06 Mar Yogananda and the West’s First View of the East
Levitating saints, a swami materializing a palace in the Himalayas, the woman yogi who never eats: these are just a few of the wonders encountered by over 4 million readers of Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. The book has served many seekers as the first introduction to Eastern spirituality, including Steve Jobs who said he first read it as a teen and once a year thereafter.
Yogananda arrived in the US from India in 1920, embarking on a cross-county speaking tour that attracted thousands everywhere he went. In 1925, he landed in LA and stayed, establishing an international spiritual empire which in LA includes the Headquarters of his organization, the Self Realization Fellowship (SRF), the Hollywood Temple, his burial place at Forest Lawn, and the Lake Shrine.
Yogananda was the first to widely introduce yoga, meditation, and the idea that a universal Truth underlies all religions. He and his acolytes teach kriya yoga, a breath technique that can only be passed on by an initiated guru. Yogananda was a prolific author and lecturer, and was well loved by many then and now. He died in 1952 in downtown LA at the Biltmore Hotel after finishing a lecture.
One of the most amazing miracles of Yogananda’s story is that there is documented evidence that his body did not decay for at least the 20 days before it was interred. At the end of Autobiography you can read the notarized letter by the Mortuary Director attesting to “the absence of any visual signs of decay in the dead body of Paramahansa Yogananda offers the most extraordinary case in our experience … Yogananda’s body was apparently in a phenomenal state of immutability.”
When Yogananda left Daya Mata as his successor, it was new for an Indian guru to pass leadership to a woman. The organization split in 1960 when Kriyananda (born Donald Walters) was kicked out of SRF and founded his own organization, Ananda, which also has active centers in LA and all over the world. Since 2014, another female direct disciple of Yogananda, Mrinalini Mata, has been in charge.
Yogananda and his teachings came to popular attention with the 2014 release of the film Awake: The Life of Yogananda. This compelling documentary traces Yogananda’s life from a young man in India to his stature as one of the teachers most responsible for bringing the wisdom of the East to the West.
If you consider yourself spiritual but not religious, chances are you owe a debt to the life and work of Paramahansa Yogananda.
© 2020 Catherine Auman
This is an excerpt from Catherine Auman’s book Guide to Spiritual L.A.: The Irreverent, the Awake, and the True
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