This blog article is a follow up to the previous one about the
life of Swami Kriyananda. I noted in a postscript to that one that it omitted
any personal reflections and that I intended to do that subsequently. So, well,
one could go on forever, but this is it for now.
I did share more personally in my Sunday Service talk (April 28;
see Ustream.com search on AnandaSeattle). In that talk I also gave a report on
my quick trip to Italy last week to attend the memorial service for Swami
Kriyananda that was held at the Temple of Light at the Ananda Retreat Center
and Community near Assisi, Italy.
You will hear from others who share their stories about Swami
Kriyananda that their individual relationship was just that: individual. As I
noted previously, a person such as Swamiji who lives from his own center
relates appropriately and uniquely to each person and circumstance. So, too,
therefore, must my own reflections admit to the limits of my own relationship
with him.
My relationship with him began slowly. One could say that I was
slow to warm up and cautious about accepting him as my spiritual teacher. When
I arrived at Ananda Village in 1977 he was in India. Padma and I were forced to
live in nearby Nevada City — a half hour away from the Ananda Village community
because of the (now well known) forest fire in June 1976 that destroyed most of
the homes. In addition, as there were fewer jobs, we started an accounting
practice in the picturesque town and county seat of Nevada City. For these
reasons I had fewer occasions in those first years to interact with Swamiji
than I would have, perhaps, had I lived at the Village at that time. (We finally
were able to move in the Village community in Fall of 1981 when a recently
built house became available and we had sold my CPA practice in order to buy
it.)
Despite my slowness, I would listen to cassette tapes of his voice
(even before I ever met him) and, owing to the battery-operated inadequacies of
on-site, outdoors recordings, his voice seemed very young, high pitched and way
too fast, just short of Mickey Mouse and definitely not his real voice
(which is rich, resonant, and deeply calm). The result was that I did not have
the impression of a hoary, sage-like yogi. In short, he didn't fit my image of
a yogi at all. To make it worse, he was American! Pawshaw, I say (having just
been in India nearly a year traveling its length and breadth). Who ever heard
of an American yogi? (Do you recall Walters' own response to the
"Autobiography of a Yogi's" dedication to Luther Burbank, an
"American saint!" Well, that was mine as well.)
The feeling of standoffishness seemed mutual, though perhaps he
didn't wish to impose if I were not ready to engage. Besides, I wasn't really
all that sure about the viability of this nearly-destroyed community with a lot
of former hippies who had more enthusiasm than skills and more optimism than
money. Yes, I was, if not skeptical, then watchful. Yet, I was there and
powerfully drawn to the path of Kriya Yoga and to the teachings of Paramhansa
Yogananda. Further, on a level that I could not consciously access at that
time, I knew I was supposed to be there and that this off-beat collection of
seeming misfits, which in a way included its Swami, held for me the promise of
"immortality" (meaning spiritual fulfillment in this lifetime) that I
sought! I also felt a calm and accepting presence and connection with Jyotish
Novak, Swamiji's successor and the first person I met at Ananda Village when we
came for a visit in May of 1977.
During those years I absorbed every word I heard from Swami:
recorded or live, and mostly live, for he taught often at Ananda Village. In
addition, Padma and I would occasionally go to Sacramento or San Francisco
where he lectured publicly. So while his personality, which was strong and
confident, even while soft and sensitive, did not draw from me a more
personally interested response, I was very much drinking in his wisdom and
vibration. In fact, many years later when I began teaching I discovered that
out of my mouth, "so to speak," came words that surprised me but
which I was able to trace to something he had written or said in a talk.
But it was the intensity and urgency with which he conducted his
activities, his writings, music, travel, and projects that puzzled me. I didn't
understand, really, what the fuss was all about. You'd think the whole world
hung on his every action and that it would end if he didn't complete the next
thing a day earlier. I still had many years of associating spirituality with a
peaceful, laid-back image comfortably arranged so as to frequently chant, like
Alfred E Neumann, my adolescent idol, "What? Me worry?"
Only gradually over the years did the intensity of energy needed
for spiritual growth become a reality to me. Then, too, came the dawning of the
awareness that Swamiji was the de facto successor to Paramhansa Yogananda's
worldwide spiritual work. Kriyananda's intensity and creativity was a product
of his divine attunement and in particular his attunement with Yogananda. This
was his normal state of consciousness! Whew! This is what it is like to be
around a saint?
His transparent self-honesty and self-questioning also struck me
as self-absorbed until, as I matured, I realized that this was a gift to us of observing the process of spiritual introspection. It conveyed deeper spiritual teachings
than mere abstract precepts with which I tended to remain content (and smug). It provided encouragement, too, because a devotee
must confront self-doubt. It is part and parcel of the soul's halting emergence
into the sunlight of God's presence which is both scorching and healing at the
same time. His doubts were my doubts. His processes, my own. I just hadn't yet
become aware of it and initially thought, "Gee, what's wrong with this
guy. He doesn't seem to be very sure of himself."
As I took on more responsibilities in the financial and business
realm of the tiny and struggling community, my contact with Swamiji increased.
Still, I had yet to develop intuition as the normal frequency of consciousness
on which to operate. Therefore, his responses, comments, and intentions
remained hidden, for me, behind a veil of mystery. His close associates seemed
to nod and bob and weave with his every utterance and that, too, was cause for
holding back. The more those close to him seemed fawningly eager to do his
bidding, the further back I would step. I was simply, at first, too insecure
myself to distinguish blind following from intelligent and heartfelt
enthusiasm. His closest were invariably highly intelligent, creative, and
anything but “Yes men.” In my defense, my own temperament is deliberate and
thoughtful. I tend to pull back from bursts of what might seem unthinking
enthusiasm. Like some, what I commit to must be felt within myself before I
give it my energy and enthusiasm.
When Swamiji would proclaim each and every book of his as the next
"best seller" (when I knew perfectly well it would not be), it took
me a long time to realize that he was no stranger to the facts. He simply
preferred to remain open to Divine Mother's grace and boundless
resourcefulness. And, he wanted to encourage and inspire us to always be
positive, even in the face of so-called "facts." In fact, since a
deliberating (“Hamlet complex”) temperament often dissolves into negativity, he
once spontaneously offered me this personal counsel: "Don't be
negative!"
I will skip ahead for the simple fact that Kriyananda's
transparent self-honesty, wisdom, and devotion uplifted anyone who, on a deeper
level, responded positively to him and who was basically in tune with all that
he represents (viz., Yogananda's teachings and spirit). And when I say "in
tune," I do not mean this in some narrow or sectarian way. Swamiji, like
his guru before him, has friends all over the world and in every walk of life.
Some have no outward affiliation with the work of Ananda or the teachings of
Yogananda but feel Swamiji is their friend in whom they can trust. As so many
others have attested, Swami Kriyananda was a citizen of the world and could
relate appropriately to anyone. He made friends wherever he went.
Many a guest or family member (of an Ananda resident) found
Swami's humor disarming. His charm and humor rendered him accessible and human.
Spiritual teachers are all too often pompous, self-righteous and aloof. Swamiji
was never any of these things. However, the first joke I recall him telling was
a turn off to me: it seemed to be what we would now call "politically
incorrect." I won't repeat the joke but it was about two Brahmins in India
stuffing themselves at a free banquet to the point of retching. It left me
puzzled and bemused. Now I occasionally tell the same joke with great hilarity!
During the Eighties he began the habit of publicly castigating
accountants, usually doing so by telling a story about a businessman who fired
his accountants because they couldn't really tell him anything useful for
running his business. The story was that the businessman complained that the
accountants were merely reporting the past.
Ananda was in a growth phase. We had started numerous small
businesses and I was part of the management team. I was the Community's chief
accountant and I had to sit there in the audience time and again and listen to
this. Sometimes friends would commiserate with me but it always a case for
discomfort, for I, at least, trusted he had a point to make and it was likely
one I needed to hear (there weren’t any other real accountants around for
miles). I didn't feel I was all that personally identified with my role, but perhaps I was
and didn’t know it? There was, as I look back, a further point: he was helping
me to become less reactive to the limiting perceptions of others and the
limiting characteristics of any outward role in life. This would help prepare
me for the leadership role I was to be given by him in later years.
I rarely sought his counsel for personal matters. I was not
resistant to his counsel, but rather felt respectful of his time and did not
want to presume upon his interest. I did, however, write to him for his
approval for Padma and I to marry. After some twelve or more years doing the
accounting at Ananda, I shared with him (on a trip to Italy; we were guests at
a member's home in Rome, at the time) my feeling that it was time for a change.
He took it under consideration but seemed to agree.
In that conversation, nor at any other time, did I describe to
Swamiji my childhood experiences and my early life quiet, inner conviction that
I would someday be committed to divine service and sharing. But it was to this
calling that he was later to guide me and when it came I was ready, though at
first I hesitated, for now with some years on the spiritual path I had gained
an appreciation for what seems at times like the receding horizon line of
perfection and for what, some days at least, seems the growing unworthiness of
the aspirant.
Other times he would comment to me, like the time he passed me in
the hallway and quipped, "You're very responsible." (Even I
understood that this was not a compliment. God is the Doer!) On a few occasions
his comments (intended for me) were delivered via others, including once or
twice via Padma. Such deliveries were a cause for annoyance, to be sure. I
think he was trying to toughen me up from touchiness around what others think.
There were a few occasions when I thought he misjudged me for not having the
facts. Gradually I learned that "facts are not a truth" and that
occasionally circumstances would be used to make a point and the point was more
important than the circumstances!
Accepting correction with equanimity and openness is one of the
surest forms of testing one's spiritual progress and I can't say that during
those years I had graduated.
Still, I wonder of what value are these commentaries and how
little they must reveal of the depth and breadth of Kriyananda's wisdom and
compassion? Among the lessons I learned are to be inwardly still in the
presence of one's teacher and indeed any saintly person. This came naturally. I
would sometimes go to his office with work related complaints or problems and
by the time he had shared his latest piece of music or writing, the problem
seemed so unimportant, if it had ever existed at all.
I found from him validation for another important teaching which
came to me more naturally. Any advice one receives should be taken inside and validated
by its intuitive resonance with one’s own deeper nature. In the presence of a
God-realized guru, this resonance may already be very deep and even
instantaneous, not requiring contemplation or deliberation. But from any other
source, counsel from without should be tempered by intuitional validation.
I once observed Swamiji offering to one of our resident members the
management of one of our key businesses. I happened to be standing nearby and
was aghast, for I considered the man incompetent for the task and, besides, I
knew the business to be in serious trouble. But the man had informed Swamiji
that he was considering leaving the Community. The fellow had tried to start
his own business but was, truthfully, not cut from the merchant cloth. In fact,
he was a bit goofy (in my view, at least!). The business in question, already
marginal, would surely be laid to rest by this man. Yet, out of loyalty to the
higher principle of this man's spiritual welfare, Swamiji was willing to
sacrifice the success of our struggling community business (a health food store
and small cafe).
Well, I could go on endlessly. Books will be, and have been
already, written attempting to chronicle the spiritual stature of this enigma
of a man. His enigma is ours: we are both “human,” and “divine.” One more
advanced in Self-realization exhibits a higher-than-logical spontaneity and
wisdom not commonly encountered. Swami Kriyananda embodied the saying, quoted
in Autobiography of a Yogi:
"Softer than the flower where kindness is concerned, stronger than thunder
where principles are at stake."
Blessings,
Nayaswami Hriman
