Swami Kriyananda Stories — Ch. 21: Swami Kriyananda, Superhero

Someone in our Mountain View Ananda Community had fun making this image of our co-spiritual director, Nayaswami Asha.

I love a good movie with an entertaining story, and I don’t mind too much if it involves superheroes.

I’ve enjoyed the X-Men films, though I find Wolverine’s hairstyle tiresome and Magneto’s ponderous utterances unintentionally funny. I was entertained by the first Thor movie, and the first and third Ironman flicks.

There’s something appealing about the idea of being able to flit around the sky and make matter respond to our whims.

I suspect the thrill is based on more than escapist dreams. Do the film superheroes portend a freedom that we will all enjoy someday?

I’ve been reading a very enjoyable book called The Yugas. It explains, supported by a mountain of archaeological and other evidence, how the history of the world proceeds in orderly cycles of roughly 24,000 years. It strikes me that the X-Men movies may simply reflect life in a future age that the sages of ancient India called Treta Yuga, when humans will have intriguing mental powers. Treta Yuga will begin approximately 2100 years from now and will last 3600 years.

In that far-off time, so the ancient scriptures tell us, people will have the ability to communicate telepathically, and to control matter with their minds. Shoot a flame from your hand? Easy-peasy! Make steel beams fly through the air? No problem – just focus your attention.

A master of yoga would be capable of those feats today, including the powers of the highest age, Satya Yuga, which will begin in 5,700 years. In his book, The Holy Science, on which The Yugas is based, the author, Sri Yukteswar, declines to discuss the possibilities of human consciousness in Satya Yuga, because in our present level of awareness we would be incapable of comprehending them.

By studying the lives of the spiritual superheroes who walk among us today, I believe we can catch a glimpse of the future.

In fact, if you’re looking for a spiritual teacher, here’s my advice – look for a super-being. Not a comic book character – I doubt you’ll find the guru riding a wheelchair with X-shaped spokes, or wearing a shiny red metal flying suit. And it might not be helpful to looking for Thor, to join him in battle against the Frost Giants.

But I reckon it would be a good idea to find someone who fits the scriptural descriptions of a man of God – someone who knows you to the furthest, microscopic depths of your being, and who has your best interests always at heart. In short, someone with the spiritual power to help you become the highest version of yourself. A Yoda, but in real life.

For several years I was the community mailman at Ananda Village. Six days a week, I would drive out to the paved road and wait for the letter carrier, then bring the letters and packages to the little mailroom under the stairs at the side entrance of the 100-year-old farmhouse where Master’s Market was located.

There was a man at the Village who loved to whistle. If you heard someone whistling loudly and cheerfully, you would know that it was Kabir MacDow.

One day as I was putting the letters in the slots, I heard a far-off whistle. “Ah,” I thought, “There’s Kabir. What a cheerful soul he is!”

But then the whistling changed – suddenly it didn’t sound so cheerful anymore. In fact – ugh – it was starting to sound downright ugly. It was getting under my skin, and I gave silent voice to my feelings – pardon my French: “Who is that bleep-bleep…?”

At that moment, Swami Kriyananda walked into the mailroom – whistling.

I burst out laughing. What else could I do? He had caught me with my spiritual pants down. Busted!!

I gasped, “Hello, Swamiji…” He said not a word. He pulled the mail from his slot with the barest hint of a “significant” expression, not quite a smile.

I knew from Swamiji’s demeanor that a serious lesson was intended – it was nothing to laugh about, losing my cool and reacting emotionally to something so trivial.

God wants us to offer Him no less than one hundred percent of ourselves. Paramhansa Yogananda said of Sri Yukteswar’s training: “No lapse into shallow inconsistency escaped his notice.”

Swamiji’s constant aim was to help us release the ego-attachments that prevented our hearts from expanding. If my heart was less than uplifted, I could never fool him – he always knew.

A number of Ananda members have testified how they would receive a phone call from Swamiji, at the exact moment when their attitude was lacking.

I was working at home, feeling uninspired and drained, just dragging through the day.

I wanted nothing more than to curl up on the couch and enjoy a good nap. And then the phone rang. It was Swamiji. He had nothing much to say, just, “Hello, Rambhakta,” uttered with his usual boundless energy.

I don’t remember what else he said. I struggled to energize my sleeping brain and prop my consciousness into a semblance of alertness, but the moment Swamiji rang off my energy once again plummeted through the floorboards. And just then the phone rang again, and of course it was Swamiji. This time he spoke more forcefully. I can’t remember his words, but the portent of it was “Rambhakta, for heaven’s sake – get the lead out!”

The deeper issue was that I was caught in a serious misunderstanding about the need to serve the work.

At the time, I was working for publishing companies as a freelance writer and editor. I had the idea, which was completely misguided, that I would make a lot of money by taking high-paying jobs, and then I would have time to write about Ananda as Swami had suggested.

I had turned down several offers of jobs in the community to follow my brilliant plan, but it never worked out. Whenever I received a fat check, the car would break down, or we would have medical bills.

The head of Crystal Clarity, the company that publishes Swamiji’s books, offered me a job that I respectfully declined. I was uneasy about my decision. When I asked Swamiji about it, he simply said, “It’s part of the work.”

He didn’t explain or tell me to take the job. He wouldn’t order us to do anything, especially if it went counter to the direction we had set our minds. Having spoken truth, he was content to let us arrive at the right understanding through our own experiences.

In time, I realized that the offer of the Crystal Clarity job had been a priceless gift from Divine Mother. How could I have been so stupid?!

Later, as I began to serve in the ways Swami had suggested, writing and editing and singing his music, I found God giving me all the energy – and money – I needed.

I found that if I would get up in the morning and offer the day to God, I always had energy to spare. The work was fulfilling and brought a wonderful sense of inner harmony and attunement. It was only after I accepted a humble job in the community that I found time to write.

Before I moved to Ananda, I visited the community as often as I could. I lived in the Bay Area, where I worked as an editor and photographer. During my visits, I took lots of photos, on a voluntary basis.

At the time, Swamiji gave all of the Sunday services. After service one Sunday I decided to climb a tall tree and take pictures of the three retreat domes in their picturesque forest setting, with crowds of people enjoying lunch on the common dome deck.

I was queasy about heights. As I climbed higher, the tree began to sway. I wasn’t feeling terribly brave. Suddenly I heard Swamiji’s voice boom out over the forest – it was a lion’s roar: “Hurry up, Rambhakta! We want our lunch!”

I knew I had nothing to fear. I climbed to the top, took the photos, and clambered down.

I remember a deeply embarrassing incident during another lunch after Sunday service. I had gotten my plate from the serving line, and Swamiji invited me to sit next to him. We chatted about his books.

I had heard that Swami enjoyed his food, and as he began to take a first bite, I had a thought that I’m too embarrassed to repeat, except that it involved the words “…really tuck it away.”

Swamiji picked up his plate and offered it to Kalyani, who sat opposite him. He addressed her in French, a language I don’t speak. I was so ashamed. I resolved to be loyal in thought and deed. It was not the way to treat a friend, much less my spiritual father and guide.

Swami was a portal to a higher world. Being in his presence was different. It was never just business as usual, or remotely like a casual relationship between pals. There was always a sense of privilege, of there being something very special about being in his company. I’ve said this elsewhere, but I never had an encounter with him, however fleeting, that wasn’t in some way instructive.

His sensitivity to others was awe-inspiring. At a time when I was going through a difficult spiritual test, I walked to the Expanding Light for Sunday service, which Swami would be leading. Emotionally I was a mess, tossing in turmoil. As Swami entered the temple and passed my seat, he patted me on the head, as if to say, “You’ll get through this. I’m on your side.”

Another time, I became deeply concerned for my mother. My parents had moved from Arizona to Los Angeles so that my father, who had been blinded, could attend the Braille Institute.

My parents were now living alone in Long Beach, a suburb of LA. Their nearest relatives, my father’s brother and his wife, were in El Centro, several hundred miles away. My mother had begun to be obsessed with paranoid thoughts. She wrote long letters to me, describing, page after page, how people were plotting against her and were determined to harm her.

It was deeply troubling, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Whenever I visited my parents, there was tension and disharmony. It was compounded by the worries about my mother’s imaginings. My father, being blind, was completely dependent on her. What would happen to him if she had to be committed? Would her condition worsen? Would she end up, as some paranoiacs do, attacking her imagined persecutors?

I said nothing to Swamiji, although in retrospect, I am certain that I should have. Of course, I prayed deeply for my mother.

One day, Swamiji told me that he had received a letter from my mother in which she expressed her worries about me. Was I – her forty-year-old boy – getting enough milk? She reported that I didn’t look healthy when I came to visit.

I don’t remember what Swamiji said, except that he spoke with kindly concern. I continued to pray earnestly that God help my mother and relieve her of her mental suffering.

The next time I visited my parents in Long Beach, there was a wonderful harmony. We had a happy time together, and I’m sure it was an enormous relief for us all. During our visit, my mother showed not the slightest sign of her former delusions – nor did she ever express such thoughts again, until shortly before her passing many years later, when she was gravely ill.

Soon after I returned from visiting my parents, there was an event at Swamiji’s. At the conclusion, he stood at the front door and greeted us as we filed out. When I came before him, he smiled and said, “Rambhakta, how are your parents?” I told him about our wonderful visit and thanked him for his prayers. I am absolutely convinced that it was Swamiji who relieved my mother of her troubles.

Since then, whenever people tell me that they are concerned about their parents, I suggest that the best thing they can do is pray for them. In some fashion, God will find a way to help them, even when no solution may seem to exist.

When I was in SRF, one of the members told me that Master had said that he would take care of six generations of the families of those who had taken initiation in Kriya Yoga and were seriously devoted and committed to this path. I’m not sure I remember the promise correctly, but the spirit of it is clear.

After my father died, my mother moved to Chile to be with her relatives. Four years later, my cousin called to say that she was very ill and wasn’t expected to live longer than a month. She had throat cancer, and I knew that the final stages would be agony. I prayed deeply to Master that she be spared the last, ugly stages of the disease. Several days later, my cousin called to say that my mother had passed peacefully in the night.

We little know how fortunate we are. Over the years I’ve had an enduring sense that Swamiji has blessed us all far more than we can imagine, silently helping us rise into increasing happiness and freedom.

 

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