The Truth About Swami Kriyananda’s Dismissal by
Self-Realization Fellowship
and the Founding of the Ananda Communities
In his book A Place Called Ananda, Swami Kriyananda tells the true, inside story of his dismissal by Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) and the founding of the original Ananda Community, in fulfillment of a commission assigned to him by Paramhansa Yogananda.
A Place Called Ananda is Swami Kriyananda’s most personal, and many have said, among the most inspiring of his 140-plus books. It is a tale of high drama and a deeply inspiring story of unswerving faith in God in the midst of severe tests and trials.
Chapter 1: Yogananda’s Mission to the West The need for outreach; religious institutionalism versus the needs of the individual seeker |
Chapter 2: Master’s Commission to Me “The Great Work” — Yogananda hints to his beloved disciple of a life outside the organization; The conflicting needs of the work: to share the Master’s teachings as widely as possible with seeking souls, or to cultivate a fortress mentality and seek to protect them against dilution at all cost |
Chapter 3: Organizing the Work Yogananda’s admonition, “Don’t make too many rules, they destroy the spirit,” versus the need for organizational order and efficiency |
Chapter 4: The Third Presidency
Death of Rajarshi Janakananda; Daya Mata named SRF President; Differing views of the work: ever-expanding service versus protecting the institution; Increasing rigidity within SRF and a growing hostility toward creative ideas for spreading the teachings; Service outlines become service readings; Challenging an uninformed critic; Sister Tara: her efforts to micromanage and exert control
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Chapter 5: Polarization Tara Mata’s efforts to dictate SRF’s future direction; Her work as an editor of Yogananda’s written works; Tara’s greatness and her flaws were both impressive; Two opposite attitudes toward the work: Tara’s siege mentality and its devastating consequences, versus Kriyananda’s desire to make the teachings available to all. “People, in her view, represented only trouble: a threat to the purity of Master’s teachings.”; |
Chapter 6: Six Blind Boys and an Elephant The disciples of a great avatar can only see one small part of his world mission; Tara telephones Daya almost daily, instructing her in how to run the work – if Daya demurred, Tara would accuse her of disloyalty; In SRF the male teachers were seen as second-class citizens; Yogananda told Swamiji, “Apart from Saint Lynn, every man has disappointed me. And you mustn’t disappoint me!”; Swamiji receives last, loving words of praise from the Guru. |
Chapter 7: Rights and Wrongs Two views of the Master’s mission: both sides were right, in the context of their service to him; The duty of obedience to one’s monastic superiors, versus following the Master’s explicit commission, independently; The harm of blind obedience to an insensitive superior; |
Chapter 8: I Go to India Lessons in spreading the Master’s teachings through public speaking; Arrival in India and first days in Calcutta. |
Chapter 9: My First Year in India Helping Daya Mata; Finding Master’s work in India in slothful disarray; Daya’s efforts are met with sullen opposition; Revised lessons for India rejected by SRF for bureaucratic reasons; Binay Dubey, a difficult character; Master’s Ranchi school accepts government funds, and loses all spiritual instruction; Organization versus outreach; Ananda Moyi Ma, a loving relationship; Ma foresees Swamiji’s dismissal by SRF, and her loving concern |
Chapter 10: My First Lecture Tour Spreading the Master’s work: speaking to people’s souls as a channel for his help to them; The need for publicity; Sharing universal truths rather than trying to convert people to one’s own path; Calming an angry audience of college students protesting China’s incursions; Speaking about yoga to a hostile audience of students most of whom were communists; Timid event organizers in New Delhi are shocked when Swamiji urges them to set up a tent for his lecture that will hold 1800 people. |
Chapter 11: Fresh Water for Dirty Drains Blissful days in India; Praise and words of caution from Ananda Moyi Ma; Institutionalism in YSS/SRF vs satisfying people’s hunger for truth; Binay Dubey |
Chapter 12: I Return to America Dr. Lewis passes, and Bro. Kriyananda takes his place as SRF Vice President; The desire for human warmth — Yogananda’s counsel, his promise — and a difficult test; Tara’s demands, based on her practice of astrology, which Master had told her to drop; Return to India; A visit with Yogi Ramiah, a fully liberated soul; |
Chapter 13: The Delhi Project From Delhi, Yogananda will quickly become known throughout India; Land-ho!; Making connections; A meeting with Indira Gandhi; Nehru spends an exceptional amount of time discussing the project; Nehru gives his approval; The truth is very different from the host of self-serving rumors about the reasons for Swami Kriyananda’s dismissal by SRF. |
Chapter 14: The Reaction Swami Kriyananda relates the events surrounding his dismissal by Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) |
Chapter 15: Retrospect SRF’s unwillingness to develop a world mission of the magnitude Master visualized; Tara and Daya’s very different view of the work: consolidating what Yogananda created, rather than expanding it to serve ever greater numbers of seeking souls; Tara’s deliberate intention to destroy Kriyananda with a single knock-out blow; Tara’s violent opposition gave Ananda the shakti to succeed; Daya said, “It reached the point where I saw she was quite capable of destroying the organization rather than not get her will.” Daya: “I’ve never accepted the things Tara said against you.”; Daya to Kriyananda in 1970: “Master told her [Tara] not to practice astrology, but she kept up her practice. That’s why she fell.”; Tara appears to a man in New York, and he travels to Ananda to ask Kriyananda’s forgiveness on her behalf. |
Chapter 16: Afterthoughts Reflecting on the lessons of his dismissal by SRF: what did Yogananda really want?; Through these experiences the Guru gave Swami Kriyananda lessons that proved invaluable to the completion of the “Great Work” that he commissioned his disciple to do in his name, of freeing the work from narrow institutionalism and sharing it with the whole world. “I do not regret anything that happened in the past. During my recent seclusion, when I examined my heart’s memories I found only a great sense of sweetness and gratitude. Thank you, Tara. Thank you Daya. You have done more for me than I can ever repay.” |
Chapter 17: Getting My Sea Legs Ananda: success despite overwhelming odds; Following Paramhansa Yogananda’s commission: “Your life is one of intense activity.”; What made Ananda possible was, above all, the determination to make inner joy a priority.; I had given my life to serving my Guru. To me, this had once meant serving his organization. SRF, for me, however, had always stood for something far deeper than an institution. Above all, it stood for the message Paramhansa Yogananda had brought to the world. |
Chapter 18: Your Work Is Writing and Lecturing Inspiration for a deeply important book exposing the intellectual dishonesty of modern nihilistic thought; Finding avenues of service that would not conflict with the work of Self-Realization Fellowship. |
Chapter 19: Seclusion vs Outward Activity Yogananda uses Haridas and Bina Chaudhuri as instruments for his help to Swami Kriyananda; His life of lecturing, writing (and singing) resumes; Sojourn in a Catholic monastery; Roots of his most important book; The quest for seclusion continues; |
Chapter 20: A Choice Is Thrust Upon Me The day before he leaves to explore the possibilities of leading a hermit’s life, Swami Kriyananda is called to step in for a critically ill friend; Further research for a book that will refute nihilism and demonstrate the wonderful meaning and promise of life; More songs come; A first concert — in the dark!; Thoughts on sharing inspiration; Ananda’s message spreads through uplifting, life-changing music that everyone can sing; |
Chapter 21: I Take Up Writing Music Swamiji receives the inspiration, in the form of a song that came instantly to mind complete with melody and lyrics, to share his Guru’s teachings through music; |
Chapter 22: I Dive Into the Water Dr. Chaudhuri continually pushes Swamiji in the right direction; A new, spiritual approach to the yoga postures; Living from within, in response to the guidance of his Guru, and not the ferment of the times; |
Chapter 23: New Age Movements How to move through a world dedicated to ego-fulfillments and materialism with divine vision and a message of salvation?; New Age movements, for better and worse; The desire for human love. |
Chapter 24: Crystal Clarity Fuzzy thinking in the Sixties; Clarity in the arts; Clear intuition versus muddy thinking and “profound” vagueness; Why so many intentional communities failed in the Sixties; The need for new ways of thinking and seeing the world that include God; The true meaning of the New Age; |
Chapter 25: Land Ahoy! Searching for land to create a Paramhansa Yogananda World Brotherhood Colony; The perfect plot; A significant intuitive reading; Thoughts on accepting inspiration gracefully but impersonally; |
Chapter 26: Domes and Self-Expansion “Immortalize your teachings in architecture.” Swamiji’s search for an ideal dome configuration, as a graceful, harmonious space for meditation — that doesn’t look like a toadstool!; In letters to Rajarsi Janakananda, Yogananda expresses his dissatisfaction with the way things are going in SRF.; Tara and Daya’s views on the role of the organization.; Swamiji meets a key co-worker.; His first, repeated, indomitable dome-building efforts are defeated by the wild late-autumn winds. |
Chapter 27: Ananda Retreat Starting a community and confronting the naysayers and doubters; Starting small with a meditation retreat; Financial challenges; Meeting an old friend; Keeping service uppermost ensures success; Three or four hardy souls endure the first winter at Ananda; |
Chapter 28: Hidden Influences Reflections on Tara Mata’s stroke and her awareness of its karmic source; Memories of Tara and Master; Daya Mata’s remark on why Tara fell; Yogananda’s mission extended far beyond the creation of a monastic order — his mission was universal; |
Chapter 29: Community Beginnings The need for a parcel of land separate from the meditation retreat, where families could live; Miracles converge to enable the purchase of Ananda Farm; Rough beginnings, and the need for a spiritual focus and self-definition for the fledgling community; The sifting process begins: hangers-on drift away, and the spiritual core gains strength; |
Chapter 30: Karmic Patterns The karmic patterns that enabled Paramhansa Yogananda to establish a world-changing mission in America, based not on old-style “churchianity,” as he called it, but on serving the needs of individual seekers everywhere; How Yogananda grieved to his chief disciple, Rajasi Janakananda, over how the focus in his organization had drifted into old-style institutionalism and away from the spirit of individual freedom; How the history of Christianity reflects a profound misunderstanding of Jesus’ teachings; How SRF has distorted Yogananda’s teachings in similar ways by introducing a paradigm that reflects the old patterns of Kali Yuga, the age of matter-consciousness; How SRF persecutes those who disagree with that paradigm; How Ananda has succeeded in restoring Yogananda’s original teachings which are based not on an obsession with top-down control but on the spiritual freedom of the individual seeker; |
Afterword Why did Paramhansa Yogananda tell Swami Kriyananda, as a young monk, that he wanted the SRF monks to have separate quarters? And why did he tell this only to Swamiji and not to others? |
Conclusion Early tests in the founding of Ananda Village, and many miracles; Delegation of responsibility versus top-down micromanaging control; Do intentional communities need to have a spiritual basis?; What does it really mean to be “spiritual”?; The clearest and most persuasive expression of what Ananda is, is its music; The individual versus the collective — the need for inner attunement with Truth |