Yogananda
Yogananda
The second of the three Gurus is Paramahansa Yogananda. I have already said that the teaching of the New Spirituality in the West is still young and that rancor, divisions, money issues, control, and power will eventually surface. That has already been evidenced in the aftermath of Yogananda’s death.
Paramahansa Yogananda founded an organization called Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF). Following his death, divisions followed by lawsuits began immediately. Power exerts huge influence, and nobody shows more venom in protecting or gaining power than those who invoke religion to defend it. In a sense, this is understandable: Religion breeds convictions; money and power attract envy; conviction without love leads to heinous abuses justified by sacred talk. History is replete with examples of this from every religion. All major religions are guilty of this… Eastern spirituality is no exception.
The nemesis of SRF is another organization, simply called Ananda. Ananda was founded by Swami Kriyananda, a disciple of Yogananda. But SRF refuses to give Ananda rights to any of Yogananda’s material. (I’m sure you’ve noticed ananda surfacing in all of these names. The word itself literally means “joy.”) Each accuses the other of distortion, wrongdoing, and attempts at monopoly, and there is little joy apparent in these self-defeating charges. What it all means is that where there is religion, there is bound to be conflict. But where there is religion and money, there are bound to be lawsuits and bitterness, the very opposite of what true faith should engender.
Who was Paramahansa Yogananda? The following quotation is a sample of his teaching:
Your religion is not your thoughts and beliefs in which you enclose yourself, but the garment of light you weave around your heart. Discover who you are, behind those outer trappings, and you will discover who Jesus was, and Buddha, and Krishna. For the masters come to earth for the purpose of holding up to every man a reflection of his deeper, eternal Self.6
Eckhart Tolle breathes out this identical stuff, almost verbatim.
Yogananda basically taught a blend of religious teaching called Kriya yoga, which is another slant on yoga. Though he wore a cross around his neck, he clearly believed in the divinity within each person and taught that each soul needed to probe that inner sanctum of the self and discover its oneness with the divine. The irony of the baser instincts that now characterize the turf war for his teaching shows that his own disciples never quite discovered the divine within themselves, instead evidencing a lot more of the ego within when confronted by the holdings without.
Yogananda was a contemporary of Vivekananda and was also from Calcutta. He was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in 1893 and died in 1952. However, he chose a different guru than Ramakrishna and gave his yoga a different slant. Yoga has its roots in the idea of union with the divine and is not simply a physical discipline. Its metaphysical moorings make it technically a spiritual practice. When one sheds the spiritual side of it and focuses only on the physical aspects, it is no longer strictly yoga.
There are many analogies one can draw from this. It is ironic that Hindu apologists, who insist that yoga cannot be separated from its spiritual essence, are very comfortable with severing the text of Buddha’s teaching from the context of his rejection of some of their own sacred texts, and very cleverly misuse the instructions of Jesus as well. They are adept at textual mangling by appearing to be very generous in their spirits. The cross Yogananda wore around his neck and his professed reverence for Jesus did not prevent him from blending the teachings of what he calls “the Masters,” Indian spiritualizing at its best. Ironically, his disciples have each claimed the exclusive rights to teach his inclusive message.
Yogananda also traveled extensively in the United States and Europe, carrying his message across the Western world. He was honored wherever he went. He had a very distinctive appearance and a notable charm. His long, flowing locks of hair became the hallmark of how a swami should look. He, too, was well versed in many languages, as many Indians are.