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About Ananda

Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters), direct disciple of
Paramhansa Yogananda and founder of Ananda, is the author of over 100 books.

2008 celebrates both Ananda's 40th Anniversary, as well as the 60th Anniversary of Swami Kriyananda's discipleship to Paramhansa Yogananda. Click here for scheduled events.

The Santa Rosa Center members will carpool to Palo Alto and a talk by Swami Kriyananda. on Sunday, July 20.

Additional online inspiration, including Paramhansa Yogananda's spiritual classic "Autobiography of a Yogi", as well as talks by Swami Kriyananda, are available on the Ananda website.

Swami Kriyananda currently lives in India, where he has begun Ananda's new work there. See the Ananda India website for details.

Feature Article

Becoming More Inward
by Swami Kriyananda
by Swami Kriyananda.
Excerpted from the 1981 talk, "Interiorize Your Mind".

Often when we sit in meditation, we tend to think of how far we are from God. We should try instead to live in the consciousness that we are already one with Him, because all we really have to improve is our awareness of who we truly are.

Yogananda wouldn't translate the stanza in the Bengali chant, "Door of My Heart, that says "I am a beggar" because he didn't want us to approach God with the consciousness of begging. He didn't want us to say, "When will I have God?" but encouraged us always to think, "I have Him right now!"

This attitude will in no way diminish your devotion. In fact, your feeling of love will grow the more you cancel out the thought of separation from God.

Something we've always known
In everything you do, try to withdraw your mind into yourself. As devotees, this is something we should practice all the time. Let everything you do remind you of the bliss of your own nature.

The Catholics have a very good word for this practice: "recollectedness." Patanjali used a similar word as his definition of enlightenment: "smritti," or the memory of who and what you are.

It's your nature to be in Samadhi. It's your nature to be flowing all the time in love and joy. Sometimes that joy gets so intense you can hardly stand it, and yet if you relax a bit, it keeps growing and growing.

Don't become cold or aloof
I have seen many people on the path try to achieve that inwardness, but because they haven't understood it from within, they approach it in a cold or aloof way, without enough compassion for others. Instead of withdrawing into the fountainhead of divine energy, and then pouring that energy out to all, they become too involved in themselves.

This is one of the pitfalls of Raja Yoga. Don't allow yourself to get caught in that aloofness, that coldness.

True interiorization feeds the fires of compassion. When your inwardness is in touch with divine love, automatically there's compassion, a reaching out to help others.

Developing the right consciousness
How do you develop that type of inwardness? It's necessary to mix with people who have that consciousness. But you don't have to be with a person physically in order to get the full benefit of satsang with him.

For example, you can meditate on Yogananda's eyes. In his eyes you see both that very withdrawn look that was never touched by anything, and that deep compassion flowing from the source of divine love that sees all as brothers and sisters. You see the difference between worldly love that is reaching out to attain something outside of itself, and divine love that is already united to everyone and everything.

The joy of silent communion
Try also not to be with people who take your mind outward. Be with those people who remind you of your inner Self - who inspire you in a divine way by bringing you more into an impersonal consciousness, and more toward this inwardness.

Spend time in seclusion
It is important also to spend time in seclusion. Learn to see the periods when you can be alone as the most precious of all. The worldly person never wants to be alone. The devotee, however, knows that the greatest bliss comes when we are alone.

Everything else is a dream
Let everything you do remind you that you are a child of the Infinite. Never allow yourself to think that you are only a limited human being with faults. You may indeed have faults to overcome, but these are just weeds in your garden - they are not you. You are a child of God. Everything else is but a dream.

Ananda Center of Sonoma County
2050 W. Steele Lane, Suite D-2
Santa Rosa, California 95403
(707) 545-3112