Ananda - A First Step

I have tried in these pages to understand and explain clearly Paramhansa Yogananda's example. As I created Ananda, also, I tried always to make it a laboratory for testing and developing his ideas. I haven't meant to say that these ideas themselves are unprecedented, any more than Truth itself can ever be unprecedented. The same thoughts have been expressed many times and in many ways through the ages. What is new today is that these crucial ideas have been presented when the general consciousness of mankind was more ready to receive them.

There are few written rules at Ananda. We try, instead, to work with people as they are, not as any artificial theory says they ought to be. "People are more important than things." It is for the people themselves that the rules were made.

I have always followed to the best of my ability Yogananda's charitable approach to organizing. If a job needs doing, no matter how important it is to the needs of the community, our first concern is for the persons concerned. Only secondarily is our concern for Ananda itself. The reason for this practice is that spiritual institutions owe their very existence to the desire to help others. Rules are meant for those who can stand and be counted, and not for some amorphous humanity "out there" which might, perhaps, benefit from them someday, if only Joe and Mary can be squeezed, meanwhile, for everything they have.

At Ananda, if doubts arise as to whether a person being considered for a position would benefit from it spiritually, we seek someone else for that place, even if that person seems less suitable for the job. For we'd rather see a project fail than have it succeed at any one individual's expense. Our projects, consequently, have generally succeeded -- indeed, they've flourished, in a field (communities) where the rate of failure, so far, stands close to 100%.

In 1980 we bought East West Books, a metaphysical bookstore in Menlo Park, California. The person I put in charge of the store remonstrated with me, "But I don't know anything about selling books!"

"Never mind," I consoled her. "Be a friend to everyone who comes. You will learn what you need to know about books, in time. In fact, your customers will be glad to tell you about them in return for the spiritual nourishment they feel on coming here. Serve them, and share with them God's love."

For some years East West Books was in the top one percent of metaphysical bookstores in the whole country, and the second-largest-selling bookstore of its kind on the West Coast. Today I don't know the statistics, but I do know that East West is thriving when many bookstores in the country, especially metaphysical bookstores, have gone out of business. One reason for our success has been our principle of giving top priority to the spirit of the people working there -- less so than to their demonstrated competence. In fact, competence has followed as a matter of course.

Another example of relying on the spirit first, rather than on material needs, occurred in 1976. In that year a forest fire destroyed some 450 acres at Ananda Village and twenty-one of our homes. This devastation might easily have sounded the death knell for the whole community, for we hadn't the financial reserves with which to rebuild, and were without fire insurance. Though generously assisted by donations from friends and various organizations, it took us years to pay for the loss. With a lot of hard work, however, and with joyful faith in God, we did, by His grace, rebuild at last, better than ever.

During the early stages of the rebuilding process, we faced a moral dilemma. Before the fire, a couple had decided to move away from the community. We had promised to buy their home when the funds to do so became available. This home, too, was destroyed in the fire, and of course we had nothing now with which to buy back that nonexistent structure. Donations were coming in at a trickle, not a flood. We had the rebuilding of those destroyed homes of our active members to consider. Were we still obligated -- such was our dilemma -- to buy back that no longer existent home? If so, how soon ought we to do so? Would it command first priority? Or would we be right to delay our repayment?

After consulting the resident members' feelings in the matter, we decided to pay off that couple's home first, from the initial donations we received. "Jato dharma, tato jaya: Where there is adherence to right action, there is victory." Our hearts rejoiced in the realization that our homes, and Ananda itself, belonged to God and Guru, not to us.

This belief, inspired by Yogananda's example, inspires in us an awareness that the whole world, and not Ananda alone, is our larger community.

Herewith follows another example of the practical implications of that belief:

The cause of the fire was later discovered to have been a faulty spark-arrester on a county vehicle. This meant we could sue the county for damages. Neighbors of ours, who also had lost their homes, sued and collected. When the news first came out that the county was liable, some of our neighbors phoned us and announced exultantly, "You'll easily be able to get two million dollars for your losses!" (Ananda had been the biggest loser in the fire.) Two million dollars would have enabled us to rebuild all our homes, and also to redevelop our devastated land.

Instead, I wrote to the county supervisors that we considered the county as our own larger community. We would not, I said, be taking out our bad luck on our larger community.

Ten years later, many of our neighbors were still bemoaning the losses they'd sustained in the fire. At Ananda, the very day after the fire we were already pitching in with joyful smiles to clear the land and begin the process of reconstruction. Our joy never left us. In many ways, the fire turned out to be one of the greatest blessings in Ananda's history.

Our deep conviction, justified again and again over the years, has been that when the spirit is truly expansive and self-giving, God Himself -- perhaps through the Intelligent Cosmic Energy -- always provides.

My very decision to found Ananda was made during a period of my life when my income was less than $400 a month. Friends and relatives ridiculed my ambition as absurd. The inner flow of energy, however, felt right to me. My part in the process was only to put out the highest energy of which I felt myself capable.

The inspiration for this decision was, again, the example I'd seen in Paramhansa Yogananda. One day, during difficult years financially, a visitor had asked him sneeringly, "What are the assets of this organization?"

"None!" replied the Master vigorously: "Only God!"

To raise the money I needed for starting Ananda, I traveled daily from city to city giving yoga classes. Mindful of my Guru's reluctance, years earlier, to charge money for his classes, but recalling at the same time that he'd decided to charge for them, once he realized that people appreciate what they are getting only when they give something in return, I charged a token $25 for a six-weeks course. If any potential student complained that he couldn't afford even that amount, I let him perform some little service in exchange for getting free lessons. He might set up chairs, or perhaps (after I acquired the first Ananda property), work on the land for a weekend. (Strange to relate, it turned out in every case that those who had claimed they couldn't afford to pay demonstrated, later, that they could easily have paid. Nevertheless, I preferred to let them determine their own priorities. My responsibility, as I saw it, was to preserve my spirit of service to others.) As things turned out, God always sent me as many students as I needed to meet my land and construction costs: never more, but always enough.

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I've already discussed in sufficient detail, for the purposes of this paper, how we have sought to grow by putting principles first, and by keeping always in mind the first principle, "People are more important than things."

One aspect of community life that might seem difficult to develop along charitable lines is that of discipline. Yet a certain amount of discipline is necessary in any institution. For anarchy is not freedom. The more such discipline proceeds from within the individual, however, in the form of self-discipline, and isn't imposed on him from without, the better both for the organization and for the member himself in his relationship with the organization.

Paramhansa Yogananda set the tone in this respect also. He once said to me, "I only like to discipline with love. I just wilt when I have to speak in other ways."

He also gave supreme importance to the individual's free will. "I only discipline those who want it," he told me, "never those who don't."

One might think it necessary sometimes to put organizational priorities ahead of personal needs: to say, for example, "Do it, or else!" This is something I never heard Paramhansa Yogananda do.

On one occasion, before my arrival, a grand opening was planned for the SRF colony in Encinitas, California. Everyone concerned was under great pressure to finish everything in time for the occasion. The public and the media had already been invited. Rev. Bernard himself told me the story:

"I had the all-important responsibility," he said, "of plastering the towers. I'd worked through the night several times, to meet that fast-approaching deadline.

"One final push was needed. My presence was crucial to the completion of the job. On the last day, I failed to show up. When I did finally appear, the Master demanded of me as if scoldingly, 'Where were you?'

"'Sir,' I replied, 'I was meditating.'

"'Oh,' replied the Master, instantly mollified. 'Why didn't you say so?'"

God-communion was the very reason we were there. Never would the Master give precedence to any outer project over that highest priority, no matter how urgent the situation. I should finish this story by relating that the job did -- "by the skin of its teeth" -- get finished in time.

At Ananda -- again following the Master's example -- we have always emphasized cooperation over obedience. If anyone shows himself unwilling to do something that has been asked of him, we simply ask someone else to do it.

If the same member refuses a second or a third time, he simply won't be asked again unless and until his attitude changes. For if he won't accept the responsibility of disciplining himself, little can be gained by imposing discipline on him from outside.

When external discipline comes by force or persuasion, it only weakens people and makes them dependent, or, alternately, it confuses them and makes them rebellious. Clarity of mind, and inner strength: Both are needed for creating a strong organization -- even if unquestioning obedience seems, in the short term, more convenient.

It is important also to see the organization, and the individual's place in it, in terms of energy output. For energy moves in a vortex. Once a positive vortex is created, any negativity will either be converted and drawn in toward the center, or repelled and dissipated.

There are times -- and these, too, have come to Ananda -- when negative energy must be actively combated. In such cases we've found it better to affirm positive energy, thereby giving it strength, than to energize a negative vortex by allowing ourselves to grow angry over it or to denounce it.

Involvement Management

 An unusual feature at Ananda, and one that I hope will someday become widespread, is our practice of managing by direct involvement rather than aloofly, from above.

We call this process "Involvement Management." It is something that has evolved over a period of years, through trial and error, and is not the result of any a priori theory. There were no community models for us to study at first -- none, at any rate, with which I myself was familiar. To me, "involvement management" is an important direction for us, and will perhaps be helpful to other organizations too, as mankind progresses further into Dwapara Yuga.

For many years before I founded Ananda, I studied other models in history, as well as organizations of our own day, and pondered how those functioned which succeeded best. I observed that high position was often presumed to demonstrate a person's competence for decision-making in every field. Who said a thing was considered more important than what he or she said.

I also assisted at meetings where those who knew the least about a project often did the most talking, as if to show that they, too, took seriously their responsibility as members of a decision-making body.

It is important, of course, for there to be leadership positions. When those who hold a high position, however, consider themselves alone competent to determine the outcome of every issue, inevitably their expertise will not in every case be equal to the task of making wise decisions. High position, moreover, invites personal ambition, envy from others, and feelings of self-importance in the person himself who holds the position.

At Ananda we have, of necessity, a few people in key management positions. Meetings are more frequently held, however, at levels where everyone involved in a project gets to participate.

The important thing is that the energy in every segment of the work be directed in a spirit of unity. Otherwise, nothing will prevent any committee from scattering off in its own direction, destroying in the process the coherence that is so essential to every group project.

Paramhansa Yogananda tried to get people to understand management by involvement, and leadership by attunement with the source of inspiration. Too often, when he placed someone in a responsible position, that person never realized with what a spiritual powerhouse he was living. Often he tried to do things according to his own, inner "lights," without much concerning himself about attunement with the Master. Those to whom our Guru gave the job of sharing these teachings with others too often viewed the task as an opportunity for presenting different inspirations of their own.

In a work of such spiritual importance, it is necessary to understand that God sent Paramhansa Yogananda with a divine message to mankind. The more perfectly we can transmit that message to others, the more certain it will be to reach all mankind, as God intended.

No work can flourish with a multiplicity of guiding spirits. Hence the truth of Emerson's saying, "An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man." The logic of this statement, applied to Paramhansa Yogananda's mission, is irresistible: His mission will never flourish unless he himself is maintained as the source of all its energy flow.

Yogananda knew that after his death his disciples, each one capable of perceiving him only in some one, or in a few, aspects of his many-sided nature, but not in all of them, might be inclined to take his mission in less vital directions. Therefore he told a disciple, "Only love can take my place": Not, "Only your memory of me," nor, "The rules I have written." Love, as the guiding principle for every true disciple, regardless of how differently each perceives the mission itself, is the true key to its success.

Today, therefore, when two disciples have different interpretations of his teachings or of his personal guidance to them, the key he gave all of us is to place the highest priority on love: to demonstrate our love for and attunement with him by the love we share with one another.

Must we always agree with one another? Ideally so, of course. However, given the fact that people sometimes cannot help seeing things differently, they can still love one another, and simply "agree to differ."

Must they shelve their differences, then, in the name of harmony? Again, yes, if possible. But if the differences are so fundamental that it would entail an offense against their own understanding of the truth, then they must, as I said, agree to differ. In this case, they can at least still love one another.

Love is a gift. It cannot be imposed by rule, nor demanded by one person or another. It must be given freely, or else not given at all.

Yogananda showed this spirit by his own life. And he showed how the spirit of love can reign supreme in an organization: by the complete absence of self-assertion; by seeing God in all; by not making the organization an extension of anyone's ego, but seeing all equally as brothers and sisters; by judging no one; and by emphasizing a spirit of service rather than something so often encountered in organizations: a struggle for ever-higher positions of authority.

At Ananda we have succeeded to a gratifying extent in curbing personal ambition. Our method has been simply to emphasize function over position. A person may be relatively new at Ananda, and yet -- if he happens to be directly involved in the matter at issue -- find himself participating in meetings and helping to make decisions on many issues. By the single device of involvement management, we have eliminated perhaps eighty percent of the infighting and competition that are so common in organizations.

Along with grassroots decision-making, there is always the need for the guidance of authority. These two flows of energy -- downward from above, and upward from below at the grassroots level -- need constantly to be kept in a state of balance. If decisions were to get made only at a grassroots level, the result would, of course, be institutional confusion.

Because it is common for people to find themselves caught up in details -- to the point of losing touch with the deeper purpose behind what they are doing -- we at Ananda have created a safeguard against this tendency. In addition to having a general manager responsible for the hows of a decision, we have also a spiritual director, whose responsibility is for the whethers of the decision.

The spiritual director's job is to make sure that the spirit of Ananda flows from attunement with the Master's teachings, and from inner guidance, and never from expediency alone. No decision is fully sanctioned unless it is accepted as coming from the special ray of God's grace that has been sent to us by our line of gurus.

The need for attunement with their mission is kept paramount. Ananda is a part of that mission. The mission as a whole, however, is much broader than what we at Ananda define as our own church and community. The mission is to reach out everywhere with love, and not to limit ourselves to the forms by which we express that love. Our solution is to concentrate rather on love itself, and to ask of that love that it flow to all the world, energizing all whom it touches.

Ananda exists for the purpose of serving the larger community of mankind -- first of all through its members, and then to those, everywhere, who seek our help.

In Dwapara Yuga terms, religious organizations will feel themselves more strongly motivated than they've been in the past by the spirit of love, rather than by any demand for obedience. The emphasis on power and control -- so common in the past -- will be replaced by an expansive impulse to serve and embrace all mankind in a spirit of kinship in God, and to bless everyone, everywhere, with His love.