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Preparing for Life’s Final Exam
On April 3, 1998, Swami Kriyananda performed an Astral Ascension Ceremony for two Ananda members who had recently passed away. This is an excerpt taken from his talk given at Ananda Italy.
Life's Final Exam
When we dedicate our lives to God, we come to realize that life is such a brief interlude. Living for God and serving Him joyfully is the best possible preparation for that final exam, which is death.
There was a woman who took care of the Self-Realization Fellowship church in Hollywood many years ago. She learned of her terminal illness only two weeks before she died, but during those two weeks, I was told, her face became more and more serene as she released one attachment after another, saying, “Well, I don’t really need that anyway.” Just before her last breath she exclaimed joyfully, “Swamiji is here!” Yogananda was there with her. She still called him Swamiji because she knew him back when everyone called him that, before Sri Yukteswar gave him the title of Paramhansa Yogananda.
Many people are taken out quickly and don’t have the opportunity before death comes to review their attitudes, to mend their ways, and to release their attachments. The opportunity to do so before death is a priceless gift and a great blessing. Death can come very suddenly, or Divine Mother may give us the grace to have the time to prepare ourselves. But it would be good to realize that we are all going to die sooner or later, so why not prepare now by freeing ourselves of all attachments and dependencies?
The death of a loved one can be an object lesson for each of us. And it can be like the closing of one chapter and the opening of another. For our friends who have just passed away, a new chapter is opening in the astral world, and at the same time, a new chapter is opening for us here. From everything I hear and that I feel in myself, I believe that this chapter for Ananda is going to be a glorious one. There is a new birth for us. Just as under the snow of winter everything seems asleep. When spring comes, the leaves and flowers blossom and a whole new life emerges.
Tests and Trials
This is Ananda’s thirtieth year, and, as we have seen in our history with the community fire and other great trials, in each test the ultimate result has always been wonderful. I don’t think that the wonderful results have been just a matter of luck. Yes, I believe there is such a thing as the pendulum effect: When things get bad enough they’re bound to get better. But I think it’s much more than that. I see that in Ananda the spirit is not that of thinking “I and mine.” In every big test that we’ve had, those who were thinking “I and mine” left Ananda, but those who were thinking, “My life is for God, and God alone,” they have flourished. They are the ones who have again and again defined Ananda’s reality as it truly is.
We have grown strong in the understanding that we are here for a short time only. Death is a reminder of how very short that time is. You think that Christmas will never come, for example, and then suddenly it’s here, and before you know it, it’s over. Death will be the same, and each one of us will have to face that experience. The more we realize that we are here for God and that nothing else really matters, the freer and better prepared we will be.
Many years ago someone came to Mount Washington and haughtily asked Master, “What are the assets of this organization?” Yogananda answered, “None, only God!”
Another time, Yogananda had a great financial test where it looked as if he might lose everything. Divine Mother came to him and said, “I am your stocks and bonds. What more dost thou need than that thou hast Me?” And indeed, everything worked out. This is how God tests each of us.
Do you remember the story of Saint Francis, when he and his young disciples were all gathered in that little cold shed? It was really nothing more than a stick hut: Rain came in and the wind whistled through it. At one point, when it was raining very hard, a peasant came into the shed to shelter himself and his donkey. Finding what looked to him like tramps, he demanded that Saint Francis and the brothers leave to make room for the donkey. Some of the brothers were indignant, thinking that they had already given up everything for God: At least they could have shelter from the storms! But Saint Francis said to them, “No, come, let us leave.” Yogananda’s comment on this was very inter-esting. He said, “That was God’s test: to see whether they really had given their lives completely to Him or not.” In the end they were taken care of and everything worked out fine.
This is the kind of test that God gives us, and He gives it to us more and more as we show our deep sincerity and desire to come closer to Him. If you read about the lives of saints, you’ll see how hard Satan would try to keep them caught in his net of delusion. I’ve often wondered why Satan tested the saints at the time when he stood less of a chance of winning. Wouldn’t he have had a much better chance of holding them to delusion if he had given them all these great temptations when they were young and inexperienced? It seems that as we get stronger and closer to God, Satan’s tests also get stronger. Why is this?
The obvious answer is that it isn’t so much Satan as it is God testing us through Satan, through the satanic force. Before we can really find God we must give up all thoughts of ego, of “I and mine.” Even in the midst of very difficult tests we must be able to stand strong and say, “I am not that.” This is the final test before one becomes liberated. As Buddha said to Satan when he was tested just before enlightenment, “Mara, I have conquered thee!”
Our victory is in the realization that it’s all God. Because the ego doesn’t enter into God, we need these tests to help us to find our freedom, and God helps us by playing a role through the satanic power. He gives those demons and lower entities that power, and in doing so we confront in ourselves the sincerity of our own dedication to God. This is what it’s really all about.
I’ve been reading an extremely sensitive and inspiring book on seven women saints. Again and again these saints had to face the test of seeing that all is God. Once they did that, they were free. In each one of them the divine radiance became more and more clear as they allowed God to shine through them. In a beautiful passage about Saint Catherine of Siena, God spoke to her, saying, “You are she who is not; I am He who is.” Our egos and personalities, the lives that we build and that seem so real to us, these have no final existence at all. The only reality is that of the Supreme Dreamer, who dreamed this entire universe into being.
Give Yourself to God
Let us take the passing of our loved ones to be a reminder of this truth, and let us give our lives more and more to Him and prepare every day for that which is the only certainty in life — death. In this way we will come to understand, as I am sure all saints have understood, that death doesn’t truly exist, only life exists — a life of joy, of love, of beauty, and of peace that becomes more glorified as we release this heavy physical form that binds us. For those who have been on the spiritual path, who have practiced even a little bit of meditation and who have developed the qualities of their hearts, that world we will go to is, as Yogananda said, far more than our greatest “imagination of expectancy.”
Do we cling to our lives and to our attachments, or do we say, “God, it’s all yours?” The more we cling only to the thought that this life is completely His, the more we find that God blesses us. Even in the moment of our greatest darkness, God’s presence and blessing will be with us.
For information and reservations:
info@ananda.it Tel: +39 0742-81.36.20 Fax: +39 0742-81.35.36
Ananda is located in the tranquil hills of Umbria, Italy on “Strada Statale 444” between Assisi and Gualdo Tadino. It is the largest retreat center in Europe for Yogananda’s teachings.
Ananda Associazione • Via Montecchio, 61 • I-06025 Nocera Umbra (PG) • ITALY