East West Appreciation Night

On Tuesday, the 2nd of December, we had a special evening at East West Bookshop: we celebrated the existence of this special store and our gratitude to our customers and all members of the staff, with talks from David, Asha, Santosh and Tandava, accompanied by a tasty buffet and beautifully played piano music by Todd.

The talks reflected upon the importance of this special place in our lives, our community, and the Bay Area, and also on it’s nation-wide impact as one of the largest New Age, metaphysical bookshops. For three decades the store has been a platform both to convey Master’s teachings and to be genuinely universal in providing a wide spectrum of spiritual books for those seeking Truth and Self-realization.

Asha and David expressed their gratitude to the store’s dedicated and creative staff who do so much more than just selling books, crystals, music and other merchandise. They continuously have followed Swami’s advice to “just love your customers’’ and have kept creating a bookshop with great commitment and energy to meet the needs of its customers. Thus, they developed a place, where people could come to “know themselves and find their own ray of that true light” as descibed by Santosh, one of the longest serving members of the staff.

The evening included a great appreciation for the many customers who support the store by shopping, taking part in the many different programs, interacting with staff members and discovering Ananda and Yogananda’s teachings. David and Tandava pointed out that the store has been a family and community where people find “spiritual sustenance,” new genuine friends, insights, guidance and healing.

Asha recalled how Swami bought the bookshop in 1980 and how he intuitively knew that this was the right decision, commenting to her that “good decisions do not take time, but they take energy.”

The purchase of the bookshop caused Ananda to move in this area resulting in many more activities and enterprises aiming to “revamp a whole culture, to show how Master’s teachings, creatively applied, can change the entire pattern of society.” Swamiji continued that “I am just one person, and there is only so much I can accomplish by myself. If I can start a movement, however, and many people begin to act creatively from inner inspiration, as I have, then a great work can be done.”*

Click here for more pictures and listen to the talks.

in Master’s light,

Mirela

* P.S. Quote is from Asha’s book Swami Kriyananda: As We Have Known Him, p. 238