
Haridas came to Ananda Village in 1970, shortly after the community was founded. His good humor and enthusiasm brought smiles to countless visitors at The Expanding Light, Ananda’s guest retreat, during the years he served there. Haridas and his wife Roma now help guide Ananda’s growing work in India.
Q: You’ve worn many hats at Ananda. Can you talk about the lessons you’ve learned while holding so many jobs.
Haridas: I tend to want to do one thing and be in one place, and that desire hasn’t always been fulfilled. When I stopped and counted, ten or fifteen years ago, I realized that I’d held something like seventeen jobs since moving to Ananda, and I quit counting. I’ve had many duties, some running simultaneously, and it’s been an excellent experience, because it has forced me to stay fresh.

I think there always needs to be a freshness, inwardly. I find that my spiritual practices tend to shift from day to day. Today there may be more emphasis on affirmation, whereas last month it was prayer. This way, I’m able to approach it almost as a different person, and I can draw more of the essence from it. So keeping flexible has been very important for me.
When we get too fixed in one role, we tend to start wanting to go by our own power, and pretty soon the heart shuts down. The creative thought processes get cramped, and our zest for living starts to feel crimped. But when there’s the thought that God has something new for us every day, and that He’s very interested and involved, it becomes a creative play.
We often hold the thought that what we’re doing isn’t all that special and God can’t be very interested. But on our path we believe that we have to challenge God – we have to go after God as He goes after us, and test Him. And every time I challenge Him, the response I get is that He’s very interested, if we will only reach out, whether we’re doing the dishes or anything else. If we reach out to Him, He’ll give us something humorous to chew on, or He’ll show us a different way, or He’ll help us be more efficient, which might give us more time for pursuits that are enjoyable.
Q: You keep challenging God?
Haridas: Oh, yes, because I find that if I don’t communicate with Him, I begin to get a feeling inside that He’s withdrawn. And that’s definitely a true feeling.
Even if we’re doing creative work, there’s an enormous amount that’s mechanical. Does it mean that we should simply check out for that time? I think it’s when we need to be particularly vigilant, because when we’re in a creative flow it’s easier to feel God’s presence and appreciate it, but when we’re doing mechanical tasks, it’s easy to go on autopilot. “When I get through this half hour, I’ll get back to God.” But on some level, I think He takes pride in infusing the mundane with His spirit, and I think He does it to hearten us that we really can call on Him anytime.
I often think of the disciple who asked Paramhansa Yogananda if it’s possible to draw on creative inspiration at will. Yogananda replied, “Oh, yes! Take down this poem.” Swami Kriyananda commented that it’s one of the most beautiful poems in Whispers From Eternity. So I always like to say, “It’s time to draw inspiration this instant. I don’t want to wait even a few minutes.” I can’t say that it always works, but very often that simple thought will open a window to a mantra, a prayer, or some other spiritual practice that gets me back online.
Q: You work with the guests at the retreat, don’t you?
Haridas: Oh, yes, definitely. That’s what I live for. At any meal there may be a number of nationalities and backgrounds sitting at the same table. I’ll look at someone and think “Well, that person’s probably a…” and I’ll fill in the blank – “social worker,” “carpenter.” And sometimes I’m bowled over. I was talking with a woman and her husband the other day, and I thought maybe she was this or that, and she was a psychiatrist who’s held in very high regard. I loved that I was so far off the mark. it gave me an incentive to be more receptive and try to feel where people are coming from.
Q: From your perspective, what does Ananda give to people?
Haridas: Well, whatever it is, I believe it’s not from our own power, but from the power that comes through us. Perhaps God decides that this person needs to hear something or to feel a certain vibration, and He’ll use us, whether or not we’re able to feel it ourselves.
Yogananda’s power is so active here that we need to respect that it has the potency to change lives. I’ve had this thought repeatedly that if I’m doing my sadhana only for my own liberation, I simply lose interest, but if we think that God is hungry for channels that are pure because He can touch people’s lives through them, then it behooves us to stay in high gear as best we can, without being hard on ourselves.
Q: I asked one of our music directors, “How do you stay out of the ego while you’re singing Swamiji’s music?” He said, “You practice and practice, and there comes a time when you begin to feel the vibrations of the music, and the grace that’s flowing through it, and you increasingly find yourself absorbed in that vibration.” Do you have your own ways of staying in tune with Master’s ray while you’re serving?
Haridas: That’s excellent advice. If we find something that tastes better, it’s easy to let go of our attachment to whatever we’ve been doing. And what better taste is there than God’s presence?
When we feel His presence within us, we’re no longer so interested in whether people think we’re doing a good job. We’re just so grateful to feel Him with us.

The way I try to feel His presence has changed over the years. In the past I tried to hold on so hard that it made me tense, to the extent that a part of me just broke. A department of my being broke, and I couldn’t put out that same flavor of effort anymore. It was no longer meaningful for me, because there was too much strain and too much austerity and it wasn’t rewarding.
When that part of me broke, I decided to suspend practicing the presence for a while and just learn to relax. [Laughs.] I thought, “Everybody wants to relax. I think I’ll learn to relax.” I did that for a time, and I still make every effort to do it. And as it became part and parcel of my being, I thought, “Now let’s go back to practicing the presence of God, but let’s do it without strain.” Let’s not worry about the days when I’m getting completely done-in by the demands of the work, or my karma, or my attachment to what I’m doing. Let’s let it go and just continue to appreciate any least bit of God’s presence that I can feel, even if it’s just a trickle, and pass it on. In other words, emphasize the positive.
Nowadays, instead of counting the moments I’ve had with God, I think of the moments when I’ve had God that were particularly rich during the day. I’ll remember what it felt like, and I’ll try to go back into it again. I appreciate what God gives me, and when I don’t have it, I take a little pilgrimage back to the moment when I was in the presence of God, and I see how far I can extend it. As Paramhansa Yogananda said, “Find a little bubble of joy and puff on it.”
Instead of feeling uptight about the times I don’t have God, I’m appreciating the times when I feel His presence, and I try to expand them. Then I look forward to the next bubble. [Laughs.]
The method changes. Sometimes I love nothing more than to feel the Guru’s presence by visualizing his eyes. Other times it’s repeating a mantra or chanting. It changes, and I try to be on guard so the spiritual practice doesn’t become stale. At this point, I would rather rest and not have any spiritual practice, than sing a chant mechanically and find tremendous resistance building inside of me. It’s a curious place to be, because I wonder if I’m being a little too lax. But at this point it’s all I can do.
I also employ a lot of what a great saint of India, Swami Ramdas, called “watching the mind with amused detachment.” I can’t get enough of that! I love it, because it keeps me light. And there’s so much humor in the antics of the ego. There’s so much humor in the warfare between the ego and the soul. Watching it with a smile breaks down the heaviness of our situation. Because our situation is very heavy. We haven’t graduated, so we’ve come back again. [Laughs.] And if we want to dwell on that thought, it can be a miserable one. But I choose not to.