Swami Kriyananda

Swami Kriyananda, born J. Donald Walters, is a direct disciple of the yogi Paramahansa Yogananda, and spent many hours with him during the last three years of Yogananda's life (1948 – 1952). During this time Kriyananda became a minister for Self-Realization Fellowship, an organization set up by Paramahansaji himself and was asked by Yogananda to teach Kriya Yoga, which Yogananda called the highest technique of Self-realization.

Early Life

Kriyananda was born in Rumania into an American family. Growing up in Rumania, France, and England, Kriyananda (then "Donald") returned to America with his family when he was 13 years old, to escape the second World War. Donald attended an American high school as well as Haverford College and Brown University, leaving the latter with only a semester left before graduation.

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During this time his interest in spiritual matters was steadily intensifying. In his autobiography, he describes a particular night, during a long walk, when, as he says, he came to realize his life's calling: that of seeking God.

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:"I realized now that religion is far more than a system of beliefs, and far more than a formalized effort to wheedle a little pity out of God by offering Him pleading, self-condemning prayers and propitiatory rites. If our link with Him lies in the fact that we manifest Him already, then it is up to us to receive Him ever more perfectly, to express Him ever more fully. And this is what religion is all about! True religion consists of a growing awareness of our deep, spiritual relationship with God!" http://www.ananda.org/inspiration/books/path/12.html

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Not long afterward, Donald read Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi and traveled to California to become a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda. In the years that followed, Donald spent time with Yogananda, digesting his teachings, taking notes, and working on various projects. In 1955, after Yogananda's passing, Donald took the monastic name of "Swami Kriyananda."

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In 1962 Kriyananda parted with Self-Realization Fellowship, the organization that Yogananda founded, and eventually pursued the task Yogananda entrusted to him of "writing, editing, and lecturing,"http://www.ananda.org/inspiration/books/path/40.html as well as trying to fulfill his guru's mission of creating "world brotherhood colonies."

Related Topics:
Self-Realization Fellowship - Guru's

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