(Transcript from a videotape Swamiji made in Italy for viewing at the Mahasamadhi Retreat in India, 3 March. Original video also available.)

Hello, everybody! I want to talk today, first of all, of course, to wish you all the best. I wish I could be there in India with you, but my body just hasn't recuperated as quickly as I wanted to. And so I am talking to you from Italy and I hope I can get my English straight here—not get it all confused with Italian!

If you put yourself in the shoes of somebody who came to do a world mission as Master did, many of his disciples thought that he had only come for them. They thought of him as their own little "private guru". They didn't understand that his was a world mission. It was a mission to this new age. But if you put yourself in his shoes (which of course is a pretty tall order!), just think of somebody who wants to bring a message out that will help all of society. Isn't it obvious that he would want to get people to living the teachings in communities? This is the theme that he sounded through all his years in America.

It seems strange that it took such a long time for that message to come out and be understood. I remember back in 1949—well, from this vantage point it looks like a long time ago, but he came to America in 1920 and left his body in 1952. And so that means that it was just in the last years of his life, it was at that garden party in Beverly Hills—and he was talking—I've never heard such a powerful talk in my life, where he was not just pleading, but demanding, that people go—young people especially—go "north, south, east, west". He was saying, with great power, "I'm sowing my thoughts in the ether and these thoughts shall not die".

That was the power that he was sowing. Yet in 1958 when I mentioned this to Daya Mata and I said, "When are we going to start these communities", she said, "Frankly, I'm not interested". Hard to believe. But on the other hand I don't fault her. We have to, each one of us, take what we can and what we understand. But they have thought—they meaning other disciples—that he came to start a monastery! Tara told me that she thought he'd come to America to gather a handful of disciples [and] they would all go back to the Himalayas and meditate in seclusion like the group around Babaji.

But somehow I knew—it was, I suppose my particular destiny; I knew even as I was coming across the country to meet him, desperate to know God—"This is such a great teaching; the whole world should know about it; and how can I help the whole world to know it?" It was in my samskars, although I had this sort of pulling in two directions in myself, where I wanted to be a hermit, to be alone—in fact, I told Master that one time. He said, "That's because you've done it alone. You've lived alone before". But in this life, I had this keen desire to share—it's been my nature even—if I found anything I thought was good, I thought, "Well, everybody should know about it". And this is how I have felt about his teachings.

So, he saw me from the beginning as the one who would bring his teachings out to people. But this communities idea was the way to do it.

If you have a teaching that is so new and bring it into the culture of a country like America—well, I must say something good about America too, because it is, in a very real way, a very spiritual country. That's something most people don't believe, because they see its wealth; they see its efficiency; they see its greed, unfortunately.

But there is another aspect to it also. This was told to me by somebody from South America. He said, " North America—your country—was founded by pilgrims who came to seek religious freedom. South America was founded by people coming to find gold. Your country has flourished and in South America they are still in political confusion". That was true back 50 years ago and it's still true. There is something about America—but you don't find it in those who pretend to speak for America; you don't find it in the politicians; you don't find it in the intellectuals—but yes, America is a very spiritual country.

At the same time, the trend there is so very different from this kind of living that unless you have groups of people living it together, you will not find it easy to bring this teaching out. Master talked to thousands of people, many even hundreds of thousands of people, in America. He was probably the best-known public speaker in America at his time. And yet, if you think about it, his popularity was like dropping a stone in the ocean. You hardly notice the impact later.

When I was living—I didn't come along that much later than [he] —I was, of course, born in Romania. Actually it's interesting; I was conceived just about the time he got Mt.Washington. I think I was born to help this part of his mission. But I must also say that in those days I wanted to leave America. I didn't see how it was possible for America to be a spiritualized country.

And Master's teachings, although he made such an impact—I had never heard of him; I didn't know anything about these things; I didn't know anything about yoga, or guru, or anything. Nowadays, these teachings are very common, but back then, mind you, one week before I read Autobiography of a Yogi and came to him and became his disciple, one week before I met him I had never heard the word guru. I'd never heard the word yoga. I'd never heard the word karma or dharma. I didn't know anything about these teachings. Yes, I did know the truths because it was something in my samskars.

I remember going out on a long walk outside Charleston, South Carolina, trying to think, "Well, if there's a God"—and I wasn't sure there was!—but "if there is, what must He be?" My conclusion was that he has to be—just as Vedanta philosophy teaches—an Infinite Consciousness, of which I, and all conscious beings, had to be a part. If this was true, then the goal of life must be to be more in tune with that consciousness rather than less in tune because I realized that people can be either more or less. And the more dull-minded they are and the more closed-minded they are, the less they have of that consciousness. But the more we try to tune in to that higher consciousness, looking at my life, I saw—well, I was happier with that. I realized that's what everybody needs.

We all need to be more in tune with the Infinite Consciousness. Now that goal, I knew then, was the goal of life. But I also knew that it was no easy thing to bring that about. When I read Autobiography of a Yogi, I knew that was what we needed. And so as I say, as I was coming across in the bus, four days and four nights to meet Master, one of the thoughts in my mind, very uppermost in it, was, "This is so great. We must share it with everybody". That has been my destiny. But when he was lecturing in Beverly Hills and giving us that talk on communities, I vowed I would do my best to make that happen!

Now, if you have a new idea, it's not easy to bring it across, because people dilute it. Look at what happened to Christianity. Christianity gradually became "Churchianity". Master said, "Jesus Christ was crucified once, but his teachings have been crucified every day for 2,000 years by ignorant people who misunderstood what they meant". It's very interesting, when you read the Acts of the Apostles, how the first disciples of Jesus were trying to create communities. That fell apart because churches don't like communities. Churches want to feel that they can control and the community is something that wouldn't give you that control.

The same thing—and we all know that Master was William the Conqueror—and I have to say this: that I grew up on the English system of education. In Romania, we had a book called Our Island Story, which was the history of England, and I had to read that every year. So I grew up thinking that William the Conqueror was one of the great villains of history. And then I suddenly found out, my God, he was my guru! Well, I had to do a hasty backtrack on that one!

I have studied a lot about William, and I came to realize that he has been greatly misunderstood. You know, when a person—especially a man, it seems—when they have no personal motives, people attribute the worst possible motives to them. William didn't do anything for himself. He did it because he had a mission. He was an avatar even then.

You may ask, "What would an avatar be doing in a role like that?" Well, first of all it was an age when people had to be—and he had to be—very strict. At the same time, he was very spiritual. He was completely honest, and loyal, and truthful. He believed in the highest principles. His only close friends were saints. He never missed a day of Mass in his life and he was always trying to do what God wanted.

But one thing that you will notice about him, and you may wonder, "Why was he born then?" Well, it was a time when civilization was coming out of Kali Yuga, not yet in the sandhya from out of Kali into Dwapara, but still it was a time when the consciousness was beginning to shift; and he had to prepare—his job was to prepare the world, really.

You notice that it was England that united the world. They used to say that Hitler wanted to conquer the world. England came a lot closer to it than Hitler ever did! They said that the sun never set on the British Empire. Well, but that was because he organized. If he had remained in Europe (mainland), he could not have done anything. Everybody there was out for himself. He never was out for himself, but he did organize a separate island. It was his mission to do that. Well, just like a cooperative community, he could organize a separate set of individual civilization that could not be invaded all the time the way any other country in Europe was, would've been, and constantly found itself being. But in a sense, England too was like a cooperative community.

In other words, it makes absolute sense that if you want to do something new, get a few people who can bring that truth into manifestation rather than bringing those ideas onto paper and people gradually teach those teachings but try to adapt, as the Christians did, to their own way of life.

It has been said that the worst thing that happened in Christian history was when Constantine made Christianity the official religion, because it became completely corrupted by official consciousness!

Now, Master, in bringing a complete new way of life, the practice of yoga, generosity, these things—how can you believe them? His own organization got so far away from his teaching that you don't find his basic teachings of generosity and sharing and love, kindness, and all those things that ought to be the groundwork of an organization. It went the old Kali Yuga way of having power over people, seeking money, seeking people who have money, and not thinking of people as individuals.

This is why one of the basic principles of Ananda is that people are more important than things. Their spiritual wealth is more important than any possession they can hold or any good they can do for the organization.

Now, I believe I was Henry the First, who was William's youngest son. He had to be born late in life in order to carry on William's mission. But I believe I was he—and it's very interesting; Catherine Van Houten is writing the life of Henry and you see many, many points that I have in common with Henry. It's really quite fun to read them.

But he too was a man who wasn't thinking of himself—and he was the most powerful monarch in Western Europe at the time when all monarchs seemed to have this obsession with getting more territory. He never sought more territory. All he did was conquer back land that his inept older brothers had lost. But he was only trying to fulfill, and did fulfill, his father's mission. He had no other ambition. In fact, he is considered the least colourful of all English kings because he was never doing things that are outrageous, that make people noticeable. He was just trying to establish a kingdom.

But this is what we have tried to do at Ananda. It has not been a personality cult. I have tried my best to be out of the picture as much as possible.

When I was studying singing, my singing teacher said, "I am only living for one thing and that's to see you become a great singer". I know I have a good voice. But when I took to writing music, I tried to get other people in the act, and I rarely sang because I wanted other people singing these songs. What would be the good of having just me doing it?

This is how I have tried to build Ananda. I have not tried to lead Ananda. I've tried to inspire people to lead so that as Ananda has grown, it has grown decentralized; it has grown as much as possible through the leadership of individuals who have had the inspiration. Yes, I have guided the inspiration. I believe that you have to have the "top of the ladder", as you might say, "be the inspiration". I would not allow anybody to do something that was against what Master wanted. They may have tried to occasionally, but they never succeeded.

But the need for communities, where people are given an opportunity to lead—it has to be in the right spirit. It's not just having a bunch of people together and "doing their thing". In that spirit, those who have tuned into that spirit, they can share that spirit. And thus we have about eight communities now, in California, Oregon, Washington, Rhode Island (well, it's a very small one there), Italy, India—we hope to be really starting a big community in India.

And I don't want only Westerners doing it, just as I myself have tried to fade out of the picture as much as possible and get other people doing the act, doing the job. Like when I was a little boy, I was given a bicycle and I taught all the children in the neighborhood how to ride a bike that same day—on my birthday. I would hold the handlebar with one hand and hold the seat with the other and run with them. They would begin pedaling and when I saw that they had their balance, I would just hold the seat and they would go on. When I found that they were getting the knack of it, I would run with them but let go. When they suddenly realized they were biking without me, they just took off!

This is how I have always tried to build anything that I've done, so that other people could take it over and do it that way. Well, in that spirit, I want Indians to do this work, not Americans. This is not an American community we have in India. And more and more, I have been gratified to see that so many real high-quality, high-energy, high-intelligence Indians are taking over. I hope that we can fade into the background and let you people take over because—after all, you're at the source from where it all came anyway! We just know the nuts and bolts of this thing. But I hope when we get this land going in Pune, that we can have a wonderful community and that it'll be just the beginning!

You know, we need real villages in India. Not the mud-hut and mud-hole and poverty-stricken places that are now the main definition of a village, but a village where people come together who are educated, capable, but believe in the same ideals. You know, you can talk about love, you can talk about happiness, you can talk about all these spiritual ideals—people take these back into the home, back into the office, back into their community and it very quickly becomes diluted with the thoughts of other people, and what you find people saying is that yes, it's a wonderful idea, but…!

Now, what's happened with the Ananda communities is that people have begun to see that a few people living this way have made it possible to live peacefully, have made it possible to live happily. You come to our communities and you find that people really do care for one another.

I must say it's the best insurance policy I can think of! You've got a whole community out there, not only willing but eager to work with you, help you. If you lose a job, they help you to carry on until they can find you another job, they help you to find another job. If you go to the hospital, they help you to pay for the bills and everything. Again and again we have found [this] in our history in Ananda.

Mind you, this year we're celebrating our 40th anniversary of our community. That's a long enough time to prove an experiment. What we have works! We can boast it to the whole world! People come from all over the world because it isn't like just one person in a town, let us say, practicing these teachings and people sort of think, "Well, you're a very special kind of person because you're peaceful all the time". When you see a group of people like that—like somebody came to me a few years ago and said, "You have some wonderful people here". I said, "You know what it is? If you were to meet one or two or three people like that, you could say they were wonderful people, but when you meet so many people, you have to say it's what they were doing".

It's in group situations, when everybody is manifesting basically that same principle. You can see that they come from all sorts of different social backgrounds. Some have come from poverty; some have come from wealth. They're all basically good, caring people and very happy people, and even in the most difficult trials, they're happy.

Everybody can be happy when things are going well. But Ananda has had many, many serious tests because God wanted to prove it and make it strong. And in the midst of those tests, Ananda has shone. This is the proof of what we are doing.

I urge you please to take seriously this idea of helping us to create a community in—it will be centered in Pune, but I would like it to be everywhere in India. Master said this idea would spread like wildfire, and I believe that it is already spreading, but the wildfire still has to occur!

I have to say that I think that will come when we're pushed from both ends—one, pushed by our own desires, our own desire for peace and happiness and prosperity; the other, when people realize that this world is not working for them. And I have to say that I do think that we're heading into very hard times financially. I know in the Bhrigu Sangeeta I went to many years ago, it said, "In the future in his country, when there will be weeping in every home, he will provide inspiration and enlightenment".

Now suddenly we see an economy where it begins to seem as if it may happen. People are going bankrupt right and left and it's just the beginning. People still ask themselves, "Can we save the day?" I don't think so. And if America goes down the drain, India will certainly not thrive. You cannot. America's downfall will be the downfall of the world. And America's downfall will also create—it will be an incentive for countries like Russia to start flexing their muscles. No, I don't think we are in for an easy ride ahead of us.

So, when you find that people don't have the food to eat, doesn't it make sense that they get together, grow their own food? There was even a very interesting experiment in America back in the depression of the 1930s. A township created its own currency and it thrived while the rest of the country was suffering. It may be that we can create our own currency even, and have many communities all tied together and working together with their own currency. I don't know. It would be possible.

But I do think that we're heading for very hard times, and I think that communities are the answer. As I said, that's the best insurance possible. Insurance companies can fail. But a group of people standing shoulder to shoulder, growing their own food, making their own clothes—and if you can have several communities, each one can specialize in something that all of them need, and have customers for it. Some can make shoes; some can make clothing; some can grow food—so many things we can do as a community that—well, I am so enthusiastic about this idea.

Here I am, going on 82 and you might think, "Well, this guy would've finished his enthusiasms long ago!" No, I have not finished my enthusiasm for this idea! I think it is the way to bring in Dwapara Yuga. It's the way to bring in a completely new age, a new way of looking at things and a new way of relating to people.

This is something that I have found through long experience at Ananda. People really are happy. People really do care for one another. It is something that you would find—it would seem extraordinary from a standpoint of egotistical human beings, each one wanting to get his at the expense of who cares how many other people.

At Ananda and in Ananda communities, you find that this is not a show, it's a reality. And there is in human nature this need. We all want to be happy. We all want to be kind. Why are we not? Because we're afraid that if we are, other people will jump down our throats. It's very different when you find out that everybody is like that. But the wonderful thing is that when you have this consciousness, you go out with this expectation of others. And wherever our people go, they meet friends everywhere. Somehow the world acts to them the way they act toward the world. It meets their expectations.

I remember back in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania—it's like a suburb of New York City, although it's out of the state, even, but it is not that far away and many people work in New York. I was visiting a friend of mine there, and she wanted a group of her friends come to meet me and she wanted me to sing for them. So they were gathered around. It was a barbeque dinner, so we were outside—sitting on the grass, and so on. I sang one song for them and people were staring at the ground, staring at the sky, staring at the trees.

I thought, "Well, gosh, if they don't like this music, I don't want to offend them and I don't want to impose on them. But on the other hand, I want to satisfy my hostess who'd asked me to sing these songs". So I sang one more song and [makes gestures and bored faces]. Finally, I said, "Let's have supper", and there was a stampede for the buffet table and everybody was happy. I thought, "Well, if they don't like the music, fine, it's not my worry".

But the next day, I went with this person in the car, the "ringleader", you might say, of their little group. He was driving, so I said to him—I was just interested—I said, "Well, how did you like my music?" I just wanted some feedback because there had been absolutely none. And he said, "It's all right, I guess. In fact I have a cassette of it and I play it every day when I go to work". [laughs] I thought, "Well, for God's sake, if you like it that much, why couldn't you say so?"

This is the consciousness of New York City. People are afraid to say "I like you". They're afraid to say, "I like anything". They're afraid to say "I love you" because they're afraid that you will snap back at them. And this is the consciousness of the world. But when you live with people who do love each other and they aren't afraid to say it or show it, you begin to feel that all humanity is like that. I've seen this happen.

You know, it was a very interesting experience I had in Paris many years ago. It was my birthday, actually, and I had wanted to go to a concert to celebrate. But when I got to the church where the concert was to be held, I found that the door was being closed and about 50 people were being excluded because it was already full. I called out, "But it's my birthday!" The man who was closing the door said, "Well, happy birthday!" And he said, "Come on in" and seated me behind the altar with a very few other people in the church. There were about 700 people in that church.

Afterwards, I was on the subway and this old woman came to me and said, "Do you remember me?" I said, "Well . . . no". [She said,]"But I was in the audience!" [laughs] There were 700 people there! But somehow because I was enjoying the music so much, she felt that personal connection with me.

I have seen this happen—and our people at Ananda have seen this happen—that wherever we go, we find people want to help us: they are friendly to us; they don't have that chip on their shoulder or that defensiveness.

We can usher in a new world if we have just a few people setting the example to prove that it's possible to live in a new way. Otherwise, it sounds like a beautiful sentiment but. who could live that way? is the general thought. They can live that way. And, I plead, all of you take it seriously because this was the message Master wanted to bring.

It can work. I believe our Ananda communities have proved it. No, SRF has not proved it but Ananda has. I think that was my mission in this life. I was Master's St. Paul, you might say. I was William's Henry. My job was to help bring to the world what he could only start and I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful that I've lived long enough to do it.

I hope I live long enough to see this community well founded also in India! You have my blessings and my prayers for the success of that. I think the most important thing that can happen is happening in this day and age.

God bless you!