Swami Kriyananda As We Have Known Him

[Listen to Asha read this story](Told by Carolyn Denslow Riffle)It was always hard for me to be on this planet. Awareness of my own imperfections, and how those imperfections hurt others, caused me to suffer intensely. I had been diagnosed as clinically depressed. It was a cyclical thing and sometimes I had to take prescription drugs for it. Because of the depression, I’ve had some pretty serious problems in my life. I always felt I wasn’t okay, that somehow I needed to justify my existence. Before I came to Ananda for the first time, I worked for a nonprofit organization, where I thought I could really do some good in the world. The job became my purpose for being on Earth. But then one of my depressions hit. It affected the way I worked and I got laid off. Eventually I got over the depression and off the drugs they'd given me to cure it, but I felt like I’d lost everything. I was into yoga, and had been meditating on and off for years, so I decided to take the Yoga Teacher Training Course at Ananda Villag