Swami Kriyananda As We Have Known Him

Paula checked herself into the hospital because of severe bronchitis, but I think she knew the cancer had returned for the third time. The doctors tried one more procedure, but in the middle, she went into convulsions and for a few moments her heart stopped. After that, the doctor said, “There is nothing else we can do.”

She lived three more days. It was one long going-away party, with constant phone calls, a steady stream of visitors, and a crowd of friends and family camped out in her hospital room. She was much loved and would be sorely missed.

It was impossible to be sad, however, for Paula was obviously in a state of grace.

She had a little unfinished business with a few people, but by afternoon of the third day, it was all done. The transition came suddenly, in the middle of a conversation about coffee. (Paula loved coffee.) She stopped talking, gazed upward, then closed her eyes. An even deeper aura of holiness descended and we fell silent.

Paula began to murmur ecstatically, “Swamiji, Swamiji, Swamiji, Swamiji.” From then on, there was a subtle shift. Paula continued to relate to the people around her, but her attention was no longer on this world. She was focused now on the world beyond.

To one of her Ananda visitors she said, “You must listen to Swamiji. You must help him, and do everything he asks of you. You don’t know what you have in him.”

Around midnight she organized a ceremony. Nothing solemn, that wasn’t Paula’s way. She was dying the same way she lived—light-hearted, happy, almost child-like in her devotion. From Master’s book of prayers, Whispers from Eternity, she picked a few of her favorites and asked that they be read aloud. Then with her own hand she gave each person a flower. After that, she disconnected the supplemental oxygen she had been using, and lay down as if to sleep.

We all went to sleep, too, in her room, in the hallway, or in empty rooms nearby. The hospital staff let us take over the whole wing. About 4am, Paula woke up from whatever state she had been in and started waking up the others in her room.

“Please, everyone, come in here now,” she said.

Her husband sat on the bed next to her and put his arm around her, as he had often done in the last few days. Always before she welcomed his embrace. Now she said, quite impersonally, “Don’t touch me. I can still feel it.” We knew the end had come.

At her request, we began chanting AUM. After a few minutes, Paula said, “This is very hard. You have to help me.” For the next few minutes, she was silent and we continued to chant. Then with great feeling she said, “God! Christ! Guru!” Those were Paula’s last words. For the next half-hour, we kept chanting, and she kept breathing. Then her breath stopped.

Suddenly, I felt power pouring over me as if a mighty angel were passing by. I was astonished to find myself sobbing with joy.

Paula was a spiritual leader at Ananda. Among other accomplishments, she helped develop the Portland community and successfully managed two retail businesses. But she never called attention to herself and most people thought of her as just one devotee among many. So it came as a surprise at her memorial service a few days later, when Swamiji said, “I believe Paula may have been liberated. Only a person of true realization could die the way she did.”

On her last day, Paula spoke to Swamiji on the telephone. “I hope you don’t have to come back to this world,” she said. “I hope I don’t have to come back either. But if you come again, I’ll come and help you.”

For many years, the only way to drive to Crystal Hermitage, Swamiji's home at Ananda Village, was over two miles of unpaved road, deeply rutted and littered with potholes.

For years also, Swamiji’s only car was a big blue Chevrolet, purchased for him from a government auction of used automobiles. Two cars, exactly alike, were bought at the same time—one for Swamiji to drive, and the other to provide spare parts to keep the first one running. Each cost $75. On the door of Swamiji's car could faintly be seen the words, "U.S. Air Force," put there by one of its previous owners. Naturally, the car became known as "Air Force One,” an amusing title for this ancient vehicle.

One summer, Swamiji decided it would save wear and tear on the car if he got a moped for the dirt road and used the Chevrolet only for trips outside of Ananda. Several friends warned Swamiji that dirt roads could be treacherous on a motorcycle, but Swamiji was unconcerned. When a blue moped came up for sale, Swamiji bought it.

In that season, his everyday outfit was sandals, Bermuda shorts, and a sport shirt (often a bright Hawaiian print). For some weeks he cut quite a colorful figure in his flowered shirts, sitting straight upright rather than hunched over in typical motorcyclist fashion, and waving cheerfully to passersby. He appeared always serene, driving at moderate speed and calmly smiling.

Then disaster struck.

The dirt road includes a long, steep hill, which, on a small motorcycle, must be taken at just the right speed. Too fast, and one may lose control; too slow, and one may lose traction. Swamiji had safely negotiated the hill before now, but this day something went wrong. His speed was inadequate and the moped lost traction and began to slip. Swamiji gunned the motor, but it was too late. The moped tipped over, pinning him beneath it.

The machine wasn't heavy, but the hot exhaust pipe fell right against the inside of his bare calf, burning into his skin. To get out from under it, Swamiji had to roll over on the ground, which caused the wound to become filled with dust and dirt.

Fortunately, someone was driving not far behind Swamiji and was able to pick him up and take him home. The closest medical care was twenty miles away in Nevada City, and Swamiji didn't think the injury warranted the journey. He had no telephone, but somehow the word spread. Soon people began showing up at Swamiji's door with ideas of how to treat the burn. Over the course of the next several hours he received three or four different treatments. Unfortunately, none of them helped much. The wound did not get cleaned properly, and none of the ointments and salves was appropriate. After a few days the wound became infected. Only then did Swamiji consent to go into town and have it treated medically.

It was a bad burn, and looked even worse: some six inches long and three inches across, inflamed and full of pus. The doctor assured Swamiji, however, that with a little care it would heal fine.

The following Sunday, Swamiji was holding an afternoon satsang in his home, as he often did. He sat in his usual chair in front of the big triangle window that looked out at the river valley and the forested hills beyond. He was wearing bermuda shorts and, in accordance with the doctor's orders, had his leg propped up on a footstool before him. The wound was unbandaged to let the air reach it freely, so we all got a good view of how awful it looked. About a dozen people were present.

Suddenly, a man named Ram Lila burst into the room. Ram Lila lived in San Francisco, but often visited Ananda. Before becoming a devotee he had belonged to a rough motorcycle gang called the Hell's Angels. By now he had given up most of the worst habits associated with that lifestyle, but he still looked like a "biker," and still drove a big Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Ram Lila was powerfully built—not tall but very thick, somewhat on the lines of a Sumo wrestler, though by no means obese. His biceps were bigger than the average man's thighs. The astrological bangle that is worn by many Ananda members, made to go around the arm above the elbow, was worn by Ram Lila dangling from a string around his neck. It would have taken at least two bangles to accommodate the circumference of his upper arm. He had a black beard and thick, curly hair, which hung to his shoulders. Heavy boots and a leather vest completed his "biker" outfit.

He looked fierce, but his nature was that of a child. Swamiji had given him the name, "Ram Lila," which means, "God’s divine play."

"I laughed when the name came to me," Swamiji said. "It was so appropriate!"

Ram Lila was devoted to Swamiji in an extravagant, adoring way, like a child. He wanted Swamiji to take him on as a bodyguard. Swamiji declined because, he said, "I don't need one." Ram Lila never quite accepted that this was true, and when he was in Swamiji's company he always kept alert, "just in case."

On this day, Ram Lila came straight in and threw himself at Swamiji's feet. "I should have been killed!" he said with deep feeling. "The truck came out of nowhere. BAM!" He slammed one fist into the other open hand to show the force of the impact.

"I wasn't wearing a helmet. I went flying over the handlebars and bounced on the road. BAM! BAM! BAM!" Again he illustrated with fist to hand. "My side, my head, my shoulders, my back: I thought, 'This is it! I'm dead!' Finally I stopped. I checked everything. Man, not even a broken bone! I walked away. I should have died, and I WALKED AWAY!"

What he was describing was serious, but he told the story with such enthusiasm and drama that we were laughing with delight. Ram Lila didn't seem to mind.

"I'm so glad you didn't die, Ram Lila!" said Swamiji, and patted him lovingly on the head.

Now that he'd told his story, Ram Lila noticed for the first time that Swamiji was injured.

"What happened to you?" he asked. Perhaps Swamiji did need a bodyguard after all!

Swamiji didn't answer. "You tell him," he said to me.

"He fell off his moped," I explained. "The exhaust pipe landed on his leg and burned him."

Ram Lila was so shocked he could barely speak. He stammered out a question: "W-w-when did it happen?" I told him the day and the time of the accident.

"O my God! O my God! O my God!" he cried. "That was just before that truck slammed into me. You did it! You saved my life! I couldn't figure out why I didn’t die. Now I know." He knelt before Swamiji and began to sob.

After the accident, Swamiji never touched his moped again. A few weeks later he gave it away.

I went through an extremely painful divorce. One particularly awful day coincided with a huge public event. I held myself together until late in the afternoon. Ironically, it was a compassionate look from a dear friend in the middle of a roomful of people that started me crying again.

“I’m going to take you over to Swamiji,” my friend said. Swamiji was standing just a little distance away. I made a feeble protest, which my friend simply ignored.

“Hridaya is having a terrible time today,” my friend said to Swamiji. I collapsed against his shoulder and he held me while I cried and cried. “I am so sorry,” he said. “I am so sorry.”

When I finally gained some little bit of control over myself, I stood back and looked into his eyes. Swamiji is no stranger to disappointment. God has tested him over and over again. In his eyes I could see compassion born of experience. But there was also something else. He wasn’t willing to meet me on the level of shared pain. His eyes invited me to join him on the level where human suffering is just something we offer up to God as a way of growing closer to Him. Sad as I was, I was also thrilled by that look and the promise it held.

Swamiji then blessed me by touching me on the heart and on the spiritual eye. My tears stopped completely, and from that point on I started getting better.

“You have a serious medical condition called a fistula,” the doctor said to me, “The only remedy is surgery.”

I had come to Italy to visit relatives and take care of some business obligations there. As soon as I arrived, I started feeling something very painful in my lower back. Within three days, it was so bad I couldn’t walk, and I had to go to the hospital. A fistula, I found out, is an abnormal opening or connection between two internal organs, or from an internal organ to the surface of the body. Mine was inside.

“We have to operate as soon as possible,” the doctor said, “otherwise you won’t be able to stand the pain.”

I agreed, and the next day I had the surgery. The fistula, however, was so large and so deep the surgeon was unable to repair it completely.

“You’ll have to wait a few weeks until the first surgery heals,” the doctor said. “Then I’ll operate again and finish the job.”

Oddly enough, the doctor tied one end of a string to the spot where he stopped working, and left the other end dangling outside my body, so he could easily find his way back in. (Shades of Theseus in the labyrinth!) It was disconcerting to see that string hanging there.

After the surgery, I had to stay in the hospital another five days, still in great pain, which the doctor said would continue until after the second operation. Swamiji happened to be visiting Italy at the time, and he sent me a beautiful big bouquet of flowers. It caused quite a stir. In Italy, so many flowers are given only to mothers with newborns.

When I was released from the hospital, I was still gasping with pain and hardly able to move. That very day an Ananda friend called to tell me that in two days, Swamiji was coming to visit me. I couldn’t say no, but I also couldn’t imagine how I'd be able to see anyone.

The next day, I was still in excruciating pain. The day after, however, I woke up feeling quite a bit better. When I got up and started to make the bed, I was horrified to see the surgical string lying there on the sheet. It had fallen out of my body! Immediately, I went to the hospital. The doctor inspected the site of the surgery. He was strangely silent. Then he said, “I see nothing there at all. Everything looks perfect. I can’t find any sign of the fistula.” It was obvious to me, too, that something had changed, for now I had only a little bit of pain.

I was stunned by this sudden turn of events, and delighted that I would be well for Swamiji’s visit. We met at 4pm, and at his suggestion, went for a walk together. The day before, I would have been in too much pain. Now I walked easily. My wife knew about my remarkable healing, but I didn’t mention it to Swamiji, or to anyone else.

Suddenly, without warning, Swamiji stumbled and nearly fell to the ground. For no apparent reason, he suddenly had an intense pain in his hip, and, being unable to put weight on his leg, could hardly walk. Fortunately, we were not far from the home of one of my relatives, and I half-carried, half-dragged him there. Thank God I was well enough to do it!

Swamiji lay down on a bed, and for the next several hours could hardly move because of the pain. Finally, it began to lessen, and I was able to get him back to his hotel. The next day, he was fine.

I thought deeply about what had happened: my mysterious healing, and Swamiji’s sudden collapse. I believe he suffered to protect me from suffering. This is something only a saint can do. I will never forget what Swamiji did for me.

For seven years, the man had struggled to resist an attraction to a woman in the community who was not his wife. Finally he said to Swamiji, “I am too unhappy, I can’t go on this way.”

“Let me tell your wife,” Swamiji said. “It will be easier for her that way.”

“He has done his best to overcome this,” Swamiji said to her, “but he can’t. It is something he has to live through.” She was devastated, but she took it bravely.

When the news came out that the man was leaving his wife for another woman, some people reacted judgmentally. “What about his obligation to the community?” one said to Swamiji. “This will reflect badly on all of Ananda.”

“He gave seven years to the community,” Swamiji said. “I think that is long enough. He did his best. You can’t ask more than that of anyone.”

The day after the couple separated, Swamiji asked the two women to come to his house and cook dinner together for him and a few guests, including the husband.

“Sir! Are you sure that’s a good idea?” a woman exclaimed when she heard the plan. “Don’t you remember what happened yesterday?”

“Of course I remember,” Swamiji said. “But they have to get over it sooner or later. If they wait until some future lifetime they won’t even remember why they dislike each other, and it will be much more difficult to overcome. When a wave of karma hits, raise your energy and meet it at the crest! That’s the way to make spiritual progress!”

Later, the wife described what happened that evening. “I wanted to give in to my grief and run away,” she said, “but Swamiji wouldn’t let me. He had more faith in me than I had in myself. It wasn’t easy to summon up the courage, but I did my best, and divine grace did the rest. The whole evening, I felt nothing but love for them. Even though circumstances had changed, the underlying friendship was untouched.

“Afterwards, I wasn’t always able to maintain such a high state of consciousness, but I had done it once, so I knew I could do it again. Because I followed Swamiji’s advice, I believe I saved myself years, perhaps even lifetimes, of suffering.”

For 29 years, I was afflicted with a terrible addiction. Not merely a habit, but an addiction, something I needed every day. I tried therapy, 12-Step programs, affirmations, will power. Nothing worked.

When I got on the path, I read everything Master said about overcoming temptation and changing habits. Still the addiction was unbeatable, stronger than anything I could throw at it.

When I confided to an Ananda friend, she responded, “Have you asked Swamiji to help you?”

“I wrote to him several times,” I said.

“Just writing to him isn’t enough. What I’m asking is: Have you opened your heart to him? Have you asked him to give you the strength to overcome this? Have you prayed to Swamiji?”

I hadn’t done any of those things so I decided I would try. That night in meditation when it was time to pray, words came to me with such intensity I felt that they were praying me.

“Dear Swamiji,” I said, “I can’t do this alone. I need your help. I know you can help me.”

For the first time I understood what Jesus meant when he said, “Pray believing.” I knew that Swamiji could help me.

A few days after I began that prayer, 29 years of addiction ended. The desire completely disappeared. In the years since then I haven’t had a single symptom, not an urge, not even a temptation.

About six months later, I greeted Swamiji after a Sunday Service and thanked him again for the help he had given me. He held my eyes with a penetrating gaze. When he spoke, I felt as if a surge of electricity came into me, bathing me with his protection and courage.

“Don’t ever give up,” Swamiji said. “Keep at it with every ounce of your being. Know that Master is blessing you.”

If I were to choose a spiritual name for myself, it would have to be Gratitude.

I started drinking in my early teens. Drugs came later, in the ’60s, just before I turned twenty. All my friends drank, and everything that happened after sundown involved drugs and alcohol. So we were more inclined to play loud music than to play chess. Drinkers hang out with other drinkers. It’s tidy that way, no unpleasant images in the mirror—everyone looks like you.

Whatever we were having, I consumed more of it than my friends. It always took more to get me to the edge of contentment, and the edge was as close as I could ever get. In a typical evening, I would drink a six-pack of beer, a substantial amount of hard liquor, and use whatever drugs were at hand.

I never got mean, never got in fights, never fell down, but from my early teens, I was drunk every night of my life. In those early years, I had a couple of auto accidents, but nothing after that, even though, if it was dark, driving or not, I was drunk.

I never drank during the day. In fact, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to be dull while it was still light. During the day, I went for stimulants, but, come nightfall, nothing could stop me from drinking. Stimulants during the day meant more alcohol to come down at night, then more stimulants the next day to push away the effects of the previous night's drinking: truly a vicious and deadly cycle. I also smoked quite a lot of marijuana, occasionally took mushrooms, and used cocaine. My friends either kept up, or they fell away. Some died, many ended up permanently damaged.

I was married in the early ’80s, but my habits didn’t change. I merely couched them now in transparent respectability, more evenings out drinking good wine, or at home drinking good scotch and premium beer. Cocaine replaced the cruder stimulants. But the truth is, I would have drunk cheap gin, if that were all I had.

My wife drank only moderately, just an occasional glass or two of wine with dinner. It is unusual for a non-drinker to marry someone who is already wedded to this habit of nightly oblivion, but then, she never knew me any other way. We didn’t discuss it. I figured it was just part of the package she had chosen. She clearly saw something in me beyond the man she married, and she knew the power of prayer.

We bought a house and built a business. At one point, though, she expressed enough concern for my overall health that I agreed to have a “routine” physical. The doctor stated unequivocally that I was on my way to an unpleasant, and perhaps lingering, death.

He said it would be dangerous for me to try to quit drinking on my own. The withdrawal symptoms would be so severe I might even have seizures. He wanted me to go straight from his office to the hospital.

To bolster his argument, he called in another patient, an ex-alcoholic, who, he said, just happened to be in the waiting room. This gentleman, in a glib and self-important voice, rambled through a fragmented assessment of my future unless I followed the good doctor’s advice. But he was so cognitively damaged it was easy for me to brush off both him and his counsel. I genuinely felt I would rather drink myself to death than wind up like him.

The meeting with the doctor was such a disaster neither my wife nor I ever mentioned it again.

In the middle of all of this, sometime in the early ’80s, we started going to Ananda classes and services. In 1986, when Swami Kriyananda announced he was leading a pilgrimage to Southern California to see Master’s shrines—Mt. Washington, Encinitas, the Lake Shrine and the crypt—we decided to go along.

The first evening in Encinitas, at the Sanderling Hotel, Swamiji held a Discipleship Initiation. I sat in the back of the room, watching people go up and kneel before him. He blessed each one by placing his finger at their spiritual eye, the point between the eyebrows. After a moment, he would remove his hand. The person would then rise, bow to Swamiji with folded hands, and return to his seat.

I just couldn’t identify with the ritual. I was strongly drawn to Master, and I had great respect for Swamiji, even though I had spoken to him only a couple of times. I wasn’t sure it was the right time for me to become a disciple, or if, in truth, Master would want me.

So I just watched, like a stone gargoyle peering down from a cathedral roof. Then, somehow, I found myself kneeling in front of Swamiji. I don’t recall why I decided to do it. In fact, I don’t remember deciding to do it at all, but there I was.

When he touched me at the spiritual eye, there was no spark of light, no uncontrollable trembling, no sound of crashing waves. As I recall, I didn’t feel anything.

But after the blessing, I stood up, bowed respectfully to Swamiji, and walked away a different person.

That was two decades ago. Since that moment I’ve had not a hint, not a longing, not a whisper of unnamed or unfulfilled desire for drugs or alcohol. I went, as they say, cold turkey on a twenty-five year habit without a single unpleasant symptom.

I rarely tell anyone with a drinking or a drug problem about my experience. I have seen how terribly difficult it is for them to quit. I want to help; I love them for their courage, but they need inspiration that is within their reach: something as close, as tangible, and as obtainable as the substances and the mental state they crave.

I do not believe it would inspire someone in the throes of the struggle with addiction, to hear that God, without even being (consciously) invited, came and lifted my burden, leaving nothing behind but gratitude. It would be too far beyond hope, leaving them feeling even more isolated and unworthy.

I often hear the statement, “I am a recovering alcoholic.” Those who use that phrase have earned the right to say it. They have fought hard, and for most of them it is a lifelong struggle.

My life, however, was changed in an instant. What I can and do say, with humility and endless gratitude, is, “I am the disciple of a Great Avatar, and the loving student of a Great Teacher who can, with his touch, channel the Master’s transforming grace.”

I had an accident that caused a blow to my skull so great I started to exit from my body. I traveled down a tunnel of light and was greeted by friends and relatives who had passed away years before. I came into the presence of a “Being of Light” who enveloped me in pure unconditional love.

Thoughts of unworthiness and shame for things I had done in the past made a brief, futile effort to invade this aura of love. Faster than the thoughts could arise, they evaporated. It was more than being forgiven. The “Being of Light” communicated to me that I, too, am made of light, and in that light there is nothing to forgive.

This was 1976. No one then was talking about “Near Death Experiences,” so it wasn’t until years later that I had an explanation for what had happened to me. All I knew at the time was that my life had been changed forever.

A few hours after the experience, a voice inside my head said, “Why do you continue to live in the same way? I have given you the key to life. I have given you yoga.”

I had already been studying Hatha Yoga for about six months. From then on, I made it the center of my life. Two years later, I met Swamiji, and soon after had a private interview with him. At the end of the interview, I asked if I could touch his feet.

This was no small thing for me. My father had died ten years earlier, when I was fourteen. (He was one of those who greeted me in the tunnel of light.) Since then, I had been very headstrong and refused to take advice from anyone – until I met Swamiji. Now I wanted to bow down in front of him and put my life in his hands.

In India, touching the feet of a spiritual teacher is a common gesture of respect. Swamiji, however, has never encouraged that kind of outward show, but he must have sensed how much this meant to me, so he gave his permission. He was sitting in a chair and invited me to kneel in front of him.

Reverently I placed my hands on his feet and bent over until my forehead was almost resting on the backs of my hands. After a moment, I felt Swamiji gently lifting me by the shoulders until we were face to face. He closed his eyes and touched me at the spiritual eye. I closed my eyes to receive his blessing.

A horizon line formed before my closed eyes, illuminated from below, as if the sun were about to rise. Beams of white light streamed from the hidden sun. I was bathed in luminescence. I forgot myself. I forgot that Swamiji was blessing me. All I knew was light, peace, joy, and what I can only describe now as a state of utter “desirelessness.” In that moment, every imaginable fulfillment was mine already.

Then Swamiji removed his touch and the light went away. I looked into Swamiji’s eyes, which were now just inches from mine, and saw there a quality of impersonal, yet unconditional love that I had never seen in anyone else before.

Only later did I link the two experiences. Twice I’d been touched by the light. The first time, I had to leave my body and go into another world to experience it. The second time, the light came to me, when I was willing to bow in humility and reverence before its pure channel: Swamiji.

It was the middle of a concert when Swamiji picked up the tamboura to accompany himself while he sang. A tamboura is an Indian instrument that easily goes out of tune. It was dreadfully off-pitch and no matter how much Swamiji tried, he couldn’t tune it. Finally he gave up and began to play it as it was.

I was near him on the stage and every time his fingers went across the strings I cringed at the dissonance. With his sensitive ear, I don’t know how he kept singing, but he did. Gradually, the dissonance waned. By the time Swamiji was half way through the song, the tamboura was perfectly in tune and it stayed that way for the rest of the concert.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras describe the practice of ahimsa. “Non-violence” is how it is usually translated. Swamiji calls it “harmlessness” and has dedicated himself to that practice. The fruit for one who practices ahimsa perfectly, Patanjali says, is that in his presence, no disharmony can arise. Wild animals are tamed, ferocious criminals subdued.

Some people may disagree, but I have been playing musical instruments since I was a child and I know they have personalities that respond to human consciousness. I think, in the presence of Swamiji’s ahimsa, the tamboura simply couldn’t hold on to its disharmonious “attitude.” Swamiji’s harmonious vibrations tamed it.

For years, I had a noticeable wart on my hand. I tried all sorts of medicines, and the usual array of alternatives. But the wart stubbornly remained.

One day, I happened to be with Swami as he was walking to his car. He was a little shaky on his feet and rested his arm on my shoulder for support. I put my hand on his back to help steady him. The walk was all of two minutes, sweet, but otherwise uneventful.

The next day, I happened to glance at my hand, the hand that had touched Swamiji’s back. The wart had vanished without a trace.