Many readers will know that Ananda Village was mostly destroyed by a huge forest fire in 1976. Devi and I were new parents with an eleven-day-old infant when the flames devoured our home, our clothes, and virtually all our possessions. In meditation this morning I was remembering that day and contemplating some of the cherished lessons I learned.
In the first few years after Swami Kriyananda started Ananda, a number of swamis from India visited us. Most of them were not well known and were traveling alone without any entourage, but they brought with them the authentic spirituality of India. Perhaps it was Yoganandaji’s way of helping to imbue our lives, and Ananda’s work for the future, with deep spiritual vibrations.
As we enter the new year, it’s traditional to use this juncture as an opportunity to make resolutions about how we’d like to improve our life. It’s a little discouraging, however, to think back on previous New Year’s resolutions and realize that we’d resolved to change the same things in years past without any discernible results.
The winter’s night was very cold and windy, and I huddled by the little stove in my camper reading the Bible by the light of a kerosene lamp. In the early years of Ananda our dwellings were simple—without electricity, running water, phones, or any way to communicate with others.
A small group of us just returned from a glorious trip to Varanasi, Kolkata, and Serampore—all places known for their holiness, and filled with events sacred to our line of gurus. Everywhere we saw and experienced the joyful celebration of God in many things that is characteristic of life in India, a celebration not somber and serious, but filled with exuberance.
Devi and I are once again in India after an absence of more than three years. There is a palpable sense of the Divine here, which Paramhansa Yogananda highlighted on March 7, 1952, as he uttered the last words of his incarnation.
Devi and I have been spending a month at the Ananda community near Assisi, Italy, where there is great reverence for St. Francis. Paramhansa Yogananda, too, honored him, calling him his “patron saint.”
“If you only knew how much God loved you, you would die for joy.” These words from St. Jean Vianney, a French saint of the nineteenth century, have always inspired and motivated me spiritually.
Have you ever lost something and searched for it everywhere? Of course you have! So have we all. You may hunt here and there, but finally a moment comes when you realize, “I’ve been looking in the wrong place.” Unfortunately, we look in the wrong place not only for things but, more importantly, for the answers to our deepest questions.