Less than a week after he finished reading Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramhansa Yogananda, Swami Kriyananda traveled from New York City to Los Angeles, California and was initiated by Yogananda himself as a disciple and a monk. It was September 12, 1948. James Donald Walters, as he was known then, was twenty-two years old.
“You have a great work to do,” his Guru told him repeatedly. This was not a compliment; it was a sacred responsibility.
When Yogananda died in 1952, he left a “blueprint in the ether,” he said, for a worldwide spiritual awakening. For sixty-five years Kriyananda worked with prodigious creativity to turn that “blueprint” into a practical way of life. He founded communities, retreats, and schools for children. He wrote over four hundred pieces of music and dozens of books, available now in a hundred countries in thirty languages. He traveled the world, lecturing in five languages, and personally initiated thousands of people into Kriya Yoga.
Asha Nayaswami met Kriyananda in 1969, when she was twenty-two. Recognition was immediate. “My Polestar,” she called him. Soon he asked her to start taking notes for the book she would someday write about him. For forty-four years she was in constant contact with Kriyananda as devotee, friend, personal assistant, and eventually spiritual leader in her own right.
By every measure — spiritual and material — his was a triumphant life. Success, however, did not come easily. He was plagued by ill-health, financial challenges, and years of persecution from fellow disciples, including a massive lawsuit that took a dozen years to resolve.
The lesson of Kriyananda’s life is in the struggle as well as the triumph. Much of the story is told in his own words — not only what he did, but how and why he did it. He explained himself to Asha in a way he did to few others.
This is a first-hand account of life with a great spiritual teacher, written by one who knows that the purpose of such an incarnation is not to show the world how great he is, but to awaken in everyone faith in their own spiritual potential. It is more than a biography; it is a map for the spiritual journey, a path of light that all may follow.