In Divine Friendship

Letters of Counsel and Reflection

Swami Kriyananda

• Publisher: Crystal Clarity Publishers
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781565896086
• Topic: Développement personnel
• Subtopic: Réussite personnelle

This extraordinary book of letters, written by Swami Kriyananda in response to questions and inquiries from his friends, students and critics over a thirty-year period, responds to practically any concern a spiritual seeker might have—how to meditate deeply; strengthening one's faith; developing divine attunement; accelerating spiritual progress; overcoming negative self-judgments; responding to illness, the right attitude toward money and profit, becoming a good leader, attracting a mate, sexuality, raising children—any many, many other subjects.

“Yogananda’s work isn’t personal at all. Yogananda wasn’t personal. As he put it repeatedly, ‘God is the Guru.’ His teachings weren’t personal.

SELF-REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP

God was using him as the avatar of a new age, to change an entire civilization. Don’t let anyone tell you that one organization, one person, one statement can ever, even remotely, define what he brought to the world.”

Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) is the organization Paramhansa Yogananda founded in 1925. It is larger and much wealthier than Ananda. Swami Kriyananda was part of SRF from 1948 until 1962, when he was dismissed. The letters in the following section give the reasons for Kriyananda’s separation from SRF and an overview of the relations between the two organizations over the years.

Letter to an SRF monk

1

1973

Dear ———:

How very good it was to see you again—after nearly thirteen years! And how wonderful to be in one of Master’s places again! The vibrations at the Lake Shrine are so uplifting, I cannot but feel that everyone who comes there must go away in some way changed.

Let us continue to pray to God and Master that the seeming distance between us become demolished. We are all serving him. It behooves devotees to feel an underlying oneness even with criminals, what to speak of their own gurubhais.

But the way of maya is to emphasize differences, just because they are superficial and slight, from a wish to safeguard one’s own integrity. (After all, there is no danger of devotees becoming confused with the Mafia.) We need therefore to keep in mind that the surest way of safeguarding our own integrity as Master’s disciples is to live by his words.

I think the walls are crumbling, and I am very happy to contemplate that possibility.

Brother, would you please see that ——— gets the enclosed letter? I think Ananda may be the best place for him, now that he has left the order. Here he can continue to serve Master. All of us here consider ourselves Master’s disciples, and all must be SRF members to join. I even have a job for ————, if he comes. Anyway, I have suggested to him that he at least come and see what we have.

God bless you, brother. I hope we meet again soon.

In Master’s love,

In a series of letters, an SRF member urged Kriyananda to reconcile with SRF—or else refrain from any activities outside that organization

2

September 14, 1978

Dear ———:

Why don’t we leave it at this: that I truly feel that the work I am doing is one that Master wants me to do? I feel his guidance and his blessing on it. As I wrote you earlier, I have not taken on this work without much meditation, and sincere prayer for guidance.

I think Master wanted me on my own because his work, this work, could not have been done within the larger framework of SRF. Even my books, which he told me to write, would never have been published had I been in his organization.

I see now that this is what he meant when he told me repeatedly, “You have a great work to do.” A “great work” implies a work of this type, rather than activity within a work that has already been established.

I should perhaps add that it was not my choice to leave SRF. I offered to wash dishes for the rest of my life, rather than be separated from my Guru’s organization.

After I was put out of the work, I sent donations to it, but my checks were either returned or were never cashed. I offered to distribute Master’s books in bookstores, and my offer was rejected. I was told in a telegram that I could do nothing to serve my Master.

It was only then, and because the one service I could not render him was to do nothing, that I had to turn within to seek his guidance directly.

I might conclude by saying that I hope very much that someday Ananda and SRF will be able to work together, but the next steps in that direction will have to be taken by them. I have made all the offers I can, including several times, in years past, offering to give Ananda to SRF. (Their reaction was to suspect me either of trying to foist my debts onto them, or to get rid of Ananda because it was too much trouble for me.)

I hope that this explanation helps you to understand the situation better.

In divine friendship,

From an SRF member in regard to accusations against Kriyananda and Ananda. Kriyananda’s response follows.

3

[Editor’s Note: SRF filed a lawsuit against Ananda in 1990. After 12 years of litigation and three SRF appeals, including one to the U.S. Supreme Court, Ananda won more than 95% of the lawsuit.]

1999

Dear Kriyananda,

I just finished reading your booklets, An Open Letter to the Board of Directors of SRF and My Separation from SRF. Thank you so much for sharing your feelings and beliefs and for exposing what is going on in SRF.

I joined SRF two years ago and became a Kriyaban over a year ago. Since that time, I have heard a few rumors about SRF and was not sure what to believe. I tried very hard to just dismiss the rumors because I wanted to believe that whatever SRF did, it had Yogananda’s blessings.

Three weeks ago, I met a woman from Ananda. My reaction to her was very negative in that, as soon as I heard where she was from, I felt cold towards her. When I walked away, I felt a great sense of guilt. I knew that the way I responded to her was not right. I knew where those feelings were really coming from. I thought of how God and Yogananda love us all, and how we are to love all. I had been questioning SRF all along, but as I said, I tried to dismiss it.

Then I found a book put out by Amrita Foundation, titled The Second Coming of Christ. It says it is the “original unchanged writings of Paramhansa Yogananda.” When I began to read it, I realized that Yogananda’s writing was very different from what SRF puts out. I called Amrita and after listening to Priscilla, the lady in charge, I was in shock.

At first, I believed that SRF had only changed the way it was written and not the message itself, which upset me deeply enough. But after reading your booklet, I find that SRF even changed the message. I am not sure of the extent that this is being done, but my feeling is that it is important to read what Yogananda wrote in its unchanged form.

SRF had sent me a booklet in an attempt to refute what you have said. They quote you as saying that Yogananda admonished you, “Edit, but don’t change a word.” They did not deny that he said this. They just tried to prove that they did not change a word. They fell short on that.

Plus, in the SRF booklet or leaflet, they brought up that there is a sexual harassment lawsuit against you. To me, that was stooping low. It was an attempt to make you look bad so we would not believe what you had to say.

It told me that they had no other recourse because they don’t have proof that what they are doing is not wrong.

It saddened me greatly that they have done this to Yogananda’s writings. It saddens me also that now I cannot trust them. I now feel that perhaps all the gossip I have heard about the SRF Board of Directors is true. If they can do this to Yogananda’s writings, where is their loyalty, and what more can they be capable of?

I recall one woman in SRF telling me that she took the nun’s training. She said they were horrible to her. One monk told her, “You would not believe what goes on here.” I tried to dismiss that, too, but I have noticed over the last year that I have suffered on a spiritual level due to hearing all these things. But I have also wanted to know the truth.

I do not feel that I can be in a religion that is like this. Now I find that I can’t even talk about my feelings to other members of SRF. If I try, I am met with resistance.

I talked to someone who is on another spiritual path. He told me that someone else from SRF had also talked to him about how upset he was about the editing. That man also said that SRF told him he was not allowed to read The Path.

This reminds me so much of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They, too, try to keep people quiet and won’t allow them to read other materials. They, too, talk about loyalty and try to make you feel guilty.

When I was finding all this out about SRF, I thought of walking away. But I felt a lot of guilt, as if Yogananda would leave me if I left SRF.

At this moment, I still have one foot in SRF, because I have not made a certain decision about what to do.

I did call Mother Center to ask about the editing. What the nun said did not ring true. She told me that Yogananda edited all his works again before his passing. She denied that SRF had changed any words. So she is saying that the new Whispers from Eternity, the later editions of the Autobiography of a Yogi, the commentary on the Bhagavad Gita all have his blessings.

You were there in his last years. Was he doing that or did he consider his work on the Autobiography and Whispers finished? Why is the 1929 edition of Whispers different from the 1949 edition? (At least I think it is.) It hurts me to know that they have many more writings by him and that they alone will edit them.

The way they have treated you, according to the booklet you published, rings true after hearing what that woman said about the nun’s training.

This may be a very naïve question, but I read in a book on meditation that when you reach cosmic consciousness, you know right from wrong and always do the right thing. Yet Daya Mata, who I am told has reached cosmic consciousness, is allowing these things to happen. And what about the other members of the Board of Directors? Are their own meditations just not that powerful? Or are they too busy running the business of SRF? Perhaps I just thought too highly of them all and expected too much.

I was shown an article on SRF that was printed in the Los Angeles New Times. It made SRF look really bad. When I questioned Mother Center about it, I was told that I should consider the source.

The newspaper said that Daya Mata lives in a mansion. Mother Center told me that Daya Mata’s home is small, just a retreat, and that wealthy homes have been built up around it. The newspaper said SRF paid $333,000 in hush money to a woman who had an affair with a monk. SRF says it is not true, and so on and so on.

Also, I was told that the Kriya that SRF teaches is not the same as what Yogananda taught. Is that true? Is it also true that Yogananda told us not to read other books by other religious teachers? SRF quotes him as saying that, both in the lessons they send out and in the leaflet they sent to me. It is his handwriting, but is it being interpreted incorrectly?

I quote: “100% Self-realization and the living link of the gurus, and not divert your mind to any other teachings or work. Passing out literature of other teachings confuses and unsettles the minds of new and even old students. So I shall be happy if you concentrate minds of students only in SRF.”

It helps me to know that even Yogananda thought of leaving SRF. Can you enlarge upon that?

I feel that you have done a great work. I have always secretly admired your brotherhood colonies. I feel that you have had to go through so much with SRF, but it has brought so much light on what SRF is doing. We all need to know and not be such blind followers of yet another religion.

God’s love to you,

—————

Swami Kriyananda’s response

December 13, 1999

Dear ———:

Your letter has put me in a bit of a quandary. I want to be helpful to you, for you seem to me a sincere devotee, and I usually try to support such people. On the other hand, I am also loyal to Master, and it pains me to write anything against the organization he founded. I would remain silent on the issues you’ve raised were I not convinced that SRF is harming in important ways the cause for which he created it. I am unable, moreover, to write or speak with the questionable sincerity of “political correctness.”

The purpose of that “Open Letter” was not to hurt anyone, but to shock the directors of SRF into realizing how many people they themselves were hurting by their lack of charity and even of interest in others, all in the name of institutional exigencies. When I reflect that my (our, rather) letter doesn’t seem to have had any effect at all, I wonder if perhaps I was wrong in writing it.

There are issues at stake here, however, so important to the future of Master’s mission that I feel that in good conscience I have a duty to speak out. Moreover, I did feel Master’s guidance in writing it, and his indignation at the issues that letter confronted.

He made a statement again and again—it is one I take very seriously—that he’d been sent to the West to bring back “original Christianity.” What was it that caused Christianity to drift away from its origins? I am convinced it was exactly what SRF is trying to bring about in Master’s work at the present time. For the old problem was institutionalism versus individual Self-realization.

Institutionalism is SRF’s idol, too, and is the way they define their service to our Guru. Institutionalism takes precedence in their minds over people’s needs and the devotee’s individual quest for Self-realization. In the minds of SRF’s leaders, Master wanted the name “Self-Realization” applied uniquely to his own organization. Whereas his concern was for a principle, theirs is for the medium he established to promulgate that principle.

It was because Ananda chose to include that principle in its name, as an affirmation of our discipleship to Master, that SRF first threatened to sue us in February of 1990. In fact, they began trying to silence me with threats as long ago as 1962—nearly forty years ago.

I think you know that they actually did file a lawsuit against us later, in 1990. This was only their first lawsuit against us, though they’ve claimed that it has been their only one and deny involvement in the suit that was filed in 1994, which you know about. (Their disclaimer means only that they are anxious not to be perceived as being involved. Their indirect involvement, however, is unmistakable.)

The SRF directors have often said to me, “You weren’t with Master a long time, as the rest of us were.” The truth is, only two of them—Daya Mata and Ananda Mata—were with him many years longer. Master himself often reminded us of Christ’s words, “The last shall be first.” The other still-living direct disciples who are also directors came only a year or two before me, or, in Brother Anandamoy’s case, one year after me. The newer directors came years later, and never knew Master.

All the directors, however, seem to consider it presumptuous of me to offer any suggestion for their own or for the work’s growth. Personally, at least as far as the work is concerned, I don’t agree with this attitude. I am sincerely serving Master’s mission to the best of my ability, and am doing so in the way he himself told me to do.

I was personally with Master as a disciple for the last three and a half years of his life, and got to spend quite a bit of time with him alone. When he accepted me as his disciple, he said to me, “I give you my unconditional love.” (How those words have strengthened me through the dark nights I have lived!)

Some of the SRF directors have told people I hardly knew him at all; or that I was never with him privately, only in group situations; or—the latest “news,” from the SRF center in Palermo, Italy—that I never met him at all.

There are other disciples who, like me, regret what seems to them also the excessive institutionali...