Swami Kriyananda As We Have Known Him

[Listen to Asha read this story](Told by an Ananda devotee)If I were to choose a spiritual name for myself, it would have to be Gratitude.I started drinking in my early teens. Drugs came later, in the ’60s, just before I turned twenty. All my friends drank, and everything that happened after sundown involved drugs and alcohol. So we were more inclined to play loud music than to play chess. Drinkers hang out with other drinkers. It’s tidy that way, no unpleasant images in the mirror—everyone looks like you. Whatever we were having, I consumed more of it than my friends. It always took more to get me to the edge of contentment, and the edge was as close as I could ever get. In a typical evening, I would drink a six-pack of beer, a substantial amount of hard liquor, and use whatever drugs were at hand. I never got mean, never got in fights, never fell down, but from my early teens, I was drunk every night of my life. In those early years, I had a couple of auto accidents, but nothing after that, even though, if