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Why
Ananda Has Succeeded
People
often ask how Ananda has been so successful, particularly when so
many similar communities have failed. Many reasons might be advanced,
but three are the most important. In Cooperative Communities,
Swami Kriyananda, Ananda's founder, explains:
1)
At Ananda, we find our peace inwardly first, in meditation, and
only secondarily from one another; 2) we have learned that the
secret of work is joyous service; and 3) we have learned that
to see God in one another, and in all people, is to dissolve all
sense of differences between us and them.
The
principles and ideals that guide Ananda have grown naturally out
of a way of life based on meditation, joyous service, and the understanding
that a single Reality underlies all of life's seeming diversity.
These principles and ideals, and how they've worked in practice,
tell who Ananda is and why it has flourished despite numerous obstacles
and challenges. To understand Ananda, one needs to become acquainted
with these principles and ideals.
The
following pages discuss these principles and ideals in a variety
of contexts. Emphasized throughout are the challenges Ananda has
faced- opposition from neighbors, the threat of bankruptcy, lawsuits-simply
because one's commitment to principles is truly tested in the fires
of controversy and challenge. As steel is tempered by fire, Ananda
has emerged from these challenges greatly strengthened, more deeply
committed than ever to its guiding ideals.
Most
of the examples discussed in the following pages pertain to Ananda
Village, the first of the Ananda colonies, where a way of life developed
based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda. That way of life,
and the principles and ideals that guide it, is followed today in
all the Ananda colonies throughout the world.
The
key principles and ideals
Two
fundamental principles guide all that we do. The first is, "People
are more important than things." In practice this means putting
other people's needs, spiritual or otherwise, ahead of anything
one might want of them. Thus, if a job needs to be done, but the
best person for it would not benefit from it spiritually, someone
else is sought for the job. If no one can be found, an entire project
may be abandoned.
Closely
related to this is the second principle, "Where there is adherence
to truth and right action, there is victory." A dramatic example
of this was the June 1976 forest fire that destroyed 450 acres and
twenty-one of the twenty-two homes at Ananda Village. A faulty
spark arrester on a county vehicle caused the fire, and Ananda could
have sued the county and recovered its losses. Instead, Swami Kriyananda
wrote the county supervisors and reassured them that Ananda would
not be suing:
I'm
sure you are aware, that Ananda was the biggest loser in the fire.
Perhaps you've been worried about what we'll do about it. I want
you to know that we won't be suing. We don't want to take our
bad luck out on fellow citizens by increasing the county's insurance
rates..
Although
Ananda faced the real possibility of bankruptcy, the community flourished.
The decision not to sue was in line with the principle noted above:
"Where there is adherence to truth and right action, there lies
victory."
The
example of Swami Kriyananda
Have
we been 100% successful in living up to these ideals? No, but we
have certainly done our best. Ananda is composed of many people,
who try with varying degrees of success to honor them.
Therefore,
it's important to "test the water" at the spring: how far has Swami
Kriyananda himself honored these ideals? It's safe to say that he
has lived them. A frequent statement he has made is, "I
said I would, so I must." Here are a few examples, only:
A
married couple were having problems and Kriyananda, wanting to help
them, asked them to accompany him on a long journey. They said
they thought they would be able to meet their own expenses. Later,
when the trip was close to being crystallized, they discovered that
they would not be able to cover their expenses after all. Kriyananda's
response was, "I asked them to come, so I will pay the amount to
make it possible."
In
December 1994, Kriyananda committed himself to a lecture tour of
southern California the following March. Later in December, his
doctor informed him that he urgently needed open heart surgery to
replace a faulty valve, and that without it, he could die "at any
moment." After surgery his doctor said, "You must take complete
rest now for one year."
Kriyananda
had committed himself, however, to that lecture tour. When people
urged him to cancel it, his answer was, "I said I would, so I must."
There was no financial or other reason for him to make the tour:
It was simply that he had given his word.
Many
times, because of illness, Kriyananda has been urged to cancel a
talk or some other commitment. Always his answer has been, "I said
I would, so I must."
A
certain person committed herself to doing a job for Kriyananda,
but never finished the job. This rendered the work she'd done up
to that point altogether useless. Kriyananda paid her just the same,
without complaint, because he'd promised to do so.
This
has been Ananda's behavior also. Sometimes imperfectly, but always
its endeavor has been, whatever its commitment, to honor its word,
its principles, its ideals.
The
principles in action-what others say
In
the following pages are many examples of how Ananda has done this,
along with the comments and observations of people, not part of
Ananda, who have dealt with Ananda members over the years. Many
of them say that Ananda people treat them as a friend and seem genuinely
interested in their welfare. Others emphasize that Ananda's sympathies
are expansive, not contractive.
In
fact, another of Ananda's principles is that no community can flourish
if it cuts itself off from the greater society of which it is a
part. Ananda sees its very existence as justified by the service
it renders to that society. In A Place Called Ananda, Kriyananda
discusses this very point:
I urged our
members not to think of Ananda as separate from society as a whole.
Our good, I said, included the good of everyone, and not only
that of Ananda.
Next:
Serving the larger community
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