Born J. Donald Walters on May 19, 1926, Swami Kriyananda was a direct disciple of the great master Paramhansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi. Deeply inspired by his guru’s dream of spiritual communities, he founded Ananda in 1968. What began as a single vision has since grown into a worldwide movement with flourishing communities on three continents.
Swami Kriyananda passed away on April 21, 2013, in Assisi, Italy, at the age of 86. Even in his later years, he continued to serve his guru through writing and lecturing.
For more than 60 years, Swami Kriyananda devoted his life to helping others feel the living presence of God within. He taught on four continents and in seven languages, sharing Yogananda’s practical Raja Yoga teachings with millions through lectures, more than 400 musical compositions, and 150 books.
Much of his life was spent in monastic service. As a swami of the Giri, or Mountain, branch of the ancient Swami Order, he followed the same lineage as his guru and his guru’s guru. He also served as the spiritual guide of Ananda Sangha Worldwide and founded the Nayaswami Order in 2009 as a new expression of renunciation.
His leadership was marked by quiet strength and joyful service. He inspired trust, creativity, and friendship, while always placing the spiritual needs of others first.
From a young age, Swami Kriyananda dreamed of building utopian communities. In 1949, at a garden party in Beverly Hills, Yogananda announced that the time had come to create “World Brotherhood Colonies,” communities based on simple living, high thinking, and divine fellowship. Kriyananda felt the message deeply and vowed to bring that vision into reality.
Nearly 20 years later, he founded Ananda Village in Northern California. Today, it is a thriving 900-acre spiritual community with more than 200 residents, along with schools, businesses, and retreats. It became the foundation for Ananda communities now growing around the world, guided by two of his core principles: “People are more important than things,” and “Where there is adherence to dharma, there is victory.”
In 1948, inspired by reading Autobiography of a Yogi, he traveled from New York to California in search of Paramhansa Yogananda. After first seeking him at the Encinitas hermitage and then at the Hollywood Self-Realization Fellowship church, he was finally granted an unexpected meeting. In that brief but powerful encounter, Yogananda told him that he had agreed to see him only because God had directed him to do so, and accepted him as a disciple. That moment marked the beginning of their guru-disciple relationship.
Swami Kriyananda carried forward many parts of Yogananda’s mission that had not yet been fulfilled, recognizing the deeper possibilities already present in his guru’s work. He did not seek to be remembered as a personality, but rather as a channel through which light could flow.