I was with my husband at a party at Crystal Hermitage. Swamiji came over to where we were standing, greeted my husband, asked about some of the things he was doing, then stood and chatted with him for a few minutes longer. He didn’t, however, say a single word to me; he didn’t even glance … Read more
When it came out that Jeremiah* was using his position as a leader to gain power and privilege for himself, several people angrily confronted him about it. Instead of bravely admitting his faults, Jeremiah insisted, against all reason, that he had done nothing wrong. Swamiji was out of the country when the situation came to … Read more
For many months, a woman tried to resist a desire that Swamiji had encouraged her to overcome. Finally she said to him, “I have to be honest with you, Sir, I have not been following your advice. The desire is too strong. I am not proud of my failure, but I don’t want to hide … Read more
When I came into the living room of Swamiji’s house, Deirdre* was sitting next to him on the couch, sobbing uncontrollably. Swamiji said nothing, just looked at her kindly, and occasionally patted her hand to comfort her. He explained to me briefly about a crisis in Deirdre’s personal life that he was trying to help … Read more
For several years in the 1970s I worked as Swami Kriyananda’s secretary. He was often in seclusion, writing The New Path: My Life with Paramhansa Yogananda. He had no phone, and email didn’t exist. He lived two miles up a dirt road from the nearest paved route, and his only mailing address was the community’s. … Read more
As a child, Donald’s (Swami Kriyananda’s) health was precarious. “I was thin as a pencil and always coming down with something unusual,” he recalled. When he was nine and living with his parents in Rumania, he nearly died of colitis. The doctor recommended that he be sent to Switzerland where, he said, the mountain air … Read more
At a very important public program, Swamiji gave over to someone else a portion of the time allotted for him to speak. “Others advised me not to do it,” Swamiji said. “’People have come a long distance and it is you they want to hear,’ was their reasoning. In addition, the man was not a … Read more
(Told by Sean Meshorer) My first real difference of opinion with Swamiji came not long after he put me in charge of Crystal Clarity Publishers. He suggested a subtitle for his book, Awaken to Superconsciousness, that I thought did nothing to clarify what the book was about. I told him I didn’t like it, and … Read more
(Told by an Ananda devotee) Nothing else but karma carried over from past lives could explain the intense antagonism I felt for a woman in the community and the equally intense antagonism she felt toward me. One night I had a vivid dream of a previous life in which she had inflicted great suffering on … Read more
“I am grateful to my parents for giving me a good home and treating me with kindness and respect,” a devotee told Swamiji. “Beyond that, however, I don’t feel much of anything for them. Is there something wrong with me?” “Sometimes a devotee deliberately incarnates into a family where he doesn’t have a deep connection,” … Read more