Sri Kriyananda knowing oneself

David Alan Ramsdale, Interviewing

This interview with Sri Kriyananda, a renowned devotee of the great Paramhansa Yogananda and successful pioneer of community living, was one of the most uplifting experiences of my life. Positioned close together and posed with yogic firmness, bodies still, eyes locked, I was swept into a higher state of consciousness by his presence. This supercharging of my own spiritual path came at a time when I deeply needed it. I feel I can recommend this man of love and his sparkling teachings without reservation.

MM: Who is Sri Kriyananda?

SK: I don’t know really how to answer that question from a yogi’s point of view. The question we’re all given at birth is to find out who we are. Know thyself. So who is Sri Kriyananda from that point of view is not the relevant question. Much more relevant is “Who is he not?” In other words, if we can get away from the definitions it’s like the difference between yoga meditation and education. In education we learn. In meditation we try to unlearn, to unlearn our false identities. The state of consciousness that you get in deep meditation takes you away from all of that and helps you to recognize that central essence of your being which has no definition at all, and that’s who you really are and in that sense that’s who we all are. It’s not like Descartes, who said “I think therefore I am.” He’s wrong because thinking is only a manifestation of being and without the consciousness of being you could never even think.

MM: You used the word being. I’ve noticed in your literature that you talk about devotion to God and so on. Now some people would say if you talk about being, it could be very impersonal. There’s not devotion in it. You could perhaps even be an atheist. There’s also Buddhists who seem to get along fine without a concept of God. So how would you justify your devotion to this particular view?

SK: Well, that’s a lot of questions in one, whether you realize it or not. But I’ll try. I’ll do my poor best. The first thing is that we have a small I and an infinite I. The small I is that consciousness of the infinite, which is the soul, identified with the body. Now as long as we’re identified with the small I which is the ego, we can’t get out of that into the awareness of what we really are. So to get rid of that, to diminish that, we express devotion to something bigger. That greater reality is in fact our self but this mind keeps confusing the two, and it says “I am God” but look at this body. This body isn’t God. You can’t say the wave is the whole ocean. That’s the way Paramhansa Yogananda used to put it. He said that you have to say that the ocean has become the waves. Now why love if we’re talking of being? Because in that consciousness there is love. When you get rid of all of the extraneous definitions you find this love coming spontaneously. That’s why some people thought of Buddha as an atheist. He was full of love. He was a man noted for his compassion. And that love sprouts spontaneously. Joy sprouts spontaneously. You see there are two aspects here. One is we get rid of those things that we aren’t. It looks like you’re fading into a void. But suddenly in that seeming vacuum come all the divine qualities….love, joy, devotion, light, peace, power, but not power trip, power in the sense of the great energy that created the universe, wisdom. All of these aspects of the divine are yours.

Now why would Buddha not talk about God and why do we talk about God? You see each master comes into this world to correct imbalances in people’s thinking. So at the time of Buddha there were Vedic ceremonies performed to conquer your enemies, to become successful, to become rich, to have a good wife, to have children, things that are also quite mundane. If you use divine power to get the things you want anyway then your gratitude is for your higher source instead of to your own lower being, your ego. Now the Vedas are an incredibly all encompassing stream of light all directed toward the divine attainment. The people in the day of Buddha had fallen away from that understanding and were using the scriptures, were using the rituals to satisfy themselves, to gratify their own desires, and expecting God to do everything for them. They fell into what a lot of people fall into naturally on this great spiritual path because there’s always this sort of problem of balancing self-effort with divine grace. And the truth is always a blend of the two. But in the time of Buddha everybody was passively expecting grace to do it all, whether it be on the mundane level or presumably even on the spiritual level. And, therefore, he didn’t talk about what God will do for you.

That was the given. If you do the right thing, you have to assume that that power is going to be there to help you. So he was saying you have to do your share. We tend to think “Well, God, please do it all for me.” But it doesn’t work that way. We’ve got to become masters.

MM: Is a guru necessary for spiritual attainment?

SK: All the scriptures in India say that it is. And who am I to argue with the scriptures? I know there is a great deal of debate on the subject. But you don’t find great masters saying that you don’t need a guru. You find great masters who didn’t have a guru, but that’s different. You reach a certain level of attainment and then you’re there. You’re on with God. You may then take a guru in order to set a good example for others, but you don’t really need go through all of it.

You know it’s a funny thing that people ask that question because if I, for example, were to take up mountain climbing, I would recognize immediately the danger of falling. Then I’d say I’d have to get an expert to show me how to do this. I’d be an absolute lunatic to try it without learning how first. And on the spiritual path there’s all kinds of opportunities to fall. Because you don’t see falling the same way, it doesn’t look quite as dangerous, but it depends on your definition of dangerous. Something that can take you wandering away from what you really want to do with your incarnation is dangerous. And a guru can warn you and help you. He can tell you that if you go this way you’ll be making a mistake, but if you go this way that it will help you.

In other words, he gives you not merely skill, he gives you self-confidence. He transmits to you a certain amount of his power in the sense of his having achieved these ascents so many times that he knows what he’s talking about and with him suddenly you feel you can do it, whereas without him you might look at that high mountain and say “I’ll never reach that.” So in the same way but a much more real way it says in the Bible “All those who receive the King he then gave them the power to become the sons of God.” And the real guidance of the guru is more inner than outer. A very interesting example of that is something that occurred to me when I was a child. I was given a bicycle and I taught all the children in the area how to ride a bike that day at my birthday party. What I did was I held the handlebar and I held the seat and I ran along with them and when they started getting their balance I’d let go of the handlebar but hold the seat. Then when they were seeing that they were going well, I’d let go the seat but run with them to catch them if I had to. Then when I saw that they were going well I stopped. They knew that they could do it. This is an example of what the guru does for the disciple. He isn’t there to subjugate the disciple or to make himself look more important or any of that. He is simply there to help the disciple to get his own legs, you might say. Once the disciple is able to know where to go, once he’s developed that consciousness, sometimes the disciple becomes greater than the guru. That’s been known to happen.

MM: What about the difference between a spiritual teacher and a guru? Many people are willing to accept the teacher but the guru concept as an embodiment of God, specifically as a perfect being which seems to be the usual conception, is a problem for them.

SK: Well, I would say that they are different. The teacher is different from the pupil. There are a lot of gurus around that are not true gurus. A person to be a true guru has to be, in fact, already united with God. He has to know that consciousness. It’s sort of like the difference between going to somebody like St. Francis of Assissi for instruction in the spiritual life and going to any novice master who hasn’t any kind of realization himself. Jesus said “The blind leading the blind they will both fall into a ditch.” That doesn’t mean that spiritual teachers are bad, but they have to recognize their limitations. They have to see that they don’t have all the answers. They have to be honest about what they really are and what they really aren’t to the extent that they are capable of seeing themselves. A teacher is one who has some experience, who is capable of guiding up to a certain point, is capable of perhaps transmitting his words, inspiration and power to some extent. But he would not be a guru and therefore people who want to go higher would go to somebody who had realization or represented somebody who has realization. See now, I am not a guru. And why? Because I have my doubts. I have been practicing spirituality for forty-one years. I’ve made a good stab at it. I’m not there yet. So I’m a spiritual teacher. I’m a disciple of a great guru. I’m convinced that he did know God. Every sign or test that I know of, could apply, he will pass with flying colors. Also, when I get with people, it’s not just me. It’s him doing it through me and to that extent, he’s able to help them in a way that a Donald Walters without Yogananda would be incapable of doing. This is something much more. When somebody acts on behalf of a great guru, then he’s a channel.

MM: Would you say that Yogananda was perfect?

SK: Mind you, God alone is perfect. But he had attained God and therefore he had attained perfection. Now there’s a difference there, you see. I didn’t see any human flaws in him, but in any human quality there’s going to be a flaw from one point to another. Mahatma Gandhi was one example. I don’t think of Mahatma Gandhi as a perfected being. But even had he been, this would probably be true. But he had to have a certain kind of personality in order to do the work that he had to do.

MM: He was said to be stubborn.   

SK: Stubborn. Thinking more of the country than his family. So what about him and his family? He was not a very good father, and a difficult husband. But can we say that that was a fault? No, because in this world of relativity you have to be one thing or another. You can’t be everything perfectly. Even in that respect I never saw flaws in Yogananda because I found him perfect under all circumstances. But my own view of perfection has to be limited and therefore who am I to say that he’s perfect just because he looks that way to me? But in himself, that is in attaining God, God is perfect. Therefore, his vision was flawless. His perception, his guidance was flawless. He knew exactly the truth. He was able to express the truth from the divine level. And one thing that always amazes me about him is the fact that he never studied western theology, western philosophy, and yet everything that he taught addressed the problems exactly, as if he’d studied them all his life. It was amazing. He could also talk to people of specialized knowledge like doctors or scientists and talk their language. And while he was talking with them, they would have sworn that he had studied it all his life. I talked to a woman in Mexico who spoke no English and Yogananda spoke no Spanish. She said to me that-I don’t know how it happened-during that interview they understood each other extraordinary. But it would be presumptuous on our part to say it’s perfect on a human level because who’s to know it? But on a divine level, I can accept that he was perfect because he found God. I found no flaw, no sense of ego or selfishness. His whole concern was for our well-being, how to love God.

MM: There’s a saying that the disciple should test the master before he’s convinced that the master really is a guru and then he should give his whole heart, being and thought. But what would be the greatest test you gave Yogananda?

SK: It’s not as if I gave him tests. But, of course, I watched. I was a doubter at heart. In fact, that was probably my greatest flaw, you might say, in my spiritual path that I tended too naturally to think that there was something wrong-to see what the flaw was, where the fly was in the ointment.

This was my instinct. My natural recognition of him was instant. I read The Autobiography of a Yogi, which is his best known book, and the moment I read it I just was convinced that he was a great being and the only person I’d ever come in contact with in my life that I could completely trust on an intuitive level. But my mind had the habit of challenging, questioning, doubting, and so on. I think probably the greatest period that I went through of real questioning and doubting was not about his greatness so much as his wisdom on a human level. I know this sounds ridiculous, but then I was being ridiculous, I suppose. But then I was being myself so why should I define it one way or another. It’s something I had to work out. He would say that this means this, but then on the other hand it means that, but then on the other hand it could also mean that. It took me a long time to come to appreciate how much more sophisticated that way of thinking is because truth is like a diamond. You turn it in different ways and it shows different facets. I came to understand that he was just looking at truth from different angles to give you a much bigger picture but it was a real test for me at that time, which may seem and does seem to me, in retrospect, absurd. I found that the answer to that was not solvable on an intellectual level. It was solvable on a heart level. When I came to love him more deeply, that was dissolved. And with the dissolving suddenly came also intellectual understanding.

MM: The hardest thing was the head.

SK: Exactly.

MM: So your conversion experience, so to speak, was through reading.

SK: Yes. I read that in New York and took the next bus to California.

MM: A lot of people have read this book and been affected deeply. Now, what about the fact that he is no longer alive physically?

SK: Well, I feel his presence and his guidance all the time. And I wish that those who are realizing this can feel it, too.

MM: When you say you feel it, can you be more specific? What are you experiencing?

SK: I know the man as far as you can know a master. I lived with him. And the consciousness that I had when I was with him is what returns to me. When I meditate deeply and concentrate on him then that consciousness comes. It’s not a limiting human feeling. It’s an expansive kind of feeling. But then that’s what he was. And then I find that suddenly I understand how to do things. I understand how I should talk to somebody, what I should do in writing a book or what I should say when lecturing.

MM: Kriya Yoga, based on my limited understanding, seems much like a Kundalini Yoga and also seems to incorporate some of the Taoist yoga where you have the circulation of the light-the descending and the ascending along the chakras. I’m wondering what would you say is unique about Kriya yoga and also if my comparison is inappropriate.

SK: No, it’s not inappropriate. You know there’s only one path and that’s raising the Kundalini and uniting it with the Sahasrara and becoming completely one with God. Whether you call it Tao or yoga or anything else, it’s all the same. We all have to do that if we’re going to attain enlightenment. Kundalini yoga, however, very often gets below and pushes the energy up and forces it. Raja yoga, love creates magnetism that acts to draw it up. With that kind of yoga which pushes, it’s often violating your own natural growth and you find people will very often rise to a certain point and then fall again. Also it tends to become more of an egotistical kind of thing that “I’m doing this.” Whereas if you draw it up with love then the ego doesn’t come into the picture as much. And Tao, I don’t know anything about really. But essentially it still remains that we have to magnetize the energy in the spine which the Kriya breath helps you to do. Finally you go so deeply into the spine that you don’t do Kriya anymore. It’s just the energy rising.

MM: All of the paths lead to the same destination.

SK: Absolutely. Even most people who don’t think that they are on a spiritual path have to get there sooner or later. If only by cancelling out one wrong path after another, they’re at least learning something. You get into drugs and you find out it didn’t work, then you never do drugs again. Then into drinking, and then you never do drinking again because it creates nothing but misery, and so bit by bit you cancel things out. Everybody’s looking for the truth and they think that they’re going to find the truth in one way or another. These are like avenues but they’re on the path, too. They just haven’t found a way to get there more straight, more directly.

MM: You have mentioned practicing the presence of God. Now what if a person doesn’t have a guru? The Christian mystic Brother Lawrence wrote about talking to God as if God was right there with you. Would you say that’s a good method in lieu of having specific techniques?

SK: You don’t want to do it in lieu of. Whatever technique you do, this is what you should do all the time. You should always practice the Presence of God, or conscious awareness about inner being, if you want to put it that way. The words are not the important thing. The important thing is that you have your mind always centered within and watching everything that you’re doing as if it weren’t really yours. But with or without yoga, you’ll never get anywhere if you don’t have that attitude.

I would say the important thing is not to go looking for a guru. Look for God. God will send you what you need at the time that you need it. Our devotion should always be to God. I remember Yogananda saying to one disciple “Never mind what happens to me. Don’t forget God.” He’s our common father. He’s the one we’re looking for.

MM: Thank you.

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This interview took place in Sri Kriyananda’s home at Ananda. Nestled into the side of a steep mountain, this peaceful hermitage is often the scene for classes and retreats with guests. Kriyananda has been teaching and writing about the spiritual life for more than 40 years. He is perhaps best known as the founder and spiritual director of Ananda World Brotherhood Village based near Nevada City, California. For information on Kriyananda or Ananda community, call (800) 346-5350.

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