I remember especially
how stirred I was by a talk he gave at a garden party in Beverly
Hills on July 31, 1949. Never had I imagined that the power of human
speech could be so great; it was the most stirring lecture I have
ever heard.
"This
day," he thundered, punctuating every word, "marks the
birth of a new era. My spoken words are registered in the ether,
in the Spirit of God, and they shall move the West.... Self-Realization
has come to unite all religions.... We must go on - not only those
who are here, but thousands of youths must go North, South, East
and West to cover the earth with little colonies, demonstrating
that simplicity of living plus high thinking lead to the greatest
happiness!" I was moved to my core. It would not have surprised
me had the heavens opened up and a host of angels come streaming
out, eyes ablaze, to do his bidding. Deeply I vowed that day to
do my utmost to make his words a reality.
Often during
the years I was with Master he exhorted his audiences on the subject
of this cherished dream of his: "world-brotherhood colonies,"
or spiritual cooperative communities - not monasteries, merely,
but places where people in every stage of life could devote themselves
to living the divine life.
"Environment
is stronger than will power," he told us. He saw "world-brotherhood
colonies" as environments that would foster spiritual attitudes:
humility, trust, devotion, respect for others, friendly cooperation.
For worldly people, too, who dream of a better way of life, small
cooperative communities offer the best hope of demonstrating to
society at large that mankind is capable of achieving heights that
are so scornfully repudiated in this age of spiritual underachievers.
Such communities would be places where cooperative attitudes were
emphasized, rather than social and political "rights"
and the present social and business norms of cut-throat competition.
"Gather
together, those of you who share high ideals," Yogananda told
his audiences. "Pool your resources. Buy land out in the country.
A simple life will bring you inner freedom. Harmony with nature
will bring you a happiness known to few city dwellers. In the company
of other truth seekers it will be easier for you to meditate and
think of God.
"What is
the need for all the luxuries people surround themselves with? Most
of what they have they are paying for on the installment plan. Their
debts are a source of unending worry to them. Even people whose
luxuries have been paid for are not free; attachment makes them
slaves. They consider themselves freer for their possessions, and
don't see how their possessions in turn possess them!"
He added: "The
day will come when this colony idea will spread through the world
like wildfire."
In the over-all
plan for his work, Paramhansa Yogananda saw individual students
first receiving the SRF lessons, and practicing Kriya Yoga in their
own homes; then, in time, forming spiritual centers where they could
meet once or twice weekly for group study and meditation. In areas
where there was enough interest to warrant it, he wanted SRF churches,
perhaps with full- or part-time ministers. And where there were
enough sincere devotees to justify it, his dream was that they would
buy land and live together, serving God, and sharing the spiritual
life together on a full-time basis.
As I mentioned
in Chapter Seventeen, Master had wanted to start a model world-brotherhood
colony in Encinitas. He felt so deeply the importance of this communitarian
dream that for some years it formed the nucleus of all his plans
for the work. Indeed, ruler of his own mental processes though he
was, even he on one occasion became caught up in a whirlwind of
enthusiasm for this project. He told a congregation one Sunday morning,
"I got so involved in thinking about world-brotherhood colonies
last night that my mind got away from me. But," he added, "I
chanted a little, and it came back."
Another measure
of his interest may be seen in the fact that the first edition of
Autobiography of a Yogi ended with a ringing report of his hopes
for founding such a colony. "Brotherhood," he wrote in
that edition, quoting a discussion he had had with Dr. Lewis in
Encinitas, "is an ideal better understood by example than precept!
A small harmonious group here may inspire other ideal communities
over the earth." He concluded, "Far into the night my
dear friend - the first Kriya Yogi in America - discussed with me
the need for world colonies founded on a spiritual basis."
Alas, he encountered
an obstacle that has stood in the way of every spiritual reform
since the days of Buddha: human nature. Marriage has always tended
to be something of a closed corporation. The economic depression
of the Nineteen-Thirties had had the effect on a generation of Americans
of heightening this tendency by increasing their desire for worldly
security. "Us four and no more" was the way Yogananda
described their attitude. America wasn't yet ready for world-brotherhood
colonies.
A further difficulty
lay in the fact that the core of his work already was his monastic
disciples. It was they who set the tone for all the colonies. Householders
couldn't match their spirit of self-abnegation and service. Families
were crowded out of the communal garden, so to speak, by the more
exuberant growth of the plants of renunciation. But Yogananda was
too near the end of his mission to fulfill his "world-brotherhood
colony" dream elsewhere.
"Encinitas
is gone!" he lamented toward the end of his life. It was not
that the ashram was lost. What he meant was that his plans for founding
a world-brotherhood colony on those sacred grounds would not be
fulfilled - at least not during his lifetime. He stopped accepting
families into the ashrams, all of which he turned now into full-fledged
monasteries. For in his renunciate disciples he found that spirit
of selfless dedication which his mission needed for its ultimate
success.
Nevertheless, the idea of world-brotherhood colonies remained important
to him. It was, as he had put it during that speech in Beverly Hills,
"in the ether, in the Spirit of God." Kamala Silva, in
her autobiography, The Flawless Mirror, reports that as late as
five months before he left his body he spoke to her glowingly of
this dream of his. Master knew that, eventually, the dream must
be fulfilled.
Some
of my most impressive memories of Master are of his public lectures.
While they lacked the sweet intimacy of talks with the disciples
at Mt. Washington, they rang with the spirit of a mission destined,
he told us, to bring spiritual regeneration to the world.
