The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru
360
The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru
360eBook
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Overview
Paramahansa Yogananda, considered by many to be the father of modern yoga, has had an unsurpassed global impact thanks to the durability of his teachings, the institutions he created or inspired, and especially his iconic memoir, Autobiography of a Yogi.
Since its publication in 1946, that book has sold millions of copies and changed millions of lives. But it doesn’t tell the whole story.
Much of Yogananda’s seminal text is devoted to tales about other people, and it largely overlooks the three vital decades he spent living, working, and teaching in America. Huge chunks of his life —challenges, controversies, and crises; triumphs, relationships, and formative experiences —remain unknown to even his most ardent devotees. In this captivating biography, scholar and teacher Philip Goldberg fills the gaps, charting a journey that spanned six decades, two hemispheres, two world wars, and unprecedented social changes. The result is an objective, thoroughly researched account of Yogananda’s remarkable life in all its detail, nuance, and complex humanity.
But this is more than a compelling life story. “Yogananda would, I believe, want any book about him to not only inform but transform,” Goldberg writes. “It is my hope that readers will be enriched, expanded, and deepened by this humble offering.” That is sure to be the case for both Yogananda enthusiasts and those who discover him for the first time in these illuminating pages.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781401952198 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Hay House Inc. |
| Publication date: | 04/24/2018 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 360 |
| Sales rank: | 232,326 |
| File size: | 21 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
The question I was asked most frequently while working on this book was “Why do we need a biography of Yogananda when we have Autobiography of a Yogi?” The broad answer is this: in the life of any important historical figure there is room for many books. The specific answers are: 1) Yogananda’s iconic memoir is as much about other people as it is about himself, 2) There are major gaps in his narrative, including spans of several years that are summarized in one or two sentences, and 3) While Yogananda spent almost all his adult years in America, less than 10 percent of the autobiography is about that immensely productive and historically significant period. The prospect of filling in those spaces seemed both enticing and important.
Several books have been written about Yogananda by direct disciples. These are valuable firsthand accounts of who he was and what he was like. They are, however, more like tributes than biographies. My goal was to draw a more complete portrait of Yogananda the human being—an extraordinary human being to be sure, but human nonetheless, with all the complexity that term implies. The book’s central narrative is the saga of a profoundly spiritual being navigating the material realm, attempting to unite fully with the Divine while skillfully playing his role in the human drama—just as he taught so many to do themselves. No book can capture the true essence of a soul like Yogananda, but it can describe the footprints he left on the sands of time and space. My goal was to render an accurate, fact-based description of those exceptional footprints.
To many, Yogananda was a saint. To some, he was an avatar, an incarnation of God. I am not qualified to make such evaluations. For me it was enough that his contribution to the spiritual history of East and West is unparalleled, and that his life unfolded in a compelling narrative spanning two hemispheres, two vastly different cultures, two world wars, massive economic upheavals, and unprecedented social changes. I set out to tell that remarkable story as truthfully and thoroughly as I could, knowing full well that I could not do justice to it in 3,000 pages, let alone 300.
In choosing to emphasize Yogananda the man, I found validation in the words of one of his most important disciples. Mrinalini Mata was close to him in the last seven years of his life and she served as president of Self-Realization Fellowship (the organization he founded) from 2011 until her passing in 2017. “Some who come onto the path seem to want to ‘dehumanize’ Master, to think of him only in terms of God incarnate,” she once said, adding, “Too often, there is a tendency to take away from Gurudeva [Yogananda] that beautiful human personality which is such an integral part of his spiritual nature.”1 Precisely.
When asked if he has to admire the people he writes about, David McCullough, the celebrated biographer of Harry S. Truman, John Adams, and others, said he needs to admire what they did, but he does not expect them to be perfect. In fact, he adds, “Perfection is boring.” I have no idea how the term perfection could be applied to any human being. But I do know that Yogananda had a fascinating personality, with quirks and idiosyncrasies and peculiarities that were shaped by the mysteries of karma and a specific upbringing in a specific family in a specific culture at a specific time. He made decisions; he expressed feelings; he learned and grew; he experienced ups and downs, victories and defeats, pleasures and sorrows. It may add up to perfection in the eyes of some of his disciples, but to this writer it is enough that it forms a one-of-a-kind, eminently distinguished life.
To be clear, I am not a disciple of Yogananda. I was never a formal student of his. I never enrolled in a course he designed or that is taught by an organization teaching in his name. I am, to say the least, a great admirer. I have held him in high esteem ever since I read his Autobiography of a Yogi in 1970. The book that launched thousands of spiritual paths augmented and accelerated mine. I was already meditating every day; I had already plunged into the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and other major texts; and I was preparing to train as a meditation teacher with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Yogananda’s unique, intimate portrait of a bona fide yogi, his depictions of India, and his snapshots of saints, sages, and miracle workers—it was all intriguing, illuminating, and inspiring. I still have the hardcover I read back then. The cover says it cost $5. Since I was unlikely to have had five bucks to spare, I probably borrowed it and never returned it. I remain grateful to whoever loaned it to me. I am repaying that karmic debt with this book.
In the course of hundreds of conversations over the decades, I came to realize how many lives Yogananda has impacted. While researching my book American Veda I came to see him as a teacher for the ages, whose contribution to the transmission of India’s ancient wisdom to the West was incomparable. I also came to see how moving and compelling his life story was, and the frustration of having to summarize it in one chapter became the seed for this biography. My fascination only increased with every book, document, article, and e-mail I read, and every interview I conducted and every relevant site I visited in the U.S. and India.
Writers have to make choices. One of mine was to devote less space to what Yogananda taught and more to what he did—less to his ideas and more to the events of his life and the decisions he made. As a spiritual teacher of the highest order, he is the best source of his own teachings. Thousands of pages of his writings are available. I saw no reason to explicate his works beyond what was necessary to capture their essence and advance his story.
I also chose to emphasize what is not in Autobiography of a Yogi, on the assumption that many readers of this book will already have read Yogananda’s memoir, and those who haven’t should. Hence, nearly two-thirds of the book is devoted to the second half of his life, spent mostly in America. His formative years in India are covered thoroughly, however, and the narrative contains details not found in previous accounts (readers are advised not to let unfamiliar Indian names and places slow them down). I would be pleased if people finished this book and immediately purchased the autobiography.
Another choice had to do with controversial episodes in Yogananda’s life. I thought hard about what to include and not include. My primary goal was to be fair and objective, neither sugarcoating nor sensationalizing the known facts. Some disciples will say I should not have gone to those places at all because the mere mention of what they regard as mean-spirited rumor demeans Yogananda. Other people will say I wasn’t tough enough. I expect e-mails from all sides telling me I left out vital information. In the end, I chose brevity because it would have been impossible to do justice to every point of view, or to describe every related document and hypothesis without consuming an inordinate number of pages. And that would have shrouded far more important facets of a highly consequential life. I kept it concise and stuck to the evidence.
Along those same lines, I fully expect some devotees to say I wasn’t reverent enough in my treatment of a saintly life, while skeptics will accuse me of being a Yogananda apologist and too much of a fan. While researching this book, I spoke to dozens of people with strong but disparate views about Yogananda, from ardent disciples to casual students to cynics to outright antagonists. I heard it all. He was perfect; he was deeply flawed. He did the will of God and was unattached to the fruits of his actions; he was ambitious, egotistical, and obsessed with money. He was a man of pristine integrity and moral rectitude; he was ethically and morally compromised. He was a true renunciate, beyond earthly desires; he ran a harem and fathered children. He faithfully represented his tradition; he sold out to the Christian West. And on and on and on. I began this project with no preconceived opinions, and I ruled out none of the conflicting assertions I encountered during my research. Careful consideration was given to all reasonable sources. To those who feel I left out or misconstrued important information, I encourage you to write your own book. Yogananda deserves multiple biographies.
Elements of exceptional lives are, by definition, beyond the scope of the ordinary person’s experience, including the biographer’s. That’s what makes them compelling. We read about creative geniuses and world leaders because there are precious few of them, and they are different from the rest of us. We want to partake of their uniqueness and also their humanness. The job of biographers, as I see it, is to try to capture what is extraordinary about their subjects and also depict their human struggles and inconsistencies so readers can, to whatever degree, relate to them.
In the case of Yogananda, an additional challenge presents itself to both writer and reader. As a monk, an Indian immigrant in early-20th-century America, a world-class yogi, and a spiritual teacher with a global reach, his life was in many ways even further removed from the average person’s experience than that of a genius or a head of state. Not only were his life circumstances vastly different from most; he had challenges and responsibilities that few individuals have, even other gurus. He also had something more subtle and more profound: a qualitatively different state of consciousness. Self-realized yogic masters (and there is no reason to doubt that he was one) operate from a different awareness, with different modes of perception, attunement, intuition, and connection to unseen dimensions of existence.
All of which presented daily challenges in researching and writing this book. I did my best to remain objective, honest, and discerning without disguising my respect for my subject. I sincerely hope that every reader will find something of value in the book, and that even Yogananda’s most earnest students will learn something they did not know before. More important, as a highly practical guru, Yogananda would, I believe, want any book about him to not only inform but transform. It is my hope that readers will be enriched, expanded, and deepened by this humble account of his life.
Table of Contents
Introduction xiii
Chapter 1 The Boy Mukunda 1
Chapter 2 Love, Loss, and Lore 11
Chapter 3 A Teenager in the Metropolis 23
Chapter 4 The Making of a Guru 35
Chapter 5 The Master Cometh 49
Chapter 6 Higher Education 61
Chapter 7 In the World, Not of It 75
Chapter 8 Go West, Young Man 87
Chapter 9 Boston Brahman 99
Chapter 10 From Sea to Shining Sea 121
Chapter 11 City of Angels 141
Chapter 12 Road Warrior 159
Chapter 13 Travels, Triumphs, and Travails 173
Chapter 14 Regrouping and Rebuilding 191
Chapter 15 Homecoming 211
Chapter 16 Heights and Depths 231
Chapter 17 The Yogi in Winter 251
Chapter 18 Liberation and Legacy 273
Endnotes 285
Bibliography 315
Index 319
Acknowledgments 333
About the Author 335