I remember when I wrote my first poem: I was about nine or ten years old, and I brought it with me to a party at my grandad’s, where it got read aloud to a few members of my family that were attending. They were very kind, of course, but I didn’t think it was any good, and that day I was so embarrassed that I never again even attempted to write a poem. I made a few febble attempts at writing stories, but abandoned almost as soon as I started, more or less for the same reasons.

Three days ago I was talking to Khadijah and for some reason we started talking poetry; she suggested that I “should write a poem”, and that it “will help [me] reach the goal [I'm] seeking.” Well, I decided she was right, and the next day I wrote this. The reason I posted it here is to break the trauma I got into more than ten years ago, by making it as public as possible. Therefore, feel free to read or ignore it as you wish; as for me, it doesn’t matter to me anymore if it’s any good or not: it says what I wanted to say, and I poured my heart’s content into it. That’s more than enough.

MY HOMECOMING

Whence did it come, this shattering feeling?
This overwhelming power that my heart is receiving?

For years did I wander, looking for that lost half
Searching far and wide, never throwing the staff.
While Maya, smiling alluringly, promised countless times:
This time is it!
But when I reached out my hand to graps the precious goal,
The wave crashed, and all that was left was foam.

Broken and desperate, I ran away…
My staff, tired and weary, I broke in two.
When lo! Out of the deepest of darkness
A light shone with awe-inspiring brightness
And standing there in the middle, there was You.

And Thou didst smile at me, and all darkness fled.
Thou gavest me love, and my heart was fed.
Thou didst take me in, and I felt at home.
Thou madest me Thine, and I knew True Love.

And then, Thou didst look at me, and say:
“He who searcheth, shall find.”

A scent of flowers…
A feeling of spring…
I lifted my head, and met two dark eyes,
Which gazed at me with ancient familiarity.
Space, time, life, death, worlds, skies,
All ceased to be;
I had found at last my heart in duality.
Because, if God created all in pair,
Why would the soul get a different share?

Whirlwinds of laughter, rivers of tears,
At worlds of distance we have been,
Millenia of silence we have known,
Yet, united we stood, together we’ve grown.
Time and space lost their power; out of their domain,
We had but one parting phrase: till we meet again.

And now, there is no yesterday, no tomorrow.
We have forgotten that which men call sorrow.
We are one, and one with Thee. We are Spirit.
Maya looks at us in the face, and we don’t fear it.
In this world we live, Thy will to accomplish,
But permanently dwelling in Thy home of Bliss.
Though our bodies must part on a lonely stroll,
We’re still one heart, one mind, one Soul.

Anyway, I had never seen the mention to the concept of a soulmate in any of the teachings I have studied, and I’ve often wondered if such thing actually existed. Finally, I got my question answered in the A Way to Awakening series, episode #204. A Way to Awakening is a television program that was recorded by Swami Kriyananda a few years ago to broadcast in India, based on his book, Conversations with Yogananda. So, after all, there is such a thing as a soulmate! I had always believed on that, but it is nice to finally receive a confirmation.

I’m posting the video here, for anyone who would like to see: if you want to go straight to the soulmates part, it is on the minute 10, more or less; however, I do recommend the whole of it. It’s not long, only fifteen minutes and a song.

Joy to you!

Part 1: My summer as an employee in Granby Zoo

With summer coming and the semester at CEGEP about to end, it came the moment when I had to start to think again about looking for a summer job. As I mentioned in my post Memories of Bliss, last summer I had had my first job, and it had been a very enriching and fruitful experience. Still, the fact remained that I had worked for only three weeks. This summer, I wanted to try and see whether I was capable of having a job for three or four months, and I also wanted to go a “step” up the ladder of “job evolution”; with this I mean that I could have chosen a job related to my career, Computer Science, but instead I chose to apply to the “Zoo de Granby.”

After passing (barely) a test on client service and, later, much more comfortably, a personal interview, I was hired as bossboy for the Marché, the main restaurant of the Zoo. My job there consisted, basically, in making sure that everything was neat and tidy in the zones of the restaurant that the clients could be at. That included, among other things: Cleaning the floors (broom and moping), tables, windows, doors, counters, baby chairs, and everything else you can imagine; refilling the condiment “boxes”, answering questions of the clients (“Where is the bathroom?” being the question), opening and closing the restaurant, etc.

The job itself could be pleasant sometimes, tiring at others, and sometimes both: it all depended mostly on how many hours I had slept at night! On a normal day, we woudl have about 8,000 to 10,000 people coming to the Zoo (and sometimes one could swear they all came to eat to the restaurant!), but we also had “light” days, when it rained, in which we would have some 6,000 clients or less (I would never have believed that 6,000 people would come to the Zoo in a rainy day if I had not seen it with my own eyes!); we also had “heavy” days.

The heavy days were those of 12,000 or more people, and the Zoo would close one hour later. The heaviest period we had this summer was a day in which 16,500 people came to the Zoo, and then the next there were 16,000 people; those days I had to work nine and ten hours respectively (running up and down the restaurant), and enter at 7AM the next day! Funny enough, after that row, all of the bossboys started to get tired of the job.

Fortunately, the ambiance at the restaurant was great, as far as workmates and bosses goes. I made a lot of friends among then, and I was friendly with all the rest; I even got a surprise hug from one of the bosses on my last day!

As for the personal part of it, well, this was what I called my “job experiment #2″. From the first day I tried to keep always in mind Yogananda’s axiom, the greater the will the greater the flow of energy, and also his counsel for working people: “No matter what job you do, big or small. Do it so well that the patron can’t manage without you!”. Also, since the job was all about serving people, I took it as a practice of Karma Yoga, and as an act of devotion: serving God as manifested through the people who come to the restaurant.

I cannot tell on my overall degree of success on all of these objectives, but I did do my best to keep up to them. I do know, however, that my efforts reached a certain level of acomplishment, when seen from the eyes of others. Here I will write two of these reassuring experiences:

Once, I went back to my “cleaning cart” in order to pick up something; two girls who were working with me that day were already there, cleaning some trays. As I joined them, one of them, who was seeing me work (from this perspective) for the first time, exclaimed: “I don’t know how you do to do everything that fast!”. Her companion, Myriam, responded: “He’s usually like that,” to which the first girl asked: “But you are not stressed?” I shrugged, and Myriam said: “No, he’s never stressed. He works fast as four people, but he’s always calm. He’s perfect [as a bossboy]“.

Yogananda’s advice, “be calmly active and actively calm” is, therefore, a jewel.

During the party for the end of the season, to which I could not attend because I was flying to California, I was awarded the “WOW prize” (not to confound with “WoW” prize!!!!!) of the restauration department of the Zoo. Thus, the axiom “The greater the will, the greater the flow of energy” is also a jewel!

Independently of these, however, only I know which my mental and emotinal states were during my period of working at the Zoo, and they had their highs and lows. In the overall, however, I believe experiment #2 was brought to a happy conclusion. I learned quite a lot of lessons on service and right attitude to be happy with the result. As a plus, my French improved a huge lot during these few months!

Yesterday, Saturday 27th, 2008, I shaked Michel’s hand on the parting moment, after giving back my uniform and my employee card. Thus finished my journey as an employee of the Zoo, among smiles and best wishes!

Here is me while I was supposed to be working. My boss didn't mind it; actually, she was standing next to my sister, encouraging her to take me pictures!

Part 2: Visiting Granby Zoo

Happy news! Now free from having to work at the Zoo during the weekend, I actually could go there with my siblings and visit. It is a great zoo, named one of the top 10 in North America, but I have written enough already. Let me instead show you some pictures and videos, selected among the 255 pictures and nearly 50 videos we have taken in the place (there were more, but about a third of them were accidentally deleted).

One of the elephants. I believe she is Toutune, who celebrated her 31th anniversary this year.

Pink birds. I do not know their name in English.

One of the giraffes. It looks way more healthy than those at the zoo of Montevideo.

One of the things I love about this zoo is that they have huge espaces in which they keep many animals that can live together. Here is one of such spaces, in the Africa part of the zoo.

Mommy monkey with her child.

One of the gorillas of the Zoo. I do not know which one this is, but one of them celebrated her 55th anniversary this year, only to die a few weeks later. I love this picture.

The hippos being fed. Believe it or not, that is a mother with her child (yes, a child!). The father is still bigger, but out of the picture.

A little kid getting a camel ride.

A mostly-red parrot. It does not show from the picture, but they are HUGE.

A yellow and blue parrow, same size than the previous one.

The alligators in their usual exercise routine.

We had a lot of clear shots of the tigers, but they were all accidentally deleted. This one is the best of those who were left.

These are mini-sharks. They are in a pool and people can come up to hear a presentation on them and caress them if they want.

My sister feeding the birds.

The eagles. We did not get any clear picture of them, but I had to include them because I love eagles.

Part of "The Village" of the Zoo this weekend, as trees start to go red and yellow. The building to the left is Le Marché, the restaurant where I worked.

My sister posing for a picture at the Village.

The rhinos playing in the mud.

Two zebras posing for a picture.

This is Boomer. He came to the zoo as a baby lion, after some legal issues forced his owner to get rid of him. He is a year old now, but he still moves (unlike the adult lions) and his mane is just growing. He is just adorable!

A snow leopard. I believe she is the female, who lost two children this summer.

The pather. Just adorable.

The iguana. It may not show in the picture, but he (or she) is huge! No need to say who I included this picture for!

Black swans. Talking about strange things!

A couple of horses. If I remember right, this species were from Mongolia and were extinct from the wild until they were reintroduced some years ago.

The son of the two horses from the previous picture. He was born the same day I started working there, that is to say the 2nd June.

The little goats at the mini-farm bugging their mother, who is pregnant. One can go in there and play with them if he wants.

As for the videos, here they go:

And with that, I retire. I hope you liked the pictures and videos!

Joy to you!

The other day, a friend made realize that many of the stories are a bit too incredible for most people to believe. I must confess I hadn’t thought of that at first, but I think they are precious anyway and worth reading, if not to be believed, at least to learn the lessons from them.

I will also be converting the post I recently wrote, My Visit to Ananda Village into a page, so as to have an easier access and divided by chapters, for when it gets scrolled out of the main page.

Joy to you!

My stay was very productive: I don’t know what else I could have done there! I got all I had been looking for and more, it was a really wonderful experience!

Since telling a day-by-day journal would be incomplete, I’m going to divide all of i into sub-sections and go like that. Here’s an “index”:

Chapter 1: The Trips – There and Back
Chapter 2: The Baggage
Chapter 3: The Dreams
Chapter 4: The Climate
Chapter 5: The Expanding Light
Chapter 6: The Community
Chapter 7: Ananda Village
Chapter 8: The Schools
Chapter 9: The Temples
Chapter 10: Crystal Hermitage
Chapter 11: The People
Chapter 12: The Lunch
Chapter 13: Sadhanas
Chapter 14: The Sunday Service
Chapter 15: Healing Prayers
Chapter 16: Discipleship
Chapter 17: The AUM Technique
Chapter 18: Swami Kriyananda
Chapter 19: The Future
Chapter 20: Afterthoughts

I’m also going to convert this in a page, with a subpage for each chapter, since it came out so long, and so that it can be easily accessible.

Chapter 1: The Trips – There and Back

I’ll put it this way: if I never again put a foot in a plane, it’ll be too soon! Well, I’m not serious, but traveling by air sure is a lot of trouble and formalisms, not to mention the trip tends to be uncomfortable! I do like, however, the taking off and landing, at least if I am close to the window.

To get to Ananda Village I’d have to take a taxi, two buses and three flights: taxi from Granby to Brommont, buses from Brommont to Montréal and from Montréal to the airport, and flights from Montréal to Calgary, from Calgary to Vancouver, and from Vancouver to Sacramento. I was supposed to arrive to Sacramento at 9:15PM, where someone (Nabha) would be waiting for me to take me to Ananda Village. Everything went nice and smooth until I arrived to Vancouver, where I had the first adventure of my odyssey…

The time between my arrival to Vancouver and my departure was about 35 minutes, which meant that when I got to the gate of my last plane, people were already boarding. I noticed that the board behind the lady who checked the tickets showed two flights going out that gate, but assumed I’d be told if I had to do something special. I gave her my ticket, she watched it and let me pass, making no remark. I went then by the only way I saw until I got into a plane… inside, I wanted to ask the guy at the door whether the plane went to Sacramento, but I only showed him my ticket instead. He nodded, and I got in. After all, I thought, I had seen neither other plane nor gate around, this must be the right flight!

Well, after a while it became evident that something was missing, because airport staff men were coming and going, repositioning people. I wondered what was up but I didn’t suspect it involved me in any way. Finally, one of the staff asks to the passengers to listen to him for a bit, and goes: “We’re gonna be leaving in a couple of minutes. However, before that, I have an announcement to make; I know no one here goes to Sacramento, but they told me to say it anyway, so here it goes: this plane does not go to Sacramento, it goes to Seattle. Sacramento is very nice, too, but if that is your destination, you got the wrong plane, thank you.”

Oooops! I got up at once and walked up to the man. He was surprised to find me here: apparently the airport staff had been looking for me because I was missing in the other plane! (I wonder why they didn’t think to look in the other plane which went by the same gate). In any case, they brought me to the same lady who had let me pass without giving me any direction (I wasn’t told at all that there were two planes going out that door at the same time, and even though I suspected it, I went by the only way I saw), who informed me they had been looking for me everywhere.

She also informed me that my plane had already departed.

This was a bucket of cold water. I felt bad for the lady: I wasn’t angry, but I was acting serious and hard, which put the lady into a really apologetic position; anyway, I had to act energetically, because Nabha would be waiting for me at the Sacramento airport at 9:15PM, and who knows where I would be by then!

Apparently, there had been an error in the airline: two planes going out the same gate at the same time was not supposed to happen, and they should have told me so and where to go. It was also my fault, too, for realizing something fishy was going on, but not wanting to make sure everything’s fine.

The lady informed me that I had two options: either take a plane to San Francisco that left in about forty minutes, or wait until the next day and land on Sacramento at 1PM with the next flight. My immediate concern, however, was to inform Nabha that I wouldn’t be appearing, so I asked the lady to call him. She tried one time, no one answered; I insisted she called again: same result. I asked her then to wait fifteen minutes or so, and only if he didn’t respond that time, I’d make my decision on which plane to take.

I prayed to Yogananda during the waiting, and asked him to let me communicate with Nabha and guide me in what to do. After five minutes or so (the lady had a hard time waiting), she telephoned to the airport in Sacramento and asked them to call for Nabha by the speakers, and also to try calling him to his cell phone. While we waited, the lady told some other man of the airport staff to put my baggage “on wait” so it could get in the same plane as me (for some reason, it didn’t get in the Sacramento plane, either).

After a few minutes, success! The Sacramento airport had been able to contact Nabha, who told them to tell me to take the plane to San Francisco. Grateful (to him for being disposed to add four hours to his car trip for someone he didn’t know, to Yoganandaji for heeding and responding to my prayer, and also to the lady for really caring about getting this issue solved), I embarked into the San Francisco flight.

I arrived there at 10:00PM or so. After getting out of the private part, I bought a phone card (there went my first $20) to call Nabha and tell him I had arrived and where I was; he told me he was still trying to get to the airport, but he would be there soon. The airport was unfamiliar to him, though, and since he couldn’t contact me if he wanted information, I kept calling him to give/receive reports; finally, at about 11:30PM, we met.

I was already really tired: I had gotten up at 5:30AM of the east coast, and 11:30PM of California were, for me, 2:30AM. The car trip was long: we arrived to Ananda Village at 3:30AM, four hours later. By then, not even conversation with Nabha, nor listening to him sing (he sings well!), could keep me awake any longer, and, luckily, I didn’t have to! As soon as we arrived, he left me in Serenity House, showed me my room, gave me my key and I went to bed, falling asleep at once.

——

The way back was, fortunately, much more uneventful. This time everything went fine, except I couldn’t sleep at all in the plane (I traveled during the night); so, I slept through most of the Sunday. Nabha took me to the airport (by this time, we were already good friends) and gave me a parting gift. The only remarkable thing that happened during this trip was that I lost all of my boarding passes in the Los Angeles airport! I was saved by someone who found them and turned them in, after which I was called by the loudspeaker. The only words I could understand were my last name and “boarding pass,” so I thought they were asking me to present myself with my boarding pass! That made me fret, because then I realized I didn’t have it. It was only when I stopped looking for it and decided to go and tell them I lost it, that I was at ease again.

My inability to sleep during the night at the plane made the rest of the trip a sort of hell, but that’s a normal thing with flights, I assume. I made up for it at home, as I said, sleeping through most of Sunday!

Nabha and I. My lips were hurt because of the dry climate, so they look bigger and/or dirty.

Chapter 2: The Baggage

Remember I mentioned that my baggage didn’t get into the plane I missed? Well, when I took the plane to San Francisco, it was too late for my bag to follow me! I was told to fill a “baggage report” in the San Francisco airport; they’d send the bag from Vancouver to Sacramento on the flight of the next day, and then they’d ship it to the address of the place I was staying. Or so I was told.

When I got to San Francisco, I filled the report after a good deal of explaining to the lady. A first sign that it was going to be a long fight was that her computer told her my bag was actually supposed to be in San Francisco. Only after I went looking for it and confirmed her my bag wasn’t there did she believe it must still be in Vancouver, and let me fill the report.

The next day, I got a call to The Expanding Light (I was lucky I was at the reception at the moment) from the Sacramento Airport. It went something like this:

“Mr. Castelli?”

“Yes?”

“I have a baggage report of yours here; it was made in the airport of San Francisco. Is your bag in San Francisco?”

“No, it’s still in Vancouver. It should arrive to Sacramento today at 1PM”

“To Sacramento? If so, why didn’t you fill the form in Sacramento?”

“I missed my flight and had to go to San Francisco instead, but my bag couldn’t get into the plane with me, so they’re sending it to Sacramento, which was my original destination.”

“Alright, but you should have gone to the Sacramento airport anyway and fill your report there.”

“I was told to do it in San Francisco.”

“Oh… well, please wait fifteen minutes, someone will call you back.”

“Okay.”

Forty-five minutes later, the phone sounds again; the lady at the reception responds; it is for me: she gave me the phone, saying to the airport person: “Please, try to speak slowly: his English is limited.”

I took the phone and the airport person gave me the file number of my bag, which I wrote down. She also gave me a telephone to call to if I need, and asked me to confirm the time and plane in which my bag should be arriving, after which she asked to talk to the receptionist again (I wasn’t used to speak English then, I kept trying to speak in French; so, it was somewhat hard to communicate with me on the phone). After the reception lady hung the phone, she said to me:

“She told me they’d try to locate your bag and send it here; and that they’ll get it here tomorrow, maybe.”

“Tomorrow?!”

“Yes, maybe. That’s what I was told.”

I was dismayed. I thanked her, gave her the sheet with my bag’s file number, just in case they called again while I wasn’t here; and asked her if there was any place where I could buy clothes, a hair comber, a toothbrush and paste, etc, because everything was in my bag. Her response: the market is closed today. So, I was stuck there in my first day having barely slept five hours, without clothes to change; without even a means to comb my hair! About that time, a lady called Shankari walked in and was filled in with my problem; the reception lady and her told me they would try to get me as many things as they could so that I would be able to, at least, shower!

I wanted to go to the Sunday Service at the Hansa Temple, and then I had been invited by Nabha to go to a lunch at the Meditation Retreat; Shankari offered to take me to the temple for the Service and, after that, Anandi would take me to the lunch and back. Shankari also gave me a T-shirt she had in her bag, white and reading “Ananda” and “Rajarsi week;” I gratefully accepted it, that was a start!

When I got back from the lunch, the lady at the reception told me there were no news of my bag, but she had gotten me soap and shampoo; returning to my room I also saw a comber which I hadn’t noticed before (a really bad one, but I wasn’t about to complain! I don’t know where it came from). It was enough to shower: I could at least wash myself, change my T-shirt, go without underpants (no option), and with the same socks, hoping to survive until the next day! Something worth noting is that I broke several of that comber’s dents in my hair….

Monday morning I woke up and went up to the reception; Nirmoha (the guy with which I had been arranging my stay by e-mail) received me with the following announcement: “I got a message from the airport staff on the voice mail this morning. They tried to bring your bag up here, but they couldn’t find the place. They left a phone number; I’m going to call them so that I can give them more specific directions: people sometimes have trouble getting up here.”

He tries to call, but it’s busy, so he tells me he’s gonna keep trying. Okay! After a couple of hours I come back:

“I’ve been constantly trying to call and the number is always busy! I’m going to look up on the internet for another number to contact the airport, maybe we can get to talk to someone that way.” After a little, he finds a new number: it doesn’t work either; he finds another: this one works! Nirmoha then talked to some staff people, until he got to the right person and asked about my bag. What do they tell him? They need to know my bag’s file number! The very same one I had given the reception lady the day before, before I learned, too late, that she didn’t normally work there and that she had departed on vacation that very day! Nirmoha looked for the number everywhere, in vain.

I had the faint hope that maybe the number would be in my boarding pass: I remembered a little of it; so, I was sure I’d recognize it if I saw it. Unfortunately, the number wasn’t on my boarding pass, but I left it on Nirmoha’s hands anyway, telling him that maybe he can use some of the info on them to get the file number. Meanwhile, I told him, I had to go, because I was supposed to have lunch with someone.

After coming back from lunch, I went back to the reception, but Nirmoha wasn’t there. Jeannie, the other receptionist, gave me a paper from him, though: he had gotten my bag’s file number and yet another, different, phone number to call to. Deciding that he had already done more than enough, I decided to do the rest myself: I took the paper and called to the number written on it.

The result: I got to listen to an automatic responder, all of whose options didn’t have anything to do with what I needed, and without the option of just “talking to someone.” I just went for a random option and hoped I’d get to talk to a real person and… it happened! I got to talk to someone and tell to him about my problem; he then gave me (another!!!!!) a phone number to call to.

Hoping this would be the last stop, I called to the new number; when I was given the option on whether I wanted to talk to someone in English or French, I chose French: BIG mistake.

I go to talk someone whose domain of French was quite poor, and later I found out that so was his domain of English! He had, I thought, a strong Colombian accent, so I asked him if he spoke Spanish; alas, no such luck! Struggling to communicate, here’s a summary of how the conversation went:

“Hello, may I help you?”

“Hello,” I said, and I proceeded to explain what happened to my bag. “So, I would like to give you more specific directions so your people can deliver my baggage.”

“What’s your bag’s file number?” I gave him the number he asked.

Okay, I’ll look it up on the computer, one moment please.”

After a couple of minutes, he returned. “Well, here it is,” he announced, “It says the bag is in Sacramento, and it has to be delivered to this address, right?” He read the address of The Expanding Light.

“Yes.”

“Well, wasn’t it delivered already?”

“They tried to, but they couldn’t find the place. That’s why I’m calling, to give more specific directions.”

“Ah, okay, but that wouldn’t be to me. I’m going to try to contact someone else who might know what to do. Wait a minute, please.” Saying that, he put on music and left.

Ten minutes later, he came back, saying: “Yes, I wasn’t able to communicate, but why didn’t they deliver the bag to you already?”

“I told you: they couldn’t find this place. They asked me to give them better directions and gave me a number to call to; the number was a bad one, though.”

“What’s the phone number they gave you?” I gave him the phone number.

“That’s not an airport number. But I want to try to contact someone else to check what’s the current status of the bag. He’s not available right now, however, so it might take a while. Wait a minute please.”

“What? I just want to give you directions…”

“Yes, I’m going to contact someone to check what’s the status of your bag right now. It might take a while, wait a minute, please.”

“Do you want me to call back again later?”

“Yes, if possible, so I will have time to check on the status of the bag.”

At this point, I wanted to avoid hanging the phone as much as possible, since experience told me I would end up talking to someone else and having to go all over everything again. So, I hurriedly said: “As I told you, they tried to deliver it here today but they couldn’t find the place. That’s why I call, only to leave you more specific directions!”

“Let me look up for your bag again… okay, here it says your address is <my Canada address>, right?”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with it?”

“I’m just confirming your personal data.”

“But what does that have to do with anything?”

“If the bag couldn’t be delivered to you in your temporary address (the Expanding Light), we might have to send it to this address.”

“Listen, they left me a message asking me to call to leave better directions.”

“Yes, but if they couldn’t find it…”

“That’s because I haven’t yet been able to leave them directions yet!”

“Why haven’t you been able to communicate?”

“Because the number they gave me didn’t work, as I’ve said before.”

“Okay. Well then, if we do have to send the baggage to Canada…” I interrupted him.

“What do you mean ‘if’? I am going to stay here for a while and I have all my stuff in that bag.”

“I’m sorry; I meant to say we’ll send it as soon as we find it.”

“How long do you think it’ll take to send it?”

“I couldn’t tell, maybe a few days.”

“I can’t wait a few days; I have need of it as soon as possible.”

“Well, we could send it to you at once. We have a special service which will cost you only <exaggerate amount of money> and we could get it there by tomorrow.”

“What?” I asked. As a response, the man repeated himself over.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s a service through which we could send you the bag really fast. Otherwise, it could take days.”

“Listen, I was told it would get here yesterday. This morning they already tried to get it here, and they called me so they could come again. All they asked was that I gave them directions.”

“Oh, alright. Can you give me the directions?”

“Wait a minute; I’m going to call somebody who can. He speaks English, though.”

“We can speak French, it’s okay.”

“No, I’m not the one who is gonna give you the directions, that’s someone else. But he only speaks English.”

“Alright.”

I went looking for Nirmoha; he was busy, so I went back to the phone.

“He’s on the phone right now,” I said, “can you wait a few minutes?”

“Sure, no problem.”

So, after Nirmoha finished his phone talk, I asked him to come over and give the man the so-much-needed directions, which he did. I still can’t figure out how my conversation with that guy turned in such a circle before I could finally make him understand the really simple thing I wanted. I must confess that I wasn’t completely reassured when Nirmoha came out telling me he’d successfully given all the directions.

Meanwhile, that day I met Marga and she let me enter into a used clothes shop (it was closed that day, but she borrowed the key to let me in) to borrow some clothes, and I could wash them and return them later. Due to some miracle, we found underwear for men (they normally don’t have those things), and I also picked up a couple of T-Shirts and socks, just in case I didn’t get to see my baggage before the end of my stay. At least now I had clothes to use!! I also bought a toothbrush and paste in the Market, which was open this day.

I didn’t have to wait much, though, because, fortunately, the story has a happy ending: the next morning (Tuesday), I went to the reception after breakfast, where Nirmoha received me with my bag! It took it quite an effort to make it there, though, as Nirmoha told me: Apparently, the car which was bringing my bag the night before broke in the middle of the road!!! They called Nirmoha to tell him this, but he insisted that the bag be delivered anyway, since there had already been too long a delay already. So, the airport people deployed a new car that encountered the first and got my bag delivered to The Expanding Light. Finally!!

Useless to say, I went gratefully at once to the house to shower, change, and comb my hair!

Jeannie, who gave me the fateful paper of which I will talk about later, and Nirmoha, the hero who fought half of the airport staff to get my bag to the retreat!

Chapter 3: The Dreams

During my stay in The Expanding Light, I had some really strange dreams; I don’t remember what I dreamed every night, but I do know there was a progression to it, which is already interesting on itself. I also dreamed most of the night, every day, which made my sleep somewhat troubled. I’m counting “my first night” as the Sunday-Monday transition, since the Saturday-Sunday night can hardly count as such in my case, as I slept less than five hours after staying up twenty-five!

The first night I dreamed all the time about closed, dark and/or scary places I was trapped in and/or trying to get out from, sometimes with my siblings, sometimes alone. Sometimes I’d be pursued by some kind of danger. For example, in one of those “first night dreams”, I was with my sister walking by a dark city street, when we were chased by a band of people with knives. We managed to escape, but only barely, as I had to put special care on protecting my sister, who was too scared to do anything.

My second night was somewhat similar. Instead of being trapped in dark places, I would find myself severed from people in many ways: always forcefully so; sometimes I got into arguments with family members or friends. I don’t remember much of this night except that I dreamed all night, and that my dreams were not pleasant. It’s curious, because I don’t ever have nightmares (I wouldn’t count these as such anyway) and unpleasant dreams are very rare… yet, I had many of these last for two nights in a row, and while staying at The Expanding Light. Go figure!

During the third night, I dreamed with Swami Kriyananda. This was the Tuesday-to-Wednesday night, which means that, during the day, Lakshman (Swami’s secretary) had told me that Swamiji wasn’t available for an appointment “neither today nor tomorrow.” In this dream, I had finally gotten my appointment with him and I was waiting for him in a dark room where the only illumination was a light that fell into a round table with two chairs next to it. I arrived first, so I sat on one of the chairs, waiting for Swami to come.

After a little while, Swamiji emerged from the darkness with a baby girl in his arms that looked two or three years old in body, but very adult in her face features. The child was dark-skinned and had penetrating, black eyes that looked extremely aware of what was going on around her, extremely intelligent, and extremely evil. Swamiji then excused himself to go look for something and left the baby girl on the table.

Since Swami was not present now, I diverted my attention to the baby girl. She was looking intensely at me. What a surprise! Her face, her dark skin, her eyes (save for the evil look to them) were all Khadijah’s! (For all of those who might not know, Khadijah was my girlfriend for a few months, and my friend-girlfriend for all the rest of the time since a few days after I met her on an online game, three years ago. She was my “dream girl”, exactly how I had always dreamed my girlfriend would be since I was a child, and also the first and only girlfriend I’ve had in this life. I never got to know her personally, however, since both of us have only recently acquired the mobility required for such a meeting, and then I was already committed to go to Ananda.)

I was scared because of her evil eyes and because she was using them to look so intensely at me. But, since she looked so much like Dijah and so much like an adult (only the body was that of a baby’s), I wanted to hug her and to keep her close to me. For a time, I was undecided on whether I should avoid her (she was tangibly evil) or embrace her (she looked like Dijah!), so I just stayed there not knowing what to do. My dream ends here, as far as I remember anyway.

My fourth night, the night before I got my appointment with Swamiji, I dreamed with it again. I was in a room with Lakshman and Swami; he was busy walking around and organizing his things, but he was talking to me and Lakshman nonetheless. I don’t remember anything he said, except that at some point he looked at me and said: “You look exactly like an Indian, except for the white skin. You should be an Indian.” Interestingly enough, the following day he’d tell me, in the real appointment, to go to India.

My fifth night, the one after the appointment, I don’t remember what I dreamed at all, except that Guruji Paramhansa Yogananda was in the dream. Same thing, I believe, for the sixth night, the night after I took discipleship; except on this one I cannot say for sure: I just don’t remember.

I always find it helpful to write about my dreams, because it gives me a better perspective to understand them, or, at least, to realize possible interpretations to them. This “set of dreams” was a very interesting one and I’m glad I decided to put them into writing, because I had never before realized how much more interesting than I first thought they were!

Chapter 4: The Climate

Before I go in depth into the other aspects of the community, I have to make a little parenthesis to comment on the only “non-paradise” feature of the place: the climate! Coming from Uruguay, Quebec seemed horribly dry to me. It is, however, nothing compared to how dry the climate is up there in Nevada Hills! I also had the “pleasure” of being able to visit in an especially dry summer, so I got to meet the climate at its worst.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t willing to put too much energy into adapting to the climate, since I would be back into the humidity in so little time and I was afraid I’d have to go through a re-adaptation to humidity. My body did start adapting anyway, although slowly.

All in all, the climate didn’t affect me as bad as it could have, although it did affect me to some extent. For one, my lips went dry, and no matter how much water I drank, they didn’t start healing until my last day, when I was going back to Granby anyway. They hurt and the skin around them was hurt, too, becoming red and making it seem I had the lips dirty and swollen! Curious effect, but it happened. Also, the new climate made me more tired than usual and my nights became troubled, which accounts for me sleeping some nine hours a night and still being tired often during the day.

In summary: I’m grateful that the climate was as bad as it was! If that (and the bag/travel problems) was the price I had to pay for all that came to me during the week, then I think it was an extremely cheap price!

Chapter 5: The Expanding Light

The Expanding Light is the place where I was staying; it is the Retreat of the community (or one of them), to which people go from everywhere to visit Ananda Village. It consists in a few houses, a reception building, a boutique, a dining room and a temple, all of whom are simple and yet very beautiful in their simplicity, very well illuminated and aired, and with a peaceful and uplifting atmosphere about them. This atmosphere, or these vibrations, pervades the whole community.

I chose to stay in a shared, normal room because it was the cheapest option available, beside a tent; I got the room #5 of Serenity House. I do not know how the deluxe rooms are, but I do know for sure that I was more than happy with my room. Actually, because there weren’t many people staying at the same time as I, I basically got all the “advantages” of a deluxe, single room, which include being alone in your room (I was alone all the time: the only hint of someone else having been in the room was a messed up bed that stayed exactly the same until I departed, when I cleaned it up) and internet connection (the wireless can be detected from Serenity House, and I was told by the staff I could use it freely). With a comfortable bed, an alarm clock, a good window, internet connection and a place to plug my laptop, I had everything I could ask for in a room. I spent a while every afternoon calling my dad and/or brother and/or sister to let them know how I was doing and ask how they were doing.

The room. Notice: the picture hung on the wall. Do not notice: the mess that is my bed.

I didn’t really explore much of the rest of the house, but all of it is clean and nice, with pictures of Yogananda and the other Ananda Gurus hung on the walls pretty much everywhere. The living room was especially nice, but I only ever went in there to drink water, and once to do homework for school, which was due for the next morning!

Living room of Serenity House.

Living room of Serenity House. The table to the right is where I sat for a couple of hours to do my homework.

Serenity House seen from the outside. The yellow-brown thing is actually grass, not pine tree's stuff.

Going out of the house and walking a bit, we find the reception building. Like everything else, it’s very nice to look at, and there’s where I would go every morning to say hi to the staff there (normally Nirmoha, Jeannie or Maitri) and check for messages for me at the messages board. It was also there where I went to use the telephone, and the place that was normally used as “meeting point” when I had to meet someone.

Behind the reception room is the boutique. What a place! I could easily spend a fortune in there, mostly in gifts but also in books and CDs. I was kept enthralled for the longest time, looking at all those nice books of Kriyananda’s that I didn’t have yet! I was also surprised to find out all the CDs of Yogananda’s classes… I had assumed that, because I didn’t find anything else on the internet to download, I already had all the records of him! I was badly mistaken, but glad to be corrected!

I eventually bought four necklaces there: Saraswati for me, Shiva for my brother, Ganesh for my sister, AUM for my dad; along with the book Sadhu Beware, after being told to read it by Swamiji. I haven’t yet done so, because I want to do it as attentively as possible, but I have skimmed it and it seems to be quite amazing.

Reception building of The Expanding Light

Books in the boutique.

Probably it’s already easy to guess because of the “baggage” event, but I should add that the staff here is really good and always willing to help one out in whatever way they can. Although the people is what makes The Expanding Light and the rest of Ananda Village so special, I am going to leave an account of it until later, in “The Community” and “The People” chapters of this “report”.

Continuing into the Expanding Light facilities, separated by a little garden from the reception building is the Dining Room, with the Temple annexed to it. The dining room is the place where all the meals are served, and you can either sit inside or at the tables outside. Like the other buildings, it’s covered by pictures of the Masters, and it also has a picture of Swami Kriyananda in every table, along with a prayer for the food. Every time I sat to eat, I would turn Swamiji’s picture toward me.

The meals were all good, and it was a relief that, for first time in my life, I could go eat somewhere that wasn’t my house and not have to be wary about what I can eat and what I cannot: every dish is vegetarian! People that live and work in the community often come here to have their meals along with the visitors of The Expanding Light. I normally sat alone, since I like to eat in silence, but most of the time someone would come to sit with me, which I would thank for, since it was my best opportunity to talk to some of them, like Seva, Nirmoha, or Matt.

Three meals a day are served: breakfast at 8:30, lunch at 12:30, and dinner at 6:30. Strangely, I became accustomed to it quite fast (normally I have breakfast after my sadhana, at whatever time I wake up, another “breakfast” between 3 and 5PM, and dinner at about 9PM; I rarely have lunch), although I did notice the lack of sweets, since I always eat at least something sweet at every “breakfast”!

The entrance to the Dining Room

The Dining Room

Going through the Dining Room we find the temple: there is where the guided Sadhanas are performed, with staff of the retreat fulfilling the role of teachers, or guides. If it’s not too cold, they will go outside to start with the Energization Exercises, and then back inside to do the rest of it. The temple is also used sometimes to give classes to the visitors.

Inside the Temple of The Expanding Light. To the left is Byasa, preparing a class on the yuga cycles.

The altar of the temple with images of the line of gurus of Ananda. From left to right: Lahiri Mahasaya, Mahavatar Babaji, Jesus Christ, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, Paramhansa Yogananda.

A little fountain just next to the temple of The Expanding Light.

That’s it for The Expanding Light. It is a relatively small zone of the community, but, as the rest of it, entirely delightful! Even though the grass in most places was dry due to the dry climate (maybe I’ll get to see it in spring someday!), it cannot eclipse the beauty of the area, let alone the beauty of its people.

Sign of the Expanding Light. The symbol in the middle is the Symbol of Joy, designed by Swami Kriyananda and used quite freely all over Ananda!

Chapter 6: The Community

Community! Reality has probably made most people degrade their definition of a “community” to a place were a bunch of people live together. Where, after all, can you find a true community in a deeper sense? A place where like-minded people live and work together in harmony and friendship toward the achieving of a specific goal or set of goals? The words “harmony” and “friendship” make it impossible for someone accustomed to the modern world to imagine such a place… yet, I witnessed first-hand the answer to that question: Ananda Village, that’s where!

I couldn’t help having the feeling, which I later found out, was shared by Lakshman, of being in a mini-version of some ancient Indian Kingdom: a community based on spiritual principles, led by a wise “king”, a role filled by Swamiji, who is the spiritual leader of the community. Before anyone jumps at this, however, let me make clear that Swamiji never imposes his will on anyone, nor does he has any personal motives to be wary of. But he is the leader of the community, and without him, Ananda couldn’t have either been started (he’s the founder, after all!) nor continue alive today.

The people living here are the real jewel of the community, although I’ll talk about it later. The spiritual vibrations of the place, however, do have an effect on what happens all over and on the consciousness of people and nature alike. An example: a few years ago, there was a forest fire that menaced to burn up Ananda Village; when the fire reached the limits of the community, the wind suddenly changed directions and the community was spared! Another example are the animals: Ananda Village is surrounded by woods inhabited by a lot of animals: some inoffensive, others normally less so. The woods surrounding and entering the village are the home to bears and mountain lions, and there have actually been cases of those going down to the village to “explore”. However, in forty years since the community was founded, not one member or visitor of it has ever been harmed by one of these “dangerous beasts”!

That’s just two examples of countless miracles and “incredible” things, which are so strange for people living in “the real world”, and yet so normal in the lives of members of a community based entirely on spiritual principles and protected by the blessings of true Masters!

It’s hard to believe for someone who hasn’t really seen it that such a place exists where there is such harmony, peace and joy; where people live in simplicity and yet up to date with the technological world; where everywhere around you, you see friendly faces and willing, helping hands. In her Sunday Service of the 31st August, Asha described Ananda Village as a “paradise”, and I agree completely with her.

During my first day and part of the second, I was homesick, or rather, “siblingssick”. By the time when I had to go back to Granby, though, I didn’t really want to go. Marga told me that day, by phone, “you take Ananda with you”; once I had left Ananda, I had the opportunity to realize it was very true: not only the friends I made, the things I learned and the experiences I lived, but also the peace and joy that come only for being there, bathed in the vibrations of the place, went back to Canada with me. As a matter of fact, I didn’t quite realize that I had “taken” so much from Ananda until I was in the plane back and noticed the huge contrast between the two worlds.

Needless to say, I got back home some $2000 poorer than I left, but all the same I am considerably richer. Moreover, and maybe the most important thing, I am now a family richer.

Chapter 7: Ananda Village

Ananda Village is the home to such community: 800 acres (or was it 900?) of land in the Nevada Hills, most of it still forest, with buildings only when there is a need for them. One can get to anywhere by car, as roads (private for the use of community inhabitants and visitors and only existing within Ananda’s property) can be found to take you anywhere where there are buildings. I only bother to write this because I was asked one day by a friend of mine, when I told her I’d be visiting Ananda Village on summer: “Is it one of those communities in which people try to live in wooden huts without cars, electricity, running water, etc?” No, it is not!

With the purpose of making my “tour” easier, I’m going to separate the Village in seven zones: The Expanding Light, the Meditation Retreat, Downtown Ananda, Ananda School, Rajarsi Business Park, Crystal Hermitage and the “houses zone”. The Expanding Light I have already gone through, and the School and Crystal Hermitage will have their own sections later; so, I’m going to start by the Meditation Retreat.

The Meditation Retreat serves, from what I understood, more or less the same purpose than the Expanding Light, with a couple of differences: first, it is home to the monastery; and second, it has more history than the Expanding Light. Why more history? Because that’s the little area in which Ananda was started, forty years ago! I didn’t get to see much of it because I was there only once (it is separated from the rest of the community). The aura of peace is all-pervading, though; that’s a lot to say, since I was there only in the occasion of an event to which many, many people went, and still it was easy to feel!

Downtown Ananda is… well, I’m not quite sure of what it is! From what I could see, there are houses in which people live, and it is the first place in which I saw children from the community. There you can find a few shops, too: the thrift shop from where I borrowed clothes, Master’s Market, and some others I cannot identify. One of the charming (for me anyway!) things about this place is that they have a big zone of green grass (they water it daily), which they use to play soccer! I actually heard a few children talking about soccer once, as I was in my way to Master’s Market. I couldn’t help but smiling from ear to ear.

I didn’t spend a lot of time here, either. On one occasion I came to the green zone to play soccer for a little while (the same day I got my bag with my clothes and my soccer ball). I spent about half an hour to forty minutes juggling the ball and practicing overhead kick: it was fun and funny at the same time, because my overhead kick improved a lot that day only! I didn’t get to play soccer anymore after that, though; on two occasions I was invited to, but I had to refuse because of conflicting schedules.

Here are a few pictures of Downtown Ananda:

The fountain of joy. I find it thrillingly beautiful. You can see a bit of the "green zone" in the background.

Master's Market.

A playground for children

Next stop: the Rajarsi Business Park. There, from what I understood, is where most of the offices of the community are located, and the center of Ananda worldwide. The simplicity of the place would make one think they are houses instead of offices, but no: they are offices. And what offices, too! The stress of a workplace is nonexistent here, or at least I couldn’t feel any; instead, people here are relaxed and (as always) friendly, even if they are working.

A very remarkable thing I noticed is that the offices, and the community as a whole, don’t have too many rules. As a contrary to the normal thought of “for an organism to work well, there must be well-defined rules that cover every situation that may emerge”, here the basic “rule” is trust on people’s sincerity. Once, when I was having lunch with Nabha, we had this little exchange:

“Is your lunch time from 12:30 to 1:30 or something?” I asked.

“No… not really,” he responded, “we don’t have defined times to eat, we just take them time when we want to.”

“Wow, nice!”

“Yes. You know, when a person is good and other people put trust on him, he wants to live up to that trust. That’s how Ananda works.”

So, basically, the “rule of trust”, which would be scoffed at by almost any employer in a city, is the basic principle here. And it works! These people make a very fine job at what they do, otherwise Ananda wouldn’t be so successful worldwide; and yet, it is lack of rules, and not an overwhelming amount of them, which keeps things flowing harmoniously and smoothly!

Entering the Ananda Sangha building, which is the center of the work of Ananda Worldwide (if I understand it well), I found many people whose interruption of their work only to come out with a big smile to greet a stranger that was visiting the retreat (that would be me) I found very touching and inspiring. In there I also found the best offices I have ever seen in a workplace: while, like everything else, they are simple (and in some cases, quite small), they are neat, they have plenty of sunlight, and they are covered with inspiring pictures and the like. I told Nabha: “It must be really nice to work in here!” His reply: “Yes… yes, it is.”

The Sangha office seen from the outside. You can see there only two of the 5.000 doors you can use to get inside!

The inhabitants of the fountain in front of the Sanga Offices

Dave, Seva, and myself in the offices of Crystal Clarity. My siblings have told me the picture is fine, but I still think it looks like I had a toothache!

Also located in Rajarsi Park is the Hansa Temple, where the Sunday Services are normally held. The shape of its roof cannot be very well made out of the pictures, but it’s a roof with history anyway! I’m not sure I remember it exactly in the details, but the basics are the same:

Back when the Hansa Temple was being built, Swami Kriyananda came up with the inspiration of making the roof in that strange shape, so he explained this to the constructors and asked for the shape of the roof to be done in that way. For weeks the workers tried to get it done, but were unsuccessful: no one knew how such shape could be brought into reality; they explained this to Swamiji and prepared to dismantle the attempts they had been doing at the roof sometime soon.

However, before they had the chance to do so, a man who was staying at Ananda happened to look at what they were doing. He informed them: “I am an architect, and probably the only man in the world who knows how to construct such a roof!” With that, he proceeded to give the workers precise instructions and the temple was brought to a happy finalization, roof and all!

I might have erred in the details of the story (did they attempt to construct the roof for weeks or only days?), but as I said, the basics are the same.

The Hansa Temple. The best word I can think of to describe it is: "charming".

The last part of Ananda Village I visited was the “houses zone”. Houses can be found a bit anywhere inside the community lands, but there is a zone which consists exclusively of houses for people to live in. Walking through that zone is very pleasant, as it’s all surrounded by the woods. Because of California laws that make construction of houses difficult, most of them are home to many people, not related by blood but effectively belonging to the same spiritual family!

Marga gave me a tour for this zone, showing me the inside of a couple of houses and also the surrounding terrains. Later, on Saturday morning, I came back to try and visit Rose and other people (I forgot their names), but they weren’t home, so I left a note and took the chance to take pictures of it.

My impression of the houses is very favorable, as you may have guessed. They all have plenty of “space to breathe” surrounding them, and the outside is usually beautified with plants, fountains and statues. I was surprised to see how big the inside was! Independently of having ten rooms, they are quite big and spacious, and the ambiance is great. Every house, as far as I could see, has a special room-shrine reserved exclusively for spiritual practices, and the rest of the building is usually covered with inspiring pictures, paintings and so on.

Here are a few pictures I took in my visit there last Saturday:

A house.

Chandi House: here is where people that want to live in Ananda Village usually come to first.

A fountain outside Chandi House, with a statue of Lahiri Mahasaya.

Dining room in Chandi House.

Living room of Chandi House. The statue on the back is of Mahavatar Babaji.

A statue just outside Chandi House; I believe it is Shiva. I love it.

A picture of Brotherhood Way, the street which leads to the "houses zone".

In total, Ananda Village counts with 250-300 residents, and around the world there are about a thousand people living in Ananda Communities. Slow but steady, and a good start! However, independently on whether the number increases or not, the important thing is that Ananda is there as a much needed role model, so that humanity can emerge from the troubled times ahead.

Chapter 8: The Schools

If there is something that deeply impressed me but I cannot exactly tell why or how, it is the schools. Ananda Village has a primary school, secondary school and university. The university lacks the normal career options like Physics, Computer Science and English, but offers instead degrees on things that, to me, are infinitely more interesting: yoga philosophy (I would definitely go for that!), education for life, and others I don’t remember. The primary and secondary school offer “education for life”, which, as I understand it, includes all the normal topics that are taught in a normal school but with an emphasis on teaching children and teens how to live instead of how to become efficient working machines, as is the case with a normal school.

I have been interested in education since I was a child; as a matter of fact, the main reason why I would have liked to marry was to have children to educate! So I would like to say, for anyone that’s interested in education, I would recommend the reading of Swamiji’s book, Education for Life, which he published under his American name: J. Donald Walters. It is unusually rare that I recommend a book in general like that, and even rarer that I recommend a book I haven’t entirely read! (I didn’t have the time) But it’s such the deep, favorable impression that these schools left in my mind, that I can’t help but to recommend to everybody the book with the principles they are based on.

The first and only time I visited the school was on Wednesday morning: Marga had invited me to go to the event of the start of the term, so I went. Like everything else in Ananda, it was a simple thing, but charming nonetheless; I regretted not having brought the camera, because I would sure have liked to takes pictures that day.

All the parents, students, teachers and various people gathered in a big circle outside the buildings. Since it is a little community, the school doesn’t have too many students, even though several of them come from other places to learn here. One person of the school stuff then asked to the “little monkeys” on the trees to come down so the event could start; the children of four or five, so little and already expert climbers! The trees surrounding the school have some kind of ropes all over them to allow for this, and to make it easier for the kids to go up and down. Once most of them were down (most, because at least one little girl stayed up, imitating a monkey!), the event started.

A few people of the school staff gave a speech of which I don’t remember much, except that it was short, to the point, and inspired. He also announced the recent construction of a new house to serve as a dormitory for the girls of the school. After that, all the teachers stepped one by one to the center of the circle with their class behind them, where they were all introduced to, and then blessed by, the audience. On a side note, most of the high school boys I saw were taller than I!!!

After the brief introduction, the director of the school invited the people gathered to help themselves to some breakfast in an adjacent table, and to look around into the facilities and the classrooms. Cristina, Marian and I precipitated to the breakfast table (we had missed breakfast at The Expanding Light in order to come here) while Marga, who would be our guide and give us a tour, waited for us and talked to people.

Once we were done eating (which, I must admit, took a little while), Marga started show us around. We visited the administration, which resembles, in a general way, to the other offices I’ve talked about already; and also several classrooms with kids of different age ranges.

The school itself consists, basically, in a bunch of separate buildings that serve different purposes, all of them united by pathways and stuff but, like everything else, pretty much surrounded by woods (although in this case, the wood limits are safely far from the school). All of it gives it a very natural feel, and an ideal environment for study, contrary to the crowded, noisy and restless environments of a normal school, which help a good deal to the students to become noisy and restless themselves! One of the proofs for this is, Marga tells me, that students here really enjoy and want to go to school! She says some little children even cry when they are on holidays, vacation, or sick, because they want to be at school!

As we explored the facilities, Marga told us all about the different methods that are used to help the children’s education, receptivity and integration. I don’t remember many specifics, but I do remember that the education system is very personalized for each student: teachers treat every one of them according to their special needs and temperament. I assume that children are also taught yoga and spiritual principles while they are at school, too, and that surely must contribute a big deal to the joyful environment one sees there.

For being the first day of classes, teachers allowed the children/students get to know each other and would only start giving classes when the students were ready for it: in a normal school, that would be never. What would be my surprise to find out that, here, some classes had already started hardly thirty minutes after the kids got into the classroom! On one occasion, we passed by a classroom in which children of 3rd and 4th grade were chatting and running around animatedly; a few minutes later we returned to find most of them sit and waiting for the teacher to start the class!

The school also teaches music and arts to their students. Okay, so do normal schools (in Uruguay, at least), but only by looking to the teachers I could see this “music and art” education wouldn’t be the dry, theoretical thing that I’d been taught throughout all primary and half of secondary school (that’s the way they torture students, I believe), but really music and art as a form of expression. That, in my opinion, second only to yoga and devotion to God, is the most beautiful thing a child can be taught.

After finishing our tour to the school, Marga, Marian, Cristina and I picked up the rests and dishes from the breakfast table and brought them to the kitchen, where we talked to someone for a while and Marian informed herself about the courses on “Education for Life” that are offered to people who would like to be teachers, something she was really interested on. Later, on our way to Marga’s house, we saw the children outside on the road, with huge leafs from the Lotus Lake (I assume they’re from there) over their heads to protect themselves from the sun. They were all happily walking and laughing and greeting us as we passed by car, what a delightful last sight of this marvelous and original education system!

I never went by the school again in the remaining of the week, but the impression it left on me was deep and thoroughly favorable. I can’t really put into writing the spirit of the school, because it was something I felt, not anything in particular that I saw or heard. All the same, I hope this account serves to transmit at least a bit of the wonder I felt when I saw all this: it made me think (and this is something that never happens) “I wish I had gone to a school like this”.

Chapter 9: The Temples

Since Ananda is based entirely on spiritual principles, it is quite natural that we find temples, chapels and shrines a bit everywhere. No matter where you go, you can be sure you will find nearby a place to worship and meditate, should you want to do so. Like everything else, simplicity and beauty are the predominating features to them, with an emphasis on beauty!

Even though there are a lot of little shrines and temples throughout the land, those who, for me, stand out are three: The Hansa Temple, the Lahiri Shrine and the Crystal Hermitage Chapel. Of the latter I will talk about in the “Crystal Hermitage” chapter. Right now I will focus mostly on the first two.

Of the Hansa Temple, unfortunately, I cannot say much, as I didn’t get to see a lot of it; I was in there only during the Sunday service, because it is closed most of the rest of the time. It is, however, quite a beautiful building, inspiring even from the outside.

Hansa Temple.

In Lahiri Shrine I have been a lot more: for a class, for an initiation and, more often, to meditate. Something that is normal in all the temples, chapels and shrines here is that they all have good “meditation vibrations”, to a greater or lesser extent. Lahiri Shrine is one of the best places to meditate, at least as far as I could feel. The statue of Lahiri Mahasaya inside seems almost alive, and sometimes one could swear it is actually the body of the Master sitting there in meditation! The interior is small, with space for a few people to sit to meditate or for a small class. The most important thing, however, as I mentioned before, is its aura of peace, which pervades all the little shrine and makes it ideal for people to go there and meditate.

Lahiri Shrine from the outside.

A life-size statue of Lahiri Mahasaya, inside Lahiri Shrine.

Next to Lahiri Shrine we can find the amphitheatre, where many events of Ananda Village are held (for example, the classes of Spiritual Renewal week were all held there, because it can hold a lot of people) and the Lotus Lake, where one can sit to meditate if the Lahiri Shrine is not available. Curiously, meditating at the lake’s shore is almost as good as meditating in the shrine. Different? Yes. Worse? Not really. I wonder why…

The Amphitheatre.

The Lotus Lake

Other than those three, there are many other little places reserved for spiritual practices, but I haven’t been to them. One can, nonetheless, find inspiration wherever one goes, in the form of little (or big!) statues of saints or Hindu deities all over the place, and also of beautiful fountains and pictures. Inspiration and meditation vibrations are something that’s never lacking in Ananda Village.

Chapter 10: Crystal Hermitage

Crystal Hermitage! If there’s a place in this Village meriting a poem dedicated to it, Crystal Hermitage is the one! The home of Swami Kriyananda when he’s staying in the United States, and also the most beautiful place I have ever seen, dwarfing all others by far. I went up to Crystal Hermitage every single one of the (whole) days I spent in the community (except for Tuesday, because I attended a class), and not once did the thought “It’s too far, I’d rather not go today” cross my mind (the Hermitage is about 30 min on foot from where I was staying, mostly uphill).

It all started when I had finished dinner on Sunday, the first day I spent in Ananda Village. It was about 7:15PM and I hadn’t found the courage to call Lakshman during the day, so I was restless because I had only five days left and nothing was decided about my appointment with Swamiji! Suddenly, the urge came to me: “I’m going to walk up to his home so at least I can see it… maybe meditate right outside it. But I can’t just stay here and go to sleep.” That having been decided, I picked up my map of property and set off.

My first problem lied in that, while I knew Swamiji lived in Crystal Hermitage, I didn’t know where to find Crystal Hermitage! I looked at my map, but didn’t find it anywhere. Refusing to allow this to discourage me, I set off toward Hansa Temple, assuming Crystal Hermitage had to be in the same direction.

Once I got to the entrance of Rajarsi Park, my suspicions were confirmed. There, in a road that was next to the park’s entrance, was a sign that read “Crystal Hermitage”. Soaring in cheerful anticipation, I hastened to take the road and follow it. It wasn’t until halfway through it (I was close to the school by then) that I realized that Crystal Hermitage was in the map after all! I had been looking everywhere for little letters saying “Crystal Hermitage” and had failed to realize that it was written in huge bold letters, at the top of the map! Laughing to myself, I set off again, with new confidence that I’d be able to get there with no problem.

After some minutes walking uphill and surrounded only by woods, I came by a road that crossed the one I was using… and on the other side of it, behold, Crystal Hermitage! Thrilled and at the same time very at peace, I took the little path of white stones that leads inside, to the Shrine of the Masters and the Hermitage itself!

The entrance to Crystal Hermitage.

I looked briefly to the Shrine of the Masters: it was closed. It didn’t matter; the house where Swamiji lived stood ahead, just a few steps away!

The Shrine of the Masters. To the left start the stairs that go down into the gardens.

I started my way down into the gardens, admiring the beauty of them all around me, but focused mostly on going all the way down to the house where Swamiji lived and worked.

External garden of Crystal Hermitage.

External garden of Crystal Hermitage.

External garden of Crystal Hermitage.

External garden of Crystal Hermitage.

About halfway down, I arrived to the chapel. Curious, I decided to go in later, but not now: for now, the building ahead was all that mattered.

Crystal Hermitage Chapel.

Finally, I reached almost the bottom of the stairs, but what I found there was a gate that separated the “outer” gardens from the “inner” gardens. In the gate there was a sign that read: “Private zone, go in only with an appointment.” I was not surprised and, curiously, I was not disappointed either. I had come to Crystal Hermitage as it was my objective; now I knew where it was and how to get there. My intention also was to start a flow of energy into the direction of “coming to Crystal Hermitage to see Swamiji”, hoping it would help me later. Whether it did or not, I do not know, but in the end, I came to Crystal Hermitage five days out of the six I spent in Ananda Village; four out of those five days, I was allowed into the inner gardens and the house. What a blessing! But I’m getting ahead of my story…

The gate that leads to the inner garden. It was closed the first time I went there.

Satisfied at last with my pilgrimage, I decided to visit the chapel and see how it was from the inside. I didn’t plan to stay there for long: I only wanted to see it. The moment I entered, however, I was invaded by an aura of peace that was almost tangible. Giving up, I sat myself to meditate for about ten minutes, which was as much as my tired body (this was on Sunday, the day after I left Canada, which means I had been up 25 hours and slept less than five, and now it was getting dark again; so, I was tired) allowed me. During those ten minutes, however, I was bathed in the spiritual vibrations of the place, and for the first of many times, I addressed the following prayer to Divine Mother: “Mother, I have only a week to be here. Please, let this week be fruitful. Generate all the possible opportunities for my spiritual development, and don’t let me miss any of them because of cowardice or laziness.” I can say without hesitation that this prayer has been granted to the letter. One more drop to add to the sea of gratefulness I feel for my Divine Mother.

After the brief meditation, I was so overwhelmed with peace and joy that I felt the urge to leave a big donation, or at least big considering the money I had, in the chapel “donation box” (that’s a smart idea, leaving a donation box inside a place where people find inspiration!). I bowed before the images of the gurus, and mentally before the Divine Mother who had allowed me to be there, and left the chapel to head home.

The walk back to Serenity House was interesting: it was already dark, there were no lights (after all, it was just a road surrounded by woods), and I had no flashlight! Curiously enough, I wasn’t afraid or nervous at all. How different from a city, where walking at night, even on illuminated areas, is a hazard and has to be always on alert! Luckily there was some moonlight; very little, but it was enough for me to see barely the road up to a few steps ahead of me. The most fun part of the walk back to The Expanding Light was when I had almost reached the place, and I left the road to go by the little earth path: there, the only way that I had to know whether I was still on the path or not was to listen to the sound of my footsteps! If I heard I was stepping on dry leaves, I knew I had left the path and I had to look with my feet for ground that made “the right sound”. It was fun!

The chapel of Crystal Hermitage would have been the highlight of all the places I visited in the Village… Would have been, I say, because I had the blessing to enter Crystal Hermitage itself.

The next day I called Seva, whom I had not been able to reach on Sunday, and we agreed on having lunch together. Next, I called Lakshman to tell him I had arrived, and he told me he’d come down to lunch at The Expanding Light that day, and suggested that we met me there. At the Dining Room I finally encountered Seva! I had been eager to, and I owe her a lot because it was her who convinced me go visit Ananda Village. “You have to do your dharma,” she wrote to me, “and only you can tell what it is.” I’ll quote here the wise words of Dave Warner: “Always listen to Seva!”

After we had talked for a while, Lakshman arrived. The three of us talked for a while longer (actually, it was more of an interrogation, of which I was the victim), Lakshman had to go talk to someone else; then Seva departed, because it was evident that I wouldn’t ever finish my lunch while she was there talking to me.

I finished my lunch (quite fast after Seva left) and went inside to leave my dish. I saw Lakshman at the table with the person he was talking to. He looked at me and I waved. I headed towards the door to leave…

“Wait!” Lakshman called. He excused himself to the person he was talking to and walked toward me. “Should you want to visit me at Crystal Hermitage at some point, please come; I’ll be delighted to show you around.”

“Wha… uh… sure, thank you so much! But… there’s a door, and it says the zone is private…”

“Oh, don’t worry about it: come down anyway. My office is to the right of the door when you reach the bottom of the stairs.” He then gave me his schedule and added, “anyway, call me before going. Just in case.”

“Sure, I will! Thank you!”

In case anyone has any doubt, my idea of “at some point” was “the sooner, the better” and “this evening, if possible!”

That afternoon, right before lunch, I called Lakshman and asked him if it’d be okay with him if I passed by after dinner. He told me that there was no problem, and that he’d be in his office there between 7:15 and 8:30PM. I intended to have dinner as fast as possible and then head to Crystal Hermitage, hoping to arrive at 7:15, but visits to my table kept me until about 7:10, when I excused myself saying I had to get to the Hermitage. Shankari offered to take me there, but I told her I’d rather walk.

After I had brushed my teeth and discarded picking up a flashlight (after all, I thought, I had come back without one the night before!) I made my way to the Hermitage. Such was my willingness to be there that I walked all the way in something like 20 minutes, without even intending to go too fast! I entered the outer garden and, thrilled, went through the same gate that had stopped me the previous day, and down to the house’s door! Looking to the right, I saw Lakshman in his office, who came out to greet me. It was 7:45PM, so I thought I might get fifteen minutes or so of his attention before he went back to work his last half hour.

Past the gate, into the inner garden of Crystal Hermitage!

Finally! The house! Home to Swami Kriyananda when he stays in the United States.

After Lakshman took care of a few things, he offered to give me a tour around the house, which I gladly accepted.

Then something happened, something I wasn’t remotely prepared for: I don’t know if those are the normal vibrations of the house or it is especially so because Swamiji was living there for the time being, but as soon as I stepped into the house, my being was invaded by joy. This joy seemed to be born in my heart and spread through my whole body and beyond; for a few moments I could hardly speak, such was my surprise and delight!

Because it was getting dark, Lakshman proposed that he show me first the garden (the true “inner garden”, which is on the other side of the house and you cannot see from the stairs that lead to the Hermitage); I agreed, of course, but such was my joy that I did not care too much what we saw first or did not see. However, a few minutes later I was glad he made this proposal, as this was one of the most profoundly moving experiences of the whole week and, indeed, of my whole life.

First we went to a balcony, which allowed us an unobstructed view of the hills around. I have never seen a more beautiful setting in my life, and I stood speechless and with my mouth half open, contemplating the wonderful panorama and listening to the wind. My mind soared back to the times of my childhood, during which I often dreamed of visiting a place with a view like that: yet another childhood dream that was fulfilled, I thought gratefully. Lakshman, always receptive to other people’s state, helped reinforce this gratefulness and sense of awe with a few rightly chosen words. We spent a few minutes there before he led me to the garden.

Nothing could have prepared me for what followed. This garden was just the most wonderful and beautiful place, even more so than the view I had contemplated a few moments ago; part because of its real beauty, part because of the wonderfully “beautiful” vibrations. Lakshman’s remark, “you can feel the angels roaming through the place” says it all, you actually can! The garden, the moon-shaped pool; all of it was indescribably beautiful: like a piece of an astral heaven brought to Earth.

The most peculiar thing (for me) of it all, however, is that I could no longer say I had dreamed about a place like this when I was little. I actually had the feeling I could remember the place: all of the garden, to the smallest details, seemed to me as returning to a place I knew already and had been my home for a long time when I was a child. At this point, my inner joy had increased to an overwhelming point: it took all of my will to prevent tears from falling from my eyes. I could hardly utter two words, so I just nodded and followed Lakshman when he proposed that we enter the house again.

The interior of the house is a nice counterpart to the gardens and setting. I don’t remember much of it anymore, but all of the rooms are beautifully decorated, with paintings and wood carvings from extremely talented people, friends of Swamiji’s. All of what is inside is exquisite to the last detail, and the aura of joy is all-pervading. The reason why the Hermitage was built so exquisitely was given to me by Lakshman: “Swamiji said that when people come to visit Ananda Village and leave, they remember the joy they felt while being here as something abstract, and because it’s abstract, they can’t hold to that memory and soon they forget about it. Crystal Hermitage, however, is something very specific to which their memory can cling and they don’t forget.” He also told me that the place looked very differently when it only served the purpose of being Swamiji’s home! It was only a little dome with all the installations in a single room, and it wasn’t nearly as beautifully decorated as now. Presently, Swamiji’s quarters are under the main part of the Hermitage; you can get there by going through a room that says “Private”, which I looked at longingly but, of course, didn’t go through that day.

After the tour ended, we passed through the library on our way back to the main gate. At that point, I stopped for a little in order to look at a collection of red books. “Wait a second,” I said. And then “okay, I just wanted to know what these books were.” That was enough of a trigger…

We spent the rest of the evening in that very spot talking on a variety of subjects, until nine o’clock! He then gave me a ride to Serenity House (and lucky me, because it was then that I realized that the previous night had not been completely dark); there, I meditated, thanking Divine Mother for the wonderful experience, and then went to bed. From that day on, I got a new dear friend, or more likely, I renewed a never-lost friendship with an old soul-friend.

Lakshman and I outside the Dining Room.

After that experience, I made the decision of going up to the Crystal Hermitage Chapel every night to meditate. By a funny combination of events, I very rarely did so, as something else always came up; I’ll go into it in later chapters. However, I did get to go to Crystal Hermitage five or six more times after that, and in four more occasions I was allowed into the house for different reasons. However, nothing could compare to the first time I was inside: probably because all the other times there was a multitude of people and I either couldn’t feel or couldn’t focus into the so special vibrations of the place as I felt them the first time. Independently of this, however, I always looked forward to any opportunity of going into the house (it usually meant having the chance to see Swamiji, too), and thanked Divine Mother from the bottom of my heart for every single occasion in which she gave me the chance to do so.

I also had the blessing, on Wednesday, to go into the Shrine of the Masters, to which Nabha kindly offered to take me. We spent a good while there, looking at the museum in which so many items related to Yogananda’s life are displayed. I can hardly remember anything of what I saw right now, but for some reason, it was a moving experience (another one!). There are even chairs in the museum so that people can sit to meditate there, should they wish to; it looked like a really good idea, but we left without doing so. There is also a boutique right before entering the museum: another place in which I could have spent a fortune! I was especially attracted to a statue of Saraswati, but, alas! I didn’t buy it because I needed the money for other things!

Crystal Hermitage was, by far, my “highlight” when it came to places in Ananda Village, as you sure have guessed! The chapel, moreover, became my favorite place for meditation, and I tried to go there whenever possible with that end.

Chapter 11: The People

“Hello, great souls!”: that’s how Swami Kriyananda greeted the community. It says it all.

I have already given hints here and there about what people is like in Ananda Village. However, a book wouldn’t be enough to describe it all: all of them are characteristically themselves; yet, that’s what they have in common: they are great souls.

People who live at Ananda Village (and many who visit it) share two common goals: to find God and to help others find Him. However, as I’ve remarked, they are all characteristically themselves: the variety is great, and it shows more because they are (again) great souls. People of the community live in harmony and joy, follow a spiritual discipline and revere all saints, in particular the direct Ananda line of gurus: Jesus Christ, Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar, and Paramhansa Yogananda.

I have never seen anyone angry in the week I was there. I’ve never felt anger myself. All I’ve seen are friendly faces and a willingness to help that I haven’t found anywhere else. Even your so-called “friends” in Uruguay or Granby (most of them, at least), show less disposition to help you out in any way than people whom you’re meeting for first time in Ananda.

One of my biggest fears was to find out that most people of Ananda were good-natured but not very smart: it is a stereotype you find a lot in movies and cartoons when it comes to religious people. My fears were totally unfounded, however. I cannot but mentally bow humbly before all of these great individuals, whose actions speak of goodness, whose loyalty is to God alone, and whose eyes spark with intelligence and good humor.

Talking about the eyes, something I remarked and found quite curious are the eyes of the girls: they all seem to have big, shiny, happy eyes; more so than any girl I’ve seen outside Ananda Village, save for my sister. It’s beautiful to contemplate. I also remarked that all people look younger than they actually are: product of simple living and high thinking, no doubt!

During the week I stayed with the community, I got to communicate (to a greater or lesser extent) with a lot of souls; I’ll try to do a list: Amanda, Anandi, Asha, Bhagavati, Byasa, Cristina, Dave, Devi, Jeannie, Jeff, Jyotish, Lakshman, Maitri, Marian, Marga, Maria, Matt, Nabha, Nirmoha, Nitai, Peter, Rose, Savitri, Seva, Shankari, Swami Kriyananda, Tracer, Trimurti, Tushti, and many, many others I am either forgetting or don’t remember their name!

The interesting thing about this is that Shankari, on my second day, told me jokingly: “You’re getting to know all the important people!” It was quite an interesting remark, because the response is both yes and no. “Yes” in the conventional sense, to a mind accustomed to the “normal world”, because I have been blessed with the opportunity to meet many of the leaders, founders, and so on. “No”, because there is actually nothing “important” about them! People of Ananda believe on everybody being important only to the extent that everybody is a son of God, and has the potential to manifest Him in a unique way. This belief, coming into practice, results naturally in the perception of everybody as equally important, only fulfilling different roles. Like Swamiji said (paraphrasing): “Leadership is only a particular skill that some people have and others don’t.” and “A true leader is someone who wants to serve, not to be served.” True to this, you see “important” people of Ananda, such as Dave (leader of the Kriya ministry) and Seva (founding member of the community) mixing with everybody and all like it was the most natural thing in the world; in fact, it is the most natural thing in the world… in Ananda Village!

The only exception to this rule is Swamiji himself, whose age, health (he’s 82 years old and he’s had health problems since he was a kid; only the fact that he got to live 82 years so far could be called a miracle by itself) and schedule wouldn’t allow him to see too many people. And in fact, if people could go up freely to see him, Swami wouldn’t ever get any sleep or work done!

Another interesting thing is something that happened to me during the Sunday Service, on my first day with the community. As I was in a chair close to the ministers and in a side row, I could see the faces of most of the people who were in the temple. I have read how Yogananda says you can recognize your friends from past lives, but, as it’s something that had hardly ever happened to me, I assumed I was just not sensitive or advanced enough to be able to recognize such people. What would be my surprise when, standing there in the temple, I looked around and I had the feeling I knew at least half of the people who stood there! So strong was this feeling that I had to double check their faces to convince myself I’d never seen them before; and even after that, I kept thinking: “where do I know him from?!?”

At the school opening event, a man of the school staff approached me and greeted me warmly. When it became evident that I didn’t know who he was, he apologized, telling me: “I thought you were somebody I knew” or something like that.

Intuitive insight into things and, sometimes, into the future, seems to be quite natural among the people in the community, and comes into the conversations as the most normal thing. I can’t remember any specifics right now, but I do know I’ve remarked it when I talked to community members. Yet, there’s nothing “self-important” about it, it’s just natural and humble, which makes it all the more amazing; Yogananda said: “in a master’s humility lies his greatest miracle.” This is just one example of how people of Ananda start to live up to their highest goals.

That’s as much as I can say about “the people” in general; to give a better picture of what it’s like to be among them, I should go into every person individually! That’s because, as I’ve said before, all people here are “characteristically themselves”. My short comment on them cannot possibly make justice to their quality and depth as human beings, but any tribute I can do, poor as it may be, I’m glad to do it.

My special thanks to each and everybody of them, and an extra to Marga, Swami and Seva, for encouraging and convincing me to make the trip; and to Nabha and Lakshman, for their friendship and help all along my stay.

Matt, a guest doing the Karma Yoga program.

Cristina and Marga.

Chapter 12: The Lunch

The first thing about my stay I had to look forward to, after the Sunday Service, was “the lunch.” While we were communicating by e-mail, Nabha told me that there would be a lunch on Sunday at the Meditation Retreat, and he kindly arranged for Anandi to ride me up there and back so I could assist to the event after the Service. This event consisted on a lunch and then a concert, all organized and prepared by the young people of the community. Nabha had told me Swami Kriyananda would be there, and the opportunity to see Swamiji during the first day of my stay was just too good to be wasted! I would, however, have gone anyway; let that be clear!

After the Sunday Service I met Anandi at the gate of Hansa Temple and, after she picked up a few other people, we departed for the Meditation Retreat. The trip took maybe ten or fifteen minutes, and it was there that I met Matt for the first time, and also (of course) Anandi and two other people I don’t remember their names.

Upon our arrival there, I saw a lot of tables and people already sit, some already eating. I watched curiously around me, looking at the decorations (of which I remember nothing, since it was Sunday and I was as extremely tired due to lack of sleep) and at the people. There was a building inside which food was served to the guests, with a “donations table” at the door, where people left a $20 donation in order to eat (I remarked it wasn’t very controlled; may be that they trust people or that it wasn’t mandatory. I gave my $20 anyway).

Before entering the building, Anandi spotted Amanda, who is the leader of the Spanish ministry, and introduced me to her. Amanda remembered me, due to a short contact I had with Ananda Spanish in the past, and we talked for a little while, after which she asked, “shall we go in?”

After a brief exchange in which she introduced me to Swami Kriyananda (I’ll go into this in detail in chapter 18), she went in and I stayed at the door, unsure of what to do. A few moments later, I entered the building hesitatingly and, imitating the people I saw around me, picked up a dish and went toward the boys and girls who were serving food. I got pascualina and spaghetti, and some bread, too. Going back outside, I searched for a table at which I could sit; looking around, I spotted one that had only one occupant so far, and he was a guy that seemed to be about my age, so I walked toward him and asked if I could sit there, “of course,” he replied, and I sat down.

That’s where I met Tracer, and also a few other people that came to sit at the same table later. Three of them were talking almost exclusively in Italian and I could make out a few words. The man next to Tracer was very attentive to Swamiji’s table, looking for a chance to come up and talk to him and ask him to autograph his books. The woman next to me was the man’s daughter, and a yoga teacher of the community, if I understood well. Tracer and I talked quite a bit: we found in each other another soccer lover, but we never got the chance to play together. A pity!

About the food… it was just delicious: one of the best meals I’ve ever had. And it’s not that the dishes themselves were “exotic” or “elaborate”, they just tasted a thousand times better than the very same dishes prepared in other places, by other people. If I ever had a proof that the consciousness of the cook influences the quality of the food, this was it. Nabha, in his latest blog entry, helps to understand why the food was so good! You can see it in Ananda’s Future (don’t be scared, it’s a short entry!).

After the lunch was over, it was time for the concert. Nabha was singing there, along with many other young people from the community; most of the songs were Swamiji’s compositions, and the singing was just very, very moving. The bad thing was that, in my current state, I couldn’t take very well staying sit in one place, just listening; the last minutes of the concert I spent half listening, half fighting to try to stay awake. Just to make sure there are no confusions, though, my sleepiness was due to the fact that I had been 25 hours awake and traveling the previous day, and slept less than five hours during the night; the singing was wonderful! They sang some of my favorites, including “I live without fear”:

After the concert, Anandi rode me back to The Expanding Light. There concluded the second of my many experiences in Ananda.

Chapter 13: Sadhanas

One of my secondary objectives on going to Ananda Village was to improve my Sadhana (spiritual practices). In quality, yes, but most of all in time. It was my perpetual embarrassment to know I couldn’t stay put in meditation for longer than fifteen minutes, twenty at most. I couldn’t tell why I was unable to do so, but it was something that worried me very much.

Another, “tertiary objective”, we might say, was to re-accustom my body to meditate using the Lotus Posture. My fight to be able to sit in the Lotus Posture had been long and arduous (maybe I’ll post about it someday), and now I had been unable to do it for three or four months, because of an injury I got playing soccer.

I had, however, the certainty that going to Ananda Village would help me with these two goals, and indeed it did!

The Expanding Light offers two guided sadhanas for guests: at 6:30AM and at 4:30PM. These are more or less as following: 25-30 minutes to do the Energization Exercises, followed by about 45 minutes of Hatha Yoga postures, and finally 40 minutes of meditation. The first time I assisted to one of these sadhanas was on Monday; I was terribly nervous and wondering how much time they would ask us to meditate, knowing that I couldn’t do more than twenty minutes.

We did the Energization Exercises, then some Hatha Yoga postures (which, I daresay, I performed terribly, being my first time) and, finally, the time for meditation! I gulped when I found out it’d be forty minutes, but ignored Maitri’s statement that we could leave halfway (she’d chant “aum” to let us know when that was) if we wanted to: I had come to improve the length of my meditation, and I would start today!

Sitting into the Lotus Posture and ignoring the pain, I started to meditate. Some ten minutes into it, I had to go back to half-lotus because my right leg had fallen asleep (but I had been able to stay comfortably on it for ten minutes, versus nothing the previous week, which was a huge improvement!) and continued this way the rest of the time. Finally, and to my surprise, the forty minutes passed and I found myself thinking “that was easy!”

I couldn’t go to the sadhana of the afternoon (I was with Marga at that time, being given a tour by Rajarsi Park), but I went back the following morning, at 6:30. This time, my leg didn’t fall asleep in the Lotus Posture until about fifteen minutes into the meditation time, and again, at the end, I found myself wondering why I couldn’t meditate longer before, if it came so naturally here. It wasn’t until I got back home in Canada that I realized what was keeping me from meditating longer: it wasn’t physical discomfort or a distracted mind, as I first thought. It was the constant urges of “I’m gonna be late for school”. “I should go to bed, lest I don’t get enough sleep and I am unable to do things well all next day.” “I have to do homework, and I don’t know how much it’ll take me.” “I have to finish before my brother wakes up, lest he can’t get out of bed because he doesn’t want to interrupt me.” “I need to hurry, lest my brother wants to come to sleep and is unable to because I’m here.” “I need to get ready for work.” It’s not that the specific thoughts came to my head, but the “feeling” that I had to hurry because of this or that was there. This feeling was not present while I stayed at Ananda Village, and now that I’m back home I get it again. Yet, to win a battle, it is a big plus to know who your enemy is. We’ll see how it goes, but I intend to win!

Due to a combination of circumstances, Tuesday was the last day I went to a guided sadhana of the retreat. On Wednesday I was supposed to be at the school at 8:30, so I did my practices alone. Thursday and Friday I slept in, and Saturday I just wanted to do it by myself. In any case, I found the guided sadhanas very good, although it rather distracting for me to have to be always adjusting to the teacher’s rhythm while doing the Energization Exercises.

All in all, however, my objectives on this were met: I can sit now comfortably on the Lotus Posture for longer than twenty minutes, and the time will increase with time. Also, now that I know that I am not “incapable” of meditating for longer times, I’m not worried anymore, which, in turn, makes this goal much easier to achieve. However, there’s still the feeling of urgency that appears when I have spent “too much” time meditating. That’s something I have to work at, and it’ll be a challenge, considering that this semester I have to go to school full time, work two (and maybe three) part-time jobs, and keep a blog updated!

And even if everything else fails, I have still the reassurance that “the season of failure is the best time to sow the seeds of success.” Also, I know Divine Mother is taking care of me; so, my worries are all unfounded: I am fine, I will always be fine.

Chapter 14: The Sunday Service

During my childhood I went to a private Catholic school. Since I wasn’t baptized, they often told me I’d go to hell, but they endured my presence in the school because I was, or so says my father, one of the top students of the school. However, baptized or not, I had to go to mass occasionally… I believe those may have been the worst moments I spent at school! I don’t remember a thing of what they were like, but I do know that I dreaded those services: the threat of two hours of intense boredom on Sunday was worse for me than that of eternal hell for not being baptized!

A year ago, when I was already long set on dedicating my life to the spiritual path, my dad (who, by that time, was visiting us in Granby) was invited to a mass at the Catholic Church the Colombians of the town go to. Because of my strong spiritual inclination, I decided to give the Church and its services another chance! Unfortunately, I spent most of the service trying not to fall asleep; the best parts by far were the songs, but people sang dryly, with no devotion. After having the same experience again shortly after, in another catholic mass, I decided not to question anymore the wisdom I had acquired when I was a child!

On my visit to Ananda Village, however, I did look forward to the Sunday Service. I had no fear of being disappointed, because I knew I wouldn’t be… and I wasn’t!

When I arrived to the Hansa Temple (a little late) they were doing the Ceremony of Purification. In this ceremony, you basically write on a little piece of paper something you want to offer to God (my paper read, of course: “My whole being”, what a thrilling prospect!), or something you want to improve on yourself. Then, you step forward to be blessed by Guruji through ministers of Ananda, and finally you burn the piece of paper with a little candle there is behind the blessers, on the altar. I can’t tell exactly why, but found the ceremony charming and inspiring in its simplicity.

After the purification, we started to chant and/or sing. I cannot describe the difference between these chants and those I had endured at the Catholic mass! Here, everybody sang with such devotion that the power of the chants became almost palpable! My heart was so thrilled that my voice got shaky with emotion quite a few times, and an occasional tear managed to make its way down my cheek, those rebel tears I hurriedly hid!

Here’s one of the chants we sang. I did not know it then, but now it’s one those I sing the most often!

Thou art my life, Thou art my love,
Thou art the sweetness which I do seek.
In the thought by my love brought
I taste Thy Name, so sweet, so sweet.
Devotee knows how sweet You are.
He knows, whom You let know.

Once the singing ended, it was time for the sermon, given by Asha. What can I say? She’s a wonderful speaker, and she’s so funny! One can’t possibly fall asleep while she speaks, the total opposite of the ministers of the Catholic services I’ve been at! Asha’s sermon can be seen here.

The final part of the service is the Festival of Light. I’m afraid I can’t remember too much of what it’s about, however, because by this time I was fading off already (not because of the service! remember: this was on Sunday) and I could hardly understand anything of what was said. I did get into the line to receive a blessing, though!

Unnecessary to say: I left the temple with the feeling that this was something I would certainly look forward to every week!

Chapter 15: Healing Prayers

As someone who has been into Reiki, the technique of healing prayers was something I was really curious about. I wasn’t particularly interested on it, however, because Reiki had always been effective for me to heal other people and, in extreme cases, my own body. Nonetheless, always mindful of my petition at the beginning of the week, Divine Mother considered it’d be good to introduce me to this technique anyway!

I will do a little parenthesis now and explain briefly how I got into Reiki, to help understand my reflections on the Healing Prayers technique.

Shortly after my parents divorced, my father found out about Reiki and took an initiation. When I was 14 years old, a year before reading Autobiography of a Yogi, he brought my siblings and I to Angelo, his Reiki teacher (conventionally called “Reiki Master”) to take initiation too (with our previous consent, of course!) At the same time, he took initiation into level two, which supposedly allowed him to do healing at a distance with the help of special symbols.

Even though I believed on the reality of the healing energy of Reiki, I was skeptical on the teaching that you needed level two to heal at a distance. I remember thinking: “I will do Reiki by distance anyway, with or without symbols and with or without level two!” My father probably thought somewhere along the same lines, though he never told me if he did (either that or I don’t remember!). He is not someone who will believe blindly on what he is told, and when he started to find discrepancies in the teachings within that very same school, he became suspicious.

He then started to research on Reiki through books and the internet, and it wasn’t long before he found out how much diluted the teachings of Reiki had been in only eighty years. My father then investigated all he could about the original teachings of Reiki, which is not, as it’s usually seen, primarily a tool for healing the body, but rather a tool to achieve enlightenment! Upon further research he found out that, effectively, the restrictions on healing at a distance (“must be level two or more”) were false, as were the claims made by most Reiki “Masters” that the symbols are absolutely necessary for it: actually, the symbols were born as an aid to help the beginners direct the energy, nothing else!

Moving on, my father, recalling that on his initiation to level two he hadn’t felt any difference on his ability to channel the Reiki energy, realized that his own teacher was a poor channel for it, for the thought “I did it” is very normal on people who serve as channels for the energy to heal others: they were never taught otherwise! With this realization, moreover, he came to find out that a normal “Reiki Master”, on a Reiki initiation, would only give you the ability to channel that which he himself is channeling, which may not always be the pure energy of Reiki!

Armed with this knowledge, my father was initiated to the level of “Reiki Master” (he later changed this denomination to “Reiki teacher”) first by an English woman, and later by the Reiki energy itself, and founded his own school on “Dorje Reiki”. He then initiated my siblings and I into level 1, then 2 and finally 3 (which, in his school, represent only an increase of one’s ability to channel), teaching us to let the enlightened energy of Reiki flow through us and not try to interfere with it with our own desires and attachments: Reiki is intelligent energy, he taught us, it works only to bring harmony, even if the results are not always what the channel expects. Just like yoga, Reiki teaches to let God flow through us: in essence, it’s the same teaching!

As years passed, I used Reiki a lot, but I conveniently forgot about the part of “don’t try to interfere with it with your own wishes”. Eventually, when I was 18 or so, I felt my channeling had become “dirty” for some reason, and then stopped using it almost completely. It wasn’t until I was 20 and had my two feet set on the spiritual path and the teachings of Yogananda that I realized what had been wrong: I had been constantly telling myself “I am the doer”, which disturbed the flow of Reiki energy. I asked then to God that He gave me a new initiation, to “wash away” the old impurities; in meditation, I got my wish.

Ever since, I’ve practiced Reiki only with the purpose of healing other people, and never for my own body. As I learned more and more to be in tune with Reiki and to let it flow through me, I gradually realized, out of my own experience, the true essence of Reiki as it was originally taught, before all the self-styled “masters” introduced their “insight” into it.

And now I can start to recount how I experienced the technique of Healing Prayers…

It was on Tuesday evening: I had wanted to finish dinner as fast as possible to go to the Crystal Hermitage chapel and meditate, but I was kept because someone sat at the table with me and we talked as we ate. When I was finally about to excuse myself and start my walk up to the Hermitage, a woman (I don’t remember her name now) came up to my table and offered me to take a class on Healing Prayers that was going to be offered in the Lahiri Shrine at 7:30: that was in fifteen minutes! Uncompromisingly, I told her I would think about it.

Within ten minutes, I had decided it’d be best to go to the class instead of going to up to the chapel, so I headed to Lahiri Shrine, where a small group of people was gathered and already talking about the basics (I arrived a little late).

Our teacher taught us how to perform the technique, and then we sent healing energy to a number of people. I wasn’t surprised to find out what I already suspected: original Reiki and Yoganandaji’s Healing Prayers are, in essence, one and the same! The only clear difference between them is that Reiki uses an initiation, and the prayers use tension to draw the energy. Since Usui wasn’t a self-realized Master, I am inclined to think that Yogananda’s technique is the “higher” version; but a real difference? Of those, I found none.

During the period in which I learned to really channel Reiki to flow through me, the “technique” I developed as the one that, I saw, gave the best results, is almost exactly the one we were taught in Lahiri Shrine that evening. Moreover, the so familiar feeling of being a channel for the energy is exactly the same, and I should have noticed if the energy channeled was different, because of the very important truth: “The instrument is blessed by whatever passes through it.”

Maybe the most convincing point (to me) that both methods are essentially the same are the effect they have on my consciousness: whenever the healing energy reaches the patient, I feel blessed, I feel an expansion much like the feeling I experienced the first time I entered Crystal Hermitage, except this feeling is one of light instead of one of joy, just another different aspect of God (and yet the same, because underlying them both is the bliss of Satchitananda). Such is the bliss of this channeling, that I sometimes wonder who’s getting more benefit from it: the patient or myself! This effect, as you probably have guessed, is exactly the same whether I use Reiki or Yogananda’s Healing Prayers.

As for the effectiveness of these prayers, I can say without hesitation they are amazing! I have not yet directly seen their effect on someone when I am the channel, but I have seen the effects of Reiki many, many times, and I have no doubt the results of the prayers will be the same, or better.

Chapter 16: Discipleship

The guru-disciple relationship is the most important of the Spiritual Path. The guru is the channel sent by God to bring His devotee to freedom, and he only comes when the devotee, consciously or not, calls for him. Paramhansa Yogananda, sent from India with the mission of bringing “original Christianity” back to the West, is the guru of the spiritual family that is Ananda.

Since Paramhansa Yogananda left his body fifty-six years ago, I was dubious some months ago on whether accepting him as my guru would deter my spiritual development. I was afraid that some other teacher could present himself as my guru, and I’d miss the chance of attaining freedom through him. Eager as I was to embrace Yoganandaji as my guru, that little doubt still lingered in my mind, until I finally wrote Swamiji and asked him about it.

His response banished the rest of my doubts: Yogananda is still the guru, acting through his living disciples. Actually, his response was a lot longer: he sent me an article he wrote on the subject, several pages long, but that’s the essence of it, if I remember it right. After all, Yogananda himself claimed that he was no one’s guru, but God was the guru and he was but a channel for Him. Swamiji says he is no one’s guru, but Yogananda is the guru and Swamiji is but a channel for him. Is there any difference? Maybe the quality of the channel? Perfect versus almost perfect? I do not care too much at this point; I know for sure that I made the right decision anyway.

This decision, however, came to me as a riddle at first! I had no expectations of what I would do while staying at Ananda Village, except that I hoped I would get an appointment with Swamiji, and that Divine Mother would grant my prayer and let me take the most advantage of my week. It came as no surprise, therefore, when Marga offered me to take discipleship on Monday afternoon; what surprised me, however, was that I was feeling reluctant to accept! So, I gave her an uncompromising response and left it at that.

The issue, however, remained in my mind during the following days: why did I feel reluctant to accept her proposal? It wasn’t that I was reluctant to take discipleship: I did want it very much. Then why? I tried asking my inner guidance: “Will I accept her offer now?”, the response was “No”. I asked several more times in the course of the next day and half, the response was always the same. I was confused, and wondering on whether I was interpreting my inner guidance correctly or not; after all, I thought, I’d never asked about such an important matter, it may very well be that my own fears or desires were not allowing me to hear it correctly! Finally, on Wednesday morning, I felt that it would be good to call Seva and ask her about it.

Seva kindly agreed to meet me after lunch and I told her of my dilemma. She looked confused at first, asked me a few questions, and then suggested that I call Dave to talk about it; she would leave him a message to inform him that I would be calling. This seemed to me like the right thing to do, so I accepted.

Later that day, I called Dave:

“Hello, my name is Hezequiel…”

“Ah, yes, Seva told me you’d call; she says you would like to see me to talk about Kriya Yoga.”

“If it’s no bother, yes.”

“No, it’s no problem. Let’s see… can you make it next Friday, at 2:30PM?”

“Sure, I can. But… Lakshman has been trying to get me an appointment with Swamiji, and if it happens it’ll have to be either Thursday or Friday. If the appointments conflict, would you mind rescheduling it?”

“No, sure. By all means you should go see Swamiji in that case.”

“Okay, thank you very much.”

“See you on Friday.”

“Bye.”

I asked Divine Mother again whether this was okay; the response I got: “yes”. Then I realized why (or at least part of the why, who knows if there was any other motive!) I’d been urged to wait on the discipleship issue: it had given me the chance to have a meeting with Dave! I had forgotten it already, but I had been wanting to communicate with him because, as a Khechari Mudra expert, I wanted his advice on how I could attain it. Also, for some reason, I felt that it would be the right thing to do to take the discipleship after having my meeting with Swami (though I didn’t know when it would be yet), so I was more than satisfied with the deal.

Friday came, and I was planning to go take a few pictures between 1:30 (after lunch) and 2:30, while I waited for the time to meet Dave at the entrance of The Expanding Light reception building. However, for some reason, I forgot all about it come 1:30, and I decided to go greet Seva instead, so I could say goodbye to her before leaving Ananda Village. I reached her office at about 2:15 and saw she was on the phone, so I waited.

After ten minutes, I was still waiting and she was still talking; I wasn’t listening to what she said, but sometimes a few words filtered in. Suddenly I caught the word “discipleship” and memory came back to me! I looked at the clock, it was 2:25! I raced out of the building as I started to head back to The Expanding Light, but I met Dave right outside, heading there also. So, all was good!

We went into his office and he talked to me about discipleship and about step three of the Ananda Course in Self-Realization. He told me my next step would be to take discipleship and, a few months later, I might be eligible to take Kriya. Then, he picked up a copy of Part A and B of Step III of the course and gave them to me, along with a little book on Khechari (he later explained and showed Kechari Mudra to me, after my initiation). Going outside, we picked up the last flower that was around for the purpose of my discipleship, in whose ceremony I had offer in the altar some money and a flower; I don’t remember what the first symbolizes (I have yet to read about the discipleship ceremony), but the second symbolizes devotion.

Another office of Rajarsi Park. Next to the corner of the building, a yellow flower can be seen. That's the flower I'd pick up just an hour later for the ceremony of discipleship.

Once everything was set, we walked to Lahiri Shrine to perform the ceremony. It is extremely simple, consisting mainly on a prayer and a vow. We chanted for a while, too… well, Dave chanted; I just tried to follow along, chanting the words I could understand and leaving the rest to him. As a matter of fact, one of the first things I did when I got back to Canada was picking up my chants and songs booklet and look for that particular chant; ever since then, it has been one of my favorite companions for the trip to and back from school! I must also say that Dave sang it delightfully. I cannot tell whether this was because he has got a nice voice or because he sang with such devotion, or maybe both. In any case, it was very beautiful. Here are the lyrics:

Listen to my soul song, listen to my heart song!
In secret, in my soul, I will gather blossoms for Thee.
Dipping them in devotion, I will lay them at Thy feet.

I can still listen clearly to Dave singing it in my mind!

So, from then on, September 5th, 2008, I officially became a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda’s. It was a bond I already felt deeply in my heart, but I was glad to “declare it to the four winds”, so to speak. I cannot say I experienced a sudden deep change in my consciousness since then, but I am sure the change is happening gradually over time, and I’m glad I no longer feel any mental reserves on calling Yogananda “Guruji” with all my heart! I have also felt him a lot closer than I used to these last few weeks, but I believe that is something that started the moment I set a foot on Ananda, and not particularly because of the discipleship ceremony. Independently of what triggered it, however, it happened, and that’s the most important thing.

I pray always that I may take full advantage of it. I pray and then I think, quoting him: “I have found eternal shelter in a true guru!”

Chapter 17: The AUM Technique

Even though I do not have a lot to say about it, I thought it would be only fair to make a little tribute to this wonderful meditation technique. Dave taught me this technique right after the discipleship ceremony, and I’ve been practicing it in my sadhana ever since.

After more than a year doing the Energization Exercises and Hong-Sau almost regularly (and many more years not so regularly), learning a new technique was thrilling, though most of it was because it was the last step before Kriya. I was certain I would experience deep things once I learned Kriya, but I never gave much thought to the AUM technique. Rather, I automatically thought: “I probably won’t be able to hear a thing until after I get Kriya.” I am glad to say I got it wrong!

I introduced the technique into my sadhana after I got back to Canada. My practice of it is somewhat of a disaster: the technique requires the arms to be held up, doing a mudra (specific position of arms, fingers, legs, tongue or whatever that helps the purposes of the meditation, normally by directing energy), and I can’t hold them for more than two or three minutes without them getting too tired to allow me to pay any attention to the meditation. As a result of this, my mind is half on the meditation, half checking on my arms (mostly toward the end of the two-three minutes) and, to add to the “disaster”, since I’m not yet accustomed to the technique, I can’t focus deeply into it yet. All of this would make one think the effects on my consciousness would be more disruptive than beneficial… well, they aren’t.

Even if I do it only for two or three minutes, even if my mind tries to divert to the pain in my arms, even if I’m not yet used to it, the technique gives me a peace so deep and so drastic that I couldn’t believe it the first time! It took me about a week of experiencing the same result every time to convince myself that it was the AUM meditation which caused this! It is beyond anything I had experienced before in meditation (regularly), but it helps to deepen the rest of it. Talking about synergy!

Hopefully the problem with my arms will go away soon: I ordered an AUM board by Internet, and I expect it should be here within two weeks at most (I certainly hope so!). These boards serve the purpose of giving support to the elbows so this problem is avoided!

In conclusion, let me say it loud and clear: I was wrong for discarding the AUM technique so hastily as only one more step toward Kriya. I see now that it’s a very powerful meditation, and I’m grateful I received it!

Chapter 18: Swami Kriyananda

Swamiji! I remember a year ago, when only thinking of meeting someone who had been personally in Yogananda’s presence would bring tears to my eyes! The main and almost the sole motivation behind my trip to Ananda Village was the opportunity to see Swamiji, to be in his presence. This wish has been fulfilled, and how much so! I had blessing to be in Swamiji’s presence five times during the six days I have been at the Village, one of them being a personal interview with him.

It all started a year ago, when I was helping Marga with a few translations for Ananda Spanish. Marga and I became friends quick, and she suggested that I “come to Ananda Village next summer”, and told me Swami Kriyananda would be visiting the community by that time. Even though I did want to meet Swamiji, I was hesitant: a bit because I had read some disturbing things on the internet, a bit because I knew the trip would cost me a lot of money, and I didn’t know if it was worth it, and a bit because I was just afraid to meet a true saint and to make contact, for first time in my life, with people who shared my goals and interests. It was a big step, and I was scared.

The offer was left in the air. I hesitatingly asked Marga once if it was alright if I visited the Village for a weekend, but she told me that was too short a stay for such an expensive trip. She was right, of course; I was both relieved and disappointed.

At some point, many months later, I wrote to Swamiji regarding some personal family problems. He gave me some good advice on how to deal with it (can he give anything but good advice?) and then suggested that I go to visit Ananda Village “next summer”; he said that he would be staying there during that time, and that he would be happy to have the opportunity to greet me there. By then, I had no more doubts that I wanted to meet Swamiji, but I was still scared.

Upon a second e-mail to him, he suggested again that I visit the community during the summer and see him. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but when I got an e-mail from Miriam, telling me, “If you can go to Ananda Village during the summer, do write to me so I can arrange a meeting for you with Swamiji,” I couldn’t help myself! A meeting with Swami! All I had wanted to was to see him, and now this possibility opened up! What a joy! I didn’t say anything to anyone about this, because I didn’t want to be pressured into making the trip: I was still scared of it, and thus, hesitant. In this second e-mail, Swamiji also put me in contact with Seva; how grateful I am to him for that!

Most of my blocks were already gone, but I was still afraid of making the trip. That’s where Seva comes in: we had been having contact by e-mail for a few weeks, when she suggested that I visit Ananda Village during the summer, and mentioned that Swami would be staying there during that time. Again, the same suggestion, from a third person! What could I say? I felt a deep bond with Seva, so I confessed to her I was hesitant; I did not want to admit (to myself or to others) that I was afraid, however; so I gave her another, secundary reason to justify my “need” to “think about it.”

Her response, however, proved the adequate for every reason I could have come up with, hidden or not.

She e-mailed me with the reply: “You have to do your dharma first, and only you can tell what it is.” Dharma is a Sanskrit word for “right action”. It refers to whatever action that will take the person to God: whether it is being a king or working as a table waiter, it’s always what is needed to help the person’s development and, eventually, attain freedom.

Her response affected me deeply: I couldn’t find any way around it! To do my dharma was my duty as a devotee, and I knew that it was making the trip to Ananda Village, I just had never seen it in that light (how many times since then, my decisions have become so much easier to make because of that simple advice!). I wrote her back, finally confessing I was afraid, but telling her that she was right and assuring I would start to move on that direction right now. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, all my fears disappeared as I started to take steps to make that trip happen; they were replaced by a joyful anticipation!

After buying my plane tickets, I e-mailed Miriam to let her know when I was going and to ask her if the possibility still existed of having a meeting with Swamiji. When two or three weeks had passed without receiving a response, however, I started to despair! As last resource, I wrote directly to Swamiji, telling him I had finally decided to go to Ananda Village and that I looked forward to see or meet him. His reply, when it came, brought me relief along with it: he gave me Lakshman’s e-mail address and told me to write to him in order to arrange an appointment. Contacting Lakshman, we agreed that I would call him by telephone upon my arrival to the community, to talk about it.

That’s the story of how I started to move toward the realization of my first goal of the trip, which had evolved from seeing Swamiji to actually meeting him in a personal appointment. Nothing was certain yet, as he had told me, “Lakshman can make us an appointment, providing that my health and schedule allow it;” and, considering his age and all the work he does, I thought there may very well be a high chance that they wouldn’t “allow” my meeting with him!

My fears were further fed, moreover, when Marga wrote me, right after Spiritual Renewal Week (some two weeks before I went to Ananda): “Swami has given a lot of classes and his health has suffered in consequence, he needs repose to recover for now.” Despite this, when I got into the plane, I hoped and prayed for the best.

Before I get into my own encounters with Swamiji, however, I’ll take a break to belie the things that are said on a couple of websites about him and Ananda. I mentioned before that I had read some disturbing things about Swamiji and the community. Even when I first read those things, I found them too incredible and improbable to believe them. However, I could not disbelieve them, because it is in my nature to trust on people’s word, and I cannot conceive how people can say “black” with all naturality when it’s actually “white.”

In spite of this, months before I made the trip to Ananda I had already banished all my doubts: I had done a lot of study, reading and research on those topics, and I believed wholeheartedly that these “disturbing sites” were telling lies. Yogananda said: “There’s always persecution if you are in the spiritual path. God wants to make sure His devotees love Him sincerely.” Swamiji was no exception to this rule… as a matter of fact, he is a big example of it!

My opinion before I went to Ananda Village was, “that’s just not true”. My opinion, however, was changed after I went to Ananda Village; now I can say truly that those accusations are the most ridiculous thing I have read in my life! They are so ridiculous that I don’t even feel indignation, they’re completely laughable! I have seen firsthand the love and respect the community members have for Swamiji; I have seen firsthand the joy and bliss that are reflected in Swamiji’s eyes; I have seen firsthand that the community is one of harmony, trust, joy, and dharma. I have seen all this, and more, much more, that can leave no doubt at all (not that I had any anymore, anyway!) about the untruthfulness of the websites I could not get myself to disbelieve when I first read them.

I could say more about this topic, but a summary is enough. I would rather go right now into my own joyful encounters with Swami Kriyananda!

As I’ve hinted at in chapter 12, the realization of my goal (at least, the old version of it) came only a few hours after my arrival. At the special lunch of the Meditation Retreat, when Amanda and I were walking into the building to get our food, she suddenly turned and looked at me:

“Have you met Swami yet?” she asked.

“Um… no, but…”

“Come, I’ll introduce you to him.”

That being said, she took me by the wrist and led me through the tables, until I saw a table longer than the rest and, sitting in the middle, wearing a blue t-shirt, Swami Kriyananda himself! As soon as I saw him, I froze where I stood: it was like I had been stopped by an invisible force field that now was holding all of my members still! Amanda, apparently not noticing this, went up to him to get his attention. I advanced a few steps hurriedly to get into earshot of him, and then he looked to me, waved his hand and greeted me with his deep, joyful voice: “Hi!”

I made a few feeble attempts to respond: it was in vain; I either couldn’t or wouldn’t speak. A bit of both, actually: I did not want to say anything, but I could not manage to do so anyway. When he saw I didn’t respond (except with a huge smile and an occasional chuckle), he greeted me again: “Hola!” he said. I laughed and responded “Hola!” “¿Cómo está?” he added (it means “how are you?”); to this, again, I didn’t respond except with a laugh, while I kept looking at him and smiling from ear to ear. Finally, he said “Hi” again, this time in less of a greeting manner and in more of an affective tone, and went back to eat. I stood there speechless for a few moments, until Amanda started to lead me again to the house. I was in shock.

Brief as the encounter was, it touched me very deeply. I must confess that I don’t have any clear recollection of the event. All I can remember clearly are Swamiji’s eyes and his voice: his eyes radiating so much joy and kindness that one could be overwhelmed by it; and his voice, so sincere and so full of joy! This was my first darshan, and I could see firsthand the joy Swamiji lives in, reward for a lifetime of service to his guru. “He lives in that joy all the time,” Nirmoha said to me when I related to him the experience. My later encounters with him only served to confirm this view!

Two days later, on Wednesday, I had another surprise meeting with him, when I ended up attending to an event I did not know about!

I was walking up to Crystal Hermitage that evening to meditate in the chapel, when a car stops next to me.

“Are you going to Crystal Hermitage?” someone asked me.

“Yes.”

“Do you want a ride?”

“Well… uh… sure, thank you!”

There I met Rose and four other people I don’t remember the names of; I also met the car, which has a name of its own! Sadly, I don’t remember that one, either. In any case, we chatted animatedly until we arrived to Crystal Hermitage, where we all got out of the car and I thanked my hosts for the ride. Then, looking around, I noticed there were a lot of people coming, so I turned to my friends again and asked:

“Is something happening here?”

“What? Well, of course! We’re going to bless,” she then mentions the names of a couple and, seeing unrecognition in my face, she asked, “you didn’t know?”

“No…”

At this they all laughed and asked me what I was coming to do to the Hermitage, I responded and they laughed again and told me: “You have a good timing! You can come down with us if you want. This couple is going to travel to Los Angeles soon to start a work there, and we’re having a sort of farewell party. Swami will probably be there, too.”

I gladly accepted the invitation and walked down the stairs with them. It is true I didn’t know the couple who were leaving, but, as they were part of my spiritual family, I wished them the best along with all the rest of the people. Swamiji was there, but of course, he wouldn’t draw the attention to himself (no more attention than he normally attracts anyway!) and I tried, too, to focus on the event and the couple rather than on him, out of respect for them and the purpose of the meeting. After a brief speech, everyone started to talk to everyone and I sort of hung out there, unsure of what to do (I had to wait for Rose and the rest of the people to be ready to go before leaving myself, because I had forgotten my flashlight inside their car). Interestingly, however, I was present and saw when Swamiji bestowed a spiritual name upon someone: Jivami, if I remember it right.

Grateful that I had gotten another chance to go into Crystal Hermitage and also to see Swamiji, I ended my day meditating in the Chapel, then walked back to Serenity House and went to bed.

I also had the occasion to see him at work. Both Thursday and Friday, a dear friend offered to take me to see Swamiji while he recorded a program of “Answers to common spiritual questions.” There you can find a lot of people from the community who leave their workplace to gather around him as he does his recording, only to have the blessing of being in his presence! I gained wonderful insights out of these recordings: mostly the Friday one, since he left the “basic” questions to go into topics of which I hadn’t yet read or heard about. No matter if the topics were basic or complex, though: I gladly jumped at the opportunity to spend an hour and half per day in Swamiji’s presence (anyway, his talks have a way to be always interesting, even if you have heard about the topics a hundred times already), and it is always good to be reminded of the basics. After all, if we really mastered these “basics” (beyond just having the intellectual grasp of them), we would be masters ourselves, already!

Those are four out of five times I saw Swamiji while I was in Ananda Village. The fifth time (fourth chronologically, but the most important, so I left it for last!) was the personal appointment I had so looked forward to!

As you might remember, Monday afternoon was when I first met Lakshman in lunch, and then at Crystal Hermitage. That day, after lunch, he told me he would ask Swamiji about the appointment after he woke from his nap. He warned me, however, that Swamiji “lives very much in the moment, and he doesn’t like to plan things too much in advance. He sets up these things for the same day or, at most, for the next.” He then told me he would contact me through the message board of The Expanding Light, which, of course, I checked all the time during the following days!

Tuesday afternoon, Seva asked me if there were any news about the appointment; I told her no. She suggested that I call Lakshman to ask him again about the topic; hesitatingly, I finally told her I would.

That evening I called Lakshman and asked him how it was going, feeling somewhat guilty about calling him for work issues, and apologizing for asking again, when he had already told me he would see to it.

“It’s no problem,” he said, “I know it’s important. After all, that’s the reason why you came here!”

“Yes… thank you,” I responded.

“Look, I asked Swami about it this afternoon, and it didn’t work for him to see you either today or tomorrow; he often leaves these things to the last available day.” My heart jumped a little: I had only two days left already!

“He remembers you, though,” Lakshman went on, “he remembers greeting you at the lunch. He also told me he would like to talk to you. So, I’m sure you’ll get the appointment. It will have to be on Thursday or Friday, but it will happen. I will ask him again tomorrow and let you know.”

That being said, I thanked him and hung the phone, relieved greatly by his reassurance, but still somewhat nervous. A little worried, I headed to the Healing Prayers class.

I didn’t talk to Lakshman about the issue on Wednesday, knowing that I wouldn’t get the appointment that day anyway. Thursday morning, however, when I went to see Swamiji recording his “Answers to common spiritual questions” program, he said as soon as he came into the room: “I am not feeling very well today, so let’s see what I can do.” Dreaded words! The conditions he’d given me for the appointment in his last e-mail to me, “if my health and schedule permit it”, came back to my mind in full potency. Effectively, after the recording, Lakshman met me and said: “Swamiji isn’t feeling very well today, so it will probably be tomorrow. I will ask him, though, and if he wants to see you today, I’ll send you a message to The Expanding Light. So, do check at 4:30PM to see if there is any message for you.” I thanked him again and went back to The Expanding Light.

At 3:30 I met Cristina in the Dining Room and she invited me to attend to a class by Byasa on the Yuga cycles; I asked her how long the class would be and she told me an hour, so I accepted, thinking of going to check for a message from Lakshman right after the class. As it happened, however, the speech took longer than anticipated and it would finish later than first thought. I wasn’t too concerned, because if I did have a message, I thought, it wouldn’t be on such a short notice.

Surprise! At 4:32 Jeannie enters the temple (that’s where the class was being given) and shows me a piece of paper with some handwritten letters in it. It read: “Hezequiel 5PM Swami”. She silently cheered for me as I tried to put a step in front of the other to go outside, amidst bursts of relief, gratitude, expectation… and joy! I still keep the paper as a memory of that moment.

Out of the temple, she asked me how I was going to get to Crystal Hermitage in 25 minutes. I told her I could probably get there in time by walking, but she was certain she could find me a ride and I was happy to accept one. Once that was organized, I was left at the entrance of Crystal Hermitage and I slowly went down the steps, reached Lakshman’s office, and waited for him to tell me what to do next, and to thank him for everything!

Lakshman then led me into the house, and through that little door with the “private” sign which I had looked at so avidly four days before! He guided me through the private quarters (a veritable maze if I ever saw one) to a large room of which I couldn’t see much (I was still in a corridor) and said: “Swamiji, here is Hezequiel.” I approached the door and saw the dear figure of Swamiji sitting there, looking at me and smiling. Lakshman then retired.

That’s how, the 4th September of 2008, I finally achieved this goal, thanks to the help of Divine Mother and many dear friends.

An interesting point is that, mentally, I had been comparing my own coming to Ananda with Swamiji’s coming to Self-Realization Fellowship sixty years before: my age, the fact that I’d traveled across the continent only to see him, among other things. It wasn’t because of any presumption on my part, but because my mind automatically makes those comparisons to help me convince myself I’m not a lost cause in the spiritual path! (similar comparisons often arise trying to convince me I am a lost cause) The interesting thing about it is that both Swamiji and Lakshman seemed to react to this thought of mine (which I never expressed to them, or anyone) and to reflect it in their actions. I didn’t realize this, however, until a few hours after the meeting.

I do not know what is the way Swamiji normally greets people who come to see him, but in my case he motioned me to sit down, and then asked: “What may I do for you?” I had wanted very much to say “I want to be your disciple”, but I discarded it, remembering he always says he is no one’s guru and, therefore, he has no disciples: they are all Yogananda’s disciples (Yogananda said exactly the same thing, however: “God is the guru”, and I often wonder if there is any difference); maybe I should have anyway. What I did instead, though, was to laugh nervously, taken by surprise by such a direct question to which I didn’t know what to answer! After a few words to give my brain time to come out of the shock (I thanked him and such), I finally got to the point.

If you’ve read my post “Five days of stories!”, you might remember that I commented on Swami’s talk on Spiritual Renewal Week: “Bringing Yogananda’s Mission to the World”, saying there were three things that had touched me especially and deeply. Well, these three things are what I wanted to talk to him about. I will try to quote the conversation as good as I can remember it, but it’s a fact that I remember very clearly some parts (the important things, I hope!), and very poorly some others (like what words he used to pass from one subject to the other). I’m also presenting a summarized version of it.

The first question I asked him was, “I wanted to know… what is God’s will for me?”

After a brief pause, he said: “God’s will is that you find Him. But as for what to do right now; tell me, what is what you want to do in life?”

“What I want to do in life? What does that mean exactly?”

“What is your goal in life?”

I chuckled and looked away. “Well, this may sound repetitive but it’s true…” I looked at him again and said, with all my heart: “I want to find God and to help others find Him.”

Opening his arms in a warm, inviting gesture, he responded, “Then why don’t you come to live among people who share your goals?”

“You mean… here?”

“Or you can to go Ananda Italy. Italian is similar to Spanish; you may have an easier time there.”

“Well…”

“Yes?”

“In your last talk you said… I mean, you encouraged young people to go to India…”

“Do you want to go to India?”

“When I heard you say that in the video, I felt an instant deep feeling in my heart…”

Swamiji then paused a bit, and finally said: “I think it would be very good that you go to India. I can’t take you right now, but you can come to live in Ananda Village for a few months and then, by next spring, there should be a place so that you can join us in India.”

Upon rereading this account of the conversation, I realize that it does not at all adequately express what the conversation was like: they are only words! Swamiji’s calm, kind, considerate, joyful manner of speaking are all left outside the picture here. But, at least, I can still hear his words to me in my mind, and that’s a memory I treasure greatly.

I asked him further about how I could accomplish this goal, and he told me to contact Nirmala for the practical things, and also that I should get Canadian citizenship, as Italian citizenship would be an obstacle to entrance into India. Independently of the legal struggles, however, the moment he said “I think it would be very good that you go to India”, I had already discarded all my carefully-laid plans for the future: I decided at once I would go to India!

He then gave me good advice on how to deal with my, by far, deepest-rooted attachment: my siblings. Later, when I expressed my concern on the welfare of my brother, should I leave him behind, he surprised me by suggesting: “Why don’t you ask him if he’d like to live here as well?” and then, “and your sister, too.” I had not even thought of that option, as I had given for granted that my siblings would not be interested in living in such a place. However, only because Swamiji suggested that I asked, I resolved that I would. After all, even though my siblings and I have been together for a long, long time (I often hear the remark, from friends of mine: “You three are the most united siblings I’ve ever seen”), a man of God can surely see better into them than I can. He later paused a moment while he was speaking to say: “your father wanted to be a swami… why don’t you suggest him that he comes here as well?”

When I was talking to Lakshman later, he made the following comment about this: “Oh, did he? Well, that’s interesting… he must have felt something. It is not normal that he invites the family of a person to live here, since he doesn’t know them. For him to have done so, it must mean he felt something in them. You should follow his advice and give them the suggestion.”

At some point during this conversation, he told me: “When I met my guru, I didn’t give him any option! I was saying to him, ‘you must take me!’” I don’t remember the context on which he said this, but I do know it is an advice I did need, and it helped me very much to resolve a doubt I had had for a long time.

The second topic I wanted to ask Swamiji about was my companion in life. When I was a child, I dreamed often of the girl I’d like to have as my wife, and I dreamed that my first girlfriend would also be my wife for life. I am fortunate, because my childhood dreams have a way to come true sooner or later (most of them after I set my two feet and my attention into the spiritual path, when I was 20); however, this particular dream I worded on the following on: “My first girlfriend will be my last.” With that, I meant to say that I would marry my first girlfriend and never get divorced. The interesting thing is, however, that I always worded it “my first girlfriend will be my last”…

After I met Khadijah and saw she was all I had dreamed when I was a child, I thought I would come to the realization of that dream. When we broke up, however, I was left very confused. It was only later, when the desire to be a monk started growing strong within me, that I understood that this “dream” was possibly going to come true, after all, and to the letter! I don’t know what made me word it like that when I was a kid, but I find it is very interesting.

Despite my desire to be a monk, however, I had always wanted to have a family; moreover, after I was completely set on the spiritual path, I wanted children to be able to share with them the bliss of God communion and the teachings of yoga. Because of this, I was split between two longings and I didn’t know which one was the dharmic decision for me. I put my question to Swamiji:

“In the same talk you mentioned before, you also encouraged people to become monks, and I’ve been wondering whether the right path for me is that of a monk or marriage.”

“Do you want to be a monk?”

“Yes.”

After a brief pause, he finally said: “I think you should be a monk.”

“That’s enough for me!” I responded, smiling from ear to ear.

He then told me that it is easier to be a monk in India, and that Ananda has a monastery there. He also said I should read his book, Sadhu, beware!, which I bought the next day.

Finally, I arrived to the third and last of the points that had touched me especially from his last talk in Spiritual Renewal Week. This one, however, I bought up with hesitation, fearing that it would not be an appropriate thing to ask, but quite desperate to bring it up anyway. I inquired on the time he had before leaving his body.

My motive behind this was fear: I was afraid that I would not be able to see him again before he left. I talked apologetically through this subject, and finally I cut myself in the middle of a phrase with a “but…” and looked to the floor next to me. Swamiji, fully aware of what was bothering me, finished the sentence for me: “But you would like to take as much from me as possible.” he said kindly, “That’s understandable.”

Right after this, he finished the interview by saying: “Well, I think we are done.” I thanked him and stood up. As he got up too, he added: “I will be in touch with you, and you will be in touch with me.” What can I say? Words fail me to express the blessing, comfort and relief I experienced and still experience by those simple words! Stupidly, my first impulse was to intellectually inquire into the exact meaning of what he said, but I restrained from posing the question: I knew well enough, I believed, what he meant! He then led me to the stairs that went up into the main house (“I’ll show you the way out, otherwise you’ll end up in a closet!” I must confess, I wouldn’t have minded at all ending up lost in there!), blessed me on the Spiritual Eye, and left.

I left the place in a daze. Lakshman met me outside and asked me how it went. Since I was practically unable to speak, he suggested that I go up to the Chapel and meditate, and then I could come down and tell him about it if I felt like doing that. I followed his advice, but I must confess my body and mind were in too much of a turmoil to have any deep meditation! After a while, I came down again slowly, taking pictures of the gardens, so as to prepare myself mentally to speak of what had transpired in the interview room.

Going back down, I met Lakshman and told him all about it. That’s when I realized Swami might have been reacting to my thought in which I compared my situation to his, sixty years ago: when I told Lakshman how the appointment had started, he interrupted to ask me:

“Do you remember what is the first thing Master said to Swami?”

I tried, “I only agreed to see you because Divine Mother told me to?”

“No. Wait a minute, I’ll go look for the exact quote.” A moment later he came back and told me, “The words were ‘What may I do for you?’ The exact same words he addressed to you.”

And later, after I had told him the entire story, he said:

“Remember how Master (Yogananda) said to the other disciples, after his interview with Swami, ‘we have a new brother’? Well, it’s the same thing now: we have a new brother!”

I chuckled and thanked him. Then, as I prepared to leave, he suddenly stopped and turned to embrace me, the same way Norman embraced Swamiji after his acceptance. Such a loving gesture, from both of them! That is a bit of what I meant before, when I said that intuitive insight is part of the normal life in the community: I had not told about my “comparisons” to anybody, yet Swamiji and Lakshman reacted to them all the same. And it was done in such a natural way that, had not Lakshman made me realize the similarities, I would not have thought of them at all! At least not until I reread The Path.

I left Crystal Hermitage in a state shock. I felt tired, and fearful to take on a challenge I couldn’t cope with. I have never been so close to falter from facing a challenge as I was that day; I had such a long way to go! I spent the rest of the day in a kind of trance, knowing that this was my right path but unable to gather the courage or the strength to tread it. I went to see the sunset at Sunset Ridge, returned to my room early and then went to bed.

Sunset Ridge, the day of my interview with Swami.

I woke up on Friday with the alarm clock at 6AM. Still half unwilling to get up and face the future, I decided to stay abed for a while. I knew that once I did the Energization Exercises of my morning sadhana, my strength would come back to me and I would embark into my path with no looking back; so, some part of me wanted to delay that moment as much as I could. I tried to fall asleep anew.

I woke up again half an hour later, and it took me another half hour to gather the resolve to do my sadhana. As I stood on the cold grass barefooted, I bid goodbye to my weakness and started the Exercises. As expected, when I finished fifteen minutes later, my body was once again full of energy, my mind once again cheerful and joyful; I was my normal self again! I thanked Divine Mother for helping me go through that brief but deep time of hesitation, and prayed that She give me the strength to go on in this journey I now had before me.

I thank Swamiji a thousand times for all he did for me; I thank my Guru and my Divine Mother for sending me to him. My trip to India has a high risk of being delayed, so it may very well be that I won’t see Swamiji in his physical form again, but what he’s left me I will keep and hold dear forever. “I’ll be in touch with you, and you’ll be in touch with me.” Does it matter anymore whether I see his body again or not? I have a much higher kind of contact to look forward to!

As Nabha took me to the Sacramento Airport, he told me: “It was a really big blessing that you could spend so much time with Swami in such a short stay.” What else could I do? I agreed wholeheartedly!

Chapter 19: The Future

One redundant aspect of most religions and expressions in the world is that most of them seem to degenerate into something that seems to keep very little of their original light. To give the most known example: the Christian Church (talking in general, and note that I’m talking about the church, not the religion. I have great respect for Christianity. Not so much for “Churchianity”, as Yogananda called it), which took the teachings of Jesus Christ and “crucified them every day” for two thousand years.

After Yogananda’s mahasamadhi, the organization he founded to spread his teachings, Self-Realization Fellowship, changed so drastically that I was hesitant for the longest time of having any association to Ananda, because I was fearful of what could happen once Swami Kriyananda left his body.

After going there and seeing Ananda myself, though, I must confess I my fears were put to rest. First of all, I have heard Swamiji himself affirm many times that Ananda would go on its way without him, and that “the light that Master gave [him], [he has] passed it on.” My own experience, moreover, short as it was, reinforces in myself the conviction that Ananda will still be Ananda once Swamiji leaves his body. For that I am now tranquil and no longer dubious about joining this wonderful movement: the model for the New Age!

On asking Lakshman about his opinion of this, he told had no doubts that would be the case. Things would be different after Swamiji was gone, there is no denying on that, but Ananda is a community, and they are all here because they feel in tune with Swamiji and his goals. He also told me how a famous astrologer, who had visited many communities and ashrams around the world, remarked once: “Of all the communities I’ve seen, Ananda is the only one that will survive the death of his founder.” Jyotish is Swamiji’s spiritual successor and, even though I had doubts on him when I saw him only on videos, to be in his presence was another matter altogether! I never talked to him, I saw him only a couple of times, but all the same, my doubts were dispersed by the mere act of “feeling” him: I know now he is a great soul and that God is in him. I humbly apologize for my unfair pre-judgement and mentally bow to him.

As for my own future, it lies, of course, where Divine Mother decides it will be! I have already started to follow all of Swamiji’s suggestions and, as soon as I have more free time (after I finish writing this, for example!), I will get into it more deeply, particularly into the monkhood part, which I have not looked at yet except by following some advices I got from skimming Sadhu, Beware!. Concerning my trip to India, all I can say is that it brings me joy to think of going to what I feel is my homeland and help to build this wonderful work in there!

Whatever the future holds for me, I do not know, but I pray that God and Guru guide me always in my efforts to know Them.

Chapter 20: Afterthoughts

Now, a week and a half after I landed in Montréal, I can see from a perspective the blessing that this visit to Ananda Village was for me. Most of all, I am overwhelmed with gratefulness: gratefulness to my Divine Mother who, always mindful of Her children, took the time to grant my prayer to the letter: “Let me take the most advantage of this week,” I prayed to her. Lovingly, she gave me all I asked, and more!

This is, however, in a sense, only one more drop into the sea of prayers answered by my Beloved, which makes me ever more hopeful of the eventual fulfilment of my most heartfelt prayer to Him, as Yogananda taught it: “Give me Thyself, so that I may give Thee to all.”

Joy to you all!