2007: Swami Kriyananda’s Service to Yogananda’s Work in India

Ananda India: Dr. Aditya leads devotees in Paramhansa Yogananda’s Energization Exercises.

At Guru Kripa, all the systems worked, and the house was arranged entirely to Swamiji’s liking. India was becoming quite livable for him. With his compromised lungs, though, even with air purifiers in every room, it wasn’t wise for him to spend two months in the damp, polluted air of the Delhi winter. So in January, he went to Goa for three weeks.

Swamiji seldom took a complete break from work. On this trip he brought the manuscript for In Divine Friendship: Letters of Counsel and Reflection. Selecting from thirty years of Swamiji’s correspondence, Naidhruva had put this book together. It was already well-edited, but Swamiji wanted to make sure that, in every case, his meaning was clear. It was six hundred pages and took much of the first week.

Crystal Clarity had been gathering Master’s writings from articles, early lessons, and various other sources now in the public domain. They were organizing them by topic for a series of small books, The Wisdom of Paramhansa Yogananda. The first, already published, was How to Be Happy All the Time. The second was the manuscript Swamiji had with him in Goa, Karma and Reincarnation. The book was already on its way to the printer; Swamiji had approved it months ago. But at the time, he had been working on Revelations of Christ, and “I didn’t put my mind to it. I owe it to Master to take a careful look now.”

Karma and Reincarnation is a marvelous book, with information available nowhere else, such as a detailed description of how the soul exits the body at death. It was too important to publish without further polishing, Swamiji said. He finished it in one day. “Usually it would take me much longer. But as soon as I looked at a page, Master showed me what changes were needed.”

***

Swamiji’s health had been further complicated by the onset of Meniere’s disease, an affliction of the inner ear that affected not only his hearing and balance, but also made him so sensitive to motion sickness that sometimes even walking would set it off. His brain would lose orientation, and it was difficult to stay upright. To an extent, it could be controlled by medication, but Swamiji never knew when the symptoms might break through. One more element in an already delicate equation.

Constant vigilance was the guiding principle for all those around Swamiji. Miriam talked to Dr. Peter at the Village almost every day. He, in turn, consulted with the doctors on site, wherever Swamiji was at the time. The colony leaders in each place kept a keen eye on Swamiji and lent instant assistance whenever needed. In India, he lived in a shared house. In Assisi and the Village, he lived alone, although in times of crisis, someone would stay with him overnight. Call bells were installed; baby monitors would be the next step.

Miriam also kept in touch with a worldwide prayer circle. Sometimes Swamiji’s physical condition, often inexplicable, would suddenly change for the better, right after the prayer network had been activated. Before big events, or transfer to another community, Miriam felt these prayers were vital. Sometimes the communities in different time zones worked together to keep prayers going twenty-four hours a day. Invariably, once the event was over, or the travel done, the stress on Swamiji’s health would ease up—at least for a time.

In the course of his travels, many different doctors reviewed Swamiji’s medical records, sometimes sending them to be evaluated by colleagues around the world. Many of the doctors, looking only at his medical history, were astonished that he was still alive, what to speak of walking, talking, traveling, and doing such high quality work.

To Swamiji, the obstacle presented by his body was no different from the myriad of other obstacles that tried to obstruct his service to Master. It had to be considered, at times adjustments had to be made; but he didn’t define himself by his body any more than he did by his bank account or the climate of the country in which he lived. His consciousness, and his service to Master, were not conditioned by circumstances—even circumstances as intimate as his own heartbeat.

When he seemed to go against common sense in the way he responded to his body, it was because he felt inwardly guided to do so. Sometimes he would explain; more often he did not. Those who traveled with him had their own God-given responsibility to care for Swamiji—physically, yes, but above all to support his spiritual destiny. Their prayer was the same as his: Thy will, not mine, be done.

Once, when the task he had committed himself to complete left him so exhausted, he didn’t have the energy to eat, I urged him, “Just this one time, don’t do it.”

“Get thee behind me, Satan!” was his stern reply.

Deeply distressed, I asked, “Am I fighting on the wrong side?”

Yes!” he said, emphatically, “and I don’t appreciate it!” He needed me to support his faith that God would give him the strength to do it, not undermine that faith.

Once when I was traveling with him on a lecture tour, he arrived at our destination so exhausted, I thought he might die. I pleaded with him to cancel the program and rest for a few days instead. “I have given my word,” was his only response.

“They would understand,” I said.

“Maybe they would,” he replied. Their response was not the issue. So he said again, “I have given my word. My life is to serve Master. Nothing else matters.”

“It matters a great deal to me whether you live or die,” I said.

Sweetly, now full of understanding, Swamiji said, “I know.”

“You are such a true friend to me,” I said. “I am not being a true friend when I urge you to go against the only thing that matters to you—serving Master.”

Silently, Swamiji nodded his head, “Yes.”

I had to leave the room to master my emotions: fear for Swamiji’s well-being, awe at the greatness of his discipleship.

***

In April, Swamiji went to Assisi for their 20th anniversary celebration. Ananda in Europe had started with a handful of devotees, mostly Americans, trying to survive a freezing winter in an unheated, borrowed villa at Lake Como. Now hundreds of devotees from a dozen countries, most of them disciples and Kriyabans, crowded into the Temple of Light to hear Swamiji speak.

In May, in one of the most prestigious halls in Rome, there was a book launch for the Italian edition of The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita. A high government official presented to Swamiji the Julius Caesar Medal, the equivalent in Rome of being given the Keys to the City.

 The next day, Swamiji returned to the community to celebrate his birthday. For several hours he sat in the dining room, greeting, and blessing by his presence, the hundreds gathered there. Then, the Meniere’s inexplicably activated, and he could hardly hold himself upright. Jyotish and Mr. Kaathikeyan escorted Swamiji to his car. But even that short distance proved too much, and by the end they were carrying his full weight.

The night before, in Rome, Swamiji had filled the hall with his vibration of bliss. Now, he couldn’t even carry his own body. Many wept at the sight. But then, with great effort, Swamiji lifted his head, and the radiance of his smile and the bliss in his eyes made it clear to all that the power of God was in him still. Tears of dismay turned to tears of joy, as Swamiji was helped into the car and driven away.

***

In July, Swamiji came to the United States. He was determined to establish an Ananda center in Los Angeles. We had many devotees there, but hadn’t yet been able to build on the level Swamiji envisioned. Previous efforts had all ended in failure. Now, two community leaders, Krishnadas and Mantradevi LoCicero, had moved there to try again.

Swamiji gave a series of programs in the Los Angeles area, including two performances of The Jewel in the Lotus, and a huge launch for Revelations of Christ. The launch started with a sixty-voice choir singing selections from the Oratorio. We didn’t yet have our own center, so the next day Swamiji held a dedication ceremony in a rented hall in the neighborhood where we hoped soon to have one.

***

In September, Swamiji returned to India. Their way of counting age and anniversaries, put his 60th anniversary of discipleship one year earlier than it did in America. A charming Indian custom is to mark an auspicious occasion by taking out a congratulatory ad in the newspaper. On September 12, in Guru Kripa, when Swamiji sat down to breakfast and opened the newspaper that Lila had thoughtfully placed next to his place at the table, he found himself and Master prominently featured. That night, in a nearby community center, there was a huge celebration. Swamiji started with a few sentences in Hindi, then switched to English, which everyone understood.

“I was conceived in the year, perhaps even the month, in which my Guru acquired his Mount Washington headquarters. My mother told me that all through her pregnancy she felt the presence of God, and prayed, ‘Lord, this first child I give to Thee.’

“When my Guru told me, ‘You have a great work to do,’ he was responding to my own nature. Yes, I wanted to find God; I wanted to be a hermit so I could concentrate only on Him. At the same time, I have this strange characteristic: When I discover something good, I want everybody to know about it. I don’t just mean, as the French say, tout le monde, meaning whoever happens to be around. I mean the whole world!

“Master said to me, at the Christmas meditation in 1949, ‘You must try hard, for God will bless you very much.’ The blessing is to be his disciple. There isn’t anything else I want except to serve him eternally.”

He spoke of the Ananda communities in America and Europe as an ideal way of life also for India—“To live with others who love God.” So far it had proved impossible to find suitable land near Delhi. Now two devotees from Pune—a city nine hundred miles to the southeast—had found land in the countryside there. After Swamiji finished speaking, they presented plans for the first Ananda community in India.

Soon after, Swamiji went to see the land, and to test the waters by giving a program in Pune, and also in Mumbai, a much larger city two hours away. In Pune, three hundred people came—a promising start since it was his first event there. Ananda teachers had been visiting Mumbai for some time. That event was organized mostly by the local devotees; eight hundred people came.

Swamiji’s health was fine until Mumbai. Twenty minutes before he was scheduled to speak, he was so debilitated, Dharmadas and Nirmala were ready to walk onstage in his place. At the last moment, though, as so often happened, suddenly he had all the energy he needed. For an hour he spoke standing up, then sat for the last thirty minutes.

Afterwards, Swamiji said, “All day I’ve felt Master was going to give me a talk of global importance, even though, just minutes before I started to speak, I was so weak I didn’t know if I could walk onto the stage without someone to help me.”

***

In November, Swamiji had a few episodes that looked like a heart attack, but tests eventually traced the problem to his gall bladder. The doctors decided the gall bladder had to be removed. Swamiji was now being treated at Max Hospital in Delhi, which was on par with any medical facility in the world. In the run-up to surgery, tests uncovered a malignant tumor in his colon. Swamiji had cancer.

“I thought it was more complicated than the gall bladder,” was his only comment. Now a relatively simple thirty-minute procedure had become an invasive three-hour surgery. There was no possibility that Swamiji could be awake for this operation, as he had for his hip replacements. It had to be full anesthesia. Given his age, heart condition, and length of the surgery, the anesthesia alone was high risk for Swamiji.

Usually, news of his health was freely shared; he welcomed people’s prayers. But once when he was ill, he asked us not to tell anyone. “I don’t want the additional burden of people thinking of me as weak and ailing.”

During the lawsuit years, he said certain of his physical difficulties were because of SRF’s anger toward him. From the time he arrived in India, YSS had carried out a campaign of petty persecution. We were dismayed to hear that some of the YSS monks were pleased that Swamiji was often in the hospital, citing it as “proof” that Master did not want him in India.

Now some people were concerned that if Swamiji’s detractors knew about the cancer, they would bombard him with negative energy. Even those who loved Swamiji might weaken him with their worried, fearful thoughts. Better, they said, to speak only of the gall bladder. Why risk exposing Swamiji to negativity when he is already so vulnerable?

Swamiji felt differently. “Everyone should know,” he said.

Calls to pray for Swamiji had been going out regularly for years. But this was different; this was cancer. People felt called to pray for him in a way they had never done before. Afterward, many said the experience changed their lives. In giving to Swamiji, they attuned to his consciousness more deeply than ever before. Through that attunement, they received from Swamiji in a way they didn’t know was possible.

Mr. Kaarthikeyan was on the board of Max Hospital, and wrote a letter requesting that “special care be taken of this very important and noble patient.” Most importantly, that Miriam be allowed a nurse’s privilege to stay with Swamiji at all times.

“I don’t think I’m going to be leaving soon—at least, not from this,” Swamiji said, then listed all the things he still had to do, including more time in India. “I am a direct disciple of Master, which is very important here.”

Right up to the moment he left for the hospital, Swamiji was working on a collection of essays, sending the drafts to his usual first-readers. Then he sent this message to be shared with all:

“Dear Everyone: Today is the big day. I feel no fear, only bliss. In my heart there is only love for everyone, without exception; no hurts; only deep gratitude. My will for everyone on earth is Peace, Love, Bliss, and Freedom.”

The surgery went well. As expected, the cancer was small and contained. Thank God for the gall bladder; otherwise it might not have been discovered until it was much worse. After the surgery, Miriam stayed all night with Swamiji in the intensive care unit.

“I had many concerns,” she said. “Recovery from such an extensive operation can be difficult. Instead, Swamiji was, to use his own words, ‘swimming in bliss.’ The day of the surgery he had started writing an article on what it means to be a divine friend to the Guru. Every time he woke up, he would tell stories about his friendship with Master.

“He told me about laughing so hard with Master that tears were running down their faces. He spoke of the depth of Master’s love, that he would return ‘again and again, a trillion times if necessary’ to redeem even one of us. Standing next to Swamiji’s bed, I felt Master standing next to me, his arm across my shoulders, enjoying as much as I did, listening to the stories.

“Swamiji asked me to share this message: ‘Please tell everyone how much I appreciate their prayers. I feel their presence with me.’”

A week after surgery, he was allowed to come home. When he heard that Revelations of Christ had just been printed in India, he asked that a few copies be brought to him at Guru Kripa. Looking at the book, Swamiji said, “I’m thrilled, thrilled, thrilled!” and suggested to the publications staff to try and get major reviews in magazines and newspapers. “The Gita is a great scripture, but it requires a lot of concentration from the reader. For those who are new to the teachings, this book will be a better place to start.”

Later he wrote a letter to everyone. “Bliss! Ah, what bliss. I returned this afternoon from the hospital. Why speak of the hardships? The experience was perfectly heavenly. I went into surgery with bliss. I came out with more bliss. Was there pain? Well, of course there was, but I always said a little pain never hurt anybody. I simply chose, as I always do, to think about something more interesting.

“I was deeply touched to receive your many messages of love, prayer, and support. I think in some ways that is what this week meant most of all to me. I’ve never really cared to think of myself as anyone important. My goal is to get out of the ego. I’ve simply tried, to the best of my ability, to serve Master, and his presence in all of you. I was moved, then, to receive such an outpouring of love from you all. Thank you, humbly, in his name, and from my heart.

“The personnel at the hospital were wonderful. The nurses are angels. And the doctors—all I can say is, I’ve seldom seen such beauty and nobility in so many men’s faces in one place together as in the doctors there.

“The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 5, verse 20, states, ‘Such sages [who view everything even-mindedly], established in the one Supreme Being and unwavering in their discrimination, are neither jubilant when confronted by pleasant experiences nor depressed when confronted by painful ones.’

“I am no sage, and have yet far to go on the path, but I have to say that those words describe my own experience. When my heart was operated on thirteen years ago, I went into the operation with a joyful attitude, but this time something more happened. It wasn’t attitude. I did have a joyful, accepting attitude, but what emerged from within this time, was much more: It was bliss.

“According to the Gita, one ought to be equally joyful in going out to a good restaurant for a delicious dinner and being carted off to the hospital to have his guts ripped out. The contrast is ludicrous. But that is exactly how I felt. In a way, indeed, the guts ripping part was even better, for it may result in some (I hope) permanent gain with me. It was simply wonderful. And your prayers helped to make it so. Again, thank you.”

A few days later, he wrote again. “What has moved me very deeply has been how many friends have written to say they have felt my bliss. I shall make a much stronger effort from now on to channel Master’s bliss to all. For it is something I do feel. If others can feel it from me, then that, more than anything else, will help to uplift them toward God.”

On Christmas Day he was too unwell to attend the Oratorio concert at the ashram, so afterward the choir came to him. Colds and flu were going around; Swamiji was so vulnerable, he needed to keep his distance. So they placed a comfortable chair on the landing, halfway up the stairs. He had a clear view into the living room where the choir was standing. They sang most of the Oratorio again, this time for an audience of one. Swamiji listened with his eyes closed, tears streaming down his face. When the choir finished, he said, “If I had done nothing else in my life but create this music, it would have been enough.”

 

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