Reality is a state of consciousness

Our minds are so conditioned, so hypnotized to view our responses to the world around as real and correct that we rarely stop to separate our response from our perception of the facts or the truth we think we see. If at dusk while walking we see ahead on our path what appears to be a snake that is only, upon closer inspection, a rope, then we can relax from our response of fright and say that this response was in error. Rarely, however, is life so simple or clear.

Our frightened response, however, is, in the moment, at least, true for us, regardless of the correctness of our perception. All too often the amount time between perception and reaction is so tiny that we get used to equating our reaction with the reality. It takes the habit of calmness and mindfulness, born of meditation and practiced throughout the day during activity, for us to remain sufficiently calm so as not to fall into the habit of confusing response with reality.

Paramhansa Yogananda counseled students: “Circumstances are always neutral. It is how you react to them that makes them seem either happy or sad.” If you dislike someone, you are much more likely to be critical of his every sentence or action without ever stopping to consider that the source of your criticism lies in your dislike, not necessarily in what he has said or done.

Indeed, someone who admires this person will either defend the person or not even notice anything worthy of comment, what to mention criticism. Further, he may even find something admirable rather than critical!

Although I don’t hear this expression much anymore, it used to be asked of someone who was having a bad day, “Did you get up on the wrong side of bed this morning?” By this we acknowledge the influence of our moods and attitudes on our response to life’s daily challenges and activities.

But my subject goes deeper than this obvious and simple fact of human psychology. Although still far from existential, it is also true that upon entering a room a carpenter notices the baseboard trim is not straight, the painter, that the paint is peeling, the interior decorator, that the furniture is out of date, the mother, that her child is far too quiet, and the father, that he’s late for work and can’t find his car keys!

Is it true, then, that we see only ourselves, then? That we see only what we are interested in? What we are capable of seeing? Most certainly it is: at least for most people on this planet. Observing simple facts like a crooked baseboard or peeling paint is not significantly meaningful to our lives. Think then how much reality we lose when it comes to gut reactions on the hot, emotional buttons of our lives?

I observed, more than once, that my spiritual teacher, Swami Kriyananda, upon entering a room, rarely seemed to notice (even less to comment upon) the details of a room, unless he did so for instructive purposes. Once, when he was our guest in our home, he commented that hotels that were run by thoughtful people remembered to put hooks in the bathroom for clothes or one’s bathrobe. (We immediately went out and installed a hook on the inside of the bathroom door!) By contrast, most people entering another’s home for first time, literally “jump” on every detail, painting, furniture, wall colors--eager to pass judgement, either “ooohing” and “aaaahing” or turning up the proverbial nose (“Such Cretans!”). If we do this for such relatively trivial objects in our field of vision, how much more are we at sea for the important things?

Yogananda taught that the law of magnetism determined what circumstances and people were drawn to you. By magnetism, he meant the vibrational (attractive or repulsing) aspect of karma. By karma, he means the cumulative impact of past and current actions. Thus a person who, whether in past lives or the current life, has dedicated his energies to making money is, at least eventually (if he pursues his monied goal with intelligence, intensity, and sensitive awareness) going to attract financial success.

This law of vibrational resonance is what some “new agers” refer to as the Secret or what they mean by “creating your own reality.” Contrast staying in a five-star hotel with sauntering through a crowded, noisy slum on a hot, sultry day at high noon. We live in different worlds. Imagine paying $10,000 for a first class airline ticket for a flight of, perhaps, eight to sixteen hours! What is the life of a paraplegic in comparison to a wealthy heiress or globe-trotting financier? Different worlds, indeed.

Outwardly, at least! The more extreme our outer circumstances the more intensely we will tend to identify with them. For those on the path of mindfulness, however, we discover fairly quickly that the more we experience our core consciousness, stripped of name, body, ceaseless flux of thoughts and emotions, the closer we come to pure consciousness. We find, in time and with dedicated effort, that the reactive processes begin to fall away and we simply observe what is “ours” to observe without filtering it through the strainer of our fears and attractions.

There is no objective reality in the sense that the “pure mind” intends to visually observe every possible mundane fact in his immediate environment, from baseboards to dust to the art work on the wall! To one seeking higher consciousness (defined as God or in any other way, e.g., bliss, joy, and even emptiness), the most important reality is to first perceive, and then to become,  that consciousness. Are we not all seeking happiness? And how could true happiness be anything else if not unalloyed, ever-new, and permanent?

Reality in other words cannot be separated from the consciousness that perceives it. The highest reality is when separation between the knower, the known and the knowing melts into Oneness!

All we really possess, then, is our consciousness. There isn’t anything else. That doesn’t mean we can eat junk food and escape the consequences; or steal someone else’s car; or lie or cheat. Those actions presuppose the very separateness that brings us dis-ease, discontentment, and ultimately pain.

Rather, this means that, even if it means at first just affirming it, positive, inclusive and expanded states of consciousness will bring us greater and greater happiness. We are happier loving than hating; giving rather than taking; sharing rather than hoarding.

Our evolutionary path upward from the rocks, plants and animals has endowed us with the necessary and highly refined instincts for survival and for sensory pleasure and, on the human level, ego self-aggrandizement. All this works rather nicely to get us to the human level and, at that level, to excel and expand our horizons. But these become a glass ceiling when it comes to transcending the wheel of birth and death, and the ceaseless flux of opposite states of pleasure and pain.

We cannot but define happiness as permanent but the happiness we know through the body and the ego is anything but permanent. We have a profound, existential dilemma, for knowing this fact dilutes the fleeting pleasure or success or human happiness that comes our way.

Thus spiritual consciousness and awareness (which, when formalized and organized, coalesces into religion) invites our dissatisfied ego to rise toward a transcended state of consciousness.

This, then, is what is meant by “reality is a state of consciousness.” Meditation is the surest form of experiencing transcendence. Transcendence, being consciousness itself, is most effectively known (experienced) by consciousness itself. Further, it is most readily contacted by association and attunement with one who embodies, contains, and holds that consciousness. Thus the long-standing acknowledgement of sanctity personified and embodied in saints and masters.

Transcendence, so far as we are concerned (and we are concerned!), can only exist in embodiment. Not because it is limited but because we are limited. When we look at a beautiful sunset, we can enjoy it but we cannot, for the enjoyment of it, become one with it. Same, too, with someone we love. We are forced by nature and duality to be prevented from merging with the object of our love by the very electro-magnetic field that surrounds our body and its attendant, ego, and keeps our Spirit imprisoned. On the level of I-am-loving-you we must forever be separate.

We must first discover transcendence in the field of our body and, being locked in, that requires a transfusion, a transmission of transcendence not from nowhere in space but from its embodiment in space. Thus the power of a true guru who transmits this “knowing” and awakens it so, like a seed, it can grow from within. While a true guru, being transcendent, is not limited by his or her physical vehicle, it is we who need the vehicle through which to “tune in.” Thus, even after the physical death of such a one, a true disciple can draw inspiration and magnetism through meditation, prayer, and service. Ultimately, this transmission is only an “inside” job but we have to start where we are.

Further, it is the creative and loving desire of the Creator that this transcendence be awakened and experienced in the creation and not separate from it. We don’t have to die to “go to heaven.” This too is another reason that the transmission occurs from embodiment to embodiment.

Well, time to go!

Blessings to you,

Nayaswami Hriman

aka Swami Hrimananda

Tomorrow is a Tide that Sweeps Away the Past

As I stood on the banks of the Ganges in the world's most ancient (and continuously inhabited) city -- Varanasi, India -- I scanned the ancient riverside ashrams and crematory grounds, the orange-clad or naked sadhus tending their ritual fires, and the devotees bathing in the Ganges to remove their sins. The thought that came to me is that all of this will be swept away by the rising tide of change. Change is happening at an accelerated pace, especially visible in up and coming countries like India, but de facto everywhere.

In Varanasi, as everywhere, developers will see profits and opportunities in this haven of tourism and pilgrimage. Civic boosters will want to clean it up and give visitors have more comfortable places to have lunch, shop, and spend their tourist rupees. A few showcase sadhus can be reassigned to a special section for posterity's sake and authenticity. Mimic the old architecture but build anew and make it nicer for visitors. Whole blocks of the twisting and turning alleyway-streets will be razed for modern hotels, with pools and lawns (oh, and underground parking). Oh, yes...........can't you see it?

On my last two trips to India I went up into the Himalayas. I could see that the hill stations nearest the plains will soon be developed into second homes, gated communities, resorts, and yoga retreat centers. Many of them were created by the British precisely for recreation and vacation, and, a relief from the heat, squalor, and intensity of the plains. Are middle class Indians wanting anything different? They'll widen and straighten out some of the roads and voila! The rising middle class of India will escape to their beloved (and beautiful) Himalayan foothills. I can see it now. Ok, then, soon, or not too far off.

We can see this trend in America where nothing is very old. We can see it well established in Europe. They preserve and yet simultaneously upgrade and modernize a core area of some historical value and then let development proceed all around it. I think however looking far ahead -- afterall things do deteriorate --- these core areas will gradually shrink. More importantly, so will the interest of future generations in them. Do you see among today's young a burning interest in antiquity? I don't. They are more interested in their computer games, gadgets, and, of course, one another. I wouldn't be surprised that future city planners will find it convenient to preserve these old monuments virtually in a kind of digital museum where you can "walk" through the old Roman fort or castle wearing a 3-D sitting in a comfortable chair.

You don't need to be an avatar or rishi to see this kind of change everywhere. But in fact there are some avatars who have already predicted it. In the lineage of Paramhansa Yogananda, his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, announced a major correction to the Hindu calendar which, during several thousand years of the Kali Yuga -- the low ebb of consciousness in the unending cycle of time -- had gotten off, mathematically.

Sri Yukteswar, himself a great sage and astrologer, proclaimed that on or around the year 1900 the earth entered the second age ("Dwa" - Dwapara) and would begin its ascent into an age whose theme would be "energy." Soon thereafter Einstein announced that energy is the underlying reality of matter. The twentieth century saw the dawning of nuclear energy and the head-over-heels extraction of oil for energy which fueled an unprecedented surge in human development in all fields (including warfare). We have energy medicine and energy healing. Energy is all the rage, in fact.

How many indigenous cultures and languages have already been destroyed. Those few who remain are dwindling in their commitment to traditional lifestyles. In the years and centuries to come they will all essentially vanish, leaving only remnants in the form of stylized, special-occasion cultural events or preserved places. Traditional religions, steeped in their vestments and robes and rituals, will steadily fade from relevancy, leaving also only traces of their past.

Nations, cultures, languages with their distinctive cuisine, clothing and uniqueness will surely retain vestiges of their past habits, attitudes, and history but they will be like the transplanted New Yorker living in Los Angeles who still has a detectable New York accent. It will be quaint and recognizable but like the Indian in the adjoining cubicle at Microsoft, his accent doesn't get in the way of his enjoyment of going to the gym or hiking in the mountains with the guy from Peoria next to him.

Travel, education, communication, technology and consciousness cannot but erode the isolation and uniqueness of formerly far-flung and exotic cultures. I sincerely hope that doesn't put Starbucks and MacDonalds on every corner from here to Timbuktu but, for a time, it might. It certainly is happening now, anyway.

Is the destruction of these traditional ways to be decried? Well, no doubt for many. But it would be like crying over spilled milk. Nothing can stop the rising tsunami of change and connectedness. The down side to the status quo is the status quo: warfare, terrorism, exploitation, prejudice, ignorance, distrust and hatred. Do we have a choice? I doubt it. We cannot have it both ways: on the one hand we want to see the world change for the better; on the other hand, we don't want to lose distinctive differences in cultures. These distinctions, unless paraded out only for entertainment of visitors, are also what separate us.

Will Indians stop wearing saris and Peruvians abandon their colored cloth? Already in India, modern young women don't wear traditional saris. They've taken some of the colors and fabrics and made them into more practical forms. Cultural characteristics and attitudes will survive just as blue eyes and blonde hair get passed from generation to generation. But they will survive only as remnants, reminders.

Already the world's cultures live and work together. For now that's mostly in the cities, but look again and travel again, the intermixture is seeping into every village, and even more so into remote corners because remote corners are strongly attractive to the adventurous! How many pop culture T-shirrts and baseball caps do you already see in the villages of India, Tibet, Nepal, Africa?

The ancient medieval church structures may be preserved here and there around the world. But with wars, famine, natural forces of deterioration, and economic depressions, one by one they will fall by the wayside because we are looking to the future now, not to the past, for guidance and unfolding wisdom. Our past history teaches us many lessons but it is the future that beckons us, for the past will be submerged in the rising tide of consciousness that is the ascending cycle into which this planet has just barely begun.

Every 80 to 100 years the entire planet's inhabitants is refreshed with new human beings. How much do you about your grandfather's life, character, problems and victories? Probably next to nothing apart from being your grandfather. Certainly this would be true of your great grandfather. For some it may be true of your father or mother!

In future centuries worshipers of each faith will honor their traditions and symbols and credos but will relegate these to a secondary status in favor of direct, inner communion with their "God" through meditation, acts of humanitarian and personal service, and fellowship with like-minded individuals.

The first Ananda movie, Finding Happiness, shows how small communities will flourish in coming times as a practical and natural balance to the crushing forces of modernization and globalization. We need practical ways to express our creative idealism even as we live in this new, global village.

So, feast not your eyes with too great sentiment upon the monuments and traditions of the past. Appreciate them for their universal impulse and ideals but look anew and look within for fresh expressions of the divine here and now! For as your body and mind will soon be buried in the sands of time, so too all this will vanish from our sight. Extract from the present, the past, and even the future the unchangeable NOW of God's presence. Saints and devotees have come into this Dwapara Yuga to create new portals, new shrines, new sacred places of pilgrimage where God's presence and grace, ever-new in flow and form, can be tapped. We can be a part of that effort to establish and affirm anew the sacredness of life, investing that grace into living forms and new sacred places.

Mostly, of course, it is within you. But as we are a part of a greater reality all around, it is also to be found all around! Rejoice and put your shoulder to the wheel of divine creative service and reflection.

Blessings,

Swami Hrimananda

reference: Religion in the New Age by Swami Kriyananda. http://www.crystalclarity.com/

Personal Reflections: My Teacher, Swami Kriyananda

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

Reflections upon a life: Swami Kriyananda, 1926-2013

On Sunday morning, April 21, near Assisi, Italy at his home, Swami Kriyananda breathed his last upon this earth. Born May 19, 1926 as James Donald Walters of American parents living in Romania, Swamiji  was born and died in Europe. In his dignity and habits, he was a European. In his soul, he was, as it were, a rishi clothed in the garb of a yogi from India; and in his love of life, of people, his vitality and creativity, he was just as truly an American. He was of an older more dignified and noble time and yet he was younger, an Atlantean who delighted in the latest technologies of our advancing and ascending age.

The more one lives centered in the soul, in the Self, the more one's life becomes a crystal, reflecting truth in an infinity of rays of color, shape and form. Personal and appropriate with those whom he conversed and served, and yet impersonal reflecting not his likes and dislikes but the truth that we are each children of the same Light.

I was privileged to represent members and friends of Ananda in the greater Seattle area at the memorial service for Swamiji held in the Temple of Light at the Ananda Center near Assisi, Italy (home of St. Francis of long ago). This Service took place on Wednesday, April 24. A video recording of that service can be found on YouTube at http://youtu.be/uIWskubxCt4

Because I had leave for Italy right away I could not attend our own Service held in our Meditation Temple in Bothell on Monday evening, April 22. You can a video recording of that Service at http://www.Ustream.com    Search on AnandaSeattle.

Swami Kriyananda was a direct disciple of the now famous yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda, whose life story, Autobiography of a Yogi, has become a spiritual classic in our time. Swamiji spent the same amount of time with his guru as the disciples of Christ spent with Jesus (about three plus years). Yogananda, despite being in a relatively withdrawn phase of the last years of his life, nonetheless permitted young "Walters" to "hang out with him" and ply him with questions. Yogananda shared many stories from his "barnstorming" years travelling across America giving lectures and classes to thousands. Yogananda, like Vivekananda decades before, became quite a sensation and sought-after speaker in American intellectual and liberal social circles.

After Yogananda's death in 1952, the young monk, who in 1955 took the spiritual name Kriyananda, rose rapidly in his guru's organization (Self-Realization Fellowship, aka SRF) as its foremost public representative. He traveled widely in America, Europe and India. As his zeal for sharing his guru's teachings grew and took on more expansive forms, the senior disciples of SRF became alarmed and, perhaps drawing on the example of male teachers groomed by Yogananda decades earlier who later betrayed Yogananda, finally decided in 1961 to dismiss Swami Kriyananda from SRF's membership and nip in the bud what they could only imagined was an ambitious ego instead of a dedicated disciple bent on spreading his guru's message of Self-realization.

As difficult emotionally as his dismissal was curt and unexpected, it did make possible the founding of Ananda in 1968. Only by separation from SRF (which he himself would never have sought) could Swamiji be free to establish intentional spiritual communities ("world brotherhood colonies" as Yogananda called them) and author some 150 books on a wide range of subjects inspired by Yogananda's teachings and spirit.

Despite persecution from SRF long after his dismissal, Kriyananda always espoused, even to the extent of his will and last testament, that Ananda remain open to work cooperatively with and be respectful always of his guru's own work.

Swami Kriyananda leaves behind a worldwide network of communities, retreat centers, meditation and yoga centers, meditation groups and a host of related activities and organizations, including schools for children, a new genre of music, and an entire liturgy of ceremonies inspired by the nonsectarian precepts of Sanaatan Dharma, the essence of Vedanta and India's sacred revelation from ancient times.

Perhaps more importantly, Swamiji's legacy is the bouquet of souls who, with his tender and wisdom-guided nurturing, have flowered in his care. Some have done so directly from his hand; many more have done so through his example, his writings, his music, and the fellowship of souls who are his spiritual children serving the work of a great guru, Paramhansa Yogananda.

Such disciples will nurture other souls making the real work of God through the Self-realization lineage (which culminated in Paramhansa Yogananda) impervious to the assaults of time and the inevitable rise and fall of the fortunes of organizations.

For some sixty-five years of discipleship, Swamiji has traveled this earth writing and lecturing and founding communities. He has done so despite opposition from other fellow gurubhais and despite the burden of a physical body that rebelled against his employment of that vehicle in intense and unceasing divine service. He had three hip operations (one had to be re-done), a pace-maker, suffered from diabetes, had a bout with colon cancer, became increasing hard of hearing (making public life very difficult ) and had a medical chart that left doctors across the globe in awe.

His will power, considerable though it was, was never directed against others. It served him only his discipleship sharing Yogananda's work. In fact, and in retrospect, Swami Kriyananda became the one disciple more than any other direct disciple, who has publicly served Yogananda's mission and thus has earned the self-evident role of Yogananda's principle heir in public service.

For all of his prolific and concentrated effort, Swami Kriyananda maintained personal friendships with hundreds if not thousands. His correspondence (which in recent years morphed into email, and thus, as for everyone else, multiplied exponentially) would have, for most people, been a full-time job. His writings ebbed and flowed but never ceased. During especially creative periods, it took more time for those to whom he would send by email his manuscript drafts for review, than it did for him to write them. Or, so it seemed!

His last book was a re-write of one of his first books: Communities: How to Start Them and Why.

He no doubt overstayed the welcome that "Brother Donkey" (the physical body) offered and by guru's grace remained to see the first of three movies finished. "Finding Happiness" is about the work of Ananda and will be released to theaters in the Fall of 2013. "The Answer" is a movie about Kriyananda's life and a third movie will be about the life of Yogananda.

The work of Ananda has spread to include north, central and south America; Europe and India.

One of the questions young Walter asked his guru was "Will I find God in this lifetime?" The great guru responded, "Yes, but at the end of life, for death will be your final sacrifice."

While the bodies of most swamis are cremated according to custom, a decision has been made to bury Swami Kriyananda's body at his home, the Crystal Hermitage, located at Ananda World Brotherhood Village, near Nevada City, CA. On the grounds of the surpassingly lovely Crystal Hermitage overlooking the north fork of the Yuba River, will his body be buried and atop the grave will be a shrine which tentatively may be termed "Moksha Mandir" in honor of Yogananda's promise of freedom ("moksha" refers to the soul's freedom in God).

A formal memorial will take place in May at Ananda Village (May 18-19). Kriyananda's body is being shipped from Italy back to the U.S. on Monday, April 29.

A great yogi in India was asked by Kriyananda why it was this yogi had no disciples or outer spiritual work. His reply was "God has done what He wanted with this body." Thus it is that the degree of approval or disapproval of the world means little to the sincere lover of God. To do the will of God is the soul's only interest. It matters not, therefore, what name or fame has come, or has been withheld, from the life of Swami Kriyananda, nor yet also, to Ananda, the work he founded in the name of his guru.

Though those close to him would no doubt easily imagine that Swami Kriyananda, free soul or otherwise, will return to help those in need in some future incarnation. But such matters are left to God. Swamiji will be greatly missed but has more than earned his freedom laurels and rest. Those who have known him personally and those many who will know him through others and through the legacy of his work and vibration in generations to come, are deeply grateful.

Adieu great soul, until we find our rest in God alone!

Eternally grateful,

Nayaswami Hriman aka Swami Hrimananda!

P.S. If I have omitted personal reflections or stories of my life and relationship with Kriyananda it is because I deem it not the right time, place, or venue. Perhaps in some other way I might share such experiences.

India Pilgrimage - the Final Episode!

It seems right to me now to skip ahead to the final adventure on our three week trip to India: Babaji's cave (near the hill station town of Ranikhet). Yes, it's true I skip the Taj Mahal and our visit to the lovely Ananda Center in Gurgaon (a few miles south of Delhi). But all good things must end and so, too, this travelogue.

After visiting the Ananda Center in Gurgaon on Sunday, March 17 (in the afternoon and evening), we bussed to the old train station in Delhi for an overnight train to the line's end at the foot of the Himalayas--a town called Kathgodam. The Old Delhi station was a museum piece, a small version of the old Howrah Station in Calcutta, but much messier in what I saw, with lots of people sleeping on the floor everywhere and a narrow warren of steps and overhead passageways with descending stairs onto each train platform across a large and enclosed rail yard. Very old fashion, very NOT tidy, and very old. One felt claustrophobic and slightly ill at ease, safety wise. The response was to "puff up" as it were and look snappy and snippy like a seasoned traveller. I kept a close watch, as did my friend, Bimal, on those few pilgrims with wanderlust.

We scurried through these ancient corridors like rats, resembling a new form of rat (of Western origin) but otherwise pressing forward or against a sea of rats just like us: going to and from trains, or servicing trains (porters, e.g.). After some confusion about our track number, we found our train and hustled aboard a faded blue, decades old set of cars. Ten of us, out of the some thirty, were arbitrarily assigned by the railway online service to First Class cars: a euphemism, merely, they were hardly "first class." Each compartment had 4 berths so I and one other pilgrim, Patricia, got the other eight seated and we took a compartment that had two others (men) in it. The bunks were positioned so the head or feet faced crossways to the direction of travel. The compartment door closed to the hallway but otherwise the bunks were open one to the other.

A man, attempting already to sleep, did not want us to turn the lights on. We had to position our belongings, make our beds, and prepare for sleep in very dim light. I was not feeling well, having a cold and sore throat. I meditated a while but, though lying down, slept not at all through the night. The train would stop for a few minutes and then move on.

Before dawn, we arrived at Kathgodam. The morning air was slightly chilly. We disembarked groggy and perhaps a little grumpy, all of us. We stumbled in the darkness toward the station and out into the parking lot. Fortunately, our guide, Mahavir, and the two buses were waiting. In a few minutes drive, by pre-arrangement, a local hotel welcomed us into their breakfast room where we could use the toilet, have some tea, and biscuits.

Then off we went into the dawn, quickly rising up the foothills on a twisting and turning two-lane (paved) road. Already the air here was clearer and cleaner. The refreshment of woods and mountains poured down from high above like a healing breeze. We dozed and then would gaze at the increasingly beautiful scenery that unfolded in the morning light as we went up and up and up.......at turns we could see a hint of the vast Indian subcontinent plains stretching south into an invisible distance hidden by a slightly brown layer of dust and smoke clouds as far as the eye could see.

After some time, perhaps an hour or more, we arrived at a delightfully scenic village on a pond (well, ok they called it a lake). Our buses negotiated the village lanes in a cumbersome, elephantine gait and deposited us a few steps from a hillside ashram belonging to the silent woman saint, Mauni Ma, a direct disciple of Neem Karoli Baba (guru to the famous Baba Haridas). It is a lovely place, clean and quite large, freshly painted. We were still befuddled with sleeplessness. Murali guided us in energization exercises and stretching exercises to help throw off the sleep and I did a guided meditation sadhana lest too much silence produce the sacred hong snore mantra.

Mauni Ma's son addressed us afterwards in the sadhana room and then invited us down into the courtyard for tea and prasad. (We met her, in silence of course, on our way back to Kathgodam before boarding the night train back to Delhi. On that train ride, I slept like a newborn, thus redeeming my less than felicitous prior experience.)

We didn't stay long as we then began a longish but most delightful hike around the village and its lake to a resort hotel on the far side where we had a wonderful breakfast inside and out on the patio. We enjoyed and prolonged our stay as much as we could as it was healing balm visually and in all ways from the intensity of the last many days in the crowded and polluted cities and the heat of the northern plains.

At last we had to board our buses for the long ride up and up the mountains toward Ranikhet. The scenery was stunning but most of us soon tired of the turns and twists and unending mountain roads in these buses which seemed out of place on the narrow and steep roads. We chanted and sang; rested and watched; chatted and read.

Half way up we stopped at an ashram of Neem Karoli Baba. It is extremely clean and beautiful, at the edge of a happy and flowing river in a wooded canyon of sorts. We meditated there for quite some time; had tea at the tea stalls and generally were refreshed and prepared for the next many hours. As we rose in the mountains the sun beat more directly upon the mountain sides and our buses. The last part was mentally and physically challenging for most of us.

At last we reached the hill station along a high ridge facing north. Between the trees I eager looked for glimpses of the Himalayan peaks, still some one hundred miles or so north of us. Soon I was rewarded, even in the fading light of the day. Soon all were pressed to the glass oohhing and aaaahing at every turn as new peaks appeared and brightened our faces and warmed our hearts. We were, though tired, thrilled, for few, if any had ever seen the majestic sacred Himalayan range except in photos.

The Woodsvilla Resort was several miles past Ranikhet, driving along the ridgeline going east. It seemed the bus drive would never end! But at last we arrived and were warmly welcomed by the hotel staff and assisted down the long flight of stone steps into the lobby and soon thereafter to our rooms and into the dining room for dinner. We all retired early to await the big day of going to Babaji's cave on nearby Dronagiri Mountain.

The next day I arose long before sunrise. I could not wait to see the morning light streak across the face of the Himalayan magistrates. I laugh at myself because in my eagerness to watch the drama of light on such a panorama, I decided that surely my guru wouldn't mind if, just this morning, I meditated with my eyes open!

So, I sat on the cushioned window seat facing the Himalayan range and waited as I meditated. Slowly light began to fill the sky. The faces of of the eternal-snow rishis went from darkened silhouette to a clear outline and then a full face. At last, streaks of light shot forth from the east (to my right) and hit the snow-clad mountains full on. Their faces burned with light and came to life before my eyes. The morning dawned cloudless and clear. The sky gradually but quickly turned from inky darkness and star-lit to brilliant blue. It was a thrilling experience; one I will never forget.

This day, then, we are to travel to Babaji's cave. I won't take the "real estate" to describe the wonderful story of Lahiri Mahasaya, age 33, in the year 1861, being transferred mysteriously to Ranikhet and, while out wandering the hills, being called to meet the peerless and deathless guru, Babaji, and being initiated into Kriya Yoga in a cave on Dronagiri Mountain.  I refer you , instead, to Chapter 34 - Materializing a Palace in the Himalaya in Yogananda's famous Autobiography of a Yogi. It is to this cave, reputed to be the very cave, where we are to go today.

It took several hours to get there by our bus. The windy road led down the other side of the mountain, traveling north from the hill station of Ranikhet and along a beautiful, green-carpeted and terraced river valley with quaint villages and picturesque scenes. Then, up the other side along the flanks of Drongiri, not far from the town of Dwarahat. Our drivers took a "short-cut" to avoid going through Dwarahat. I was looking forward to the town because my daughter Gita and I had stayed there two nights on our first visit here less than two years ago. Not knowing this I became confused because as our vehicles rose higher and higher, it seemed to me that I recognized my surroundings as being Drongiri Mountain, yet we hadn't gone through the town! (Later the route we had taken was explained to me.) While very close to our destination, we stopped to take a group photo with the backdrop of several Himalayan Peaks cast against Drongiri Mountain. It was absolutely stunning. All we could do was joke and cajole but inside I think we all felt we had died and gone to heaven but, having just arrived, we weren't sure quite how to behave!

Within minutes, then, we had reached the trailhead to Babaji's cave. Increasingly throughout the world, this remote pilgrimage spot is becoming known. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunagiri ). There's a tea stall and very rustic "hotel" there. We got our provisions readied, did a brief prayer, and began our walk. It starts along a jeep track that follows the curve of the mountain. The sun was hot because now midday, so many of us covered up. The altitude is about 8,000 feet and you feel it when you leave the jeep track and begin trekking more seriously up the side of the mountain.

For me in both visits there I experience the mountain as having a soft light, a mellow light "around the edges." It feels mystical. If that is mere sentiment, then so-be-it. The large rhododendron trees had flaming red flowers on them and on the ground beneath them. The pine trees are dwarf-like, and somewhat spindly and miniature, adding to a fairy-like feeling that someone is watching or the landscape is alive and conscious. You can't see the cave from below.

The trail, once leaving the jeep track, is steep but basically in excellent shape. Signs display the fact that Yogoda Satsangha Society (YSS) owns the property. One crosses what is supposed to be the Gogash River (see Chapter 34) but in March it was sadly dry. It is a shadow of its former self. Lahiri Mahasaya said that Babaji had him lie down at the river's edge after taking some kind of cleansing herbs or drink. He spent the better part of the night there before being summoned back up to the cave.

Just below the cave, YSS has constructed a fence-enclosed outbuilding. I suppose it has supplies in it but it is locked. It makes for a good staging area and picnic area for the final ascent up the trail to the cave itself.

The cave is small. On the inside, it was walled off by YSS to protect the deeper reaches of the cave. I do not know why. The cave itself is locked with an iron gate. We were fortunate however to be allowed in and we took turns meditating there. Many also meditated just outside the cave and on the ledges and hillside surrounding the cave. For breaks one would descend the trail back to the staging area for a snack and a rest.

The hill is pocked with caves and legend has it that not far away there is (are) a cave(s) where centuries ago the Pandavas sought shelter. According to the internet link shown above, the region is spiritually charged.

In meditating there, one should not expect great inner experiences. Should this occur, well, of course that is wonderful. Safe it is, rather, to be still and pray to receive the blessings and grace of the Mahavatar Babaji and the other great rishis (starting with Lahiri Mahasay) upon one's life.

I came away with a deeper appreciation for the truth that in this sore-pressed world come such great souls to show us the way out of delusion and into inner freedom. More than that I came away with a greater appreciation that without the grace of God incarnating in human form through the avatara (divine descent into the human forms by Self-realized souls), we can never find our way out of the labyrinth of suffering and unhappiness. All the great moments and trends of history, politics, religion, science and the arts pale by comparison with the significance of the avatara. Though human history largely ignores them and human beings are indifferent or worse, it remains, in my view and that of devotees and saints everywhere, the most significant fact of human history and our soul's greatest blessing and opportunity.

The rest of our journey was essentially the journey back home to Seattle. Most of it warrants no special description. We were weary and many bore the marks of travel fatigue and illness, but our hearts and souls were cleansed and refreshed. I hope and pray to God that each of my fellow pilgrims retain some permanent beatitude, some light, that can guide the next steps of their spiritual journey towards soul freedom.

With gratitude and devotion, I bow at the lotus-feet of Babaji, of my guru Paramhansa Yogananda, their lineage and to all saints and sages in every time and clime who have walked the path to God-realization and, in so doing, have lit the path for others to follow.

Thank you, dear friends and readers, for coming on this journey with us.

May the light of the Masters shine upon you,

Nayaswami Hriman