"Narratives for the Discerning Connoisseur of Deep Dialogue"

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June 30, 2013 Sunday Omnibus “A Special Dedication to the life of Swami Kriyananda” featuring Nayaswami Asha also known as Asha Praver, author of Swami Kriyananda As We Have Known Him.

Swami Asha has been a spiritual seeker since she was a young girl. In 1969 at Stanford University, she heard Swami Kriyananda speak for the first time. Instantly, she recognized him as her spiritual teacher. “I knew the moment he walked into the room that he possessed the consciousness I had long been seeking.” She soon became a founding member of the new community Swami was starting near Nevada City, California, called Ananda Village, based on Yogananda’s dream of world brotherhood colonies for “simple living and high thinking.” Swami Kriyananda placed Asha in the role of teaching and counseling soon after her arrival at Ananda. She also served as Swami’s correspondence secretary and personal assistant for many years. In 1987, Swami Asha and her husband, Swami David, became spiritual directors of Ananda Palo Alto in California, where they continue to serve today.  Swami Asha is author of Swami Kriyananda as We Have Known Him, a collection of more than 200 stories by people who have been touched by his teachings and spiritual friendship, often in remarkable ways. She is also author of Loved and Protected: Stories of Miracles and Answered Prayers.

Virtually all spiritual teachers receive their knowledge from a teacher, who himself has a teacher. In the east, the teacher is often called “guru”, or dispeller of darkness. In the west, Jesus was called Master by his disciples. The series of teachers is known as a lineage, and for those who appreciate understanding the spiritual roots of a tradition, the lineage says much about the approach and expression of the teachings.  Asha has studied personally with Swami Kriyananda for more than 40 years. Swami Kriyananda was one of the most well-known exponents of Yoga in the West today, and a close, direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda—one of the few still living. Yogananda was and always will be recognized as an avatar—a Self-realized Master, a soul fully awakened in God.

At Yogananda’s request, Swami Kriyananda has devoted his life to lecturing and writing, helping others to experience the joy and living presence of God within. He has taught on four continents in seven languages over the course of nearly 60 years. His television program, audio and video recordings of his talks and music, and his many books in 28 languages have touched the lives of millions of people. Swami Kriyananda has taken the ancient teachings of Raja Yoga and made them intensely practical and immediately useful for people in every walk of life, on a daily basis. His books and teachings cover nearly every field of human endeavor, including spiritualizing business life, leadership, education, the arts, community life, and science. He has written extensive commentaries on the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita. Swami Kriyananda is also known as the “father of the intentional communitiesmovement” which began in the UnitedStates in the late 1960s. Inspired by his guru’s dream of establishing spiritual communities, in 1968 he founded the first of what are now eight Ananda communities worldwide. They provide a supportive environment of “plain living and high thinking” where 1,000 full-time residents live, work, and worship together.

Swami Kriyananda, a foremost disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda (author of Autobiography of a Yogi) has been prodigiously creative in his service to his Guru. His books are available in 28 languages in 100 countries. His music is performed around the world. In India, millions of people watch his daily television show. He has founded schools and retreats, and communities on three continents. He speaks eight languages, and has circled the globe dozens of times lecturing and teaching. In this “biography of consciousness,” Swami Kriyananda’s remarkable qualities are revealed with breathtaking clarity — love for God, divinely guided strength, joy in the face of adversity, humor, wisdom, compassion, and unconditional love. A true teacher, however, does not incarnate merely to show the world how great he is. He comes to illuminate for others the pathway to greatness we all must follow. Here, in some two hundred stories spanning more than forty years, personal reminiscences and private moments with this master teacher bring priceless, universal life lessons for all of us.