Dear Friends,
Students, Members and Ananda Supporters:
Padma and I are at
Ananda Village: Ananda’s very first and largest community founded nearly fifty
years ago: 1969. On July 4th
each the community here celebrates its anniversary for it was July 4th
that the first parcel(s) of land in Nevada County (northeast of Sacramento, in
the Sierra Nevada foothills, just under 3,000 feet elevation).
The early years of
Ananda World Brotherhood Village (its formal name) were in the height of the
back-to-land movement at the dawn of the Age of Aquarius (so-called). Oh, how
the movement of Ananda has grown: 9 communities including India and Italy! Yoga
and meditation students by the thousands!
Padma and I are here
on “leave” to help our daughter Gita with her two young children. Gita (and her
brother, Kashi) were born and raised here at Ananda Village. She now directs
the Development Office for Ananda nationwide. Her husband, Badri Matlock, is at
our community in Italy (outside the medieval and sacred town of Assisi) at the
first conference of future leaders of Ananda. He is involved with the
management of the Expanding Light Retreat at Ananda Village and is the
understudy lead trainer for Yoga Teacher Training. So Gita asked if we might
come and give her a hand. Two little ones are a handful! “Early to bed, early
to rise, run around until your demise!”
On Saturday, a panel
of speakers from the early “pioneers” of Ananda (which includes: Jyotish and
Devi Novak who were recently visiting us in Seattle, and others) spoke of the challenges
and joys of the early days of Ananda. It was quite fun and inspiring. Our
Ananda "story" is a story of faith, will power and attunement
accomplishing the impossible: "banat, banat, ban jai" (doing, doing,
soon done)
The “good ‘ol days”
are recreated with each generation. In Seattle, in the last few years we’ve
started the Camano Farm, finished the temple, constructed the Yoga Hall, moved
East West Bookshop, started the Thrift Store, and are now in the process of
moving the Living Wisdom School. We already have lots of stories.
The committed members
of Ananda worldwide have access, by attunement, to the power and grace of one
of the spiritual giants of the new age: Paramhansa Yogananda. Ananda is blessed
to have been given birth by one of Yogananda’s most prolific and committed
disciples who, at the Beverly Hills garden party, July 30, 1949, was the only
one (of 800 present) so stirred to his depths at Yogananda’s powerful message of the need for
intentional communities to have actually manifested not just one, but nine (so
far).
Our biggest challenge
hasn’t, then, been the energy and courage to do what we are asked (internally
or externally) in our service of Yogananda, it's more likely to remember that
God is the Doer. Our frustration, self-doubt, and stress arises only to the
degree of our own self-involvement.
Surveying the
craziness around us in America and in the world, we either also become crazy with
frustration, worry, or despondency, or we affirm and feel that this is God's
world; we agree to do our part, such as it is, but that we have to let the
drama unfold in its own mysterious, and sometimes cuckoo, way.
It's difficult to
hurrah much about July 4th this year. Yogananda says our country has
good karma, despite our not so good karma. The craziness we see in the body
politic can only help wake up snoozing souls of goodwill, the silent majority
of good hearts, to resurrect our nation's ideals. We must do our part, too.
Skepticism and giving up will not help. This is a time, more than ever, for
each one of us to make our “ideals practical:” these are Yogananda’s words when
training the young monk whom he called “Walter” (aka Swami Kriyananda).
Ananda represents and
symbolizes both in our communities and in the ancient but timely precepts of “Sanaatan
Dharma” (the ancient name for the Vedantic ideals) the unifying principles so
needed in the world today: cooperation, respect for all, and the intuitive
understanding (especially based on regular meditation) that we are One:
children of our One, Father-Mother, Beloved Friend, God! While far from alone
in today’s world among the millions of individuals and other organizations
espousing peace and freedom, each of us should feel the inspiration and
obligation to align ourselves with others of like mind. Believing is not
enough!
Krishna in the “Bhagavad
Gita” reminds us that doing nothing will not free us, nor bring us happiness.
We are compelled by our very bodies and very nature to act. Only by action can
we become free from the compulsions to act; only by action (which includes the
act of meditation) can we achieve the transcendent state of the soul. One saint
in “Samadhi” pours more peace and enlightenment into thirsty hearts and souls than
all the books and lectures combined. (Of course, BOTH are needed in this
relatively unenlightened world.)
Let us celebrate the
ideals of our nation’s founders. It is our nation's destiny to spread of the higher
aspects of a new age of freedom: liberty balanced by enlightened self-interest
(cooperation), respect for the rights of all, and a sincere interest in the
greater good of all.
Not a year goes by
when I don't appreciate ever more deeply the significance of these intentional,
spiritual communities as models of integration of all races and nations in
harmony and cooperation. If you visit Ananda Village in California or Ananda in
Italy, you will find every imaginable race, religion, and culture represented
there. The significance isn’t that all people should live in such communities
but, rather, it is the example that it is possible (indeed, necessary for our
survival as a race).
America was founded in
the name of freedom. There is no greater spiritual principle and destiny than
this. It does not matter that freedom has been defined primarily in terms of
personal self-interest because ours is an ascending age of greater awareness. Spiritual
growth and human evolution towards maturity is always directional, never
absolute.
So let us celebrate
the ideals of freedom for all souls; equality of all souls as children of the
One, Father-Mother, Beloved Friend, God.
Hriman and Padma
…
