Martin Luther King, Jr. is famously quoted as saying: “If you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.”
Few people are asked to reach this height of sacrifice but
there are very few exceptions to life’s invitation to give oneself to a greater
reality. For most it is their family; for many, a friend or a career; to a few,
their community or even their country; and for fewer still, to the search for
God and for truth.
Such a man who gave his all to God and the work of his guru
was Swami Kriyananda. Despite condemnation and fierce opposition at times and
despite having no outside financial backing, Swami Kriyananda gave his enormous
intellect, will, devotion and energy to serving the work of Paramhansa
Yogananda. He founded what became the worldwide spiritual work and communities of
Ananda. His legacy included an entire new genre of music and a veritable
library of books and countless recordings of talks and classes. The memory of
his service and divine friendship has been attested to by numerous followers in
books and talks that have been published posthumously.
September 12, 1948, the young Don Walters met Paramhansa
Yogananda and said those inimitable words, “I want to be your disciple.” Words
which even he could not have imagined but a week prior to when he had read
Yogananda’s now famous life story: “Autobiography of a Yogi.” It is in honor of that date that I write these
words.
It is not uncommon that a person’s worth is more greatly
esteemed long after his passing. This is not because a person’s shortcomings
are too obvious during his life, but the personality, mannerisms, and appearance
of a person act as distractions to their inner spirit. That spirit is felt more
clearly when seen in its proper perspective: its consequences upon one’s life
and the world around.
As I foresee entering the distinguished ranks of the
elderly, I see that it matters less that Ananda, the work Swami Kriyananda founded,
flourishes or withers. The measure of a man is not material success or
popularity so much as the degree of self-sacrifice to a greater good. While
martyrdom isn’t the hallmark characteristic of devotees of Self-realization in
this age, Swami Kriyananda certainly experienced a form of martyrdom apropos to
the age we live in: the courtroom and the courtroom of social media. But that
dark era is long behind us and the shining spirit of his soul’s greatness illuminates
his memory ever more with each year’s passing.
Nonetheless, Martin Luther King’s statement about
self-sacrifice holds true for everyone at least to some degree. Parents,
employees, devotees: all are asked to give ourselves to something “greater than
I.”
On the spiritual path this takes the most common form of one’s
religion. But for those whose lives aspire to sanctity and not just conformance
to rules and rituals it takes the form of discipleship. There are few
exceptions because the effort it takes to achieve sanctity is entirely
personal. That the goal of that aspiration would acquire a human form should
not surprise us. It is no coincidence, moreover, that escaping the prison of
ego should require that we give our ego to the (seeming) ego of a God-realized
soul. Few religiously minded people are prepared to do this except, perhaps, “in
principle.”
This is precisely, however, how Swami Kriyananda lived his
life. He aspired to be a “good disciple.” Not a teacher; not a guru, but a good
disciple. In this he had no pretense of being perfect, but he had an unwavering
conviction that his guru had the power to liberate him from the ego-prison. As
Krishna promises in the Bhagavad Gita, “I make good your deficiencies and
render permanent your (spiritual) gains.”
It is Swami Kriyananda’s example of discipleship, more than
even his “good works,” that I honor as his greatest gift.
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