“Now that SRF has lost everything in court, is there anything they can do to regain their monopoly?” Swamiji addressed this important question to our attorney, Jon.
“Yes, there is one thing,” Jon said, “a legal principle called tarnishment. If SRF can prove that Ananda is, for example, morally reprehensible, and any association in the mind of the public between SRF and Ananda would tarnish SRF’s reputation, then they may be able to win back some of their exclusive rights.”
“Get ready,” Swamiji said.
***
The lawsuit had been going on for more than three years, but SRF had not yet taken Swamiji’s deposition. There were no secrets to uncover; he had published his thoughts for all the world to read. The judge had already ruled on the major issues. Still, in January, his deposition was scheduled. “An exercise in futility,” Swamiji called it.
Jon explained the protocol: “Answer only what is asked. Even if you know what he meant to ask, don’t volunteer information.” Swamiji’s comment: “In my position, it is not appropriate to answer that way. It would make me seem afraid.”
Most of the legal team came with Jon and Swamiji to the deposition. None of the SRF Matas attended, just four monastics—two monks, two nuns—and their lead attorney, with two assistants.
“Usually the lawyer controls the deposition,” Swamiji said, “but my way of answering kept me in control. As soon as I saw where a line of questioning was going, I volunteered the answers before he could ask. I refused to answer any questions, though, about Master’s teachings. It wasn’t right to talk about sacred subjects in that atmosphere. I invited him to step into the hall where I would be happy to discuss the teachings, but he declined the invitation.
“The SRF lawyer likes to play the tough guy. He tried to humiliate me, but you can’t humiliate someone who has no need to defend himself. And in the presence of ahimsa, his bully nature had nothing to hold onto. I don’t fight against, I only fight for the truth. When I was in SRF, it was aggravating sometimes for those who saw things differently from the way I saw them. I refused to argue. I just quietly went my own way.”
He described an incident in 1960, in India. Swamiji was with Daya Mata and Ananda Mata on a train pulling into the Kolkata station. He had arranged for a big reception and was standing in the open doorway to get a photograph of the group waiting on the platform. Ananda Mata also wanted to take a picture from that angle. She could have asked Swamiji to move, but instead, silently tried to push him aside. Swamiji, too, was silent—and unmoving. No matter how hard she pushed, he wouldn’t budge. He just calmly continued to take pictures.
I was incredulous, both at her behavior and his response! “You were just a young monk. How did you have the nerve to defy her?”
“I had high position, too,” Swamiji said, “but that wasn’t the point. Nobody treats me like that. Even as a child, when I had no chance of winning, I wouldn’t let anyone bully me.
“Master told Daya Mata, ‘God has given you great power in this lifetime. No one will be able to stand against you.’ I believe Daya thinks to give up the lawsuit now would show a lack of faith in Master’s promise. Her misunderstanding is that I have never stood against her. All I have done is protect Ananda from her attempt to destroy it. I don’t oppose Daya Mata. I stand for truth against untruth.”
Speaking of the deposition, he said, “It wasn’t pleasant being surrounded by such hostility. My prayers to Master helped me stay calm, but sometimes the body had a mind of its own. Twice my heart started racing at about 160 beats per minute.”
One of the SRF nuns attending the deposition was also a doctor. When he felt his heart acting up, Swamiji briefly explained to her his medical history. “Just in case I lose consciousness,” he said. He tried to draw her into a discussion of some of the more interesting aspects of his case, but she wouldn’t engage.
“She was caught between her Hippocratic Oath and her vow of monastic obedience,” Swamiji said. “It was obvious that her superiors had told her to remain hostile to me at all times. I don’t know what she would have done if I had passed out.
“Just think of all the money SRF spent on that deposition, and all the hours preparing for it. In the end, what did they get? Nothing.” Then he added, sympathetically, “It must have been very frustrating for them.”
***
Swamiji had finished the first draft of The Rubaiyat the previous August, but it took until the end of the year to polish it to his satisfaction. Whenever he finished a major project, he liked to take a holiday to “celebrate with Divine Mother.” Right after the deposition, he went to Hawaii. On the last day of his holiday, he was alone in his hotel room when suddenly the prosthesis in his left hip—the one recently operated on—came out of its socket. He managed to get himself onto the bed and call the front desk. It took an hour for the ambulance to arrive, and then they had to break down the locked door of his room. He couldn’t move off the bed to help them.
In the hospital, the doctor gave him a heavy dose of muscle relaxant, which made it possible to put the prothesis back in place. But Swamiji had a bad reaction to the medication and began to vomit vast quantities of blood. The vomiting was so violent, he tore a hole in his esophagus, and half his blood was lost—again. When word got back to the Village, Dr. Peter cancelled all his appointments and immediately got on a plane for Hawaii. He assumed Swamiji would be in the hospital for at least a week and wanted to be there to supervise his care.
When he arrived, Swamiji was sitting up in bed, full of energy, talking to the doctor about checking out of the hospital. As Peter anticipated, the doctor wanted him to stay a week, but Swamiji saw no reason for it. Transfusions had restored his blood; the esophagus had healed itself. So he checked himself out of the hospital “into the care of my personal physician,” took Dr. Peter out for a fine Italian dinner, then the two of them flew back to California.
This was the third time, Swamiji had a life-threatening incident right after an SRF event.
The leaders of SRF were powerful yogis. Their meditation-trained minds were focused on a cause they believed to be righteous. Thoughts are an actual force, more subtle than a gunshot, but no less real. Swamiji acted as a lightening rod, protecting Ananda by drawing the negative energy to himself.
Thinking about the many great souls who suffer serious illness, are martyred, or die young, I asked Swamiji, “Why?”
“To others it may appear tragic,” he said, “or bad karma for the saint. But it isn’t. They are doing tapasya—gathering energy and offering it to God. You might call it, ‘putting good karma in the bank,’ creating a storehouse of energy they can draw on later to help launch a new work, or accomplish whatever it is they are here to do.”
The lawsuit was a necessary rite of passage for all of Ananda—our tapasya for Master’s mission.
***
Swamiji didn’t have a television, rarely listened to the radio, and only occasionally read the newspaper. He wasn’t out of touch, though. Somehow everything he needed to know always came to him. “As the leader of a large organization, with many people depending on me, it is my duty to know what is happening in the world.”
Whenever he traveled, he would visit bookstores in the airports and the cities where he was staying, perusing and buying books in many categories. He subscribed to several economic newsletters, mostly fringe, “For news you don’t see anywhere else.” He was especially interested in anything relating to Master’s prediction of coming hard times, especially when it might happen.
One of the colony leaders asked about a long-term, building project, concerned that hard times would descend before it was finished. Swamiji replied, “I believe collapse is inevitable, but we can’t live in fear of a future that may never come. We have to act in the present, according to present realities. God is our security.”
In April, he called a community meeting. “The mass karma of this planet is very heavy. Too many people are ignoring divine law and disrespecting the earth. The planet is a living entity; it responds to human consciousness. Its rhythms are slow, but when it does respond, there is nothing we can do about it. Some say the next two years will determine our destiny for a long time to come.
“Spiritually, this is a wonderful time to be alive. When things are peaceful, there is less incentive to meditate. Don’t worry about the future, prepare for it, in the right way. Attune to God, meditate more, meditate with others.
“The future isn’t written in stone. If enough people can be brought to a higher level of consciousness, none of the dire things predicted need happen; or, they will happen in a lesser way. Don’t just think about your own safety or spiritual progress. Be a spiritual warrior, sending out rays of light, love, and peace to all.”
Swamiji always followed Master’s instruction, “Be practical in your idealism.” So the rest of the meeting was about expanding the farm, saving seeds, stockpiling nonperishable foods, and becoming more self-sufficient in terms of water and energy.
Many of the prophecies said California would fall into the ocean. “Master said that, except for India, America has the best karma in the world,” Swamiji said, “and California has the best karma in America, in terms of being forward thinking and upward reaching. The whole point of these hard times is to make the world more spiritual. It seems unlikely that the hub of that new consciousness would be wiped out. But if it happens, we’ll have no choice but to accept it!”
In America today, Swamiji said, there are four reincarnated groups:
Atlanteans: Their scientists took that civilization so far into technology, and so far away from harmony with Nature and divine law, that the whole continent of Atlantis sank. They are doing it again, and the results will again be disastrous.
Romans: Their sensuality and lust for power brought that civilization down. They run the entertainment business, and much of the government.
American Indians: Their land was taken, and their way of life destroyed. They have been born mostly white and wealthy enough to buy back what was stolen from them. They are moving back to the land, living simply, close to Nature as they did before. This group is leading the ecology movement.
East Indians: Even though they are mostly in Western bodies, their souls are more attuned to the East, especially India. They are leading the spiritual revolution.
The two kinds of Indians are aware of each other. The Romans and Atlanteans each exist in their separate worlds. They can barely see each other, and can’t see the Indians at all. History will repeat itself. Greed, sensuality, abuse of power, and extreme technology will eventually bring this civilization down. When the dust settles, those Atlanteans and Romans who are left will be astonished to see both kinds of Indians emerge from the ashes, and rebuild in an entirely new way.
***
Swamiji had a recording studio at Crystal Hermitage, but when he explained to the engineers how he wanted to do the audio book of The Rubaiyat, they felt they didn’t have the right equipment. So he rented a studio, and its resident engineer, near the Palo Alto community. It was very expensive, which put pressure on him to record as quickly as possible.
Years earlier, Swamiji had received a melody that perfectly fit the rhythm of the quatrains. For the audio book, he sang each one and read its poetic paraphrase, accompanied by a tamboura. Then the music stopped and he read the rest of the commentary.
A few of us were in the studio with him for the two and a half days it took to record the book. Swamiji hardly took a break. Hour after hour he sat in front of the microphone, singing, reading, then doing it all again for seventy-five quatrains. “Sometimes I felt weak and faint, but I would pray to Master, and he gave me the energy to go on.”
When he reached the final two quatrains, describing the blissful end of the soul’s long journey back to its home in God, Swamiji was overcome with emotion.
Ah, Moon of my Delight who know’st no wane,
The Moon of Heav’n is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me—in vain!
Then, the final verse:
And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter’d on the Grass,
And in Thy joyous Errand reach the Spot
Where I made one—turn down an empty Glass!
When he started singing, “Ah, Moon of my Delight” his voice began to break. By the time he reached, “Through this same Garden after me—in vain!” tears were streaming down his face. He tried to read the poetic paraphrase, but had to stop repeatedly, in a vain effort to gain mastery over himself.
Swamiji rarely made an outward display of his feelings. He preferred to keep them between himself and God. Now he had no choice. In front of everyone, he sobbed like a child. Between sobs, he managed to say, “It is so… beautiful… So… beautiful… What joy… what joy… what joy… to have been part of… such a… a…. great work.”
Eventually he began to record again. He was no longer crying, but you could feel the sobs just behind his voice, trying to break through. It was so different from everything else he had done, we knew it could never be used. It was such a profound moment, though, no one dared interrupt.
When he finished, Swamiji said humbly, “Shall I do that again?” Silently we nodded, yes.
“All of it?” Swamiji asked. Again we nodded, yes. The moment passed, and he finished the recording.
“I can’t express in mere words how deeply inspiring this book is,” Swamiji wrote later to the Ananda members. “It isn’t enough to describe it as a scripture, which it is; for even in scripture there is little to compare with it, in inspiration, deep teaching, and profound relevance for every human being.
“Though it was Master who wrote it, and all I did was the mere work of editing, I consider it the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life. If Master had written nothing else, this book would guarantee him a place among the great spiritual teachers of the ages.”
***
Sometime in the spring, a man came from New York City to Ananda Village for the sole purpose of having a private meeting with Swamiji. Most first-time visitors do not meet him, unless he happens to be giving a class. This man was so insistent, though, that finally it was arranged.
“I’ve come to tell you about a vision I had,” the man said. Tara Mata had appeared to him. In her relationship to Swamiji, she explained, she had allowed herself to be influenced by a memory she’d carried over from a former lifetime.
“Many times in the years before she engineered my dismissal,” Swamiji said, “Tara said to Daya, ‘Who knows what karma lies between Kriyananda and me?’ She should have heeded her deeper feelings on the matter; they were a warning.”
Tara and Swamiji had been disciples of Adi Shankaracharya, an ancient sage of great renown who organized the Swami Order in India. It seemed that Shankaracharya was a previous incarnation of Master. In that lifetime, too, Swamiji was the head monk. After Shankaracharya died, Swamiji fell into ego. He left the ashram, taking many disciples with him, and set himself up as a rival teacher.
“In the past, I was eaten up with doubts,” Swamiji said. “Now I have overcome that tendency, but in that incarnation my doubts might well have led me astray.”
Many of the other SRF leaders, the man said, were also disciples of Shankaracharya. Tara Mata was Swamiji’s adoring younger brother, but when he left the ashram, she did not go with him. Adoration turned to contempt; now he was the enemy of her Guru.
The experience left such a deep impression that her perception of Swamiji in this life was based entirely on what happened then. She and the other SRF leaders had strong negative feelings against Swamiji; but they didn’t really know why they felt that way.
“They had a pre-existing belief,” Swamiji said, “which they supported by reading dark motives into my actions—motives that were never there.”
In the vision, the man said, it was clear that Swamiji’s motives now are completely pure, and that Master is very pleased with him. Tara Mata now sees how very wrong she was about Swamiji, and is filled with remorse. But there is nothing she can do about it—except to send this man to ask Swamiji to forgive her. Could he, the man asked, on Tara’s behalf, embrace him in friendship?
“Of course,” Swamiji said. After a long embrace, the man said goodbye, and immediately drove to the airport and flew back to New York City. Swamiji was about to give a satsang, but the man didn’t stay; he had come for one purpose, now fulfilled.
Swamiji meditated and reflected on this experience for almost a year before deciding it could be true, and was worth sharing. “Nothing else explains the absolute conviction of the SRF leaders that I am an enemy of Master.”
In explaining the story later, he added the intriguing comment that the karma of betrayal had to be balanced in some lifetime, so he saved the karma until this incarnation, when it could serve a useful purpose. In order to accomplish what Master asked of him, Swamiji had to be freed from SRF. “He knew I was so loyal, nothing less drastic would have worked.”
***
One of Swamiji’s lesser known, but still beautiful, songs is I Wonder. It is written from a child’s point of view. Observing his parents and baby brother, the child wonders about life. Here is one verse:
Daddy sits in his study, and hums with his reading
The tune of his favorite song.
He tells me his ‘homework’ seems nicer and lighter
With music to lift it along.
And I sit by my window and wonder
Why a book has no song of its own;
Why the world doesn’t flood us with music —
And why people must sing all alone.
Apparently Swamiji, too, wondered why a book has no song of its own, and decided that at least some of his books could have one. He was putting all the Secrets together in one volume for Warner, when he thought of writing music that would enhance the impact of the words. “It came to me in meditation that it should be like a symphony. The first track would be called Life is an Adventure in Self-Awakening. It begins with Nature sounds, then the instruments come in one by one, as if different forms of life are awakening.”
Swamiji planned, at different points in the music, to read appropriate secrets. “I tried to put into melody what the words say. Music is a different language, but no less precise. Some musical phrases, beautiful in themselves, didn’t fit, because they changed the meaning.”
Eventually Swamiji decided the two languages didn’t work together, and issued the CD with the same title as the book, but without any words. The names of the twelve tracks are intriguing, in terms of the message each melody conveys, like Success is Self-Perfection, Friendship is Acting in Freedom, and Prosperity is a State of Mind.
In the same style, like a symphony, he wrote Life is a Quest for Joy, based on a melody he had written years earlier for his slide show, Different Worlds—photographs of people showing how different states of consciousness are revealed in the eyes, the physical features, and the habitual attitude of a person.
“For that show, I wanted one melody that would somehow capture the entire human condition—all the love, hope, disappointment, and pain that human beings experience in their eternal quest for joy, which they feel intuitively to be their true destiny. When I had clearly in mind the consciousness I wanted to express, I prayed, and the melody was there.”
Later he wrote I, Omar, also in the symphonic style, as the melody for The Rubaiyat. “Listening to the music while reading the book,” he said, “will give you a more intuitive understanding of that beautiful scripture.”
This musical period culminated with a choral piece, Life Mantra. “Gregorian chanting helped create the Christian church by setting a vibration that kept them all in tune. I was listening to Gregorian chanting, when suddenly this song came to me. This is a new age and Divine Mother is giving us new music to express it.”
At first Swamiji called it Chant of the Angels, for that is how he experienced it. The chords were so complex, he didn’t know what they were. He just found the notes and wrote them down as the angels sang it to him.
***
In May, for the first time, SRF issued a printed statement about the controversy with “a group called Ananda.” In the eight-page letter sent to a few of their members, there was no theological musing, no weighing of the issues, no consideration of both sides. Everything was based on a single premise, powerful because of the absolute conviction of those who wrote it: “We were with Master. We know what he wants.”
Decisive court actions were presented as tentative; clear issues of law as still open to debate; Judge Garcia as regretting the necessity to rule against SRF. Only on the last page did SRF hint at the true situation: “The bond with Gurudev will endure whatever conclusions the court may draw.”
At the same time, we learned that SRF was rushing into print their version of The Rubaiyat, to arrive in bookstores just weeks before ours. Theirs was a full color coffee table book, filled with original artwork, priced at half the going rate. Mrinalini’s editing was comparable in scope to what Swamiji had done, but SRF made no mention of an editor, calling their book the pure teachings written by Paramhansa Yogananda.
“I thought they might do something like this,” Swamiji said, “that’s why I have driven myself so hard this last year to get the book done.”
He wrote to Daya Mata, which started a brief flurry of correspondence between them—most unusual, since she rarely answered his letters. One of the few remaining issues in the lawsuit was SRF’s claim of “passing off”—that Ananda deliberately gave the impression of being the same as SRF, or at least affiliated with it. Daya Mata now made it clear that the problem was not implied affiliation, it was that we “passed ourselves off” as being a legitimate expression of Master’s work.
She conceded that “Judge Garcia has denied Master’s wishes,” but emphatically stated, “That doesn’t change the validity of Master’s intentions.” From her tone it was clear that she was making one last effort to persuade Swamiji that “I was with Master; I know what he wants.”
The question of The Rubaiyat, Swamiji took to the book trade and the interested public. With great enthusiasm he announced the release of two edited versions of Paramhansa Yogananda’s commentary on this little known, even less understood, but nonetheless great scripture. Both books were edited by direct disciples appointed and trained to do this work by the Guru himself. Readers will want to buy both of them. He generated so much interest, SRF was forced to acknowledge Mrinalini’s role.
Given the intensity of Swamiji’s disagreement with Daya Mata and the frank way he expressed it, many were puzzled by his repeated statements of love for her, and for all his SRF gurubhais. “I’m unusual,” Swamiji said, “in that my feelings for someone are not affected by their feelings toward me. Once I give my love I never take it back. My behavior may change, in response to theirs, but not my love. Were I to stop loving, I, myself, would suffer more than it would be worth to me. Were I to allow myself to be angry, or to hate, I would cheapen my own self.”
The fact that people fall into delusion is the given, not a reason to withdraw one’s loving support. The greater the delusion, the greater the need for that support. That he was the focal point for their delusion was an impersonal fact. He didn’t enjoy it, but it was a reality that had to be faced.
“No matter what happens, I keep trying to see that they are really good and saintly people. No matter what happens, they keep trying to see that I am bad!” Then, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all, he said, “We really aren’t so different, one from another, are we? My hope is that, even at this late stage of her life, Daya Mata may recognize her mistake, and change.”
***
Warner Books launched Secrets of Life in a big way. At the end of September, they sent Swamiji on a month-long, eleven-city tour. In each place, their agent met him at the airport and escorted him through a program of book signings, media engagements, talks, and sometimes a conference. In order to start the tour well-rested, in August Swamiji had gone alone on a cruise through the fjords of Norway; then spent several weeks in seclusion in Italy.
Ever since the incident in Florence, his heart trouble had been getting worse—low energy, shortness of breath, extreme irregularity in his heartbeat. At the end of the book tour, he arrived back at the Village, utterly spent. Still, in the few days he had at home before leaving for one last event in Los Angeles, he finished revising his book, Expansive Marriage. After Los Angeles, though, the situation became dire. His heart was racing all the time. The doctor decided to insert a pacemaker, a relatively simple procedure, set for December 9.
The day before Thanksgiving, November 22, he wrote a letter to Ananda members worldwide. “Every night when I go to bed I give back to God everything I’ve created and everything I am. Many people in this life have praised me: Shall I thank God for their praise? Praise can become a trap, unless I see clearly that nothing I do is by my power. Divine Mother alone is the doer.
“Again, many people in this life have heaped blame on me. Shall I curse them for it? Certainly not. Rather, I extend my heart’s feelings to them in blessing. Well then, shall I allow their criticisms to affect me? Only if I find truth in the criticism, something I can change in myself or in my work. In this case, I am grateful for their advice, and tell them so.
“SRF’s lawsuit against Ananda continues. The longer they pursue it, the more they stand to lose. I am sorry for the image it creates of our Guru’s mission, but there is nothing any of us at Ananda can do about it, except stand firm by what we believe, and give blessings and love in return.
“These blessings and this love are no posturing to impress others. They well up spontaneously in the hearts of the most generous-natured group of people it has ever been my blessing to be associated with.
“I told our legal team months ago, ‘What can they do, in the face of their losses? My guess is: persecution, the route so many religions have taken.’ If so, I accept it as Divine Mother’s gift to me. This imperfect world will never give us everything we want. It is a mixture of sand and sugar in equal proportions. Such, quite simply, is the law of maya. For every plus, there must always be a minus; for every up, a down. Let us be equally grateful for both.”
Two days later, Swamiji was served with another set of legal papers. Anne-Marie Bertolucci was suing “R”, a married man with whom she had had a brief, consensual affair. Ananda and Swamiji were also named defendants. Because R was an ordained minister, the lawsuit claimed the church and its leader were responsible for his behavior. SRF’s name was nowhere on the documents, but when Swamiji saw the papers he said, “This has nothing to do with R. This is SRF trying to destroy me.”
R had been part of Ananda for many years. He lived at the Village with his wife and young daughter. He was ordained, but had no ministerial duties; he worked as a salesman for Crystal Clarity Publishers. At the beginning on 1992, Anne-Marie started taking classes at Ananda Palo Alto. About a year later, she separated from her husband and moved to the Village. She took a job at Crystal Clarity. There she met R and soon started a consensual affair with him. His daughter had just been diagnosed autistic; the stress on his marriage made him vulnerable.
The affair was short-lived. R soon made the honorable choice to stay with his family. When Anne-Marie went to Swamiji for counseling, he urged her to support R in what she must know in her heart was the right moral decision. Anne-Marie made it clear that she intended to marry R, despite his own resolution to the contrary. “I would be a good mother to his daughter!” she vehemently declared.
“I can’t allow you to stay here and break up that marriage,” Swamiji said. “You have to leave the Village and go live at another Ananda community.” Later he said, “In that moment, I intuitively knew that this righteous act on my part would bring on a great trial. Still, I didn’t hesitate.”
***
In the decades since its founding, many thousands of people have passed through Ananda. For most of them, Ananda is a happy memory, an interesting interlude, or simply passes out of their minds altogether. There are a few, however, who can neither stay, nor leave it behind, but must constantly justify their departure by making Ananda wrong—horribly wrong. “Such people lurk in the shadows of all spiritual organizations,” Swamiji said. “We have ours; SRF no doubt has theirs.”
Almost all such people who leave Ananda eventually join SRF, where they are welcomed with open arms—once they prove their loyalty to Master by denouncing Swamiji. A negative, firsthand account of life at Ananda opens many doors in SRF that remain closed to those with nothing comparable to offer.
No SRF Board member, monk, nun, or lay representative has ever set foot on Ananda property, what to speak of making an official visit; so all their information comes from these accounts, which must, by definition, be negative, or the person would never get a hearing.
This has been the situation since Ananda’s founding, building on itself year after year—a vicious circle we have never found a way to break.
***
Swamiji wanted Anne-Marie to move far away—to Ananda Assisi, or at least Seattle—but she insisted on coming back to the Palo Alto community. We did our best to help her, but she stayed only a short time. She started going to SRF where she met one of Ananda’s shadow men. This one had so ingratiated himself with SRF that he was in direct contact with Daya Mata and other members of the Board, regularly sending them reports. When SRF filed its lawsuit, their lawyers consulted him as an “expert on Ananda.”
This shadow man took Anne-Marie to Mount Washington, where she met with the Board of Directors, had lunch with Daya Mata, and was allowed to meditate in Master’s room, even though it was closed for repairs and no one else was allowed in.
Undoubtedly, SRF’s lawyers had told them about tarnishment as their last hope for regaining exclusive rights. To them, Anne-Marie seemed a gift from God. They embraced her as an innocent victim, conveniently forgetting the old adage, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!” Shortly after her visit to Mount Washington, she sued R, Swamiji, and Ananda. Lawsuits are expensive. We knew Anne-Marie had no money, nor did the shadow man who sponsored her. SRF had to be footing the bill.
The lawyer she hired proudly called himself a “cult buster.” He had sued other spiritual groups—“cults,” he called them—and had a boilerplate lawsuit he always used. For Anne-Marie, he changed a few details, putting “Ananda” and “Swami Kriyananda” where other names had been before. Sex, money, power—every possible abuse was described in lurid detail.
He called Ananda a “sham organization,” set up only to provide “a harem for the swami and his minions.” Swamiji was the same as Jim Jones, who ordered his followers to commit suicide; and David Koresh, who led his people in a violent, tragic standoff with the government. There was no logical connection, just guilt by association. At the start of a lawsuit, these are “allegations;” facts don’t matter. Proof—or lack of it—doesn’t become an issue until much later in the process.
Included were several declarations from women who claimed to have had sexual relations with Swamiji—coerced, not consensual. The most recent incident was twelve years earlier; the most distant, thirty years ago.
A declaration in a lawsuit is not written by the person who signs it. It is carefully crafted by a lawyer to support specific claims. We were familiar with the process. Many of us filed declarations in the SRF suit, about how we related to SRF, how we used Master’s teachings, etc. Our declarations were scrupulously honest; these were not.
The women were all former Ananda members, now part of SRF. We knew them; we had lived and worked together. The Ananda and the Swami they described bore no resemblance to the experience we had shared at the time. Accusations like this come down to “he said, she said,” but when everything else in a declaration is false, it casts grave doubt on the little bit that is left.
The claims of these women were too old to litigate; their value was as publicity. Allegations in a lawsuit are exempt from the libel laws. These were written to be as crude and shocking as possible. Merely to accuse a spiritual leader—especially in such quotable terms—is enough to destroy his reputation. Winning in court is extra.
Minutes after the papers were filed and served, they were delivered to the newspapers in Nevada County, Sacramento, and Palo Alto. By the next morning, news of the Bertolucci lawsuit was on the front page.
***
To have some claim of her own against Swamiji, and to make his private life an issue in the lawsuit, Anne-Marie accused him of fraud. The whole time she was part of Ananda, Swamiji was married. Even though Rosanna was often in Italy, everyone at Ananda, including Anne-Marie, knew he was married. He wore a wedding ring; for formal occasions he dressed in white or lavender, never orange, the color swamis wear. Anne-Marie had been to India; she knew the tradition.
At Crystal Clarity, where she worked, the question of his name—and therefore, his marital status—was often discussed, since they were careful to use “Sri” rather than “Swami” as his title.
But we still called him “Swamiji.” On that basis, Anne-Marie now claimed, she thought he was a celibate monk, and that Ananda was “safe.” Swamiji, she said, was guilty of fraud for encouraging her in what she now claimed were false beliefs.
The issue, of course, was not celibacy, but abuse. “I am incapable of imposing my will on another person, for any reason,” Swamiji said. “Ahimsa—harmlessness—is a principle to which I have always adhered.
“When you try to do a good work, inevitably people will try to stop you. You are not doing it to please other people, only to please God. As long as you love, you have nothing to fear; just continue humbly on your way. Master said the best way to deal with karma is to meet it pleasantly.
“Everything Divine Mother gives me, I welcome with joy. I don’t know why, but I feel a great blessing in this lawsuit.”
On November 25, Swamiji wrote to Ananda members worldwide. “Something has come up that, while disagreeable, must be faced. And I have to ask you, regretfully, to face it with me. It concerns an attack on Ananda Church, on one of the Ananda ministers, and on me as the spiritual leader of Ananda.” He explained that another lawsuit had been filed. “We have strong evidence of SRF involvement and view it, therefore, as an extension of their lawsuit against us.”
He told in detail the story of R and Anne-Marie, including the part he played in trying to keep R’s family together. The lawsuit claimed that Swamiji wanted the affair kept secret to protect the reputation of Ananda. He did ask them not to talk about it, but it was to protect R’s wife and child. The wife was a very private person; if others knew about the affair it would have been especially difficult for her.
Keeping it private was also to help Anne-Marie. In matters like this, sympathy tends to go to the wife rather than to the “other woman,” especially when a young child with special needs is involved. Ananda is a charitable community, but it would be easier for Anne-Marie to heal without the negative thoughts that would have come her way if others had known.
Swamiji then went on to the bigger issues—for Master’s work, and for the whole yoga scene. “I welcome this charge as an important opportunity to clear the air, not only for myself, but for many other spiritual teachers in America who have faced similar charges in recent years.”
In the letter, he introduced a subject he explored in greater depth in a pamphlet he wrote next, called Gurus, Celibacy, and Spiritual Authority. “People nowadays, hearing that one needs a living guru, say, as children do, ‘I want one, too!’ It is God, however, not man, who decides these things.
“A living example of perfection is not what most people are ready for. Therefore, it is not what they presently need. What they need, rather, is contact with sincere seekers, more advanced perhaps than themselves, but people who, like themselves, are reaching toward the Eternal Light.
“Better still is contact with living instruments for the great masters. The disciples of great masters receive the power to transmit those blessings in the name of those masters; never by their own power. Indeed, no true master will ever act in his own name. My own Guru used to say: ‘I have no disciples. They are God’s disciples’; and again, ‘I am not your Guru: God is the Guru.’”
Swamiji went on, “There are two sides to this question. The first is the difficulty of renunciates who want sincerely to live by principles in which they deeply believe, even when, occasionally, they make mistakes. The second is that of a public that demands a level of perfection toward which few people even aspire in their own lives.
“How often I have seen audiences trying to force us ‘teachers’ into an artificial mode: ‘heads of organizations,’ ‘gurus,’ ‘perfected masters,’ ‘spiritually superior.’ Sometimes, I regret to say, I have seen a few of the ‘teachers’ themselves accepting the roles into which their public cast them.
“Many of them sincerely want to serve, but don’t know themselves—since most are from India—what image to hold up to this culture, alien as it is to most of the things a swami is supposed to represent. I myself am perhaps unusual in that I am American, and am happy, besides, to let people think of me whatever they want.
“But I do want to say to people, ‘Please, treat spiritual teachers as human beings. That’s what we are. We do know something worthwhile, and are eager and happy to share it with you. But for God’s sake don’t treat us as gods. You haven’t the cultural background even to understand what that means.”
Then he spoke of true renunciation. “Celibacy is an important aspect of renunciation. So also are other aspects, such as simplicity, non-attachment, harmlessness, truthfulness, and a refusal to view the ego and egoic desires as causative factors in life. Nor do these define the whole of what it means. The essence of renunciation is to reach the realization that man himself is nothing; God is everything.
“If a person is doing his best, that is all God Himself could possibly ask of him. It is not being hypocritical. It is struggling, with all the strength and ability at his command, to rise toward the Truth, and to leave error behind forever.
“I think it is time people involved in the spiritual scene in the West, particularly those who practice yoga, become more real in their assessments. For there are many teachers who have much to give, if we don’t ask the impossible of them. If they are sincere, they are not merchants trying to get people to buy their wares. They are fellow human beings who understand that the less importance they give to themselves, the more good happens through them.
“Self-transformation is a process. It is not the sudden consequence of a mere resolution to change. Values at every level of society should be taken out of the rusty enclosure of absolute definition, and viewed in terms of directional development. We are all working to become better. That ‘better’ may someday become our personal ‘best.’ But it certainly won’t become so in a day, a year, or perhaps even in one incarnation.”
The greatest tragedy falls not on those who strive, but fail to achieve, their high ideals; but on those who judge others for failing. Whatever you judge in others, you must eventually experience yourself—in order to learn compassion. When the inevitable karmic reckoning comes, not only will the judgmental soul face the crushing disappointment of his failure; he will also be subject to his own self-condemnation—since that is his habitual response when weakness is exposed. The failing is vastly more difficult now to overcome, because of the lack of ability to forgive oneself.
***
The first weekend in December we were having our annual Christmas concert in Palo Alto. There was no chance that Swamiji could sing—his heart was too compromised—so he came to listen. The Bertolucci lawsuit was a regular item now in the local papers. “I need to be out in public with all of you,” Swamiji said, “so people will see that I am not afraid.”
The first half of the program was the premiere—later Swamiji said it should have been called “the world premiere”—of the violin, cello, and keyboard section of Life Is a Quest for Joy, followed by a full choir performance of Life Mantra. I was sitting next to Swamiji. When the music started, he closed his eyes and didn’t move until the last note sounded. Then I heard him murmur, “Thrilling. Just thrilling. Everything I hoped it would be.”
The second half was the Oratorio. Again, Swamiji sat motionless, eyes closed. At the end he whispered, “Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.” Slowly, with great effort, he brought himself back to outward consciousness.
***
The SRF lawsuit was about the future of Master’s work. This one was a personal attack on Swamiji. “Legally, we have to answer,” he said. “And those of you who know me and have been with me all these years may want to speak up on my behalf, but I won’t direct anyone to do that. I am not willing to affirm ‘Kriyananda’ even to that extent. I am here to overcome the ego, not to defend it.”
The whole legal team was in Palo Alto for the concert, so we decided to have a meeting—just us, not the lawyers. Swamiji chose not to attend. “This is your lawsuit,” he said. Later, when the meeting was over, but we were still sitting together in the living room, Swamiji joined us. We gave him a brief summary of what we had decided. He was surprised that we had no plans to answer what was in the newspapers or to generate positive publicity of our own.
“In the SRF lawsuit I have always felt we should make a strong positive statement of who we are,” he said. “The lawyers, however, say it isn’t pertinent. In this one, we can finally do it, because who we are is the whole case.”
We explained our reasoning. Our critics love a forum. We know from experience that any effort to defend ourselves in the media, or even to present Ananda in a positive light, will trigger an avalanche of insulting responses—the kind newspapers love to print. Better to be silent and let the whole thing blow over.
For a long moment, Swamiji said nothing; just stared at the floor. Then he stood up from his chair and said quietly, “This is your battle to fight, not mine.” Silently, he went back upstairs to his room.
***
On December 9, Swamiji checked into Mercy Hospital in Sacramento to have a pacemaker inserted. A series of tests, though, showed the problem was different from what the doctor expected. A pacemaker was not the solution. Swamiji’s heart was greatly enlarged; one valve was seriously damaged, and a major artery was sixty percent blocked. He was a prime candidate for a fatal heart attack. In fact, the doctor was amazed it hadn’t already happened. He wanted Swamiji to stay in the hospital and have surgery as soon as possible.
Swamiji had promised, however, to tape a cable television show in Palo Alto on December 13. He hadn’t expected it to be a problem; inserting the pacemaker was supposed to be simple. When the doctor objected, Swamiji said, “I gave my word.” Then added, “I have been this way for many months. I don’t think three days is going to matter.” It was agreed that he would stay in the hospital until December 12, when they would check his condition and decide if he could do the recording. On the 12th, he was no worse, so he came to Palo Alto and did a beautiful show about The Rubaiyat, even singing some of the quatrains. “I couldn’t do it,” he said, “but God could do it through me.”
On the way back to the hospital, Swamiji said, “I feel so free and happy. After the operation, I’ll either be better or I will die. Either is fine with me.” The surgery went well, but afterward his heart went into arrhythmia again. The doctor decided a pacemaker was needed after all. After it was inserted, his heartbeat returned to normal.
At the end of December, Swamiji wrote to the community, “Despite the pain of recovering from the operation, which was to be expected, I feel wonderful—better, in one important respect, than I have in many years. They did put in a pacemaker—peacemaker, I call it. My heart is now beating regularly, much more efficiently, and feels as though it will finally be my friend. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’
“The cardiologist told me, ‘I have to say frankly that once your heart went back into arrhythmia after surgery, your chances of coming out it this well were zero.’ This is comparable to saying it was a miracle. Still, in the short run, it is rather like being run over by a truck!
“This has been my fourth major surgery in less than seven years. Each of the other times has brought me a release of energy for a more constructive and energetic life. I’ve every reason to think the results will be the same this time. In fact, the very day following the surgery I edited the preface for my new book, Expansive Marriage.”
On Christmas Eve, both in a letter and a satsang with the community, Swamiji shared an experience he had while still in the hospital.
“I became aware of an actual dark force trying to bring Master’s work down, to keep him small, nothing more than a loving ‘saintlet,’ the ‘beloved founder’ of an organization.
“Fighting against that darkness, I felt a powerful, expansive force of Light that wants to use Master’s life and teachings to usher in a new age of Dwapara, to change, inspire, and guide all of humanity.
“The present legal battle is not between two organizations, but between two entirely different concepts of Master’s mission. It is the material expression of a war of ideas happening on the causal plane.
“I was just recovering from surgery, but I stayed up until well past 1:00 a.m., praying deeply, trying to attune myself to the expansive forces of Light. I felt that force as entirely impersonal, caring not at all for forms, persons, positions, or dogmas. Anyone who tunes into that power, no matter what their spiritual path or position in life, can be an instrument for a great wave of Divine Light sweeping over the planet.
“For the welfare of this world, for the good of humanity, for the fulfillment of Master’s cosmic mission, the expansive force must win. No one organization, person, or statement of beliefs can ever, even remotely, define what Master brought. His is a glorious work—so important, so great, that we, as individuals, count for nothing, except as we offer our lives in service to Divine Light and Divine Love.”