An Invitation from Swami Kriyananda

 
Dear Friends of Ananda:

As you probably know, I am now serving our Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, in a new way. The inspiration came while I was working on my last book, Conversations with Yogananda. This seemed to me perhaps the last book — my 80th — that I would ever write. Was my life work, I wondered, coming to a close? Did God want me, at seventy-seven, to take an “early” retirement? My Guru always indicated to me that ease was not going to be my path this life — ever. “Death itself,” he once told me, “is the final sacrifice you will have to make.” So maybe what I was really asking was, “What next?”

That question was answered for me dramatically only a few days afterward. I won’t take the time here to retell the details of that story — perhaps you know them already? — but it involved having the outer opportunity and the inner guidance to complete something I’d begun forty-five years ago in India, and had always deeply regretted not being able to conclude. My dream had been to make my Guru’s name and teachings known in the land of his birth.

Most Indians in those days knew little or nothing about him. Even books on modern saints of India made no mention of Paramhansa Yogananda. It wasn’t only the natural love and loyalty of a disciple for his guru, however, that made me want to make him widely known. I had come to realize during the nearly four years I spent in India that his message, specifically, was really needed there today. Indians themselves realized it, when I presented it to them in lectures. The president of a college in the Punjab expressed people’s typical response when he asked me if his college couldn’t include these teachings in their regular curriculum.

Paramhansa Yogananda trained me to go to India and make his message known in that country. He wanted me, in this new age of energy, to address people’s present needs. He spoke to me more than hintingly about my fulfilling his mission in the land of his birth. Many times also he said to me, “You have a great work to do, Walter.” (That was the name he called me.)

As you surely know, I was not able to complete what I wanted to do for my Guru then, in the early 1960s. As the years went by and my body began to age, I wondered if the opportunity was not, perhaps, passing me by for launching a major work there. I did visit India occasionally — not to teach, but to get rest and have seclusion. I was increasingly thrilled over the years to find that Master’s great book, Autobiography of a Yogi, was becoming well known. Yet I felt regret also, for I recognized that this happy turn of events was only half a victory for my dream. Very few people that I met were able to sense, behind the author’s beautiful humility, his extraordinary spiritual power and greatness. Most readers saw him as a sweet, inspiring seeker who’d had the extraordinary blessing of meeting some of India’s great saints and masters, and of receiving the blessing of initiation into Kriya Yoga. They didn’t realize that the author himself was among the greatest of India’s masters.

Our job as his disciples, I felt, was to make him known in such a way that people everywhere would understand how vitally important was the message he’d brought — not only to America and the West, but to the world, and especially to India.

I wrote The Path with the intention of filling the gap left by his own autobiography: inspiring stories about the author himself, and first-hand accounts of him as a great master. His autobiography describes other great masters in glowing terms, but in his humility he says very little about himself. My book is mostly about him; what I wrote about myself was intended to help the reader to separate what I told about him from my own limitations as a human being.

Even The Path, however, written as it was over a quarter of a century ago, did not elaborate sufficiently on a subject that has become increasingly clear to me over the years:

Paramhansa Yogananda was sent on earth with a divine message for this age. Indeed, I see now that he will, in all likelihood, become known everywhere as the Avatar, or Savior, of our planet in Dwapara Yuga — this new age of energy. Energy was, in fact, the central feature of his teachings, beginning with his “Energization Exercises”—which, I have come to realize, are the very cornerstone of his teachings. On that foundation are given the other techniques.

Paramhansa Yogananda’s mission was to complete the message of Kriya Yoga. The first disciples of Kriya Yoga practiced the divine technique in the privacy of their own homes. Theirs was a hidden role, intended to build the magnetism of this great gift of God’s to the world. Yogananda’s coming was intended to complete that mission by showing Kriya Yoga in Action. In this role, his life was strongly reminiscent of similar roles that he played in lifetimes as an instrument of God. For it is not enough that a few people take the Kriya teachings within themselves, only. The full effect of these revolutionary teachings must be directed outward also. Their role is, thereby, to transform society itself.

What the world needs now is a general uplift of consciousness. Such, our Masters have declared, is the function of the new rays of energy and consciousness that are entering the planet at this time. The role of Kriya Yoga is not intended only to inspire a few people to withdraw from outward activity and seek inner union with God. Its role is to show mankind how to live together on earth in higher awareness.

The need for this message was brought home to me poignantly last February. I was confined in a hospital by a severe case of pneumonia. One of the doctors came to my bedside and, to my surprise, began asking my advice. (I was expecting him, as a doctor, to be advising me.) “Sir,” he said, “can you help me? I believe in yoga principles, and I do practice a few pranayams, occasionally. But I am beset by material worries. I have a son in college overseas; that alone is enough to be a financial worry to me, but I have other worries also. How can I fulfill my earthly responsibilities without, occasionally, cutting corners ethically?” I could see in his eyes the evidence of his inner struggle.

Many people in India, I realized, face the same predicament. Nor is the problem by any means unknown elsewhere. What makes it so poignant in India is that Hindus realize they are going against their own lofty traditions. Those Indians who are sensitive cannot but suffer for it. Yet the problem of earning a living in an age of disrupted values faces people everywhere on earth: How to win out in the face of rampant dishonesty and untruthfulness on all sides?

I tried to tell him that I knew, from my own personal experience, that it is possible to succeed even better by resolutely following yoga principles. I think, however, that in our brief conversation, especially because I was lying helpless in bed, very weak, and by no means a radiant example of vibrant success at that moment, I was at a disadvantage for appearing wholly convincing!

The next day my condition worsened. I was so weak, I found it hard to speak; in fact, I slept most of that day. All the time, however, I was also pondering that man’s question, and asking God what I could say to help him. Suddenly, as I was having lunch, the answer came to me: I would write a correspondence course! I would call it, Material Success Through Yoga Principles.

A book wouldn’t do for what I felt was needed: Readers could easily open a book and skim back and forth through it, merely, without practicing anything. They needed lessons that could be read only one at a time, so as to absorb each one of them more deeply.

I went back to sleep. After some time, Keshava, from our local ashram, came over to sit nearby in case I needed help. This young man (as I still consider him!), used to be, some thirty years ago, my secretary at Ananda Village.

“Keshava,” I said, rousing myself from sleep. “Find a pen and a piece of paper.” When he’d located these items, I went on, “Please take a little dictation.”

Speaking slowly, I dictated the introduction to this new course of lessons. When I’d done so, I continued, “Let’s see if I can think up one or two titles for the subjects to be covered.” The titles came slowly, like rocks, snow-covered, being exposed gradually in hot sunlight. To my astonishment, the ideas kept coming. Within about half an hour, I had all the twenty-six titles, and knew what I would say in each lesson. My pneumonia was forgotten: I was enthusiastic, and, suddenly, full of energy!

The course would consist of twenty-six lessons: two of them to be sent out monthly — bi-weekly, that is to say — for a year. I was no outsider to the subject of these lessons: I’d had to build Ananda by my own efforts — without help from parents or rich sponsors. My father showed no interest in my project, and considered it impractical and visionary; in fact, he never gave a dime to Ananda. As for wealthy donors, I’ve never been one to court wealth. It takes success, however, to get people to support a worthy project. The dilemma is that, without such support, no worthy project can come into existence. Though a monk, I had to learn the hard way how to bring my dreams to economic fruition, and to do so dharmically — that is to say, while adhering strictly to right, spiritual principles. No, it wasn’t easy. I would rather have failed completely, however, than take any of the shortcuts my doctor friend was hinting at. I gave yoga classes, never charging more than was reasonable for the common man earning normal wages as a clerk or secretary. Fortunately for what I was trying to accomplish, I was a popular teacher. The money I earned met all my needs as they arose.

Bit by bit, other people got behind Ananda. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, who have received this letter, what a success our communities have become. Today there are seven flourishing Ananda communities, with a total of about a thousand residents in them. Thirty-six years after I launched the first one, Ananda Sangha is a success story that shines like a beacon among experiments of this kind in the world. Our integrity has been tested countless times, and each time we have emerged only the stronger and the more committed to truth and God.

The point I’m making here is that I know what I’m talking about when I say that the path of dharma, or righteousness, is the best and straightest path to true success! Following this path does not in any way put a brake on the achievements one is seeking in life. As the Sanskrit saying puts it, “Yata dharma, tata jaya: Where there is adherence to truth and right action, there lies victory.”

Since February of this year I have been hard at work writing this new course of lessons. I am amazed at the inspiration and practical wisdom God and Guru are giving to me through this endeavor: I really doubt whether there has ever been anything like it before. Yet it is all there in Master’s teachings, like a field of diamonds buried deep underneath the ground, and needing only to be mined and brought up into the light of day.

I have two purposes for writing these lessons. One is to help people who want to succeed materially without sacrificing their spiritual principles — indeed, for those who would like to know how to use spiritual principles as a means to achieve success!

The other purpose is to build our work in India.

I was passing a large piece of land near where we live in Gurgaon, India, when, in the place where a large field stood, I saw in my mind’s eye a high, white stone wall that enclosed that field in a large compound. The compound was graced with a beautiful fountain and flower garden; residential quarters; meeting hall; administrative offices; guest quarters — all the facilities, in short, for a national headquarters. Santoshi (Nancy Kendall), an Ananda member living here in India with us, is knowledgeable in such matters. She said when I asked her, “I estimate, roughly, that we might be able to build all that, including buying the land, for about three million dollars.” A huge amount, one thinks — but is it?

Anyone studying these lessons will find contained in them priceless advice for how to achieve true success in a new age way. People should rightly pay well to receive these lessons, and though no student would pay anything like what we’ll need to build this work for Master in India, still — as we say at Ananda — “many hands make a miracle.” If each one were to pay $100 a month — $1,200 for a year — and if enough others joined in, we could earn a lot, and quickly. Meanwhile, we would help to launch a new approach to business that could, like others of my books on Leadership and Money Magnetism, help to bring about a new, Dwapara-Yuga approach to money-making on earth. (Did you know that my book, The Art of Supportive Leadership, is, quite possibly, out-selling Master’s all-time best-selling autobiography, Autobiography of a Yogi?)

A thousand subscribers would mean an income of a hundred thousand dollars a month. Ten thousand subscribers — ? You can see the possibilities.

I would like for people to subscribe to this course individually. It would mean more for them to receive it in their own homes, where they could think about it, meditate on it, and write in with any questions they may have personally. But I want everybody to take advantage of these lessons, and I realize that not everyone can afford to pay $100 a month. So here is something that people can do also: Get a group of friends to subscribe to the lessons together. Ten friends would mean that of them each would pay only ten dollars a month.

Another realistic possibility would be for offices to pool together, or for businesses to buy them as an investment for their staffs.

My dream for Ananda India doesn’t by any means stop at building a national headquarters. I hope to start schools, communities, a retreat center in the Himalayan foothills, two monasteries (for men and for women). That’s a tall order, but I really believe that the work in this country has the potential to become several times larger than anything we’ve built in the West. And once things get started here, there is a lot of money in India, too, and I expect that many people here will get behind this work. They, finally, are what will make a success of it.

The ground is fertile. People are hungry for Master’s fresh, modern approach to the ancient teachings. I am an old man now, but my spirit is young and willing, and I have many young, willing helpers — Ananda members all, competent after many years to teach these teachings. I see great potential, besides, for drawing Indians in large numbers into this work. They will begin joining us, as they did in Italy where for a time it seemed difficult to wean them from considering their families their whole reality, and will support it.

Only the Sunday before last as I write this letter, we put on an event at the largest auditorium in New Delhi, with a seating capacity of 2,000 people. We somehow filled the hall! Many people had to be turned away for lack of parking space. It was an event! India wants Master’s teachings. Many of them see it already as a way-shower for this country’s future.

Would you like to “pitch in”? I’ve been putting forth all my strength these past months to get this course written. So far, I’ve written thirteen out of the twenty-six lessons, and have polished six of them for publication. We’re ready to start now with the work of promoting, printing, and mailing them. Friends at Ananda Village will help this project by preparing a work book. I plan also to record these lessons for people who would like to listen to them in their cars while driving to work. How about it? With deep love and divine friendship, Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters)

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