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Background of Ramakrishna Ananda
Ramakrishna Ananda (Graham Ledgerwood)
began practicing meditation, yoga and mysticism as a youth in Canada in 1958.
Subsequently, over many years, he studied and practiced numerous forms of
Mysticism — The Eight Main Yogas, Sufism, Jewish
Mysticism, Christian Mysticism, Zen, Egyptian Mysticism, The Tao, Theosophy, and
many more mystical paths.
In 1966 Ramakrishna Ananda also experienced a mystical
initiation, an expansion of consciousness, which changed him. This experience,
called cosmic consciousness, was a major event
in his life. It stayed with him for three months. Desperate for a
spiritual reawakening, he entered a five-month period of solitude and silence in
the Sierra Nevada foothills, outside Nevada City, California. There, during that
summer, mystical awareness returned and indwelled Ramakrishna Ananda. As a consequence of
this development, Ramakrishna Ananda became a teacher, minister, and director of the Yoga
Fellowship ashram in Sacramento, California.
Called to serve in Southern California, Ramakrishna Ananda
founded the Yoga
Center of California and the Spiritual World Society in Costa Mesa, California
where he taught Yoga, Mysticism, Metaphysics, Meditation, and world religions
from 1970 through 1995.
A number of honors and recognitions have been bestowed on Ramakrishna Ananda. In 1971 the great Yoga Master, Baba Hari Dass, found and declared that
Ramakrishna Ananda was a Sat Guru (a spiritual "dispeller of darkness") and that
Ramakrishna Ananda should share spiritual truth with humanity through teaching and writing.
In 1974, Sri Surath of Calcutta, India further initiated Ramakrishna Ananda
as a Guru and teacher of many spiritual paths. Sri Surath also conveyed the high honor of spirituality, naming him
Ramakrishna Ananda, after
the great Avatar and Eastern mystic of the 19th century, Sri Ramakrishna.
Then, in 1976 and 1977, Sri Paramananda Nath and Sri Surath
found that Ramakrishna Ananda had become a Master and, in
recognition, initiated Ramakrishna Ananda as an Avadhut, which
signifies a spiritual Master, literally "one who lives in Spirit." Ramakrishna Ananda
has also received a number of other titles and honors,
including illuminatus and maharaj,
indicating a realized mystic.
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