Ananda Meditation Retreat - A Unique Spiritual Awakening

It was 1972 and I was in the military, in the initial stages of pursuing an in-service conscientious discharge. I saw a flier about Ananda and hitch-hiked from University Avenue in Berkeley to the retreat in Nevada City, CA. In those days people had hitch-hking signs that said most any destination and hithcing was easy. Usually the people had pot to share. It's a long journey (several hours) hitching to Nevada City but life-changing for me. jThis was my first spiritual awakening in life. After all, had just been brainwashed in the military and began to feel guilty for my participation and responsible to do something about it.

At Ananda, you could pay to stay there or work to stay there - an awesome rationale, based upon yoga principles. We got up early and the unfolding of every day was heavenly. Whether it was an individual walk, group meditation, individual meditation, silence condition, satsangs (truth readings), healing ceremonies, skinny-dipping, work, meals, cottage industries (health food, candles and incense), weekly trips to town (culture shock!), daily break-throughs in meditation and yoga postures, no purposeless idle time, little chatter, just increasing awareness and enlightenment.
It took me about 45 days to break through in meditation (the mosquitoes were intense and the posture takes time and the mind has to grow out of restlessness. Then a blissful continuity begins.

Prior to Ananda, in preparation for my Conscientious Objector discharge from the military I would spend hours and hours at Shambala Books (specializing in religious and philosophy books). I would be in a trance at times, attempting to digest and communicate my sincerity of beliefs in objecting based upon non-religious grounds...a belief that any and all connection to the war effort, however removed was against my true Self and unconscionable. I turned my papers in and went to the Ananda Retreat for about three months. At my CO hearing I was on a silence condition and they thought I was from Mars. They approved my papers, didn't charge me with desertion (because they couldn't find me to inform me of my discharge approval) and they wanted nothing to do with me, i.e. not even lighthouse duty. I was obligated to perform one week light duty while being mustered out of the service.

Backing up a little, after a kriya ceremony at Ananda, Swami Kriyananda spoke to me about my situation and urged me to return to Oakland and resolve the military dilemma. It was the correct thing to do. Several years ago I called him in Assissi, Italy and recently he wrote me two wonderful emails from India. He is truly a dream-maker. Two of my acquaintances, Jyotish and Devi were at Ananda in 1972 and are now the world leaders.

From Conversations with Parmahansa Yogananda:
You can be in a room twenty years, trying to get out through the walls, the ceiling, the floor. It is when you discover the door that you find your way out. That's how it is with the soul. The average devotee may struggle his whole life trying to escape the bodily limitations by unscientific means and by paths only of devotioinand discrimination. By kriya yoga, however, if he is sincere, he can escape quickly. Kriya yoga takes one to God by the universal highway: the spine.

I give my heart-felt thanks to Swami Kriyananda and the Ananda disciples.

Swami told us we would be called to a safe place in the future. I now realize he meant not only a location but the heart. I have enjoyed the spirit of Hawaii for the last twenty years and was alerted years ago by the book called Musashi (advanced samurai who put his sword away) in one chapter that we should thank all the people who helped us on our spiritual journey starting with the first one.