{"id":2047,"date":"2026-03-28T16:59:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/?p=2047"},"modified":"2026-03-28T16:59:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:59:26","slug":"swami-kriyananda-as-we-have-known-him-i-bless-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/swami-kriyananda-as-we-have-known-him-i-bless-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Swami Kriyananda \u2014 As We Have Known Him: I Bless You"},"content":{"rendered":"

A devotee was about to make an important decision, and spoke with Swamiji about it.<\/strong> After the meeting, Swamiji said, \u201cHe asked for my advice<\/em>, but what he wanted was my approval<\/em>. I can\u2019t approve, because what he plans won\u2019t bring him happiness. He wants<\/em> to do the right thing, but he doesn\u2019t have the strength to renounce his desires in this matter. If I asked him to do so, it would just put him in an impossible position, and how would that help him?<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to be sincere, however, so when he asked me to bless his decision, I said, \u2018I bless you<\/em>. You always have my blessings.\u2019 That didn\u2019t mean I blessed his decision! Still, I felt I couldn’t speak more plainly at the time. I felt I had to leave it to his own intuition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, the man told his friends, \u201cSwamiji approves of my decision, he gave me his blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Swamiji heard this, he did nothing to correct the misunderstanding. \u201cI wanted to spare him needless suffering,\u201d Swamiji said, \u201cbut I see he is going to have to live through it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A devotee was about to make an important decision, and spoke with Swamiji about it. After the meeting, Swamiji said, \u201cHe asked for my advice, but what he wanted was my approval. I can\u2019t approve, because what he plans won\u2019t bring him happiness. He wants to do the right thing, but he doesn\u2019t have the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSwami Kriyananda \u2014 As We Have Known Him: I Bless You - Swami Kriyananda: Lightbearer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda tells how he had to respect people's readiness to receive his counsel.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/swami-kriyananda-as-we-have-known-him-i-bless-you\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Swami Kriyananda \u2014 As We Have Known Him: I Bless You - 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