent of Ashtanga Yoga – the eight-fold (or eight-limbed) path of Patanjali – described eight stages of spiritual evolution: Yama (non-violence, non-lying, non-stealing, non-sensuality, non-covetousness), Niyama (cleanliness, contentment, self-control, self-study, devotion to God), Asana (posture – the ability to sit still in meditation), Pranayama (the ability to access and control one’s inner energy), Pratyahara (the ability to interiorize one’s awareness), Dharana (the ability to be inwardly absorbed) , Dhyana (meditation – single pointed concentration on an aspect of Spirit or a specific technique) and Samadhi (Oneness). These stages are both goals and guidelines for the spiritual aspirant.
These teachings are a part of what is called Raja Yoga, the Yoga of Kings. The king of a nation must take into account the unique needs of all its citizens. Thus it is that Raja Yoga recognizes that each soul is a unique expression of Spirit. We are each manifesting our own blend of intellect, heart and actions. So Raja yoga includes Gyana yoga (discrimination that leads to wisdom), Bhakti yoga (devotion that leads to Divine Love) and Karma yoga (actions that lead to freedom instead of bondage). Added to these three kinds of yoga are the techniques of meditation that accelerate the potential for deep magnetic inner communion with Spirit.
Along with the timeless precepts of the yoga teachings, Paramhansa Yogananda taught a specific meditation technique – Kriya Yoga – for greatly speeding up the process of spiritual evolution. This technique is so effective that when practiced properly, along with a lifestyle that supports the goals of Kriya Yoga, a practitioner actually has a chance of achieving Self-Realization in this lifetime.
In order to absorb more fully what spiritual freedom in this lifetime means, imagine a very long journey. How long would that journey be? Would it be a year? Ten years? Fifty years? A lifetime? One thousand lifetimes? A million lifetimes? It says in the ancient scriptures of India that once the soul becomes identified with the limitations of the creation it takes 100’s of millions and possibly billions of years to once again become fully identified with infinite Spirit. While this teaching can be quite sobering, Yogananda said that once the soul fully realizes that communion with God is the pathway to ending this long journey, the soul is almost home. A technique like Kriya Yoga and the Path of Self-Realization are incredible keys to the completion of each soul’s epic adventure.
I invite you to travel with me through some of the ups and downs of my life journey in this incarnation. In my wildest imagination I couldn’t have scripted the twists and turns that have presented themselves through the years. It is my hope that you will not only be entertained, but inspired and guided in ways that will help you along your own path. It is only because I have been blessed by the guidance and support of Swami Kriyananda and Paramhansa Yogananda that I am able even to comment on these subjects in what hopefully will be a useful way. It is my most sincere prayer that this expression of appreciation for the life that God has gifted me will bring you greater insights into your own discipleship.
Let us now, consciously, open our hearts and for a time walk side by side in divine friendship, if we do so, the path of self-realization we will be much more fun!
Namaste – Spirit in me bows to Spirit in you.