In 1990, Self-Realization Fellowship sued Ananda. For two years, from 1996 to 1998, I served in Ananda’s legal office in the Mountain View Ananda community.
I won’t attempt to tell the legal side of the story. That saga is entertainingly told in a book by Jon Parsons, the irrepressibly good-natured attorney who led our defense. For those interested in a full description of the events, I recommend Jon’s book, A Fight for Religious Freedom, as well as Swami Kriyananda’s book Yogananda for the World, and an Ananda website, www.yoganandafortheworld.com. Asha Nayaswami also gives a very detailed and nuanced, spirited account in her book Swami Kriyananda: Lightbearer.
Before I left Ananda Village for my new job with the legal crew, I prayed earnestly to be able to understand the meaning of the lawsuit. It was then I heard Master’s voice say, “Your role is to live as joyfully and expansively as possible. I will take care of these larger matters.”
Swamiji said that he had taken on the second phase of the lawsuit “to help the yoga movement in America.” His statement at first puzzled me. But as I meditated on the issues, I realized that Ananda’s legal battle was setting an important precedent for other yoga groups in this country, for now and all futurity.
At the time when Bertolucci filed her lawsuit, yoga had come under attack in America. In case after case, yoga teachers were subjected to claims that they had sexually harassed their students. Regarding the lawsuit against Ananda, Swamiji told me, “I’ve never harassed anyone in my life.” I believed him, based on my knowledge of him and his accusers.
In all of the cases against yoga teachers, the accusers enlisted psychologists and lawyers to help them reframe the events and persuade the juries that the teacher’s behavior was abusive. And the juries, to no one’s great surprise, swallowed the psychologists’ arguments whole.
Swamiji saw a danger that if yoga were to come under the control of the psychologists, particularly the belief that the accusers should have their egos tenderly stroked and soothed, and that the responsibility for their own actions should be shifted onto others, the yoga movement would be seriously weakened.
Yoga aims to help the seeker find freedom from bondage to egoic self-definitions, and in this effort the guru’s help is indispensable. Yoga is not for those who want to remain spiritually infantile, demanding to be coddled and comforted whenever their egos are slightly bruised. By refusing to cower before the lawyers and psychologists, and by championing the right of yoga teachers in America to help disciples find their inner freedom, Swamiji and Ananda set an important precedent.
Paramhansa Yogananda came to America to show people how to make their religion scientific. He came to offer the followers of all paths practical yogic methods by which they can experience God for themselves, through deep meditation and self-mastery. It is not a path for weaklings.
In the West, we tend to view the world in black-or-white terms, in keeping with our tradition of rationalistic either/or thinking. In its lawsuit, SRF played upon this tendency to the hilt. SRF’s lawyers presented arguments that were logical, but that when closely examined were absurd to the point of being surreal.
To give an example, they argued that a swami is, by definition, a celibate monk. Therefore, they claimed, if Kriyananda had ever had sexual relations after taking his vows, even if the woman was the instigator, he had no business representing himself as a swami.
Swamiji conceded that he had had a handful of sexual encounters over a period of about fifteen years.
In the late 1970s, Swamiji became concerned that the married couples at Ananda Village were feeling like second-class citizens, believing that the monastic life was the higher path, and that marriage was an unfortunate compromise. He wanted the couples to feel that they were every bit as spiritually worthy as the monks and nuns.
Yogananda’s guru, Sri Yukteswar, had been married. Sri Yukteswar’s guru, Lahiri Mahasaya, was married. Master’s second most highly advanced male disciple, Yogacharya Oliver Black, had been married, as had his most advanced woman disciple, Sister Gyanamata. Lahiri Mahasaya stated that the householder life is, in fact, higher than the path of the monastic.
While Swamiji was married, he signed his books and articles “Sri Kriyananda,” or simply “Kriyananda.” Everyone in the community understood that he was no longer a swami. We called him “Swamiji” as a token of our affection and respect, even though we were fully aware that the title no longer had a connection with his formal status. “Swami” means, literally, one who knows himself as one with God. In India, a husband will refer to his wife respectfully as mere swami – “wise mother,” or “mother who knows her true Self.”
The SRF lawyers made hay out of this fine point. We called him “Swami,” therefore he should be completely celibate or he was living a lie and misleading the public. It was complete eyewash – soap bubbles blown to sting the eyes of the judge and jury and blind them to what was really happening.
Spiritually, it was infantile. In India, the spiritual life is understood differently. As Swamiji explains in Out of the Labyrinth, spiritual development in India is viewed as directional, and a living process.
In our search, we are not required to pass every test, or else consider ourselves having failed forever. We should envision ourselves ascending a gradually rising spiral toward God, struggling at each stage to embrace a more expansive awareness and leave older, contractive attitudes behind.
In the Indian view, God never condemns us for our mistakes and weaknesses. He accepts them as a natural, in fact an essential part of our growth. God knows that it is only by having our own experiences that we can realize, with unshakable inner knowing, that our truest happiness will only ever be found in Him. Thus our mistakes and weaknesses are indispensable stepping stones on the path.
From my knowledge of the individuals involved, it’s my belief that, far from being helpless victims, every one of the witnesses against Swamiji had an ulterior motive for participating in the trial.
Bertolucci’s attorney, Mike Flynn, was a prominent member of SRF and a close confidante of Daya Mata, despite his initial attempts to hide the fact.
Flynn, at one point in the lawsuit, visited Mother Meera, an Indian teacher living in Germany. When he asked her for her views on the lawsuit, she unhesitatingly replied: “They (the women accusers) wanted his (Swami Kriyananda’s) power.”
In India, where the monastic calling is respected, few women would dream of trying to acquire a renunciate’s power by seducing him. But in America the case is different, and men of exceptional magnetism may be considered fair game.
Behold human nature. Even as unenlightened men dream of satisfying their longing for love in a woman’s arms, women of imperfect understanding may hope to find strength, protection, and prestige by gaining influence over a powerful man.
To claim otherwise is dishonest. It’s willful blindness. People who argue that women never initiate romantic relationships in pursuit of a personal agenda have never viewed the film Absence of Malice or opened a copy of Cosmopolitan.
When a woman succeeds in seducing a powerful male and finds herself rejected and her dreams unfulfilled, as will happen, she may seek redress by hiring a powerful man, usually a lawyer, to help her exact revenge.
This syndrome is lucidly described in The Myth of Male Power, by Warren Farrell, PhD, a former national board member of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Farrell is a respected marriage therapist who, when his book was published, had conducted more than 20,000 couples workshops.
As the hidden motives of the accusers were unveiled, it became clear that this was the “story behind the story.” (You can find details on the Ananda Answers website.)
In the midst of the assault on Swami Kriyananda in the courts and the media, he remained always the teacher. He never withdrew from us, shriveled in personal misfortune as lesser teachers might have done. It was remarkable to see him always cheerful and kind, ever ready to help us spiritually, and inwardly unmoved by the events swirling around him.
I was impressed by his perfect honesty. Early in the litigation, the Ananda Village residents shared their thoughts about the case in open letters. Though I wrote a letter that Swamiji praised as the best of the lot, he took pains to correct me on a subtle point. In my letter, I had said that a person could not be as bad as SRF and Bertolucci claimed Swamiji was, and hide it without people sensing that something was wrong.
Swamiji corrected me, “People can deceive others for a long time. It’s the women who always know if something isn’t right. They sense it with their intuition.” He was concerned to correct my understanding, even if it might weaken an argument that I had made in his defense.
In the end, the Bertolucci case went against us. We “lost” – I insert quotations advisedly. As our attorney, Jon Parsons, points out in A Fight for Religious Freedom, the case was a farce from beginning to end.
The judge shamelessly played attorney for the plaintiff, feeding SRF’s lawyers arguments on which he would rule favorably, and issuing transparently prejudiced rulings against us. In a flagrant denial of our right to due process, he ruled that we could not cross-examine our accusers. Thus the jurors heard only one side of the case, without being informed of the judge’s ruling.
To evaluate our chances of reversing the decision, Ananda consulted an expert on legal appeals. After reviewing the trial transcripts, he said, “If ever there was a case that would be overturned on appeal, it’s this one. This decision has the shelf life of an apple!”
In the end, Ananda decided not to appeal. Even if the verdict were reversed, it would only mean that we would win the right to a new trial, at tremendous expense, and that we would be once again be dragged through an avalanche of ordure that the accusers would feed to the media. “No, thanks,” we said. “We’ve had enough of your so-called justice.”
I cannot end this chapter without saying a word about our attorney, Jon Parsons. Jon may never know how much his presence meant to us during what he cheerfully calls “the war years.” In the first months, he visited Ananda Village several times to speak to the residents about the legal issues. He was strong, relaxed, funny, and obviously capable. His presentations cheered us, bolstered our confidence, and modeled the detached, good-natured courage we would need for the struggle. Jon, we are enduringly grateful.