Yogi evangelist: Swami Yogananda’s mission to modern America

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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

Dissertation

YOGI EVANGELIST:
SWAMI YOGANANDA’S MISSION TO MODERN AMERICA

by

Dave Neumann

B.A., The University of California, Irvine, 1994
M.A., California State University, Long Beach, 2000

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(HISTORY)
2016
Contents

Introduction 1-26

Chapter One: The Making of a Modern Religious Seeker:
From Mukunda Lal Gosh to Swami Yogananda (1893-1920) 27-79

Chapter Two: The Yogi Evangelist Finds a Home for Scientific Religion:
Southern California as a Spiritual Frontier (1920-1925) 80-132

Chapter Three: Creating an Image, Honing a Message:
Advertising a Yogi Evangelist (1925-1932) 133-187

Chapter Four: Apotheosis of a Global Guru:
Paramhansa Yogananda and his Autobiography (1933-1946) 188-243

Chapter Five: An Immortal Guru Dies:
Charisma, Succession, and the Fate of Yogananda’s Legacy (1946-1952) 244-302

Epilogue 303-319

Glossary 320-321

Bibliography 322-356

Introduction

Dakshineswar Kali Temple, north of Calcutta, the home of Swami
Ramakrishna and one of young Mukunda’s favorite places to visit
(author photo).

2
It was 1974 and a nineteen-year-old sandal-wearing college dropout named Steve Jobs
wanted a break from his job at Atari, an electronic game maker in Palo Alto, California. He
strode into his boss Al Alcon’s office announcing his plan to quit and travel to India. As Alcorn
recalls, “He comes in and stares at me and declares, ‘I’m going to find my guru,’ and I say, ‘No
shit, that’s super. Write me!’” Jobs had, in his own words, been “turned on to the idea of
enlightenment, and trying to figure out who I was and how I fit into things.” He hoped to track
down Neem Karoli Baba, a guru to much of the counterculture movement. By the time Jobs
arrived in the Himalaya foothills, Karoli had already died. Jobs would forge a deeper
relationship, virtually anyway, with a different guru he had already met in print: Paramhansa
Yogananda. Though Yogananda had been dead for over twenty years, his message—and, many
thought, his presence—lived on through his Autobiography of a Yogi. An earlier traveler had left
an English copy of the Autobiography in the room Jobs was renting from a local family. He read
it through several times as he recovered from severe dysentery.
1

This was not Jobs’ first encounter with Yogananda. In 1972, he and his friend Daniel
Kottke had spent a lot of time together in the attic crawl space above the dorm room of Kottke’s
girlfriend. “We took psychedelic drugs there sometimes, but mainly we just meditated,” Jobs
later recalled. Jobs and Kottke shared an interest in Eastern spirituality, and Autobiography of a
Yogi was one of the books they discussed.
Jobs ultimately spent seven months in India in 1974. Eastern spirituality aided his quest
to gain understanding through, as he understood it, an Indian form of intuition derived from deep
concentration. This mindset so profoundly transformed Jobs that he experienced “much more of
a cultural shock” returning to the United States than he had in going to India in the first place:
Coming back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of

1
Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), 45-46.
3
the Western world as well as its capacity for rational thought. If you just sit and
observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only
makes it worse, but over time it does calm and when it does, there’s room to hear
more subtle things—that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to
see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down,
and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than
you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it.

While Jobs would embrace an eclectic set of Eastern beliefs throughout his life—
probably derived more from Zen Buddhism than anything else—he never forgot Autobiography
of a Yogi. After he returned from India, he began reading it once a year, a practice he continued
for the rest of his life. Shortly before Jobs died, just after the introduction of the iPad 2,
biographer Walter Isaacson looked at the contents of Jobs’ own iPad 2 and discovered just one
book: Autobiography of a Yogi. Jobs’ relationship with Yogananda did not end with his death.
The fastidious planner organized all the details of his own memorial service at Stanford
University—speakers, musical artists, catering, and a gift for each guest, wrapped in a small
brown box. Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff waited until he was in his car to open this gift from
his friend. “I said, ‘This is going to be good. I knew this was a decision he made that everyone
was going to get this. So whatever this was, it was the last thing he wanted us all to think about.”
It turned out to be a copy of the Autobiography of a Yogi.
2

What did Jobs find so compelling about this book and its author? Jobs, who was born and
died in California, shared a few things in common with the yogi who made California his base of
operations throughout his career and died there as well in 1952. The relentlessly forward-looking
Jobs found Yogananda’s spiritual vision in sync with a modern hi-tech culture. As a restless
spiritual seeker, he certainly found Eastern wisdom and instruction in meditation from

2
Alyson Shontell, “The Last Gift Steve Jobs Gave to Family and Friends Was a Book About Self Realization,
Business Insider, September 11, 2013. http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-gave-yoganandas-book-as-a-gift-
at-his-memorial-2013-9 (accessed April 20, 2016).
4
Yogananda. Also, the quintessentially American inventor and businessman who imagined the
impossible and then conjured it into existence found a kindred soul in Yogananda, a self-made
religious entrepreneur who believed in the reality of the invisible realm more than he did in
material objects. Most importantly, Yogananda’s authority as a guru seems to have inspired Jobs.
A colleague labeled Jobs’ imperious leadership style the “reality distortion field,” “a
confounding mélange of a charismatic rhetorical style, indomitable will, and eagerness to bend
any fact to fit the purpose at hand…He thinks there are a few people who are special—people
like Einstein and Gandhi and the gurus he met in India—and he’s one of them…Once he even
hinted to me that he was enlightened.” No more apt description could be offered of Yogananda, a
charismatic leader whose disciples submitted utterly to his authority, and came to believe his
claims of omniscience and infallibility.
3

This dissertation explores the life and ministry of the man who inspired Steve Jobs,
thousands of other Americans, and spiritual seekers worldwide. His ministry in the US spanned
from 1920 to 1952, but, as Jobs’ example suggests, Yogananda’s influence has continued down
to the present through his written works, most notably The Autobiography of a Yogi. Yogananda
established his successful American ministry in the early twentieth century, long before the East,
meditation, karma, and reincarnation were popularized through the counterculture; in fact, he
contributed to the success of that trend. In the 1920s, Americans tended to be hostile to Indians
and to Hindu religious traditions.
4
Popular stereotypes portrayed Hindus in general as charlatans
and thieves. Swamis in particular were seen as lecherous teachers who used mind control to dupe
followers. Shortly after Yogananda’s arrival in the country, the US Supreme Court ruled that

3
Isaacson, 118-119.
4
On negative stereotypes about India and Indians, see Vijay Prashad, The Karma of Brown Folks (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2000). For negative stereotypes about yogis in particular, see Mark Singleton, Yoga
Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
5
Indian immigrants were ineligible for citizenship. Given these realities, the success of the guru’s
ministry speaks to his unique personal attributes. A well-spoken presenter and gregarious
conversationalist who exuded personal warmth, Yogananda embodied “charisma” in both the
technical and popular senses. He displayed tremendous self-confidence and authority, as he
alternated between deep esoteric teachings and humorous anecdotes. He seemed made for the
modern American age of consumption and mass advertising. A creative, strategic,
entrepreneurial religious figure, he thrived in the dynamic culture of early twentieth-century
America.
Yogananda is an undeniably important figure in the story of modern American religious
history. In recounting his ministry, this dissertation makes four important interventions in the
scholarship on American religious history, all based on the paradoxical conclusion that
Yogananda must be understood in light of, on one hand, his deeply Hindu identity and, on the
other, the dominant American religious tradition of Christianity, particularly Protestant
Christianity, which—despite increased attention to metaphysical traditions and Asian religions—
still tends to dominate the historiographical landscape.
5
First, he deepened American religious
pluralism not as part of a diaspora community, but as a “reverse evangelist” intentionally
preaching his message in a land that routinely sent missionaries to India. Second, he defies
scholarly models of religious syncretism, as his conviction about the superiority of Hinduism led
him to “translate” his beliefs into the language of Christianity without absorbing the substance of
Christian belief. Third, Yogananda’s example advances understandings of the link between
American religion, the marketplace, and consumption. While some scholars of contemporary

5
The survey of recent American religious historiography provided by John T. McGreevy, “American Religion,” in
American History Now, edited by Eric Foner and Lisa McGirr (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011), 242-
260, illustrates this point. The chapter reviews several dozen books, and nearly all of them are about Protestant or
Catholic Christianity; a couple focus on Mormonism and Judaism, while a few others that deal with
secularism/secularization which is largely treated as part of “de-Christianization.”
6
yoga practices in the United States have explored these connections, historians considering
religion through the framework of the market have typically investigated Christianity. Entering
the national religious marketplace with a non-Christian product required boldness and creativity.
Finally, while Yogananda was undoubtedly a figure of national stature, this dissertation explores
the link between religion and place on two other scales, apart from the nation-state. His ministry
only became securely rooted once it found the rich soil of Southern California with its hospitality
to newer forms of spirituality. At the same time, his prestige hinged on his transnational identity
as a guru who represented the ancient wisdom of India to the West and yet transcended national
identity as a global figure proclaiming universal truth.
First, Yogananda’s story enriches our understanding of American religious pluralism, one
of the principal themes of twentieth-century American history. He does not represent a religious
diversity that resulted from the formation of an Indian diaspora community, one of the typical
ways American religion has continually diversified.
6
Instead, he abandoned the typical pattern of
monastic worldly renunciation where a handful of would-be disciples might seek him out for
mentorship, and came to the United States alone, compelled by a divine calling to share the good
news of Kriya Yoga to thousands of Americans who had never heard such teachings. Hailing
from India, a key destination for many English and American missionaries and even more money
to support those missionaries, he became in effect a reverse evangelist. He ultimately succeeded
in converting thousands of Americans; influencing many others indirectly through both his
successor organization, the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), and other independent
organizations that trace their lineage to him; and inspiring countless others around the world

6
The Indian diaspora in the US before the 1960s was extremely small, and consisted largely of Sikhs, not Hindus.
See Joan M. Jensen, Passage from India: Asian Indian Immigrants in North America (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1988). For a recent work exploring less familiar dimensions of the earlier Indian diaspora, see Vivek Bald,
Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013).

7
through Autobiography of a Yogi. Taking seriously the notion that Yogananda was an
“evangelist” to the United States highlights an unprecedented development in the diversification
of American religion outside the Christian tradition: religious change through intentional
conversion.
Though Yogananda was preceded by a small number of Indian spiritual teachers, the
success of his ministry was unprecedented in scale and duration. Swami Vivekananda is often
cited as playing a similar role as an evangelist for Hinduism a generation earlier. But Yogananda,
who consciously emulated Vivekananda, played a much more significant role in reshaping the
American cultural and religious landscape than his predecessor. Vivekananda, who came to the
United States in 1893 to attend the World’s Parliament of Religion held in conjunction with the
Columbia Exposition in Chicago, did not originally intend to evangelize Americans. Seeking
American donations for social welfare projects in India, he gradually adopted the role of
religious teacher when he recognized his audiences’ interest in yoga and Indian philosophy. This
lack of intentional, strategic evangelizing blunted his impact in comparison with Yogananda.
Also, Vivekananda spent much less time in the US than Yogananda; he toured the US for three
years after the World’s Parliament and then paid a short second visit in 1899 just before his
death. Given the importance of each swami’s knowledge and authority, the early death of
Vivekananda significantly reduced his impact, even if his teachings remained available to
followers. Finally, the modest infrastructure Vivekananda left behind through the Vedanta
Society was not robust enough to survive his death. His successors were less sociable and more
ambivalent about outreach than Vivekananda. A few centers closed, while others limped along in
the early decades of the twentieth century. Only after World War II did the Vedanta Society
enjoy vibrancy.
8
In contrast, Yogananda arrived in the US poised to deliver his message to American
audiences. His easy sociability and friendliness made him accessible to large audiences. His
more than thirty-year ministry in the US was interrupted only by an eighteen-month return
journey to India, a continuity of presence that significantly aided the growth of his profile, his
ministry’s reach, and his financial resources. Yogananda had a massive infrastructure in place by
the time of his death—a radio program, dozens of books, a magazine, and SRF churches
throughout the country—that helped ensure that his ministry would continue to thrive after he
died.
Second, Yogananda’s relationship to modernity and Western belief systems challenges
easy assumptions about syncretism. Recent scholarship takes for granted Vivekananda’s
unrestrained syncretizing of Indian and modern/Western philosophies, and extrapolates from this
example to establish a general pattern that includes other spiritual leaders like Yogananda.
Elizabeth De Michelis’s influential account of modern yoga, for example, seems to take for
granted that the similarities between Western esoteric traditions and modern Indian yoga
practices demonstrate the influence of the former on the latter. But the claim of a genealogical
link cannot simply be asserted; it must be demonstrated, a task Michelis does not undertake.
7

Shifting the focus away from Vivekananda counters the tendency to view him as the normative
figure for understanding Indian spirituality in the early twentieth century. Whether De Michelis
is right about the larger yoga tradition, Yogananda’s example offers an important
counterexample. As a number of scholars have argued recently, modern and Western cannot
simply be conflated; while modernity was Western in origin, it gave rise to distinct histories
around the world. Consequently, it would be a mistake to assume that all modern expressions of

7
Elizabeth De Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga: Patanjani and Western Esotericism (New York: Continuum,
2004).
9
Hinduism or yoga are inherently Western or syncretic.
8
While Yogananda was undoubtedly
thoroughly modern—the success of his ministry in the US hinged largely on his ease with
modern culture, a result of his modern Indian upbringing—his training, worldview, and
instruction were simultaneously deeply Indian. Yogananda, who was quite conversant with
Western philosophy and the Christian tradition, is best understood not as a syncretist but as an
evangelist who “translated” his teachings into the categories of Western traditions. Yogananda’s
strategy has been adopted by twenty-first century gurus who reassert “the relevance of traditional
discourses and practices in a language that resonates with modernity.”
9
Viewing Yogananda’s
ministry through the lens of conversion rather than syncretism allows for a fuller appreciation of
his achievement in introducing a truly new religious tradition to Americans, one with few roots
in American culture.
Third, Yogananda’s evangelistic example advances understandings of the relation
between religion and the marketplace in early twentieth-century America. The historian’s lens
linking American religion, the marketplace, and consumption has largely been trained on
Christianity; the scholars of yoga who critique commercialization’s corrupting of yoga’s spiritual
tradition are all focused on the contemporary period.
10
A savvy entrepreneur, Yogananda
invented a large-scale correspondence course to teach yoga, an innovation that transformed the

8
See, for example, S.N. Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities” 129, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 1-29, and Peter van der Veer,
“The Global History of ‘Modernity,’” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 41, no. 3 (1998):
285-294.
9
Amanda Lucia, “Innovative Gurus: Tradition and Change in Contemporary Hinduism,” International Journal of
Hindu Studies 18, no. 2 (2014), 222. Some changes to his views inevitably resulted, but it makes no more sense to
call the result syncretism than it would to call a Jesuit missionary to India a syncretist because he used Sanskrit
terms to explain Christianity to potential converts. This dissertation is not arguing for some elusive notion of “pure”
Indianness, whatever that might mean, but that Yogananda’s identity was fundamentally rooted in India and Hindu
traditions. Certainly he viewed himself that way and his “mission” to the US becomes unintelligible otherwise.
10
See especially Jeremy Carrette and Richard King, Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion. London:
Routledge, 2005; Thomas A. Forstoefel and Cynthia Ann Humes, eds., Gurus in America (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 2005); Amanda Lucia, “Innovative Gurus: Tradition and Change in Contemporary Hinduism,”
International Journal of Hindu Studies 18, no. 2 (2014): 221-263; and Andrea R. Jain, Selling Yoga: From
Counterculture to Pop Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).
10
nature of guru-discipleship instruction. Yogananda commercialized yoga long before the advent
of the twenty-first century. His ambition to convert large numbers of Americans prompted him to
appeal to the mainstream, which largely came from Christian backgrounds. He must therefore be
placed in the larger context of American Christianity, not only the tiny but important stream of
metaphysical religion.
On one hand, Yogananda’s message appealed to many “restless souls” in the liberal
Christian tradition.
11
Scholars have typically applied the notion of “seekers” to the baby boom
generation and beyond. But rather than a new pattern in the late twentieth century, seeking is
better understood as a thread woven into the American fabric from at least the mid-nineteenth
century. It included people interested in spirituality but outside the American religious
mainstream—Christian Scientists, Theosophists, and Mormons—but also restless Christians
from both liberal Protestant and Catholic traditions.
12
Partly, seekers were drawn to Yogananda’s
message of the integration of body, mind, and spirit—not a key feature of Christian teaching.
On the other hand, Yogananda should be understood in the context of more conservative
forms of American Christianity—evangelicalism and emerging fundamentalism. He often
directed his critical eye at what he perceived as Christian conservative theology’s stridency on
issues such as the exclusivity of Jesus, the centrality of sin, and the reality of hell. At the same
time, he also resembled popular evangelists in his personality-driven populist presentations that
mixed entertainment and spiritual content, practical application and more esoteric doctrine.

11
Leigh Eric Schmidt, Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco,
2005).
12
Schmidt, Restless Souls, especially 227-268 (quote on 228), invokes spiritual seekers to identify followers of
liberal religious traditions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While a vast literature has developed
among religious sociologists describing seekers of the baby boomer generation and, more recently, the millennial
generation, historians have been much more reticent to apply this label to patterns of American religious
exploration. For a classic statement of seeking among the baby boomer generation, see Robert Wuthnow, After
Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, new edition). For
more recent trends, see Robert Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites
Us (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010).
11
Finally, Yogananda’s example reveals the ways that attention to space and place is
essential to understanding religious movements. Place mattered to Yogananda’s ministry on two
levels outside the scale of the nation-state. The first is on the level of the local region.
Yogananda’s ministry depended in part on the spiritual climate of certain American regions. He
never successfully penetrated the American South, broadly defined, and his greatest campaign
failure took place in the South. More importantly, he only began to experience success when he
relocated to southern California. His example strengthens a case for viewing early twentieth-
century Southern California as a unique “spiritual frontier.” Recent historiographical trends
emphasize Southern California’s links between fundamentalism and the rise of the Religious
Right.
13
An older competing narrative portrays the region as home to aberrant religious
traditions. This narrative traces its lineage to journalist, historian, and social critic Carey
McWilliams’s Southern California: An Island on the Land.
14
Sandra Sizer Frankiel’s
California’s Spiritual Frontiers: Religious Alternatives in Anglo-Protestantism, 1850-1910,
offers a more systematic development of McWilliams’s argument.
15
Focusing on movements that
fell outside of the Protestant mainstream, she argues that the California climate and landscape
lured a disproportionate number of religious seekers who perceived themselves as distinct from

13
Lisa McGirr’s Suburban Warriors uses Orange County, California, as a case study of the larger “Sunbelt”
phenomenon linking suburban evangelicalism and politically conservative activism. See Lisa McGirr, Suburban
Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). In From Bible Belt
to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York: W.W.
Norton & Co., 2011), Darren Dochuk provides the most thorough analysis to date of the intertwined development of
religion and culture in southern California. Dochuk traces the transplantation and evolution of Texas-style
evangelicalism beginning during the Depression. This outstanding book persuasively explains the rise of evangelical
cultural and political dominance, particularly in the post-World War II period.
14
He strings together a series of quotes from authors of the twenties and thirties describing the Southland as a
“breeding place and a rendezvous of freak religions,” “full of people with queer quirks,” “the world’s prize
collection of cranks, semi-cranks, placid creatures whose bovine expression shows that each of them is studying,
without much hope of success, to be a high-grade moron, angry or ecstatic exponents of food fads, sun-bathing,
ancient Greek costumes, diaphragm breathing and the imminent second coming of Christ,” and, finally, “cuckoo
land.” See Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island on the Land (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books,
1946).
15
Sandra Sizer Frankiel, California’s Spiritual Frontiers: Religious Alternatives in Anglo-Protestantism, 1850-1910
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
12
other Americans, particularly in their open embrace of nature, rejection of sectarianism, and a
reticence to build religious institutions. She characterizes liberal movements as interested in
individualism and “fulfillment” rather than community. But her focus remains fixed on
movements that fell within the Christian tradition, broadly conceived, rather than on Eastern
imports like Yogananda’s movement. Michael J. Engh’s more recent article-length treatment,
“‘Practically Every Religion Being Represented,’” affirms Frankiel’s themes of diversity and
pluralism, while downplaying the presence of exotic cults and emphasizing instead the
importance of more established churches, both Christian and non-Christian.
16
Southern
California’s tolerance of religious diversity provided a stable foundation for a movement led by
an Indian swami to thrive in the early twentieth century.
Space also matters on a broader scale than the nation-state. Yogananda’s story fits within
the landscape of American transnational history. Outside of the early modern Atlantic, historians
employing a transnational framework have rarely concerned themselves with religious
developments, though there are a few exceptions, like Jay Riley Case’s 2012 An Unpredictable
Gospel: American Evangelicals and World Christianity, 1812-1920.
17
Transnational scholarship
on the Pacific Basin, for example, has dealt centrally with issues of identity and race—often
intersecting with political power, commercial exchange, or nationalism—but has rarely explored

16
Engh describes the influx of African-Americans, Mexicans, and Asians—including Japanese, Koreans, and South
Asians. He highlights the growing importance of Catholicism, particularly in providing social services, as well as
noting that “pluralism even within Christianity was often bewildering.” Los Angeles Christians included
“Antiochene and Armenian Christians; Copts; Chaldeans; Melkite, Maronite, and byzantine Catholics; the Russian
pacifist sect, the Molokans; and the Greek, Serbian, and Russian Orthodox.” A large influx of Jews led to the
establishment of many Jewish institutions in West Los Angeles. More unusual to the white establishment were
Asian beliefs, including Buddhists, Confucians, Taoists, and Shintoists. Engh’s account, darker than Frankiel’s,
notes that such religious diversity prompted more than critical speeches. He describes the strong Protestant support
for Americanization efforts and the Ku Klux Klan. Any description of Protestant social engagement in this era must
take account of this racist organization, which was viewed by its members as a bulwark against civic disintegration.
See Michael E. Engh, “‘Practically Every Religion Being Represented,’” in Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles
in the 1920s, edited by Tom Sitton and William Deverell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
17
Jay Riley Case, An Unpredictable Gospel: American Evangelicals and World Christianity, 1812-1920 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
13
religion.
18
Yogananda thus offers a window into a fuller view of transnationalism through his
“transnational transcendence,” an “emergent global social imaginary that may amount to the
reenchantment of the world” by “transcend[ing] cultural border and boundaries” even while
remaining “immersed in the political and economic, social and cultural, institutional and
ideological.”
19
His Indian identity remained fundamental to his self-understanding—indeed,
legally he remained an Indian citizen because he could not become a naturalized citizen—and he

18
For an introduction to the larger historiographical project of transnationalism, see Thomas Bender, ed., Rethinking
American History in a Global Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), which attempts to begin
answering the question, How does one frame the narrative of American history in the context of a self-conciously
global age? None of the sixteen essays in this book addresses religion in a substantive way. A few representative
works illustrate major themes in transnational history, particularly the modern Pacific world into which Yogananda
might be placed. Sugata Bose, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2006) provides a series of case studies exploring topics from the mid-nineteenth through
the mid-twentieth century focusing primarily on the Indian subcontinent. He examines issues like the extractive
British export trade, Indian soldiers serving in the British army during World War I, but one chapter addresses the
formation of a diaspora Indian nationalist movement during World War II. While clearly interested in connection
and exchange, A Hundred Horizons shows that ocean-based accounts might be oriented fundamentally toward
themes of oppression and violence. David Igler, The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold
Rush (New York: Oxford, 2013) “examines interactions between different groups—ocean peoples, mainland native
communities, and foreign voyagers who encountered one another during period of rapid change between Cook’s
voyages and Gold Rush.” Before Cook, Igler argues, the Pacific was a largely disconnected collection of indigenous
homelands and “contending European imperial ventures.” As a result of Cook’s travels, sustained contact between
Europeans and Pacific peoples developed, changing the region forever. Igler’s approach makes European activity
decisive for the formation of a Pacific World—a world both sinister and violent. As commerce multiplied
interactions, a version of a virgin soiled epidemic resulted, leading to epidemiological “chaos.” Taking hostages was
a common form of “interaction” between Europeans and Pacific Islanders. Igler evokes an apocalyptic vision of fur-
bearing animals and whales slaughtered in vast numbers to sate European and American consumers. Even his
discussion of science highlights Europeans’ ethnocentric assumptions and attempt to use knowledge for power and
control. Madeline Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration Between the
United States and South China, 1882-1943 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000) takes a familiar story of
Chinese immigrants and places it in trans-Pacific context, showing immigrants’ places of origin as well as their
sustained connections to their homeland through print, remittances, and a longing for home. She makes a compelling
case that any adequate immigration narrative must conceptually link immigrants back to their homelands. She also
shows how the actions of everyday people could trump borders. Such agency is only conceivable in a trans-Pacific
world of rich networks. McGreevey, “American Religion,” notes a few emerging themes in modern religious
historiography that might be considered transnational and trans-Pacific: twentieth-century developments in
Catholicism and American overseas missions, particularly among Pentecostals.
19
Thomas J. Csordas, “Introduction: Modalities of Transnational Transcendence,” in Thomas J. Csordas, ed.
Transnational Transcendence: Essays on Religion and Globalization (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2009). The contributors place transnational religious experience in the context of “globalization.” Failing to
historicize the important conceptual term globalization, they simply assert that it is a recent phenomenon and, thus
by implication, so is transnational religion. Historians Jürgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Petersson argue for a much
longer trajectory for globalization, beginning with the establishment of the Portuguese and Spanish empires in the
early sixteenth century, and developing in key stages thereafter. This longer periodization makes visible the ways
that Yogananda contributed to an earlier phase of transnational religion. See Jürgen Osterhammel and Niels P.
Petersson, Globalization: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), particularly pp. 27-29.

14
espoused a diasporic religious nationalism. Apart from national pride, his nationalism derived
from his recognition that his prestige as a swami depended on India’s respectability in
Americans’ eyes, which prompted him to write numerous articles championing India’s virtues.
He also expressed his religious transnationalism through regular talks and articles in East-West
magazine addressing global issues and the need for peace. He participated in several
international religious organizations devoted to global peace.
This dissertation broadens transnationalism in another way. Transnational scholarship
typically emphasizes connections, networks, and links across large regions; for example,
connections between India and the US based on a shared interest in yoga. But what about
disjunctions? Yogananda saw the East-West binary—that is, the fissure between East and
West—as a trope to exploit. He used gaps in understanding on both sides as opportunities to
promote his own authority and identity in the US and, during a return trip, in India. His unique
identity, an Indian who could not be a citizen but who spent the majority of his life in the US,
made him one of the earliest “global gurus,” a forerunner of the internationalization of Eastern
spirituality and yoga. Unlike other global gurus, however, his ministry was based in the US, not
in India. He successfully maintained an aura of spiritual authority despite his location as a
transplant to America. The growth of diaspora Indian communities and baby boomer openness to
Eastern traditions created a receptive audience; routine air travel, and, more recently, the
emergence of the Internet, have facilitated the emergence of global ministries on a broader
scale.
20
Yogananda did not have the advantage of any of these resources, which makes his
accomplishments all the more remarkable.

20
Thomas A. Forstoefel and Cynthia Ann Humes, eds., Gurus in America (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2005); Mark Singleton and Ellen Goldberg, eds., Gurus of Modern Yoga (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2013), Ann Gleig and Lola Williamson, eds., Homegrown Gurus: From Hinduism in America to American
Hinduism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013).
15
The most striking development from the perspective of American religious history was
Yogananda’s claim—and his disciples’ acceptance—of his divine status. While a familiar pattern
among Indian gurus, this claim placed him among a very small group of contemporary self-
deified American religious leaders like Father Divine and Mormon schismatics Arnold Potter
and William W. Davies. In India, such claims are frequently anchored in hagiographic traditions
that develop over centuries. In contrast, Yogananda actively created his own hagiographical
tradition, in large part through his autobiography, hinting obliquely at his divine yogic powers.
Later in the century, many Americans became concerned with “cults” led by gurus—whether
homegrown, Indian, or from elsewhere—in the wake of the counterculture, Yogananda long
preceded this development. His reticence to directly claim divine status perhaps stemmed from
his ability to read his audience. He recognized that many Americans reared with a broadly
Christianized understanding of deity, might find such claims difficult to swallow. Yogananda’s
authority as a guru also provided a model for some of his disciples who established their
communities during the counterculture, suggesting that at least one strand of the counterculture
trajectory reaches back from the 1960s into the early twentieth century. While scholars of
religious movements have long been interested in the transfer of power from a charismatic leader
to his successor, the stakes become much higher when the original leader has divine status.
Yogananda’s management of his own legacy offers an example of one creative model of the
institutionalization of authority.
Yogananda’s tremendous importance as a twentieth century American religious figure
makes his virtual neglect in the scholarly literature paradoxical. Prominent yoga scholar David
Gordon White argues that, along with a handful of other gurus, it is “the life and teachings of
Yogananda that have had the greatest impact on modern-day conceptions of yoga as a marriage
16
between the physical and the spiritual, the human and the superhuman.”
21
Yet, despite this
importance, few scholars—including White himself—have studied Yogananda at length. Yoga
scholar Mark Singleton, for example, acknowledges that Yogananda “inspire(d) several
generations of Western spiritual seekers,” but has little else to say about him.
22
In her influential
A History of Modern Yoga Elizabeth De Michelis reduces him to less than one full sentence.
23
In
his discussion of “the most important modern gurus,” David Smith ignores Yogananda
altogether.
24

The only sustained scholarly attention Yogananda has received in the last two decades
has been through the (partial) attention of a handful of dissertations, of which three are notable.
The most recent—and the most sophisticated and penetrating—study is Anya Pokazanyeva,
“Here Comes the Yogiman: Tales of Enlightenment and (Super)power with Particular Reference
to the Life and Work of Paramahansa Yogananda.”
25
As her title suggests, Pokazanyeva’s
dissertation is a study of the superpowers claimed by yogis, and Yogananda provides a (detailed)
case study of this particular phenomenon. “Here Comes the Yogiman” shares a few common
themes with this dissertation: the Indian roots of Yogananda’s teaching; the vital influence of his
mentor, Sri Yukteswar; the centrality of the Autobiography—which she also characterizes as
self-hagiography—to Yogananda’s reputation; and his claims to supernatural powers. By placing
Yogananda in the narrower context of images of yogis, Pokazanyeva pays relatively little
attention to his role as a teacher of a wide range of religious subjects. Attending largely to

21
David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 246.
22
Mark Singleton, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice (New York: Oxford, 2010), 131-32.
23
Elizabeth De Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga: Patanjani and Western Esotericism (New York: Continuum,
2004), 196.
24
David Smith, Hinduism and Modernity (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003) 173. Smith’s list begins with
Ramakrishna, Vivekenanda’s mentor, and proceeds to Vivekananda and then to ten other gurus whose lifespans
overlapped with Yogananda’s.
25
Anya Pokazanyeva, “Here Comes the Yogiman: Tales of Enlightenment and (Super)power with Particular
Reference to the Life and Work of Paramahansa Yogananda” (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara,
2015).
17
Yogananda’s adherence—and occasional departure—from common perceptions of yogis, she
downplays his attempts to appeal to wider audiences and the distinctiveness of his instruction in
the context of American Christian culture. This dissertation seeks to provide a fuller appreciation
of Yogananda’s place in the American spiritual landscape by placing him and his teachings in
this broader context.
Polly Trout’s 1998 “Hindu Gurus, American Disciples, and the Search for Modern
Religion 1900-1950,” examines Yogananda along with two other twentieth-century Hindu
figures, Theosophical “World Teacher” Jiddhu Krishnamurti and Vedanta leader Swami
Paramananda.
26
Drawing on a relatively limited range of Yogananda’s works, Trout fails to
adequately capture the diversity of his thought and, consequently, downplays his teaching’s
grounding in Hindu tradition. In her exploration of American reception of Yogananda’s message,
Trout focuses almost exclusively on metaphysical beliefs like New Thought and Theosophy,
largely ignoring the ways that Yogananda attempted to reach a large American (and mostly
Christian) audience.
Finally, Theodore Anderson’s “Reimagining Religion: The Grounding of Spiritual
Politics and Practice in Modern America, 1890-1940” considers Yogananda as one of five
individuals who reinvented spirituality in early twentieth-century America. He gives much more
attention to the American context of Yogananda’s ministry than Trout, a choice that comes at the
cost of his virtual dismissal of Yogananda’s Indian roots. This inattention leads Anderson to the
blithe claim that Yogananda “found dozens of ways to describe his conception of the universe,
and there was rarely much consistency among them except their intense idealism.” With an
inadequate understanding of Indian philosophy, Anderson sees Yogananda’s teaching as an

26
Polly Trout, “Hindu Gurus, American Disciples, and the Search for Modern Religion 1900-1950” (PhD diss.,
Boston University, 1998). Trout’s dissertation was published with very minor changes as Eastern Seeds, Western
Soil: Three Gurus in America (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing, 2001).
18
eclectic grab bag, instead of a coherent system created through careful borrowing from different
streams of Indian belief. Later, Anderson describes Yogananda’s beliefs as “standard New
Thought fare with an Eastern accent,” a glib statement that reflects an untested assumption that
Yogananda’s teaching was a syncretic form of Indian teaching and American metaphysical
thought.
27

Apart from these scholarly sources, Yogananda makes brief appearances in a number of
trade press books published in the last decade. The longest treatment is found in American Veda.
Popular yoga author Philip Goldberg spends a chapter on a respectful narrative of “The Yogi of
the Autobiography.” After a largely descriptive presentation, Goldberg offers brief analysis of
Yogananda’s success. He highlights the attraction of being “in the presence of a genuine holy
man,” Yogananda’s engaging personality and speaking style, and his adaptations to appeal to an
American audience, most notably his “enthusiastic embrace of Jesus.”
28
In her investigation of
“Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements,” Lola Williamson gives due attention to SRF. But
because her interest is more contemporary than historical, she deals with Yogananda himself
fairly briefly, and offers little in the way of broader context. Stefanie Syman, who claims to tell
“the story of yoga in America,” devotes only a few terse, somewhat flippant pages to Yogananda
and his movement, a remarkable oversight.
29

How can scholarly inattention to Yogananda be squared with claims about his historical
significance? Two major explanations present themselves, one evidentiary and the other
historiographical. First, access to sources offers a genuine challenge to scholars of Yogananda.
Self-Realization Fellowship does not open its archives to researchers, in part because its yoga

27
Theodore Anderson, “Reimagining Religion: The Grounding of Spiritual Politics and Practice in Modern
America, 1890-1940” (PhD diss., Yale University, 2008). The quotes are from 89 and 95, respectively.
28
Philip Goldberg, American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation—How Indian
Spirituality Changed the West (New York: Three Rivers, 2010), 109-129.
29
Stefanie Syman, The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America (New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 2010), 170-
71.
19
teachings are considered secrets reserved for members, but primarily in a zealous effort to guard
the reputation and legacy of its founder. Thus, the personal correspondence that would help flesh
out Yogananda’s personality is not available for analysis. Still, scholars have not always taken
full advantage of the materials that are available. More than a dozen books and memoirs by
disciples—published both by SRF and independently, some quite recent—provide evidence of
the private Yogananda. Several of these texts reprint letters from Yogananda; more than two
hundred are extant. Together these materials paint a composite portrait of Yogananda’s
personality not accessible through his teachings alone. Previous scholars have not had easy
access to early issues of the magazine Yogananda produced, few copies of which have made
their way into publically accessible libraries. But the magazine, the majority of whose 1925-1952
issues were available to the author for this dissertation, is an invaluable source for understanding
Yogananda’s views. Not only was he responsible for overall content and tone of the nearly two
hundred issues that ran during his lifetime, but he also personally contributed more than eight
hundred articles. The yoga lessons, which constituted the instructional heart of Yogananda’s
ministry, are ostensibly unavailable to the public. But they are not impossible to acquire and
provide essential insight into his teachings. In addition, nearly one thousand newspaper
advertisements and articles about Yogananda are available. When these materials are added to
the dozens of books and booklets he published (the sources Yogananda scholars have typically
relied on), substantial and varied material is available to provide a robust portrait of this
important religious figure.
The other reason for Yogananda’s scholarly neglect is historiographical. Essentially, he
falls between a number of proverbial stools, not really resting comfortably on any of them. As a
teacher and practitioner of yoga, he would seem to belong in the burgeoning scholarship on
20
yoga. But, as indicated briefly above, yoga scholars have not paid much attention to him. On the
other hand, Vivekananda has received extensive, perhaps undue, attention. The critical mass of
yoga scholarship, particularly the influential work of Elizabeth De Michelis, Mark Singleton,
Joseph S. Alter, and others, has concentrated on modern postural yoga, charting a transformation
that another yoga scholar, Sarah Strauss, describes in her own monograph as moving from “a
regional, male-oriented religious activity to a globalized and largely secular phenomenon.”
30

Though De Michelis’ influential taxonomy of yoga provides a place for “denominational
movements,” most scholars of modern yoga—including De Michelis herself—largely ignore
yoga’s religious dimensions. The teleological interest in the emergence of contemporary secular
yoga, focused on postures, health, and mental well-being has often meant the neglect of
individuals who do not fit that pattern. David Gordon White acknowledges that any element of
yoga—such as a focus on religion and the supernatural—that falls outside the “modern-day
sensus communis” of yoga scholarship tends to be ignored.
31
Yogananda defies this common
narrative of modern yoga in key ways. He downplayed the āsanas, or postures, that became so
central to most forms of twentieth-century yoga.
32
Conversely, his emphasis on religious themes
beyond meditational practice runs counter to the trajectory that Strauss describes. Nevertheless,

30
Sarah Strauss, Positioning Yoga: Balancing Acts Across Cultures (Oxford: Berg, 2005), xix. Joseph S. Alter, Yoga
in Modern India: The Body between Science and Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004);
Elizabeth De Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga: Patanjali and Western Esotericism (London: Continuum, 2004);
Mark Singleton, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Postural Yoga (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
Andrea R. Jain, Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) offers
more nuance, primarily by acknowledging that yoga has always embraced varied practices and divergent aims,
physical and spiritual. Rather than treating postural yoga as the culmination of a secularizing trajectory, she treats it
as a form of religion in its own right, providing a capacious definition of religion.
31
David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 47.
32
Stefanie Syman, The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2010),
171, dramatically overstates the case when she claims that Yogananda “publicly disdained” hatha yoga, citing one
footnote from the Autobiography. In the footnote, Yogananda actually explains that Hatha Yoga, “a specialized
branch of bodily postures and techniques for health and longevity” is “useful and provides spectacular physical
results.” His only critique is that it is “little used by yogis bent on spiritual liberation” (235). He seems to be
referring specifically to the use of āsanas, since his Kriya Yoga assumes the centrality of kundalinī power, a key
teaching of hatha yoga.
21
yoga was central to Yogananda’s religious system, and given the popularity of his movement, he
was likely the most successful yoga teacher in the US before the 1960s.
Other scholars have explored Hindu gurus as religious figures, both in India and in the
US, but the individuals they profile typically postdate Yogananda’s ministry. Scholars tend to
concentrate on more recent figures, including individuals who established their own American
ministries in the last few decades.
33
This focus on the recent past stems largely from the deeply
entrenched view that American interest in Eastern religion was essentially a baby boomer
phenomenon. With a few exceptions, the placement of Indian religious leaders late in the
American story conforms to the dominant narrative arc in which religious pluralism outside the
Christian tradition is largely a post-1965 phenomenon.
34
A typical example is Amanda
Porterfield, The Transformation of American Religion: The Story of a Late-Twentieth Century
Awakening.
35
The subtitle indicates her assumption that the American religious diversity she
celebrates is a very recent phenomenon. The scholarly defense, often implicit, for attending to
religious diversity only in the recent past usually hinges on numbers—some kind of critical mass
of diversity was supposedly reached only recently. This is the kind of case Diana Eck makes in A
New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Now Become the World’s Most

33
Thomas A. Forstoefel and Cynthia Ann Humes, eds., Gurus in America (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2005); Mark Singleton and Ellen Goldberg, eds., Gurus of Modern Yoga (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2013), Ann Gleig and Lola Williamson, eds., Homegrown Gurus: From Hinduism in America to American
Hinduism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013).
34
There is a strand that addresses earlier Eastern influence that extends back to the era of the counterculture,
including works like Harold W. French, The Swan’s Wide Waters: Ramakrishna and Western Culture (Port
Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1974) and, more recently, Carl T. Jackson, Vedanta for the West: The
Ramakrishna Movement in the United States (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994). In her masterly
survey of American metaphysical traditions, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American
Metaphysical Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), Catherine L. Albanese gives extended attention
to early twentieth century Eastern philosophy and religion in the United States. All of these works, however, tend to
consider Hinduism and yoga independent of Christianity, in effect walling them off from the dominant religious
patterns of the nation.
35
Amanda Porterfield, The Transformation of American Religion: The Story of a Late-Twentieth Century
Awakening (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
22
Religiously Diverse Nation.
36
Since the 1965 Hart-Cellar act actually made the US more
diversely Christian, rather than more broadly diverse religiously, the “growing” religious
diversity of the US in the late twentieth century was more symbolic and perceptual than actual.
37

In other words, the real justification for making 1965 a watershed stems from Americans’
growing awareness of and greater receptivity to other faiths. But at least some Americans had
made the discovery of other religions at the early end of the twentieth century. Thus, American
religious diversity is better characterized as the gradual “dawning” of awareness of over the
course of a century, rather than a sudden “awakening” in the last few decades. In that longer
trajectory, Yogananda stands out as a key figure.
This dissertation explores the life and ministry of Paramhansa Yogananda in five chapters
that follow the chronology of his life, addressing key themes as they emerge. Chapter One, “The
Making of a Modern Religious Seeker: From Mukunda Lal Gosh to Swami Yogananda (1893-
1920),” places Yogananda’s spiritual development in the context of Indian modernity, with rapid
travel, exposure to diverse traditions, and awareness of the outside world—particularly the US
and the larger West. The chapter examines his childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood,
focusing on the spiritual journey that culminated in his decision to become a swami under the
leadership of a guru. His connection to modernity continued with his college education and
adoption of modern Hinduism, a framework that severed belief from land, caste, life stage, and
gender. The universalizing of Hinduism enabled it to become a missionary religion, an important
precursor for Yogananda’s decision to come to the United States.

36
Diana L. Eck, A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Now Become the World’s Most
Religiously Diverse Nation (San Francisco: Harper, 2001).
37
As late as 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion indicated that Buddhists, Muslims, and Hindus together made up less
than 2% of the American population. See Charles L. Cohen and Ronald L. Numbers, “Introduction,” in Gods in
America: Religious Pluralism in the United States, edited by Charles L. Cohen and Ronald Numbers (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2013), 8-9.
23
Chapter Two, “The Yogi Evangelist Finds a Home for Scientific Religion: Southern
California as a Spiritual Frontier (1920-1925),” traces Yogananda’s early years in the United
States in the context of an intramural Protestant debate offering competing answers to the
epistemological challenges modernity raised for the universalistic claims of Christianity. It
begins by examining the Conference that brought him to the US and his presentation on “the
Science of Religion.” A cross-country road trip in 1924 took Yogananda to Los Angeles, which
became his national headquarters. The nation’s new “spiritual frontier,” Los Angeles was an
ideal space for a new movement outside the Christian mainstream, a tolerant, hospitable center
for Yogananda to launch a new religious movement. This chapter also explores the ambivalent
position of Indians in Southern California within the framework of Orientalism; these stereotypes
provided both hazards and opportunities for Yogananda to exploit.
In the third chapter, “Creating an Image, Honing a Message: Advertising a Yogi
Evangelist (1925-1932),” Yogananda’s ministry is evaluated through the lens of modern
consumer religion, mass marketing, and religious branding. The early portion investigates the
religious products he touted, most centrally, his systematic, practical method for God-realization
through yoga—in the innovative form of a correspondence course. Yogananda’s instruction
inculcated a larger Hindu worldview, not just a set of meditative techniques. His East-West
magazine was a promotional tool designed to highlight his brand’s distinctiveness. The chapter
also explores the way the Yogi, like evangelical preachers of the time, promoted his message to a
modern America saturated in savvy advertising and modern products. The final section considers
the hazards of the religious market, including negative press attention and several lawsuits that
threatened his brand image as well as his solvency just as the Depression arrived.
“Apotheosis of a Global Guru: Paramhansa Yogananda and his Autobiography (1933-
24
1946),” the fourth chapter, explores Yogananda’s growing status as both a global spiritual
authority and simultaneously a divine figure. The chapter begins by placing Yogananda in the
context of religious internationalism, a subset of interwar cultural internationalism driven by
concerns for global peace. It details his use of East-West as a vehicle for a cosmopolitan spiritual
vision. The chapter also explores his lengthy exegesis of New Testament gospel narratives,
which transformed the story of Jesus and his teachings into a revelation of yogic truth. An
extravagant worldwide journey in 1935-36 from California to England, the Continent, the Middle
East, and ultimately to his home city of Calcutta solidified his reputation as a “global guru.” But
it was the 1946 Autobiography of a Yogi, which firmly established Yogananda’s reputation as a
guru to the world. A rhetorical analysis of this text’s structural features reveals it to be
functionally a new scripture, designed to inculcate belief in the spiritual world Yogananda
evoked, and in the divine status of the Yogi who wrote it.
Chapter Five, “An Immortal Guru Dies: Charisma, Succession, and the Fate of
Yogananda’s Legacy (1946-1952),” explores discipleship and conversion in SRF, Yogananda’s
dramatic death, and the transfer of authority that transpired afterward. The chapter explores
profiles of more than a dozen Yogananda disciples, employing a model of conversion to offer
insight into common patterns of those who chose to follow Yogananda and their challenging
experiences of spiritual apprenticeship as Americans raised in an individualistic cultural ethos.
The circumstances surrounding Yogananda’s death and his followers’ efforts to cope with the
tragedy are considered next. Yogananda’s death produced a crisis in leadership. Max Weber’s
model of the routinization of charisma and theoretical additions by subsequent scholars offers
insight into the common challenge faced by organizations led by charismatic individuals,
particularly after their death. Yogananda spiritualized his own leadership by indicating that his
25
writings were to become the “guru” after his departure, but this did not solve the problem of
human leadership. After the short tenure of one leader, long-term female disciple Faye Wright
was appointed. Her half-century tenure at SRF stabilized the organization and routinized its
publications by and about Yogananda.
Today, employees of the company Steve Jobs founded can pursue Eastern spirituality
without quitting their jobs to travel to India. Just over ten miles from work, there is an SRF
center, two Ananda communities, an independent Hindu meditation center, and a dozen yoga
studios. This pattern could be replicated in many American cities, and indeed, in cities outside
the United States. Nearly a century after Yogananda came to the US with his message of Kriya
Yoga, and seventy years after the Autobiography of a Yogi was released, Hindu beliefs and
practices have become an integral part of the spiritual landscape, from Southern California to the
far reaches of the globe. This dissertation provides one chapter in the story of how and why that
happened.

26

Temple at Belur Math, the Ramakrishna Math and Mission headquarters,
housing the remains of Swami Vivekananda, Yogananda’s implicit role
model (author photo).

Chapter One

The Making of a Modern Religious Seeker:
From Mukunda Lal Gosh to Swami Yogananda (1893-1920)

Mukunda Lal Ghosh’s childhood home, 4 Garpar Road, Calcutta,
where his religious identity was formed (author photo).

28
Mukunda Lal Ghosh was deeply unhappy. It was 1909 and the sixteen-year-old Bengali
had been living in India’s most sacred city of Benares for several months searching for spiritual
enlightenment. His stay at the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal ashram had been frustrating and
disappointing. But that was about to change. One morning, he was sent to the market to help with
grocery purchases for the community. There he met Sri Yukteswar, the man who would become
his guru and transform his life. Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi vividly recounted the
marketplace meeting, imagining it as a miraculous encounter. Before leaving the ashram for the
market, Mukunda had received a heavenly message in King James English. “‘Thy Master
cometh today!’ A divine womanly voice came from everywhere and nowhere.” Near the end of
the shopping trip, the prophecy was fulfilled:
A Christlike man in the ocher robes of a swami stood motionless at the
end of a lane. Instantly and anciently familiar he seemed;…
Retracing my steps as though wing-shod, I reached the narrow lane. My
quick glance revealed the quiet figure, steadily gazing in my direction. A few
eager steps and I was at his feet.
“Gurudeva!” The divine face was the one I had seen in a thousand visions.
These halcyon eyes, I a leonine head with pointed beard and flowing locks, had
often peered through the gloom of my nocturnal reveries, holding a promise I had
not fully understood.
“O my own, you have come to me!” My guru uttered the words again and
again in Bengali, his voice tremulous with joy. “How many years I have waited
for you!”
1

In this idealized account, Yukteswar expresses an effusive affection sharply at odds with the
stern taskmaster Mukunda consistently describes elsewhere. This chance marketplace encounter
four hundred miles from Mukunda’s Calcutta home reflected a remarkable set of coincidences—
Mukunda’s own parents had been discipled by Yukteswar’s master, Lahiri Mahasaya, and
Yukteswar just happened to live in Serampore near Mukunda’s family home in Calcutta—that
suggested divine orchestration. There is, however, a more prosaic explanation of this meeting.

1
Paramhansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1946), 92-94.
29
Mukunda’s father and older brother—his mother was already dead—had expressed their concern
about his excessive fervor to an uncle in Serampore, a devotee of Yukteswar. The uncle
suggested writing to both Yukteswar and Mukunda, encouraging the two to meet each other.
2
It
was precisely because Yukteswar lived near Calcutta much of the year that Mukunda’s father
and brother found this solution attractive. When Mukunda agreed to abandon Bharat Dharma
Mahamandal and accompany Yukteswar home to Serampore, Mukunda’s family breathed a sigh
of relief. The dreamer would be close enough to home to keep an eye on him.
This anecdote reveals a number of important features of Mukunda’s early life. First, he
was a restless spiritual seeker, willing to travel hundreds of miles from home in search of truth.
Second, this quest often created tension with his family who respected spirituality but not
extreme fervor bordering on reckless. Third, the variation between the account in the
Autobiography and the less supernatural version suggests Mukunda’s penchant for imaginative
remembering of past events—and the attendant challenges of using such sources to reconstruct
historical events. Finally, whether coincidental or orchestrated, Mukunda’s meeting with
Yukteswar changed his life. Mukunda became his disciple and eventually took his vows to
become Swami Yogananda, a man who would ultimately interpret his life mission as a Hindu
evangelist to the United States.
Mukunda’s life and future ministry can only be understood in the context of late colonial
India. British Orientalists began “imagining India” as part of a mystical, spiritual, timeless, and
effeminate East in the late eighteenth century, a construct they routinely contrasted, explicitly or
implicitly, with a modern West.
3
Given the deep imbrication between modernization and

2
Swami Satyananda Giri, “Yogananda Sanga [Paramhansa Yoganandaji As I have Seen and Understood Him],” in
A Collection of Biographies of 4 Kriya Yoga Gurus (Battle Creek: Yoga Niketan, 2004), 178.
3
This representation remains one of the most pervasive and pernicious legacies of the colonial encounter, often
recapitulated in Western historiography. See Ronald B. Inden, Imagining India (Bloomington: Indiana University
30
Westernization in Indian history, scholars struggle to depict an India that retained sufficient
autonomy that its modern identity is not simply subsumed under imperialism—while
acknowledging the long shadow the British cast on the postcolonial nation.
4
One way out of this
dilemma, Richard King suggests, is by “dissolving the easy polarization of the two options” and
instead viewing power relations as complex, multidimensional, and fluid, while still recognizing
the very real disparities in power between colonizer and colonized.
5
Though the colonial
presence embodied an oppressive hegemonic “discourse,” it also provided members of the small
Indian middle class opportunities for advancement.
6
Rather than seeing British modernity as an
unwelcome imposition, middle class Indians often explicitly and enthusiastically regarded
themselves as modern.
7
And yet, it was from within the middle class that the most articulate and
passionate nationalism developed, as educated Indians proudly asserted their identity in
opposition to colonial power and culture.
This chapter places Yogananda’s childhood in the ambivalent context of late colonial

Press, 1990). Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and the ‘The Mystic East”
(London: Routledge, 1999) worries in particular that downplaying Indian agency may perpetuate “reproduction of
colonialist tropes such as the myth of the passive Oriental.” More recently, see Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee,
The Nay Science: A History of German Indology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), which moves beyond
the Orientalist critique. The authors argue that, at least in the German tradition, scholarship on India rigidly imposed
Protestant (and anti-Catholic) categories on Indian texts, so this scholarship ultimately reveals more about
“Occidentalism”—European self-assessment—than it does about Orientalism.
4
As Joseph S. Alter, Yoga in Modern India: The Body between Science and Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2004), 73, puts it, “Scholarship on colonial and postcolonial India has focused on the critical
problem of identity, control over identity, and the articulation of a national identity which is neither
anachronistically ‘traditional’ in an Orientalist sense nor derivatively Western—and thereby modern only by
proxy—on account of colonialism and the colonial legacy. Most scholars now agree that colonial India was, and
postcolonial India is, characterized by a degree of deep ambivalence concerning the whole question of
modernization and development.”
5
King, 205, concentrates on the ways that Indian Brahmins contributed to the construction of Orientalism. This
chapter pays more attention to other ways relatively elite Indians accommodated themselves to the colonial
presence.
6
Gyan Prakash, Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1999).
7
“The emergence of a Bengali middle class with political ambition…occurred in the second half of the nineteenth
century. It resulted in the acute awareness among middle-class men and women that they were living in a ‘modern’
age; they were becoming ‘modern.’” See Swati Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta: Modernity, Nationalism,
and the Colonial Uncanny (New York: Routledge, 2005), 14.
31
India. On one hand, British colonial modernity allowed a middle-class boy to pursue his dream
of spiritual detachment. Yogananda’s formative life experiences cannot be imagined outside of
rapid transportation and communication, mobility, industrial capitalism, global trade, science,
education (particularly higher education), bureaucratic rationalism, and an egalitarian ethos.
8

Yogananda’s middle class circumstances allowed him the luxury to safely explore many possible
life paths.
On the other hand, he used this autonomy to carve out an identity in reaction to the alien
British presence and its religious traditions. Instead, he embraced a distinctively Indian spiritual
identity as a yogi. While individualism is often seen as a Western phenomenon, Yogananda’s
autonomous life path suggests one way colonial subjects might become modern without being
especially Western, developing a clear sense of selfhood rooted in Indian rather than European
notions of the individual. Yogananda did not, however, choose his life path in a vacuum; apart
from the study of religious texts and instruction by his guru, Swami Yukteswar, the intellectual
movement known as the “Bengal Renaissance” molded his identity. This movement of cultural
nationalism was a product of Indian colonial modernity, and one key strand within the movement
was religious reform. Bengali intellectuals reconsidered traditional Indian beliefs in light of

8
Despite the contested, problematic nature of the label “modernity,” many historians continue to find it
indispensable. Those brave enough to venture a set of factors associated with modernity, if not a definition, often
broadly agree. Two contributors to a recent American Historical Review forum on modernity offered remarkably
similar descriptions that largely agree with the assessment offered here. Lynn M. Thomas, “Modernity’s Failings,
Political Claims, and Intermediate Concepts,” American Historical Review 111 (2006), 737, provided these “core
formations” of modernity: “political divisions between the religious and the secular and the public and the private,
the cultivation of scientific rationality and critical self-reflection; liberal political ideals that challenge social
hierarchies rooted in kin, class, gender, or race; constitutional, representative, and bureaucratic forms of
government; industrial production and expanded markets; mechanical reproduction and mass media; heightened
urbanization, monetization, and consumption; accelerated transportation and communication, and a future-oriented
conception of time that figures the present as a radical rupture from the past.” Michael Saler, “Modernity and
Enchantment: A Historiographic Review,” Ibid., 694, offers a list of “political, social, intellectual, economic,
technological, and psychological factors” including “the emergence of the autonomous and rational subject; the
differentiation of cultural spheres; the rise of liberal and democratic states the turn to psychologism and self-
reflexivity; and the dominance of secularism, nationalism, capitalism, industrialism, urbanism, consumerism, and
scientism.”
32
evangelical and utilitarian critiques. They reached back imaginatively to Vedic texts and
traditions to articulate sanatana dharma—an eternal moral, spiritual, devotional Hinduism that
was both fundamentally Indian and universal.
9

In choosing the unique path of evangelist to the West, Yogananda embraced the religious
modernism of the sanatana dharma vision, boldly offering Indian wisdom to the decadent West.
While his message centered on yoga as a practical tool for communing with God, he offered a
much larger body of Hindu religious truth—ancient teachings rethought, articulated in modern
terminology, and correlated with Western categories. This chapter tells the story of the
emergence of this evangelist in four parts. It begins by placing Yogananda’s upbringing in the
context of Indian modernity, including the importance of his father’s career. The next part
examines his adolescence through young adulthood, focusing on his spiritual pilgrimage, which
culminated in his decision to become a swami under the leadership of Sri Yukteswar. The third
deals with his “education,” both finding his spiritual mentor and completing his college
education. The final section considers the way Mukunda, now Swami Yogananda, branched out
on his own, activities that would eventually lead to his decision to come to the US.
As with many modern gurus, reconstructing Yogananda’s life story requires a careful
winnowing of historical facts from the hagiographic chaff sown both by the gurus themselves,
who create an aura of transcendence by mystifying the mundane events of their past, and by their
disciples who emulate this pattern.
10
The obvious starting point is Yogananda’s famous

9
Wilhem H. Halbfass, India and Europe An Essay in Understanding (New York: State University of New York
Press, 1988), passim. Halbfass builds on the insights of Paul Hacker here. Hacker unnecessarily passed judgment
about the “legitimacy” of Neo-Hinduism, while posing a stark difference between Neo-Hinduism and continuing
forms of traditional Hinduism. Still, he did recognize that this heuristic typology provided idealized types and that in
reality there was more of a spectrum than a dichotomy. Shorn of the normative evaluations, his insights remain
crucial for understanding modern and contemporary forms of Hinduism. The label sanatana dharma will be used
throughout this chapter, rather than Neo-Hinduism because of the latter’s connotation of inauthenticity.
10
For example, hagiographic accounts complicate efforts to establish the history of the twentieth-century Indian
gurus Krishnamacharya, Muktananda, and Satya Sai Baba. See Mark Singleton and Tara Fraser, “T.
33
Autobiography of a Yogi, originally published in 1946, but this is a notoriously challenging
source for establishing verifiable historical facts. Given its attention to the author’s spiritual
development more than his earthly existence—and frequent digressions and supernatural
events—it can often be difficult to determine what happened when.
11
(Throughout this chapter, a
few examples of Yogananda’s penchant for imaginative reconstruction will be pointed out.
These examples will be limited to cases where the understanding of a major event in his
biography hinges on his characterization of the event; Chapter Four will undertake a systematic
discussion of the Autobiography’s narrative art.)
This chapter draws on three sources beyond the Autobiography.
12
The first and principle
source is a systematic account of Yogananda’s life written by his younger brother, Sananda Lal
Ghosh, who remained in India throughout his life, and published in 1980.
13
This account has
several problems: some of his anecdotes are suspect in that Sananda always seems to be present

Krishnamacharya, Father of Modern Yoga,” in Mark Singleton and Ellen Goldberg, Gurus of Modern Yoga (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 85; Andrea R. Jain, “Muktananda: Entrepreneurial Godman, Tantric Hero,”
in ibid., 193; and Smriti Srinivas, “Sathya Sai Baba and the Repertoire of Yoga,” in ibid., 264. Yogananda was
reluctant to disclose his age or birthdate, as part of his effort to convey a supramundane life story.
This chapter presents a narrative that errs on the side of caution in reconstructing the formative years of
Yogananda’s life. But even a cautious approach yields a substantially fleshed out account of Mukunda’s family,
major events in his life—including major developments in his thinking and spirituality, and, perhaps most
importantly, the context of the turn-of-the-century Indian milieu in which he came of age.
11
To take just one example, in one early chapter Yogananda tersely indicates, “[t]he family was now living in
Calcutta, where Father had been permanently transferred.” He provides no date or clear reason for the move, and
completely leaves out the family’s (admittedly short) sojourn in distant Chittagong that preceded the move to
Calcutta. See Paramhansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (New York: Philosophical Library,1946), 29. Polly
Trout, “Hindu Gurus, American Disciples, and the Search for Modern Religion, 1900 -1950,” 132-133,
acknowledged the challenges of working with the Autobiography as a source, and the dearth of unauthorized sources
on his life nearly twenty years ago.
12
A few other sources might ostensibly fit into this category of those who did not know Mukunda during his
childhood, but who spent extensive time with him and might have heard him relate childhood events. The most
plausible candidate is Swami Kriyananda, who joined SRF in 1948 and spent extensive time, including much one-
on-one time, with Yogananda during the last three years of his life. Kriyananda’s recent lengthy Yogananda
biography does not offer much assistance as a historical source. In his very first paragraph, Kriyananda answers an
imaginary interlocutor’s question about whether the book is hagiographic. He explains that his book is a necessary
supplement to the Autobiography, since Yogananda “wrote his book in a spirit of such humility that the reader could
only intuit the author’s spiritual greatness from his perfect attitude toward every life situation.” See Swami
Kriyananda, Paramhansa Yogananda: A Biography with Personal Reflections and Reminiscences (Nevada City,
CA: Crystal Clarity Publishing, 2014), 1.
13
Sananda Lal Ghosh, “Mejda:” The Family and the Early Life of Paramahansa Yogananda (Los Angeles: Self-
Realization Fellowship, 1980), “Mejda” is a Bengali honorific meaning “second elder brother” (3).
34
when important events transpire in Mukunda’s life, despite the fact that Yogananda rarely
mentions his younger brother in the Autobiography. It strains credulity to think that a boy five
years younger than Mukunda accompanied him around everywhere. Also, Sananda’s account is
later than the Autobiography by several decades and clearly written in awareness of the
Autobiography’s contents. It is also a Self-Realization Fellowship-sanctioned text prone to
hagiography.
14
Still, Sananda’s embellishments do not challenge the basic veracity of the key
events in Mukunda’s life he describes. Despite SRF’s likely careful vetting of this account of
their founder, inevitably some variations in perspective between Sananda and Yogananda sneak
through whose significance is only evident with close scrutiny. His occasional willingness to
describe situations that paint Mukunda in a less attractive light than the Autobiography confirms
this text’s usefulness an at least partially independent source.
The next source is a recollection by Swami Satyananda Giri, a childhood friend of
Mukunda from the time Mukunda moved to Calcutta, became a disciple of Sri Yukestwar, as
Mukunda did.
15
Satyananda remained in India for the rest of his life. Late in his life, he wrote an
account of his childhood friend and Yukteswar’s most famous disciple, Yogananda (Mukunda).
This text was intentionally translated into wooden, literalistic English by a group of American
followers with knowledge of Bengali. Sananda confirms the close relationship between his
brother and Satyananda (born Manomohan Mazumdar), including details about how and when
the two met. While Satyananda clearly has great respect for his childhood friend, and reports a

14
This comment from chapter two illustrates the book’s tenor: “Those present at the time of Mejda’s birth said
Mother was having severe labor pains. She fervently cried out to Lahiri Majasaya [her personal guru]. Suddenly a
celestial light filled the room, and from the concentrated rays in the center emerged the form of Lahiri Mahasaya.
Mother’s pain vanished instantly. The divine light continued to illumine the room till Mejda was born” (23).
15
Swami Satyananda Giri, “Yogananda Sanga [Paramhansa Yoganandaji As I have Seen and Understood Him],” in
A Collection of Biographies of 4 Kriya Yoga Gurus (Battle Creek: Yoga Niketan, 2004). Like “Yogananda Sanga,”
this account was originally composed in Bengali (in 1983) and only translated into English in 2006.
35
number of supernatural events the two experienced, he also offers candid critical assessments.
16

The final source comes from Sailendra Bejoy Dasgupta, Dasgupta was also a devotee of
Sri Yukteswar, but he only met Mukunda when he returned to India (as Yogananda) in 1935-36.
While Dasgupta had no direct, first-hand experience of Mukunda’s childhood—unlike Sananda
or Satyananda—he served as Yogananda’s personal secretary during the latter’s lengthy stay in
India. The two apparently felt a strong connection, and Yogananda, perhaps feeling nostalgic to
be back in his homeland, recounted many events of his childhood.
17

Mukunda Lal Ghosh and Modern India
The future Paramhansa Yogananda was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh on January 5, 1893.
He was the fourth of eight children born to Gyana Prabha Ghosh, and her husband Bhagabati
Charan Ghosh, a career civil-service father who worked for the railroad.
18
His job had brought
the family to Gorakhpur, a modest city of 65,000 in Northern India bordered by the Himalayas.
The Gorahknath Temple, the city’s namesake, honored a famed twelfth-century yogi and drew
pilgrims from all over India. Gorakhpur was important to the British as well. After the British

16
For example, at one point he comments “being in his company during childhood, adolescence, youth, and more
advanced years, I have seen him actually as a human being. When I saw the usual weaknesses natural to human
beings in the working world,” rather than explaining them away as the “divine play” of a perfectly realized being, “I
perceived them just as weaknesses.” See Satyananda, “Yogananda,” 163.
17
Sri Sailendra Bejoy Dasgupta, Paramhansa Swami Yogananda: Life-Portrait and Reminiscences (Battle Creek:
Yoga Niketan, 2006).
18
For information about Mukunda’s father, “Mejda” is far and away the most useful source; it provides specific,
concrete details about dates of service, local, office, rank, etc. Sananda claims this information derives from History
of Services of the Officers of the Engineer and Accounts Establishment, Government of India, Public Works
Department (“Mejda,” 10 note). Unfortunately, his bibliographical reference is incomplete, lacking a date of
publication and page numbers. “History of Services” was published annually, but extant copies do not provide the
information Ghosh reports. Other government sources do provide some record of Bhagabati’s career, and these
sparse sources uniformly corroborate Sananda’s information. For example, Government of India, Public Works
Department, Classified List and Distribution Return of Establishment (Calcutta: The Superintendent of Government
Printing, India, 1907), 595, confirms that “Bhaggobaty Charan Ghosh,” was a Deputy Examiner, Class I, in the
Superior Accounts Establishment, of Calcutta Railways. A second grade accountant, he joined government service
in April, 1875 and had served for 31 years and 3 months as of June, 1906. He had been in his current position since
November 1905. Variations in the Anglicization of Indian names create a challenge in tracking down individuals in
Indian government sources; the spelling of Bhaghabati’s name is different from Sananda’s spelling, but the date of
birth matches Sananda’s information, confirming that this is his father despite the variation in the spelling.
36
East India Company (EIC) conquered the city in 1801, it became a regional administrative
headquarters and, later, a center for the region’s rail system. It was also a crucial staging area for
Indian rebels in the 1857 Sepoy Uprising against the EIC, a rebellion whose eventual defeat led
to the transfer of India from EIC rule to direct British control. Thus, Gorakhnath foreshadows
major influences on Ghosh’s life: diverse Indian social and spiritual traditions, the place of
Indian elites within the British bureaucracy, and cultural nationalism.
Bhagabati’s privileged background as an educated civil servant profoundly shaped
Mukunda’s development and eventual life course. By the time of Mukunda’s birth, Bhagabati
had been an employee of the British colonial government for twenty years. The fact that
Bhagabati had completed high school placed him in a small minority of Indians.
19
After a few
years of struggle to find work after high school, Bhagabati had managed to win one of a small
number of highly coveted positions working for the imperial authorities.
20
He became an
assistant accountant for the Public Works Department of the Indian Government in 1873 and was
posted to Deoghar in Bihar. A year and half later, he accepted a posting in Rangoon, Burma, at
that time a remote province of India. His mother died in Calcutta while he was in Rangoon. He
returned for her funeral and, while there, married Gyana. She was a good match for Bhagabati.
The daughter of a deputy magistrate from Bengal, her family background in British government
employment matched her husband’s. The couple returned to Rangoon, and Bhagabati eventually

19
In a country with a staggering 94% illiteracy rate, just over 1% had any education (as opposed to basic literacy
skills) and an even smaller fraction completed high school. His ability to speak English put him an elite category of
.14% of the population. See General Report on the Census of India, 1891 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office,
1893), 224.
20
Bhagabati was apparently naturally gifted in math despite his lack of a college degree—he qualified for college
admission based on his exam scores, but could not afford the tuition—as evidenced by the fact that he was able to
secure government employment at a time when one of the biggest complaints among well-off Indians was the dearth
of government jobs available for the glut of college-educated Indians. David Kopf, The Brahmo Samaj and the
Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 195. Less than 1% of Indians
were employed in state service, and the bulk of these were in jobs the census described as “menial;” about .2% of all
employees were in clerk positions like his. See Census of India, 1891, 98-99.
37
worked there for ten years serving his time in the Indian bureaucracy. While there, Bhagabati
passed the government accounting examination accounting, which paved the way for his
advancement through the bureaucracy and an eventual return to north India. For the remainder of
his career, Bhagabati would work for various railway agencies, moving around the country as he
moved up the ladder.
21
The demands of Bhagabati’s job required the family to move several
more times during Mukunda’s early years, sometimes for short periods and to locations scattered
across 1,500 miles of British India.
22
All of these places were all urban areas, most with modern
infrastructure, in an overwhelmingly rural subcontinent.
23
Unlike the vast majority of the Indian
populace, Mukunda grew up in urban settings surrounded by industry, technology, education,
and links to the larger world.
The railroad represented the apex of British modernity in India and the height of Indian
occupational aspiration, and has thus become a symbolic historiographical battleground over the
effects of modernity in colonial India. A well-established scholarship views railroads as part of
the technological apparatus that allowed a tiny number of British officials to control a
subcontinent of nearly three hundred million subjects, along with steamships and telegraphs.
24

21
Just over a quarter million found employment in railroad workforce, the majority in hard labor. A little more than
6% of this workforce dealt with general administration, like Bhagabati. Ian J. Kerr, Engines of Change: The
Railroads that Made India (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), 83. In 1885, he was transferred to the Office of the
Government Examiner of Railway Accounts and sent to Saharanpur in the United Province. A year and half later,
he was transferred again, this time to Muzaffarpur in Bihar. In October of 1890 he was sent to Gorakhhpur to work
for the Bengal and North-Western Railway (“Mejda,” 13).
22
Lahore, in the Punjab region of northwest India for two years, Bareilly in the United Province, and Chittagong in
Burma for one short month (“Mejda,” 39, 49, 80).
23
Only 28 towns in all of India had a population of over 100,000 at the time, and all of the places Bhagabati worked
(with the exception of Gorakhpur, whose unique features were discussed above) fell into that category. The 1891
census indicates that India was over 90% rural, but even this statistic underreports the nature of the case. The rural
population was composed overwhelmingly of tiny villages numbering fewer than one thousand people—hundreds of
thousands of these villages were spread across a vast and largely untouched by direct British influence. See Census
of India, 1891, 42-49.
24
Steamship travel in the early nineteenth century allowed EIC military officials to transport troops upriver,
facilitating their penetration of the Bengal and Burma interiors. Daniel R. Headrick, Power Over People:
Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2010), 186-191. Steamship travel increased rapidly in the late nineteenth century, and the completion of the Suez
Canal in 1869 sped steamship traffic between metropole and colony. The first full year it was open, the Suez Canal
38
But some Indian elites dissented from this view of the railroad as an unambiguous symbol of
British dominance.
25
Given the indispensable role of Indian labor in railroad construction and
Indians’ rapid embrace of rail transportation, some may have even viewed the railroad as an
Indian achievement. Indian employees with technical expertise like Bhagabati, who thought their
mediating role made them “agents of modern transformation,” were indispensible for the
ongoing supervision and maintenance of the railroad.
26
The railroad primarily symbolized

welcomed fewer than 500 ships; by the turn of the century, that number had grown seven-fold to over 3,400 ships,
and nearly 10 million tons of carrying capacity. The introduction of the telegraph—including an undersea cable that
linked Britain to India in 1870—provided nearly instantaneous communication both between metropole and colony
and within the colony; a message between the two locations took five hours to transmit. See Daniel R. Headrick, The
Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1981), 155-160. Together, these technologies facilitated the rapid movement of troops, if necessary, to stem
popular uprisings before they had a chance to spread. In an1853 memo that laid the foundation for British rail
planning, then governor-general of India Lord Dalhousie wrote that railroads would allow the government to move
troops much more rapidly than was currently possible. Quoted in Edward Davidson, The Railways of India: With an
Account of their Rise, Progress and Construction, Written with the Aid of the Records of the India Office (London,
1868), 87. Postcolonial scholars have enthusiastically echoed Indian nationalist elites’ outrage over the ways the
railroad exploited Indians for the sake of British interests. Romesh Chunder Dutt’s Economic History of India
(1901-03) traced the ways British rule, including infrastructure construction, systematically impoverished India.
Gandhi repeated this critique in his 1909 Hind Swaraj (Prakash, 181-187, 214). Postcolonial scholars are especially
eager to dismiss any notion that British imperialism improved India.

See, for example, Partha Chatterjee, Empire
and Nation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 162, who scoffs, “What is this myth of ‘the beneficial
consequences’ of British rule?” Elsewhere, he comments, “Ours is the modernity of the once-colonized. The same
historical process that has taught us the value of modernity has also made us the victims of modernity” (152).
25
Indeed, Indians adopted any number of modern technological imports and modified them so that they were no
longer recognizably European. More mundane innovations—sewing machines, bicycles, typewriters, and rice
mills—“radically transformed key areas of Indian life” from the 1880s onward. David Arnold, Everyday
Technology: Machines and the Making of India’s Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. The
quote is from 11. On the Indian railroad, see Ian J. Kerr, “Introduction,” in Ian J. Kerr, ed. Railways in Modern India
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). By 1890, the Indian rail network was one of the best in the world, in
large part a result of “the costliest construction project undertaken by any colonial power in any colony.” Kerr’s
paean echoes similar comments made by British residents of India. An Anglo-Indian editorialist marveled in 1900
that the railroad had “given man a total new power, enabling a speed to be realized that to previous ages would have
seemed miraculous;” even decades after the railroad’s debut, “there are few more impressive marvels to be seen by
the eyes of man than an express engine rushing by with a heavy train behind it.” See Good-bye 1800,” January 14,
1900, in Niranjan Majumder, ed., The Statesman: An Anthology (Calcutta: The Statesman Ltd., 1975), 61. Daniel R.
Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1988), 53-56. Indian rail construction began in 1853 year, and over 800 miles had been
completed by the end of the decade; by 1900, the total was nearly 24,000 miles. According to Kerr, “Introduction,”
4, in the 1880s, Indian railways were transporting 63 million passengers per year a total of nearly three billion miles,
and transporting nearly 17 million tons of goods. He points out that railroad development was highest in areas of
British settlement and, even there, economic prosperity resulting from railroad traffic diminished dramatically 50
miles from a rail line (13).
26
Whether postcolonial scholars see them as dupes or quislings, such civil servants complicate “the
colonizer/colonized binary” in their willingness to collaborate with empire and their apparent lack of rancor toward
the British. See Prakash, especially Chapter One, where he discusses Indian elites: “Educated in Western-style
39
opportunity to hardworking, disciplined, abstemious individuals like Bhagabati, who epitomized
the emerging Bengali “middle-class,” the bhadralok. The term almost literally translates to
“gentleman” and connotes respectable qualities like “hard work, achievement, financial success,
and social esteem vis-a-vis the Western world.”
27
From the British perspective, this class
provided ideal candidates for government positions.
28
These jobs offered the bhadralok security
and a measure of prosperity. Obtaining and retaining such positions depended on internalizing
values that were strikingly similar to those of the aspiring American middle class, which
provided the future Swami Yogananda with a unique window into his audience’s psyche, even
though he was never tempted to follow their path.
But occupational success in India depended on more than hard work or British power.
Late nineteenth-century Indian society was deeply influenced by the caste system, part of the
identity children were taught to internalize.
29
According to Susan Bayly, caste ideology assumed

institutions and employed in colonial administration and modern professions, this elite stood on the interstices of
Western science and Indian traditions, embodying and undertaking the reformulation of culture in their reach for
hegemony” (8). The phrase “agents of modern transformation” comes from Prakash, 144.
27
Kopf, 87. Given the nature of the Indian social pyramid, it makes sense to consider the bhadralok “elites,” and this
label will be used for them throughout this chapter. The bhadralok’s characteristics seemed so similar to Max
Weber’s categories that it is easy to see why Kopf described them as Protestants. While this label inappropriately
conflates the categories of Western and modern, it certainly hints at the ways bhadralok individuals might have
easily identified with their middle-class counterparts in Britain or the United States. More recently, Swati
Chattopadhyay, Representing Calcutta: Modernity, Nationalism, and the Colonial Uncanny (New York: Routledge,
2005), 138-139, offers a more nuanced taxonomy that reveals the aspirational character of the bhadralok; while
excluding nobility and the destitute, the bhadralok spanned a range of income levels and classes: “In nineteenth-
century Bengali parlance…the middling classes were referred to as madhyabitta (middle income) or grihastha
(householder). They, along with the “daridra athacha bhadra” (poor yet respectable) constituted the respectable
minority of the Bengali residents in the city—the bhadralok.” Though bhadralok was applied only to Bengalis, this
chapter will consistently apply the term to Bhagabati even when he resided outside Bengal, since he had Bengali
roots and ultimately spent more then half of his life there.
28
An Anglo-Indian editorial from 1884 illustrates this view: “Posts of trust and responsibility, for which natives are
eligible, need not be entirely reserved for graduates, but graduates of good family should be always preferred to
those who cannot boast of high education for such appointments. By men of good family, we do not mean the sons
of the nobility and gentry, but of those belonging to what are considered as respectable classes of the community
from the native point of view.” The Hindustani, February 20, 1884, 161, quoted in Sanjay Joshi, Fractured
Modernity: Making of a Middle Class in Colonial North India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 45.
29
According to Tithi Bhattacharya, The Sentinels of Culture: Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in
Bengal (1848-85) (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), 156, “One of the important things that a Hindu child
learned even before he or she began school, were the names of his/her forefathers, including a detailed account of
40
that people were
born into fixed social units with specific names or titles. Such a unit is one’s caste
or ‘community.’ And, insofar as individuals and kin groups recognize the claims
of caste, these embody something broader than the notion of a common kin or
blood tie. Indeed caste is…a notion of attachment which bundles together a given
set of kin groups or descent units…those born into a given caste would normally
find marriage partners within these limits, and…regard those outside as of unlike
kind, rank or substance. Furthermore,…those sharing a common caste identity
may subscribe to at least a notional tradition of common descent, as well as a
claim of common geographical origin, and a particular occupational ideal.

Consequently, members of particular castes avoid sharing food “or other intimate social
contacts” in a system of ranking viewed as “innate, universal and collective.”
30

The caste system was actually an uneasy amalgamation of two different systems, an
idealized four-fold varna system and a more complex jati system of thousands of occupational
classes, some of them numbering no more than a few hundred members.
31
In the varna system,
the brahmin or priestly class was the most honored, followed by the kshatriya or warrior class,
and then the vaishya or merchant class. Together, these three castes constituted a small elite
presiding over a vast majority of shudras or peasants.
32
Brahmins, kshatriyas, and vaishyas were
dvijas, or twice-born castes, granting males the privilege of learning the Vedas, the most sacred
texts of orthodox religion, and performing the samskaras or rites of passage prescribed in Vedic
texts.
33
Some Indian texts attempted to integrate the two systems, fitting each jati into one of the

the subdivisions of his/her particular caste and clan. It was important for maintaining the intricacies of the kinship
networks, in a familiar world which was at most times bound within the ancestral village.”
30
Susan Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 10.
31
As Wilhelm Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought (New York: State University of
New York Press, 1990), 350-351, shows, even in some ancient texts, however, the two terms are occasionally used
interchangeably.
32
A fifth category was the “untouchables.” These people were avarna, completely outside the caste system, and
members of the other castes avoided all physical contact with them.
33
As a result, in key ways the “ancient” system the British encountered was in fact a modern phenomenon, one
partly of their own making. While they assumed rationality and Christianity would undermine the caste system,
imperial governance reinforced trends underway in the late pre-colonial period: regularizing sedentary commercial
activities with landlord-tenant relationships, and restricting activities that tended to undermine caste strictures—
nomadism and tribal life based on shifting cultivation. C.A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British
41
four varnas, but this was a complex and fluid system full of exceptions.
34
In terms of jati,
Mukunda and his family were members of the Bengali kayastha class, by the nineteenth century
a privileged class that had become associated with the kshyatriya varna.
35
While it is unclear
how Bhagabati originally got into government service, hard work and good luck fail to convey
the whole story. As with others whose privilege remains largely invisible, the opportunities
afforded Mukunda’s family taught him a sense of optimism about the possibility of upward
mobility he would later share with American middle-class audiences. Though he eventually
learned critiques of the caste system—both through Westerners and Indian reformers—he never
expressed the visceral hostility of some. As a cultural-religious nationalist, his primary concern
was to defend the original nobility of the system (including its religious justifications), rather
than to advocate for the dismantling of the system.
Apart from bhadrolok aspirations, Mukunda’s family imparted spiritual training. While

Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). The quote is from 156; the discussion of Victorian hopes
that the caste system was fading is found on pp 136-137. Susan Bayly, 226. Elsewhere, she points out
“[u]ntouchability as we now know it is…very largely a product of colonial modernity, taking shape against a
background of new economic opportunities including recruitment to the mills, docks, and Public Works
Departments…” (70). Language of orthodoxy and heterodoxy is not a contemporary imposition on the past. As
Halbfass, Tradition, 23, notes, “The distinction between ‘orthodox’ (astika) and ‘heterodox’ (nastika) systems is
among the most basic and familiar features o the Indian philosophical tradition.” The most crucial samskāra for
members of the dvija was upanayana, or “taking near,” in which a boy was presented before a guru to begin
instruction in Vedic life. In this ceremony, the boy received the yajnopavita or sacred thread consisting of three
strands, each, in turn, composed of three threads. While members of the kshatriya were historically initiated at
eleven years of age, there was flexibility in the practice. Over time, upananyana became increasingly restricted to
brahmins. Since none of the sources indicate that Mukunda underwent this rite, perhaps Bengali kyshatriyas were no
longer practicing it by the late nineteenth century.
34
Susan Bayly, 25, notes that caste “is not and never has been a fixed fact of Indian life.” Instead, both systems are
“composites of ideals and practices that have been made and remade into varying codes of moral order over
hundreds or even thousands of years.”
35
Kayasthas, previoulsy associated with shudras, became widely recognized across northern India in the eighteenth
century as they began to provide scribal services for princes. Through this association with royalty, kayasthas began
to identify themselves with kshyatriyas. Kayasthas’ ability to upgrade their jati status to conform to one of the
twice-born varna paid rich dividends. Kopf, 87, notes, for example, that the intellectual class of late nineteenth
century Bengal was largely composed of three elite groups, one of whom was kayasthas. Once kayasthas had
solidified their elite status, they used old-fashioned nepotism to pass the benefits on to their extended kin. Joshi, 26,
explains that “Kin connections had played a very important part in getting jobs in the royal courts and
bureaucracies…So much so that certain families and kin groups then came to monopolize particular kinds of
jobs…Such arrangements suited the administrative needs of the state, and also the families in question. Powers of
patronage made kin or family connections of crucial importance, and put well-established kin elders in positions of
great power.”
42
Indian communities often have many temples large and small, most Hindus only participate in
corporate worship at large annual holidays; they do not attend weekly worship services. Instead,
routine religious training and observances occur at home, and pious families offer daily puja,
symbolic sacrifices.
36
The most important element of the worship service—whether at home or
in the temple—is darshan, seeing and being seen by the deity, which confers a spiritual
blessing.
37

Bhagabati and Gyana reared their children in a religiously observant manner, which
included inculcating the Indian cosmology that formed the worldview that Mukunda would later
transmit to his devotees. As in many Indian households, Mukunda’s mother assumed many of the
responsibilities of religious training. Based largely on the Upanishads, esoteric texts that
followed the Vedas, many Indians believe that the human soul is a tangible, though subtle,
material that outlives the individual life to be transplanted into another body after death in a
nearly endless cycle of death and rebirth known as samsara.
38
The nature of an individual’s
rebirth depends on the karma—the fruit of one’s actions—that he or she has acquired during the
present life based on their behavior, as well as the burden one may still carry from previous lives.
Traditionally, karma depended heavily on dharma, or religious duty, based on one’s varna and
asrama, or life-stage, as well as one’s sex; varnashramadharma guidelines only applied to

36
Offerings commonly consist of incense, sandalwood, and food (such as fruit or sweetmeats) to the family deities
honored in a shrine in some dedicated alcove in the home.

After the deity consumes the offering, the remainder
becomes prasada, substantiated grace, sanctified by the deity and ingested by the devotee. Gyana took primary
responsibility for religious instruction, providing moral lessons from the Mahabharata and Ramayana.
(Autobiography, 5). Indian scripture is usually divided into two categories: smriti (“remembered”) texts available to
all, rather than the sruti (“heard”) texts reserved only for the twice-born—primarily the Vedas. The Mahabharata
and Ramayana are a collection of stories traditionally considered smriti. They are more popular, more widespread,
and more varied (there are varied vernacular versions that differ from each other substantially). Since women were
not trained to understand the Sanskrit Vedas, Gyana’s instruction came from the more popular texts.
37
Diana Eck, Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India (Chambersburg: Anima Books, 1981).
38
According to Halbfass, Tradition, 1, while the Vedas theoretically form the core orthodox religious texts, most
Indians generally ignore them. He comments that “one of the familiar paradoxes of the Indian religious and
philosophical tradition that the theory and mythology of transmigration and karma, obviously one of the most basic
and most commonly accepted premises of this tradition, is not found in its most ancient and venerable documents”
(291).
43
males. Dvija males passed through four stages: bramacharya, gharprasthya, vanyaprasthya, and
samnaysin. In order, these were the (celibate) “student” learning the Vedas under a guru’s
instruction, the married “householder” raising children, the “forest dweller” who was semi-
retired from worldly entanglements, and the “renouncer” who had released himself from all
worldly goods and attachments in pursuit of spiritual enlightenment.
39
Most dvija Indian males
viewed the last two stages as idealizations and practiced them in largely symbolic ways, usually
by devoting themselves to the study of the Vedas while remaining at home and living modestly.
But, as Wendy Doniger has argued, different imperatives often led to tension regarding
the ideal path. One strain of Indian thought celebrated earthly pleasures. In this equation, three
goals of life were this-worldly bhoksha or “enjoyment:” dharma (duty or virtue), artha (wealth
or material well-being), kama (pleasure, including sexual pleasure). The fourth goal, moksha
(release from the cycles of life and death) was achieved through restraint. Like the samnyasin or
renouncer stage, many dvijas treated moksha as an ideal to pursue later in life. That is, they
advocated wealth and sexual pleasure for the period from marriage through middle age, followed
by the renunciation of those pursuits later in life as children moved out of the house and direct
parental duties came to an end.
Mukunda’s parents embraced a modified form of sannaysin when they became followers
of Lahiri Mahasaya, a swami Bhagabati had been introduced to by one of his railway employees
in 1890. A swami is a samnyasin who strives toward self-mastery, or “ownership of himself”
often through the meditative discipline of yoga. Swamis often act as guides to others. Mahasaya
trained disciples from all walks of life, but as a married pensioner who had worked for the

39
Originally, the renouncer or samnyāsin was an alternative path to the other three stages of earthly existence—the
one who rejected home and family. But these alternate paths were eventually reconciled when samnyāsins
incorporated as a life stage to create a somewhat uneasy four-part system. See Wendy Doniger, On Hinduism (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 28.
44
British government for twenty-five years, he often attracted other civil servants like Bhagabati.
40

Through Mahasaya’s inspiration, Mukunda’s parents apparently only had sexual intercourse
once a year for the purpose of reproduction; they practiced this modified continence well before
the standard age for the samnyasin stage. Their restraint, while driven by spiritual commitment,
dovetailed well with the asceticism the bhadralok valued for more pragmatic reasons.
41

Mukunda’s parents thus modeled for him both spiritual devotion and a cautious attitude toward
sexuality that, by tending to limit family size, proved advantageous to middle class aspirants,
whether in India or the US.
Because a highly developed guru like Swami Mahasaya became a pure channel for the
divine presence, an image of a guru sometimes served the purpose of darshan in lieu of (or in
addition to) an image of a deity. The Ghosh home included a shrine to Swami Mahasaya, so
Mukunda grew up offering puja to this guru in addition to the family’s honoring of more
traditional Hindu deities.
42
This practice formed the basis of Yogananda’s later use of his own
photographic portrait as a means of spiritual blessing to his disciples.

Mukunda Lal Ghosh’s Spiritual Pilgrimage
Mukunda enjoyed a pleasant and unremarkable childhood. He had attended elementary school,
which was conducted in Hindi and his family comfortably, if not extravagantly, given

40
Swami Satyananda Giri, “Yogiraj Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasay” in Swami Satyananda Giri, A Collection of
Biographies of 4 Kriya Yoga Gurus (Battle Creek: Yoga Niketan, 2004), 9-29.
41
Though Yogananda, Autobiography, 7, does not explicitly identify his father as a member of the bhadralok, he
comments that his parents’ devotion to Mahasaya—including sexual restraint—“strengthened Father’s naturally
ascetical temperament.”
42
The Ghosh family originally included a statue of Narayan, an avātara of Vishnu. At some point, Gyana added a
statue of the Goddess Mother (“Mejda,” 17). Many followers of Vishnu believe that he appeared in different forms
at different times in history to help his devotees. Though the number of avātaras differs depending on the
community, most communities accept Rama, Krishna, and Buddha as core avātaras.
45
Bhagabati’s penchant for simplicity.
43
This unexceptional childhood was shattered when tragedy
struck in 1904, the year the family moved to Bareilly. Mukunda’s mother, Gyana, was staying
with her husband’s extended family in Calcutta preparing for the wedding of Mukunda’s older
brother, Ananta. Gyana’s nephew contracted cholera and in the process of nursing the child, she
contracted the disease as well. Cholera—endemic to India and only introduced to Europe and the
United States when rapid transportation facilitated infection—is typically spread through contact
with human waste.
44
Victims often died rapidly from extreme diarrhea and vomiting, a fate that
befell Gyana’s nephew. She sent a telegram to her husband notifying him of her illness.
Bhagabati and the rest of the family, including Mukunda, rushed to Calcutta. But Gyana died
before they arrived. “When we reached our Calcutta home,” Mukunda later recalled, “it was only
to confront the stunning mystery of death. I collapsed into an almost lifeless state.” Gyana was
cremated according to Vedic prescriptions.
This traumatizing experience shaped the rest of Mukunda’s life. His mother’s tragic
death, intensified by its shocking suddenness, which had prevented any final farewells, was a
devastating blow. “The rent left in the family fabric by Mother’s death was irreparable,”
Mukunda later recalled.
45
He later claimed to have had a premonition of his mother’s death,
which he reported to his father, who dismissed the vision and delayed departing for Calcutta for
a few hours. Mukunda blamed his mother’s death on his father’s delay, though there is no reason
to think that arriving early would have changed her fate. Though Bhagabati lived another thirty-

43
According to the Autobiography, 4-6, Mukunda’s parents argued from time to time over Gyana’s penchant for
charity, which the parsimonious Bhagabati grudgingly considered extravagant.
44
By the mid-nineteenth century, medical researchers began to understand the link between waste, bacteria, and
disease like bacteria. A British medical handbook, W.J. Moore, A Manual of the Diseases of India (London: John
Churchill, 1861), 162-163 published in 1861 still claimed uncertainty about whether “the disease spreads from direct
contagion or atmospheric causes, there are abundant instances of its passing through a camp or city in such a manner
as can only be accounted for by the almost demonstrated fact that a specific cholera-poison exists.” Indeed, German
Dr. Robert Koch, a pioneer in epidemiology, conducted important research in Calcutta that decisively established
the link between human waste and the infection of healthy humans.
45
Autobiography, 16, 18.
46
eight years after his wife’s death, he never remarried. His understanding of religious tradition
counseled stoicism in the face of suffering, but, beyond this, he seems to have been an
emotionally reserved man. As an adult, Mukunda’s approach to religion would be characterized
by bhakti, emotionally intense devotion to one’s chosen deity, perhaps as much a reaction to his
father’s reserved demeanor as well as a reflection of his personal disposition.
Mukunda’s older brother, Ananta, assumed many parental responsibilities at home, while
a long-time family servant provided a surrogate mother. Still, Mukunda grew up largely without
a mother figure. This longing for maternal comfort encouraged his affection for the female
representation of the deity that was one prominent path in Bengal.
46

Shortly thereafter, in July 1906, Bhagabati was transferred to Calcutta. The city had been
nerve center of British India since East India Company (EIC) agent Job Charnock chose a
location on the east bank of the Hooghly River, an offshoot of the Ganges, as a protected port
city several miles north of the Bay of Bengal in 1690. The EIC consolidated its foothold during
the Battle of Plassy in 1757 in the midst of the Seven Years War. The Sepoy Rebellion, exactly a
century, later led Parliament to replace EIC rule with direct crown rule, but Calcutta remained
the imperial administrative center. With a population of 1.1 million—roughly the size of
Philadelphia, and double the size of Boston, Baltimore, or St. Louis—Calcutta was a dynamic
global city that provided the decisive cultural and intellectual influence on Mukunda as he
moved from adolescence into adulthood.
47
The East India Company installed the first printing

46
In the “Lost Two Black Eyes,” which first appeared in print in 1928, Yogananda reflected on his mother’s lost
black eyes, which were only replaced when he found the love of the “divine mother.” He also referred to India as a
mother, thus conflating human motherhood, the divine, and the nation of India, a popular trope in late nineteenth-
century Bengali literature, seen, for example, in Chaterjee’s Ananandmath and Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home
and the World.
47
Census of India, 1911, Volume I, Part II—Tables (Calcutta: The Superintendent of Government Printing, India,
1913), 24. C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914 (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 172, lists
Calcutta as one of a half-dozen global cities that had become deeply implicated in the industrial world by the late
nineteenth century, commenting that these cities’ elites were “as much implicated in the industrial world system as
47
press in Calcutta in 1779.
48
The entire apparatus of British Indian government, including the
Viceroy’s massive 84,000 square foot neo-classical mansion was roughly three miles from the
family home. The late nineteenth century Indian economy was central to the global economy,
and Calcutta was the most important British port for exporting goods to England and Europe.
49

Humans were another export. The far-flung nature of the British Empire drew poor, desperate
South Asians across the British Empire to serve in various forms of service throughout the
British Empire—in South Africa, Mauritius, and the Caribbean.
50
This growing diaspora
compelled Calcuttans like Mukunda to recognize the reality of a globalized world and, perhaps,
reflect on his own place within it. The same port that served as a transit station for goods was
also a conduit for ideas. “Radical ideas that challenged the bases of the traditional world order in
Europe and America were a form of intellectual cargo unloaded on the docks of the great
metropolis, along with the other industrial and commercial products.”
51

Mukunda had little interest in formal education; perhaps the most important outcome of
Hindu School was that he began to learn English systematically, a necessary prerequisite for his
later career in the United States. Despite his slight physique, Mukunda displayed athletic

those of the West.”
48
Saayan Chattopadhyay, “Performative Modernity: Journalism and the Colonial Public Sphere,” in Pradip Basu,
ed., Colonial Modernity: Indian Perspectives (Calcutta: Setu Prakashani, 2011), 172, n. 2.
49
Tirkthankar Roy, India in the World Economy: From Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2012), 188, and Dharma Kumar, ed., The Cambridge Economic History of India, volume 2 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), 397-398. There was a small manufacturing sector. Three major industries
accounted for most of the manufacturing output in late nineteenth century industry: jute, cotton, and iron. While
cotton and to some extent iron production were centered in the greater Bombay area, jute production was
concentrated in Bengal. Jute was used for sacking cloth. After 1870, Calcutta’s jute manufacturing industry began to
rise to global dominance with spinning and weaving in Calcutta using steam-powered machines. Between 1869 and
1913, the number of mills jumped from five to sixty-four, while the number of employees shot up from between five
to ten thousand to two hundred and fifteen thousand. See Roy, 191.
50
In the ten years between 1885 and 1894, for example, over 123,000 Indians left their homelands in what many
hoped would be temporary exile but which often turned out to be permanent resettlement. The vast majority of those
migrant laborers embarked for overseas ports from Calcutta. “Number of Coolie Emigrants Embarked from
Calcutta, Madras, and French Ports in India, to Various Colonies,” Statistical Abstract Relating to British India from
1885-86 to 1894-95 London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office 1896, 276. See also David Northrup, Indentured Labor
in the Age of Imperialism, 1834-1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
51
Kopf, 42.
48
prowess as a boy, excelling in track and wrestling. He also enjoyed soccer. Directly across the
street from the Ghosh home in Calcutta sat the Calcutta Deaf and Dumb School. Almost
immediately after moving in, Mukunda met Manomohan Mazumdar, whose father lived at and
supervised the school. Despite a gap in age—Mazumdar was a couple years younger than
Mukunda—the two clicked immediately, soon to become partners on a joint spiritual quest.
52

Mazumdar remembered his time with Mukunda as “one of inspiration which stirs the deepest
part of my heart.”
53

It was during this period that Mukunda’s deeply-rooted interest in spirituality blossomed.
His religious interests were both more earnest and more idiosyncratic than those of his family
members. The combination of adolescence, the recent death of his mother, and the stimulating
cultural environment of Calcutta was a potent mix. According to Mukunda’s younger brother, he
“left no stone unturned in his spiritual investigations.”
54
The spiritual eclecticism, deep devotion,
and intense commitment to India and its sacred geography that came to characterize Mukunda’s
life often placed him at odds with his family. While Mukunda’s parents were quite pious, the
intensity of his devotion often placed him at odds with his family members who wanted him to
take a “conventional” path to middle-class respectability through marriage, family, and the very
British bureaucracy that epitomized colonial modernity rather than the spiritual path of
renunciation he craved. From his adolescence on, Mukunda’s life in India was characterized by

52
According to Sananda, from the day the two met, they were “fast friends;” “they were attracted instantly in a
friendship that transcended their difference in age; they felt the magnetic drawing of the heart’s pure love.”
“Mejda,” 93-94.
53
They were in close physical proximity and both deeply interested in spiritual matters. Mazumdar provides one of
the most important sources of information about Mukunda’s early life. Apart from Mukunda’s brother Sananda,
Mazumdar is the only person with direct knowledge of Mukunda’s childhood who provided any record. Mazumdar
eventually became Swami Satyananda, so despite the anachronism of using this label for Mazumdar as boy, that
name will be used from this point forward for clarity. See Satyananda, “Yogananda,” 147.
54
“Mejda,” 144. Sananda recounts Mukunda’s spiritual activities as a very young boy: making his own Kali statue,
installing a makeshift puja room for it, and conducting religious services that the family observed from a distance.
This account smacks of hagiography, retrojecting Mukunda’s spirituality into the earliest part of his life. In his
Autobiography, Yogananda, never reluctant to share about his precocious spiritual tendencies, does not mention this
Kali worship.
49
repeated clashes with his father and older brother over the direction of his future.
He experimented with Tantrism, a religious tradition that was especially prominent in
Bengal, where it may have originated in roughly the seventh century, outside of Vedic
traditions.
55
David Gordon White’s definition provides a useful starting point:
Tantra is the Asian body of beliefs and practices that works from the principle that
the universe we experience is nothing other than the concrete manifestation of the
divine energy of the godhead that creates and maintains that universe, seeks to
ritually appropriate and channel that energy within the human microcosm, in
creative and emancipatory ways.
56

It is described as a means of accessing divine power or even becoming divine. There is
frequently an erotic dimension to Tantrism, whether through a male devotee expressing desire
for the goddess, or though accessing the nectar that flows from the divine sexual union between a
god and goddess—usually Siva and Shakti, the personification of female divine power. Tantric
practitioners flout orthodox Vedic religious conventions by purposely engaging in taboo
activities.
57
Over time, some Tantric devotees blunted the sharp edge of Tantra’s taboo practices
by converting consumption of polluting substances to symbolic consumption. Nevertheless,
Tantrism retains the sense of being outside the mainstream.
As part of his exploration of Tantrism, Mukunda and his friends apparently experimented

55
Though, as with all practices in Hinduism, generalizations can be hazardous, the problem is even more acute with
Tantrism, a diverse, fluid movement whose traditions have often been secret. Also, contemporary knowledge about
Tantra was largely mediated to the West through the British, whose zeal to describe the epitome of primitive
religion, often led to gross misrepresentations; Indians, for their part, cooperated in the process of exoticization. See
Hugh B. Urban, Tanra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power in the Study of Religion (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2003), Chapter 1. On the practitioner becoming divine, see Douglas Renfrew Brooks, The Secret of the Three
Cities: An Introduction to Hindu Sakta Tantrism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 199), 92. Wendy Doniger,
The Hindus: An Alternate History (New York: Penguin, Press 2009), 419-420, suggests that common features of
Tantra include “worship of the goddess, initiation, group worship, secrecy, and antinomian behavior, particularly
sexual rituals and the ingesting of bodily fluids.” She further notes that Tantrism can include texts, rituals, myths, art
forms, mantras, and yantras (“mystical designs”). David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine
in the Hindu Religious Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 1, claims that goddess worship is
one of “the most striking characteristics of the ancient and multi-faceted Hindu religious tradition.”
56
David Gordon White, “Introduction,” in David Gordon White, ed., Tantra in Practice (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2000), 9.
57
Pancamakara or the five substances: mamsa, matsya, madya, mudra, and maithuna, or flesh (meat), fish, liquor,
female sexual partner, and sexual fluids.
50
with visits to the cremation grounds where his mother’s final rights had been performed. In
Tantrism, visiting cremation grounds is a way of overcoming the most extreme taboo of contact
with dead humans. Mukunda and his friends stopped short of sitting on corpses or piles of skulls
as Tantrics typically do; he did, however, bring a human skull into his room for meditation.
Tantrism’s arcana usually necessitate a guide, and there is no indication that Mukunda had such a
guru, though he met occasionally with a sadhu or ascetic. In any case, this experimentation did
not last long. Because some Tantric practices are esoteric and non-conventional, many Indians
view it as potentially dangerous. Mukunda’s friends found Mukunda’s practices dangerous, and
Bhagabati ended the practice after he discovered it. Still, crucial elements of Tantrism made their
way into Mukunda’s worldview, including devotion to female divinity and an understanding of
yoga as the stirring up of female spiritual power.
58
The Autobiography passes over this subject
in silence, perhaps a reflection of the tendency to minimize controversial subjects, even long
after any criticism might be leveled at Mukunda for having explored these (literally) taboo
activities.
In his pursuit of Tantra, with its claims to divine power, Mukunda apparently first began
to claim transcendent experiences and a nascent ability to perform miraculous feats. Mazumdar,
whom Mukunda dragged along on many of his spiritual adventures, recounted some of these
claims: “Direct encounters with ascended beings, the radiant and divine appearances of
supernatural power-endowed realized beings, the arrival of the spirit of a dead person in the
midst of mesmerized people and speaking with that spirit, and ordinary sightings of ghosts and
such were things that he believed in, and pursued with concentrated means in situations and
occasions.” Mazumdar proved something of a skeptic when it came to Mukunda’s more fantastic
claims; his doubts were not lost on his more exuberant companion:

58
“Mejda,” 144-145; Satyananda, “Yogananda,” 157-158.
51
One day, because of some situation, he said to me, ‘Oh! Of course, you don’t
believe all this?’ I told him, ‘I cannot say something so big and certain like, “I don’t
believe.” My knowledge is limited. But I don’t have much interest in these things—
meaning these kinds of supernatural workings, and I have managed my own explanations
for these things as well.’ In any case, his belief in these remained firm and unshakable
throughout his whole life.”
59

However willing a companion Mazumdar may have been in their spiritual journey together,
Mukunda’s intensity was remarkable even to him.
One of the most famous events of Mukunda’s childhood took place in 1906, the year the
family moved to Calcutta. This oft-recounted story symbolized Mukunda’s intense spiritual
longing, and his willingness to pursue that longing—if necessary without his family’s approval.
As in other religious traditions, pilgrimage to sacred places plays a key role in the enchantment
of the world. For millennia, Indians have viewed the towering Himalayas as sacred space.
Mukunda desired to go pilgrimage to the Himalayas, which his father and older brother found
unnecessarily extravagant. Mukunda conspired to sneak away with his friends to Haridwar,
nearly a thousand miles from his home in Calcutta. Haridwar, one of the few gateway towns to
the Himalayas, was considered a sacred place because the waters of the Ganges first reach the
plains from the mountains at this spot. Haridwar had long been a pilgrimage site, one of the
locations of the kumbha mela, the largest religious gathering in India (and likely the world),
which rotates between several key pilgrimage sites.
60
Bathing in its waters has long been
believed to confer salvific benefits.
Such a journey for a thirteen-year old boy was only conceivable because Mukunda had a

59
Satyananda, “Yogananda,” 172. Sananda corroborates these eclectic dalliances, including divination, hypnotism,
clairvoyance, and the ability to communicate with the dead—most notably, his mother (“Mejda,” 122-127). Some
of these practices betray an awareness of Western metaphysical traditions, but Mukunda’s interest in practices
outside of Indian traditions seems superficial and short-lived. They made comparatively little long-term impact on
his views, in comparison with the various strands of Indian spirituality that shaped his beliefs.
60
A British observer of the 1796 Hardiwar kumbha mela estimated a crowd of 2.5 million—and this was before
railroads increased access to this auspicious site. See Ian Kerr, “Reworking a Popular Religious Practice: The
Effects of Railways on Pilgrimage in nineteenth and twentieth Century South Asia,” in Ian Kerr, ed., Railways in
Modern India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 308.
52
broad familiarity with geography, railroads, and timetables. A police officer, suspicious about
several young unaccompanied teens in such a remote place, detained them. Mukunda’s older
brother Ananta, who had uncovered the plan, travelled to Haridwar, collected Mukunda and his
friends, and returned them home. When word of this adventure got out at school, Mukunda’s
classmates began to view him as a bit of odd, more to be pitied than mocked or feared.
The collapse of Mukunda’s Himalaya plans did not dampen his spiritual fervor. In many
ways Calcutta provided as rich a spiritual environment as anything the Himalayas had to offer.
Bhagabati unintentionally reinforced Mukunda’s spiritual interests when he hired a Sanskrit tutor
who turned out to be an advanced disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya.
61
In addition, the great
Dakshineswar Temple was located several miles north of his home. A large, sprawling complex,
Dakshineswar’s central shrine was devoted to the goddess Kali, but also housed a dozen smaller
shrines honoring Shiva. This complex pulsated with crowds of pilgrims from all around the
greater Calcutta area. Sri Ramakrishna, perhaps the most famous religious figure of nineteenth
century India, had resided at the temple for several years until his death in 1886. Directly across
the Hooghly River from the Dakshineswar Temple sat Belur Math, the sprawling monastery that
the Ramakrishna order established a decade after its namesake’s death. Ramakrishma’s most
famous devotee Swami Vivekananda founded the monastery and its associated mission to
expand the reach of his master’s teaching. Vivekananda had become a celebrated figure in the
United States when he visited the World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893, the year Mukunda
was born. American religious scholars often treat this event, particularly Vivekananda’s electric
speeches there, as the starting point of American religious pluralism. Vivekananda founded an
American branch of the Ramakrishna order in the US, known as the Vedanta Movement.
Mukunda never had a chance to meet Vivekananda, who died at 39 in 1902, several years

61
“Mejda,” 104-106; Satyananda, “Yogananda,” 183; Dasgupta, 13.
53
before the Ghosh family moved to Calcutta. But the Ramakrishna movement’s influence in
Bengal far outlasted Vivekananda’s death. According to Mazumdar, in Mukunda’s high school
years, he “would become filled with the nectar of devotion whenever he would meditate on Sri
Ramakrishna Paramhansa-deva, the divine worshiper of the Mother of the Universe.” So he
“would suffer the pains of going by foot to Dakshineswar” the Temple where Ramakrishna had
resided, “and he would sit immersed in meditation there…He used to also find out ways of
meeting with and being in the company of the sannyasi-maharaj disciples of Sri Ramakrishna.”
62

He also went across the river to the Belur Math frequently.
63
On several occasions, Mukunda met
with Sri “M,” an advanced disciple of Ramakrishna.
64
While Mukunda never became a formal
disciple of Ramakrishna, he was clearly influenced by his teachings—an important connection
that helps explain many of the similarities in the teachings of Yogananda and Vivekananda.
Through college, he carried a booklet of Ramakrishna’s teachings in his pocket, meditated on
them regularly, and offered to share them with interested acquaintances.
65

While technologies introduced by the British—trains and cheap print—facilitated his
journey, he followed an Indian pathway only modestly influenced by the substance of Western
thought.

62
“Mejda,” 119; quote from Satyananda, “Yogananda,” 183.
63
Dasgupta, 12.
64
Sri “M” was responsible for The Gospel According to Ramakrishna, a sprawling thousand-plus page collection of
the largely uneducated swami’s sayings that Sri M recorded as he traveled with Ramakrishna. It takes the form of a
day-by-day narrative of a series of dialogs, including frequently dialogs in which M discusses himself in third-
person. Mahendra Nath Gupta Rāmakṛishṇa, Swami Nikhilānanda, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (New York:
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942). Mukunda apparently requested both Sri “M” and Swami Prajnananda (the
head of the Belur Math at the time) to make him their disciple, though both declined (Dasgupta 12).
65
Satyananda, “Yogananda,” 181. Given Ramakrishna’s prestige in Bengal—indeed, in India at large in this era—
and Mukunda’s apparently deep interest in his teachings and his disciples, Yogananda makes surprisingly few
references to Ramakrishna in his Autobiography. There are probably two reasons for this. The most important is that
while Yogananda wanted to fashion himself in the mold of Vivekananda, he did not want to seem like a second,
knock-off version. The best way to highlight the significance of his own work in the US was to downplay
Vivekananda, which necessitated dismissing Vivekenanda’s mentor as well. The second reason the depth of
Ramakrisha’s influence on Yogananda has too often gone unnoticed is because so much attention has focused on
Mukunda’s formal discipleship to his formal guru, Sri Yukteswar.
54

The Education of a Swami
After graduating from high school, Mukunda believed he had fulfilled his promise to his
career-oriented father and was thus free to pursue his spiritual interests. A short stay at a retreat
in Benares left him dissatisfied. But while there, he met Sri Swami Yukteswar, a former disciple
of Lahiri Mahasaya and the man who was to become his guru. While he hoped to devote his
entire life to the renunciate life, Yukteswar insisted on a college education. This requirement
immersed the adult Mukunda in the world of the Bengali elite, whose cultural rebirth was in full
flower. The Bengali Renaissance deeply shaped Mukunda’s views of Indian spirituality and its
relationship to the West.
In 1909, continuing his search for spiritual enlightenment, Mukunda followed Mazumdar
to Benares where he had gone to join the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal hermitage. One of India’s
most sacred sites, Benares’ cremation grounds on the edge of the Ganges had been a pilgrimage
site for centuries, as cremation at this auspicious site was thought to automatically grant the
departed liberation from the cycles of samsara. Though the Autobiography says nothing about
the particular beliefs espoused by Mahamandal leaders, it is telling that he and Mazumdar chose
to affiliate with “perhaps the most successful orthodox organization on the subcontinent,” with
patronage from rajas, landowners, and merchants.
66
A popular reform movement begun in the
late nineteenth century in the Punjab and relocated to Benares early in the new century, the
organization grew dramatically after its relocation. In 1915, it had 600 branches spread
throughout India, and another 400 affiliated organization. The Mahamandal emphasized
adherence to sanatana dharma, essentially the “eternal religion” of Hinduism. The notion of an

66
Kenneth N. Jones, Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989), 78-82; the quote is on 82.
55
eternal, changeless religion was in fact a recent innovation, as was the organization’s willingness
to make Vedic texts available to all people, regardless of sex or caste. While the organization
made the very modern claim that Indian religious “is the universal Dharma for all mankind,” its
definition of sanatana dharma was extremely traditional, even occasionally reactionary.
Defending the “orthodox” faith in the face of challenges by more radical reform groups like the
Arya Samaj, the Mahamandal stressed supreme importance of varnashramadharma, an
individual’s spiritual duties based on caste and life stage. The Mahamandal’s staff included
missionaries who sought to convert Indians from their various sectarian beliefs to the “one true
faith,” an extremely optimistic goal given the welter of beliefs and practices throughout the
subcontinent.
67
From his short stint with the Mahamandal, Mukunda would take several key
ideas: the concept of sanatana dharma, the vision of a unified Indian religion, a passion for
Sanskrit, and the novel concept (in an Indian religious context) of evangelization, though his
target converts would be Americans rather than his fellow Indians.
Despite the crucial values the Mahamandal instilled in Mukunda, he was deeply unhappy
there. In his recollection, the “household was alienated, hurt by my determined aloofness. My
strict adherence to meditation on the very Ideal for which I had left home and all the worldly
ambitions called forth shallow criticism from all sides.”
68
A less sympathetic reading of the
tension between Mukunda and his fellow ashram members might suggest that his dreamy
spirituality caused him to neglect mundane housekeeping routines, which provoked resentment
from his colleagues who had to pick up the slack.
69
Either way, unable to get along well with the
other initiates, he was restless for a change.

67
J.N. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements in India (New York: MacMillan, 1915), 316-323. In addition to its
traditional emphasis on varnashramadharma, the Mahamandal stressed traditional practices like child marriage and
cow protection, while opposing the construction of new mosques. On sanatana dharma, see Halbfass, 339-348.
68
Autobiography, 92.
69
This is the interpretation Mazumdar implies. See Satyananda, “Yogananda,” 177.
56
His rescue came through the fateful encounter with Swami Sri Yukteswar described in
the chapter introduction. Yukteswar had grown up in a wealthy family in Serampore, near
Calcutta, and reflected the pattern of many gurus of the era: deeply immersed in Vedic texts and
conversant with secular and religious Western traditions. A bright student and gifted
mathematician, he explored a diverse range of Indian traditions. At Serampore Christian
Missionary College, he read the Bible and learned about the life of Christ. He was especially
drawn to the book of Revelation, learning to read it as a prophetic confirmation of his own
astrology-based Hindu eschatology. His scientific curiosity later drew him to Calcutta Medical
College, where he learned anatomy, physiology, and some medicine. He also became enamored
of naturopathy, a German tradition that was developing in the late nineteenth century. At some
point, Yuktestwar explored the possibility of affiliating with the Ramakrishna movement. While
this never transpired, it again suggests the affinity between Yogananda’s lineage and that of the
Vivekananda.
70

Eventually, Yukteswar sought out the guru Lahiri Mahasaya in Benares and became his
disciple, learning the “Kriya Yoga” he would later pass on to Mukunda. Sailendra Dasgupta, a
disciple of Yukteswar, describes Kriya Yoga as “an esoteric doctrine of spiritual efforts practised
in India from hoary ages by aspirants after Self Realisation and Emancipation from worldly
bondage. It is a set of physical and mental techniques by following which consummation of
Yoga can be achieved.” He goes on to explore each term individually. Kriya “represents a
specially designed mode of efforts, physical as well as mental, which is the secret technique of
the Yogis,” while yoga designates “the only process adopting which one can get over the
disturbing factors, physical as well as mental, in attaining the quietude deemed essential for Self

70
Swami Satyananda Giri, “Swami Sri Yukteswar Maharaj: A Biography,” in A Collection of Biographies of 4
Kriya Yoga Gurus (Battle Creek: Yoga Niketan, 2004), 108.
57
Realisation.” As will be discussed later in the dissertation, despite the aura of uniqueness and
secrecy, Kriya Yoga is virtually indistinguishable from several other forms of popular yoga.”
71

While he remained firmly within the sphere of Hinduism, ideas that forged a dialog
between Hinduism and Christianity,. In 1894, Yukteswar authored The Holy Science, a short
book he described as a search for the truth in all religions. The Holy Science presented a view of
yoga—though he avoided this word—as part of a coherent, systematic practice that would lead
to the highest goal of religion, self-knowledge. His language reflected Christian terminology: the
first chapter, “The Gospel,” discussed God the Father, sin, and repentance. But this Christian
vocabulary reflected not syncretism, but rather a way of correlating Hindu theology with
Christian terms. God the Father was really sat, the only reality in the universe. Repentance meant
not turning from sin, but abandoning maya (ignorance), rediscovering one’s own divinity and
thus experiencing liberation. The practical method to achieve liberation required vegetarianism,
extended time in the open air, and spending time to those to whom one was “magnetically”
drawn—language reflecting Ayurvedic interpretation of modern science, not mesmerism.
Successful practice would lead to supernatural yogic powers:
Life and death come under the control of the yogi who perseveres in the practice
of Pranayama. In that way, he saves his body from the premature decay that
overtakes most men, and can remain as long as he wishes in his present physical
from; thus having time to work out his karma in one body; and to fulfil (and thus
get rid of) all the various desires of his heart. Finally purified, he is no longer
required to come again into this world under the influence of Maya, darkness, nor
to suffer the "second death."
72

Overall, what is most striking about Yukteswar’s philosophy was his deep immersion in the
Indian classical tradition, especially his knowledge of Sanskrit and reading of the Vedas. Apart

71
Sri Sailendra Bejoy Dasgupta, Kriya Yoga (Bloomington: iUniverse, 2006), 1-3.
72
Swami Yukteswar, The Holy Science: Kaivalya Darasanam, 6
th
ed. (Ranchi: Yogoda Satsanga Society of India,
1963), 51.
58
from his brief foray into homeopathy, which Yukteswar may have viewed as simply as a set
practical tools to apply Indian understanding of health and the body, there is little evidence that
he intentionally borrowed conceptual knowledge from the West.
The relationship Mukunda and his mentor developed quickly, though Mukunda’s family
did not immediately allow him to become a formal devotee. Still, Yukteswar soon had
tremendous influence over Mukunda. The yogi convinced his academically indifferent protégé to
attend college. Yukteswar may have intended to cool Mukunda’s ardor for the renouncer’s path
through this delaying tactic. It is more likely that Yukteswar, himself college-educated, was
convinced that Mukunda’s future success hinged on the credibility that came with a university
degree, just as it had for Mukunda’s implicit model Swami Vivekananda.
73
Whatever the case,
Mukunda’s spiritual father succeeded where his earthly father had failed. Bhagabati, who shared
the sentiment of his bhadralok class that education was “the most important and marketable
skill,”
74
had pressured Mukunda into at least dabbling with college before he went to the Benares
Mahamandal. His prodding had modest success, as Mukunda grudgingly enrolled briefly in both
agricultural college and Medical College in Calcutta.
75
Though he was undeniably bright,
Mukunda found formal education extremely trying. But if his master demanded it, he would
comply.
Indian higher education developed in a century-long process that ultimately represented
the victory of a Western-based Anglicist approach over an earlier Orientalist approach

73
Dasgupta, 20, recounts a dialog where Yukteswar explains to Mukunda: “You have to become great. Of course
you’ll be a sannyasi but what will you be able to do by being a little weakling baba [sage]? You have to become like
Swami Vivekananda. It is for this reason that you have to get a B.A. degree.” In his narration, Dasgupta explains
that “in those days all spiritual-minded patriotic Indian youths’ ideal was Mother India’s valiant son Swami
Vivekananda.”
74
Joshi, 7, comments that one “objective indicator distinguishing the middle class in colonial India was its exposure
to western-style education.”
75
Intriguingly, though, the two colleges he dabbled in did ultimately play a role in his life—as a vegetarian who
experimented with different recipes and as a physical culturalist who believed that yogic practices healed the body
and the mind, not just the spirit.
59
emphasizing the study of Sanskrit and Sanskrit religious texts.
76
The movement away from
Orientalist scholarship began with Parliament’s 1813 renewal of the EIC charter, which required
reauthorization every twenty years. Three distinct groups lobbied to transform a provision in the
new charter into tangible reality:
77
evangelical missionaries were anxious to encourage reading
of the Word among Indian elites,
78
utilitarian thinkers inspired by Jeremy Bentham who
demanded practical instruction,
79
and the Bengali bhadralok who viewed English-based higher
education as a means to secure for their offspring occupations in commerce or government

76
The Orientalist approach was partly inspired by EIC employee William Jones’s conclusion that English and
Sanskrit were part of a single language family, a conclusion that prompted efforts to preserve Sanskrit texts, to teach
the language, and to reinforce a textual understanding of Indian religious traditions. In a speech that has become
famous, Jones declared, “The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect
than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a
stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by
accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung
from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible,
for supposing that both the Gothik and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin
with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were the place for discussing any
question concerning the antiquities of Persia.” Sir William Jones, Discourses Delivered before the Asiatic Society:
and Miscellaneous Papers, on the Religion, Poetry, Literature, etc., of the Nations of India. Printed for C. S. Arnold,
28. Sanskrit’s position in a larger Indo-European language family prompted theories to explain the particular
relationship between the two major language families, including the pressing questions of primacy and origins. A
number of early theorists, Jones included, assumed that Sanskrit (or its parent language) was the source of Proto-
Indo-European languages. This discovery provided the most important source of the Orientalism that would flourish
in European, and later American, culture in the nineteenth century—a fondness for the quaint, archaic, beautiful, and
ultimately doomed ways of an exotic civilization. The powerful romantic image of India as a picturesque, pre-
modern society captivated the imaginations of nineteenth century Europeans and Americans alike—an image
Yogananda would confront (and exploit) in his American ministry. Early Indian colleges served the needs of EIC
officials, their fascination with India, and, at the same time, provided a functional knowledge that supported the
British ability to control subject peoples.
77
This analysis relies heavily on Suresh Chandra Ghosh, The History of Education in Modern India, 1757-2012, 4
th

ed., (Delhi: Orient Black Swan, 2013), 20-38.
78
EIC officials fervently resisted missionary efforts, fearing that evangelical critiques of Vedic beliefs and practices
would be offensive and severely disruptive. The EIC officials who worried about the disruptive consequences of
evangelical missionaries were not wrong. Almost immediately, missionaries began to rail against several elements
of Indian culture. Polytheism and barbaric practices that went with it—frenzied ceremonies, animal sacrifices, and
hook-swinging where devotees hung suspended from a rope attached to a pole as an act of devotion—became
regular fodder for reports home soliciting more funds to continue the work. Social practices linked to Vedic belief
also came under attack. Most prominent among the missionaries of a Victorian society sensitive to the genteel
treatment of women, were practices involving wives: sati, or ceremonial self-immolation on a husband’s funeral
pyre as a means of showing wifely devotion and child marriage—sometimes occurring between infants and adult
men—to ensure sexual purity.
79
Utilitarians easily rivaled evangelicals in their critique of traditional Indian society. According to historian
Michael Curtis, James Mill “criticized Hindu manners and behavior, attributing to them many unpleasant
characteristics such as indolence, avarice, lack of cleanliness, ignorance, absence of rational thought, insincerity,
mendacity, perfidy, and indifference to the feelings of others.” Michel Curtis, Orientalism and Islam: European
Thinkers on Oriental Despotism in the Middle East and India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 187.
60
service that they had enjoyed themselves.
80
In 1835 this lobbying paid off when Indian
Governor-General William Bentinck began a halting education effort to instruct “natives” in
English and Western subjects,
81
though another half-century passed before sustained efforts were
made to create a functional system of higher education. In 1899, George Nathaniel Curzon,
incoming Viceroy to India, responded to Indian nationalist agitation in India—which stemmed in
part from dissatisfaction with the existing education system—by appointing a commission that
ultimately announced reforms to move instruction away from preparation for civil service exam
and toward a liberal arts education.
82

When Mukunda attended college in August 1910, he entered a system still very much in
flux—built on a British model, conducted in English, striving to move from rote memorization to
a richer curriculum, but retaining vestiges of the older Orientalist tradition. Thus, even his
“British” education imparted as much knowledge about Indian religious texts as it did about
Western humanities or the sciences. Given the central role evangelicals played in higher
education, it is not surprising that the two places Yogananda attended were both religious
institutions. First, he enrolled in Scottish Church College, an institution founded by evangelical
Alexander Duff in 1830, “a high-powered institution destined to play a critical role in the

80
Kapil Raj, Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe,
1650-1900 (New York: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2007), 164.
81
“This knowledge [Western education] will teach the natives of India the marvelous results of the employment of
labour and capital, rouse them to emulate us in the development of the vast resource of their country…confer upon
them all the advantages which accompany the healthy increase of wealth and commerce; and at the same time,
secure to us a larger and more certain supply of many articles necessary for our manufactures and extensively
consumed by all classes of our population.” Despatch from the Court of Directors of the East India Company to the
Governor-General of India, No. 49, 19 July 1854, reprinted in J.A. Richey, Selections from Education Records, Part
II (Calcutta: Superintendent, Government Printing, 1920), 365, Quoted in Battacharya, 157.
82
At a Calcutta University convocation, he pledged that “the whole subject of education in this country, in which I
think are involved both the reputation of England and the future of India, will, during my term of office, have my
earnest attention.” Marquess George Nathaniel Curzon Curzon of Kedleston, Notable Speeches of Lord Curzon
(Madras: Arya Press, 1905) 101-102. This policy only applied directly to the public universities like Calcutta
University, but because local private colleges were all affiliated with them, some trickle down improvement of
instruction resulted.

Ghosh, History of Education, 103-133.
61
educational history of Bengal.”
83
Indian higher education had a two-part system: two years of
lower-division instruction, which culminated in an exam, and two years of upper-division
instruction leading to the BA degree for those who passed the exam. College curriculum
reflected a mixture of Orientalist and Anglicist goals: heavy doses of Western history, literature,
science, philosophy, and theology, sprinkled with smaller doses of the Vedas, Sanskrit, and
“various works in Bengali and Hindustani.”
84

Mukunda completed his lower-division coursework in liberal arts, with areas of
concentration in Sanskrit, philosophy, and chemistry. In 1912, he fell violently ill before
matriculation exams. When he passed the exam the following year, he hoped that he was done
with higher education forever.
85
But Yukteswar, who brooked no disagreement, insisted
Mukunda complete his BA. So Mukunda enrolled in Serampore College, founded by English
evangelist William Carey in collaboration with Dutch missionaries. The curriculum largely
mirrored Scottish Church College, with attention to Western learning and the Bible alongside
Sanskrit and Bengali languages and texts.
86
Thus, along with liberal arts and sciences,
Mukunda’s college education provided extensive exposure to the Bible, long before he visited
the United States for the first time.
This confrontation with Christianity was not limited to the college campus. As an
educated Bengali, Mukunda became exposed to the most decisive intellectual movement of the
time, centered in Calcutta and often labeled “Bengal Renaissance.”
87
Indian scholars and

83
Kopf, 159.
84
James Long, Hand-book of Bengal Missions, in Connexion with the Church of England. Together with an Account
of General Educational Efforts in North India (London: John Farquhar Shaw, 1848), 481-482.
85
His illness led to horrible dysentery, which can be seriously debilitating and occasionally fatal. See “Mejda,” 184.
86
Long, Hand-book, 493.
87
As with any movement or reified entity, some scholars have challenged the existence of the Bengal Renaissance,
raising doubts about both words individually and the phrase as a whole. Whatever one wished to call it, there was
undoubtedly a critical mass of intellectuals in the nineteenth century, many of them from Bengal, that constituted an
intellectual elite, most of whom knew each other. They thought of themselves as a Bengal Renaissance and their
62
intellectuals in nineteenth century Calcutta—and the broader Bengal region—had attempted to
forge an Indian national identity in response to the British presence and, particularly, Christian
critiques.
88
The most prominent political leaders, theologians, authors and artists were Bengalis.
Their collective intellectual output, the Bengali Renaissance, was an attempt to modernize Indian
spirituality by reducing or removing caste distinctions, outlawing child marriage, and reforming
religious rituals that suggested polytheism and image worship.
89
This bhadralok-led modernizing
reform took place in a globalized world, but one still deeply rooted in Hindu beliefs. Rejecting
link between modernity and the privatization of religion,
90
Indian reformers envisioned a
“sacralized modernity” that “produced a modernized religiosity in colonial India.”
91

Though the Renaissance had dramatically waned by the early twentieth century, it
influenced Mukunda in crucial ways. As discussed above, both he and Yukteswar had some
involvement with the Ramakrishna movement. Mukunda and his friend Mazumdar also regularly
attended a Calcutta branch of the Brahmo Samaj, the premier Renaissance reform organization,

thought, still deeply influential at the turn of the century, profoundly influenced Yogananda. A recent, popular text
on the subject captures this sentiment well: “Was the Bengal Renaissance anything like the Italian one? Many
eminent Indian (and some Western) thinkers have pondered and debated this question. But really, the answer does
not matter. What matters is that there came into being in Bengal, beginning sometime in the waning years of the
eighteenth century and flowering to fullness through the nineteenth century, an awakening of the Indian mind of
such a nature that we can all it a revolution. The ‘Bengal Renaissance’ was the name given to the revolutionary
awakening of the Indian mind.” See Subrata Dasgupta, Awakening: The Story of the Bengal Renaissance (Gurgaon:
Random House India, 2010), 2.
88
Kopf, 157, comments, “The challenge of orthodox Christianity in India stimulated the Hindu intelligentsia to
rediscover the sources of their own religious tradition and to reform their religion according to their new image of
the remote past.”
89
Amiya P. Sen, Hindu Revivalism in Bengal, 1872-1905: Some Essays in Interpretation (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993).
90
Since Weber, discussion of the relationship between religion and modern society has explored their assumed
tension, with some variation of a secularization thesis. Paul Berger adopted this thesis, then repudiated it. The more
recent trend has been to accept that secularization is a reality, but one defined by tolerance of diversity,
differentiation and privatization, not irreligion as such. Whatever the broader accuracy and utility of these views,
they fail to capture the situation in India, where middle-class modernity went hand in hand with religiosity.
91
Joshi, 182. As Partha Chatterjee, Empire and Nation: Selected Essays (New York: Columbia University Press,
2010), 26-27, argues, in the views of Indian intellectuals at the time, spirituality constituted an internal domain free
from Western dominance, unlike science and technology, outer domains inarguably derived from European sources.
“In the spiritual aspect of culture, the East was superior—and, hence, undominated” (45).
63
headquartered in Bengal.
92
The Brahmo Samaj’s founder, Bengali Brahman Rammohun Roy,
had established the organization’s trajectory by rejecting idols and priestly rituals in favor of a
rational theism. The Samaj appealed to Mukunda, except for the emotional austerity of its
theistic vision; like most Bengalis, he was drawn to bhakti practice that encouraged devotion to
Vishnu.
93
He was also drawn to the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, the most famous Brahmo
Samaj figure in the early twentieth century and son of Debendranath Tagore, 1866 founder of the
reorganized Brahmo Samaj.
In reading the Bible alongside sacred Indian texts, Mukunda found guidance among
Samaj leaders and other members of the Bengal Renaissance. Renaissance leaders reconsidered
their beliefs in light of Western challenges, but they reassessed them largely in light of Indian
intellectual resources—in ways that allowed them to claim new sources of knowledge such as
science as their own.
94
Indian religious nationalists reached back imaginatively to Vedic texts
and traditions to articulate a sanatana dharma—an eternal moral and spiritual Hinduism that did
not require priestly rituals, divine images, or polytheism.
95
However ambivalent most Bengali
intellectuals felt about Christianity, they often had warmer feelings about Jesus himself, and

92
The Brahmo Samaj spread from Calcutta throughout the major urban areas of India in the late nineteenth century,
but their presence remained strongest in Bengal. According to Kopf, 325-327, in 1872 over half of the groups at the
time were located in Bengal.
93
Peter van der Veer, Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2001), 45-46.
94
Prakash, Chapter Eight, makes this argument about Indian appropriation of Western science, for which Indian
intellectuals—not always inaccurately—found precedence in ancient Indian religious texts. Thus, Wilhelm Halbfass
overstates the case when he claims “Indians re-interpreted key concepts of traditional self-understanding, adjusting
them to Western modes of understanding.” Wilhelm H. Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), 173.
95
Halbfass, India and Europe. Halbfass builds on the insights of Paul Hacker here. Hacker unnecessarily passed
judgment about the “legitimacy” of Neo-Hinduism, while posing a stark difference between Neo-Hinduism and
continuing forms of traditional Hinduism. Still, he did recognize that this heuristic typology provided idealized types
and that in reality there was more of a spectrum than a dichotomy. Shorn of the normative evaluations, his insights
remain crucial for understanding modern and contemporary forms of Hinduism.
64
found many ways to make Jesus compatible with Indian teaching.
96
Since the gospels provide
little information about Jesus prior to his ministry at the age of thirty, the door was left ajar for
invention.
97
Several Indian intellectuals claimed that Jesus spent those “missing years” in India,
absorbing the wisdom of the East.
98
In this way, they reconciled Indian culture and “Western”
beliefs that so often criticized Hinduism, in effect by subordinating Christianity to Indian
tradition. This was one element of the claim that sanatana dharma transcended religion, an
intellectual move that subsumed human religions like Christianity under Indian tradition as a
later and incomplete element of primordial (Indian) spirituality.
99

In the same way, Yogananda came to see yoga, and Indian beliefs more broadly—
selected, reassembled, reimagined, to be sure—as timeless, universal truths that spoke to the
modern world. Yogananda and many of the Renaissance leaders he imitated thought of
themselves not as creating a syncretic Western-Eastern product, but as rediscovering ancient
Indian truth that anticipated Western teachings—teachings which, wherever they originated,
belonged to all people. Some scholars have dismissed this religious reform as an inauthentic
form of Hinduism, but this assessment reflects an inability to see creative responses to Western

96
See, for example, Sandy Bharat, Christ Across the Ganges: Hindu Responses to Jesus (Washington: O Books,
2007). Keshub Chandra Sen, “Jesus Christ: Europe and Asia,” in The Brahmo Somaj. Lectures and Tracts by
Keshub Chunder Sen. First and Second Series, edited by S.D. Collett (London: Strahan & Co, 1866). As Kopf, 177,
explains, Keshub made a “careful distinction between ‘Christ’s message of universal harmony’ and the institutional
Christianity of the nineteenth century with its Europeanized, sectarian, and ‘muscular’ view of Christ.” For example,
Ramouman Roy, the earliest and most influential Renaissance leader, assisted missionaries in translating the New
Testament and then edited his own edition, The Precepts of Jesus.
97
Simon J. Joseph, “Jesus in India? Transgressing Social and Religious Boundaries,” Journal of the American
Academy of Religion, 80, no. 1 (2012): 161-199; quote on 163, explains, “The idea that Jesus lived in India emerged
within a European fascination with the ‘mystic east’ and the ‘ancient wisdom’ of India. This idea was also driven by
an attempt to fill in the gaps of Jesus’s biography as well as account for the parallels between Christianity and
Buddhism.” Several apocryphal gospels from the Christian centuries provide fantastic accounts of Jesus’ childhood.
For example, the second century C.E. Infancy Gospel of Thomas recounts an event where the boy Jesus turned clay
birds into real pigeons, illustrating the way that some Christian communities felt the temptation to fill in the gaps in
the canonical gospels long before their Indian counterparts. See Schenemelher, New Testament Apocrypha
(Westminster: John Knox Press, 1991).
98
P.C. Mazoomdar, Oriental Christ (Boston: Ellis, 1883).
99
Halbfass, India and Europe, 341-343. Also see King, 136, who discusses three forms of modern Indian
“inclusivist appropriation of other traditions” that was “so characteristic” of the movement.
65
ideas that remained essentially Indian.
100
This image accurately captures Yogananda, who
reluctantly gained an education in Western liberal arts, but avidly learned Sanskrit to read
ancient religious texts, practiced daily meditation, lived in an ashram, and submitted to a guru’s
training.

Swami Yoganda’s Independent Path
Mukunda Lal Ghosh joined the elite ranks of college graduates when he received his AB in the
spring of 1915. His education had introduced him to Sanskrit, science, Western liberalism, and
Christianity. But he had learned more from his guru Yukteswar as he had from formal
coursework, not just intellectual knowledge, but discipline, spiritual practices, and personal
development. Refusing his father’s repeated offer of a bhadralok civil service career, he
embarked on the renouncer’s path, becoming Swami Yogananda. After an abortive venture to
Japan, he devoted himself to institutional work near Calcutta before receiving the call that would
take him to the United States—and his future.
Discipleship to Yukteswar was arduous. Mukunda’s surrogate father, nearly forty years
his senior, was by all accounts an emotionally distant instructor whose rebukes were harsh and
humiliating. But Mukunda remained convinced that spiritual renunciation was his path and
Yukteswar his appointed guide.
101
Mukunda’s plans kept him at odds with his actual father,

100
For an example of a criticism of modern Hinduism as inauthentic, see Gerald James Larson, India’s Agony over
Religion (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 5, who says that “rather than being authentic products
of India’s ancient cultural heritage,” modern Hinduism is “really much closer in spirit to traditions of late-nineteenth
century European notions of universal religion or liberal Protestant religion.” For a rejection of this view, see
Andrew J. Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2010), 142-143. Kenneth N. Jones strikes the right balance on this question, describing
Hindu reformers as drawing “symbol, concepts, and scriptural legitimization” from their “religious heritage as well
as limited elements of western civilization.” (Jones, Socio-Religious Reform Movements, 46).
101
While Yogananda always discussed his guru with great deference, he frankly admitted his harshness. Another
Yukteswar disciple confirms this picture of a guru whose words were often “harsh and incisive:” “He would chastise
any fault he would see of anyone who was somewhat close to him. Sometimes his reproof was deprecating. There is
no point in not admitting that from time to time, even if his reprimand was not physically hard, the meaning of it
66
Bhagabati. Until Mukunda’s college graduation, Bhagabati had convinced himself that
Mukunda’s spiritual path was not a foregone conclusion, as he kept steering his son toward
middle-class security and respectability. In the nepotistic tradition of the Indian civil service,
Bhagabati planned to parlay his lifelong career into a comfortable railway service post for
Mukunda. With his daughters’ assistance, Bhagabati made two abortive marriage matches for his
son before finally finding the right woman. But Mukunda rejected his father’s scheme, declaring
that he would “never be happy in marriage.” Bhagabati reluctantly faced defeat, offering both the
job and the bride to Mukunda’s cousin.
102
Mukunda had won a long and hard-fought victory in
his quest to form his own identity.
In July 1915, having finally worn his father down, Mukunda Lal Ghosh took his
samnyasin vows, becoming an official member of the Swami Order, a monastic organization
reputedly established in the eighth century by Sankara.
103
This necessitated taking on a new
name, an apt symbol of this momentous step in his spiritual journey and in his project of making
his self. Most swamis include the word “ananda” in their titles, as the term means bliss—the
highest plane of spiritual experience, and one of the three fundamental attributes of Brahman in
the monistic Vedanta that Sankara promulgated. Given the centrality of yoga in his spiritual
pathway to enlightenment, he wanted that word in his title. Henceforth, he would be known as
Swami Yogananda.

would become unbearable to us.” Satyananda, “Swami Sri Yukteswar Maharaj: A Biography,” in A Collection of
Biographies of 4 Kriya Yoga Gurus (Battle Creek: Yoga Niketan, 2004), 119.
102
“Mejda,” 184. Though he never says as much outright, he apparently never felt attracted to women—neither he
nor his brother ever mentions any crush, relationship, or even interest in romance in his childhood. The intimacy of
his later guru-disciple relationship may suggest repressed homosexual attraction, but it is equally possible that this
bond, however close, was merely platonic albeit intimate. In Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life
and Teachings of Ramakrishna. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), Jeffrey Kripal suggested that
Ramakrishna, the founder of the most prominent yogi movement in nineteenth century India (discussed below), was
a gay man who repressed his sexuality. While he received extensive criticism from devotees for his supposition, he
has stood by his analysis and explained that he never intended to disparage Ramakrishna by his claim.
103
Satyananda, “Yogananda,” 213-214.
67
The following year, in August 1916—in the midst of the Great War—the young swami
decided to test his newfound identity and independence by traveling to Japan. This was the first
voyage outside India for a man who would ultimately spend more than half of his life abroad. It
came at an awkward time, apart from the challenges of wartime travel. Yogananda’s oldest
brother and surrogate father, Ananta, was ill when he departed. Doctors wrongly diagnosed
Ananta’s malady as malaria; further tests revealed that it was typhoid, but by then the disease
was far advanced. While Yogananda was away, Ananta died. Yogananda’s insistence on
traveling to Japan, particularly during his brother’s illness, caused sharp tension with the family.
Given the opposition his travel aroused, Yogananda’s reasons for going remain quite
murky. He offers the least compelling explanation in his Autobiography: foreknowing his
brother’s eventual death, his despair led him to flee—500 miles to Calcutta, and from there to
Japan, which required cash, a passport, and travel to a belligerent nation in wartime. Here is
Yogananda’s melodramatic account:
“‘Ananta cannot live; the sands of karma for this life have run out.’
These inexorable words reached my inner consciousness as I sat one
morning in deep meditation. Shortly after I had entered the Swami Order, I paid a
visit to my birthplace, Gorakhpur, as a guest of my elder brother Ananta. A
sudden illness confined him to his bed; I nursed him lovingly.
The solemn inward pronouncement filled me with grief. I felt that I could
not bear to remain longer in Gorakhpur, only to see my brother removed before
my helpless gaze. Amidst uncomprehending criticism from my relatives, I left
India on the first available boat. It cruised along Burma and the China Sea to
Japan. I disembarked at Kobe, where I spent only a few days. My heart was too
heavy for sightseeing.”
104

A photo of Yogananda, which his brother Sananda indicates was taken expressly for the
Japan trip, undermines the claim that this was a spur-of-the-moment escape.
105
Sananda suggests
that Yogananda viewed Japan as a steppingstone to the US. Yogananda hoped to get a visa to the

104
See Autobiography, 237.
105
“Mejda,” photo insert before p. 171.
68
US to study for a PhD, since direct access to the US was closed during the war. Yogananda’s
adversarial relationship with education, particularly higher education, makes it difficult to
imagine that he ever intended to pursue a PhD.
106
The other two sources see Japan itself as the
destination. Satyananda claims that Yogananda had been selected to participate in a program to
whereby Bengalis learned about science and art in other countries; apparently, he had been sent
to Japan to learn about farming. Given Yogananda’s lukewarm academic performance and
ignorance of farming, this explanation also seems unlikely.
107
The most convincing explanation
is that Yogananda “wanted to follow in Vivekananda’s footsteps,” and at that time “Japan was
sort of a place of pilgrimage for independence-hungry Indians.” But the new swami was not yet
ready for missions work. Shortly after arriving, “highly disillusioned by the societal behavior of
the people,” Yogananda became “mentally distressed.” After only a few days in Japan, he
boarded a ship to return home.
108

By November, Yogananda was back in Calcutta, surprisingly his family and friends by
his unexpected return. Ever a self-made man, he had followed his own counsel, undertaking his
first mission in conscious imitation of Vivekenanda—and in the face of family criticism. His
brief ex post facto account papers over this failed expedition. His profession of excessive sorrow
masks the apparent callousness of his behavior; an after-the-fact “prophecy” of his brother’s
death keeps the tragedy from being a surprise to Yogananda; and an invocation of karma shifts
any blame from Yogananda to his brother. If Yogananda had the freedom to forge his own
identity despite family opposition, he was equally capable of retrospectively imagining the

106
“Mejda,” 185-186.
107
Satyananda, “Yogananda,” 221.
108
Dasgupta, 36-37. Yogananda greatly admired Swami Rama Tirtha, later adapting many of his spiritual poems to
music (Satyananda, “Yogananda,” 159). Tirtha traveled to Japan to teach Indian spirituality; Yogananda may have
been inspired by his example in his choice of a particular destination. On Tirtha’s voyage to Japan, see Robin
Rinehart, One Lifetime, Many Lives: The Experience of Modern Hindu Hagiography (United States: Oxford
University Press, 1999), 1.
69
conflict as he chose.
After his return from Japan in 1916, Sri Yukteswar encouraged Yogananda to begin
organizational work with his long-time friend, Mazumdar, who also had taken vows and was
now Swami Satyananda. After some reflection, Yogananda and his friend decided to expand the
modest ashram they had already begun by building a residential school that combined spiritual
and educational principles. But they lacked the funding to incarnate their vision. So Yogananda
initiated a pattern that he would follow successfully the rest of his career: he sought out a
wealthy patron and peddled his vision to this potential benefactor. The Maharaja of Kashim
Bazar, Manindra Chandra Nandi, had a reputation for supporting worthy causes.
109
Yogananda
and his colleagues drafted a lengthy petition in English outlining a vision for the school and the
proposed curriculum. The young men received a prompt, warm response from the maharaja and
the Brahmacharya Vidyalaya School was established in nearby Dihikia in March 1917. Due to an
outbreak of malaria, the school was relocated to Ranchi in 1918.
Although things seemed to be going well with the new school, the restless Yogananda
abruptly decided in 1920 to travel to the United States as a delegate to an International Congress
of Religious Liberals. This meeting, sponsored by one Christian denomination and not held in
conjunction with a world’s fair, was a much more modest affair than the World’s Parliament of
Religions in 1893. Nevertheless, Yogananda saw this it an opportunity to emulate Vivekananda’s
early visit and chart his own course to fame as a spiritual leader. This decision would alter the
course of his life. The Autobiography recounts the circumstances in typically dramatic,
supernatural terms:
“America! Surely these people are Americans!” This was my thought as a
panorama of Western faces passed before my inward view.

109
Dasgupta, 40-42. The maharaja’s family maintains a website that celebrates this history of charity:
http://murshidabad.net/history/history-topic-cossimbazar-raj.htm
70
Immersed in meditation, I was sitting behind some dusty boxes in the
storeroom of the Ranchi school…
The vision continued; a vast multitude, gazing at me intently, swept
actorlike across the stage of consciousness.
The storeroom door opened; as usual, one of the young lads had
discovered my hiding place.
“Come here, Bimal,” I cried gaily. “I have news for you: the Lord is
calling me to America!”
“To America?” The boy echoed my words in a tone that implied I had said
“to the moon.”
“Yes! I am going forth to discover America, like Columbus. He thought he
had found India; surely there is a karmic link between those two lands!”

The following day, out of the blue, he received an invitation to serve as the delegate from India
to.
110
Again, the circumstances of Yogananda’s invitation have a more prosaic explanation—one
that reveals the characteristic way friends and colleagues would be instrumental in advancing
Yogananda’s career. Heramba Chandra Maitra, who had been Satyananda’s teacher at City
College in Calcutta, was a leader of the Brahmo Samaj as well as an executive member of the
International Congress of Religious Liberals. At Satyananda’s urging, Maitra invited Yogananda
to attend the conference.
111
Dhirhananda, a fellow swami leader at Ranchi, helped Yogananda
and edit a manuscript that would form the basis of his talk in Boston. Through Dhirananda’s
labor, the text became Yogananda’s first book, Science of Religion.
But there was still the obstacle of money. Ultimately, Yogananda persuaded his father to
fund the expedition. Since Bhagabati had offered Yogananda a career that would have prevented
him ever needing to ask for money, it must have stung to be hit up by his son—maybe as much
as it rankled the independent-minded Yogananda to have to ask. At first Bhagabati refused, but
ultimately he relented. In August 1920, Yogananda set sail for the United States. He would not
see Calcutta—or his family—for fifteen years. This was the most momentous step in his journey

110
Autobiography, 351.
111
Swami Satyeswananda Giri, Kriya: Finding the True Path (San Diego: Sanskrit Classics, 1991), 146.
71
of self-creation thus far. The renunciant would not retire to solitary meditation as swamis
traditionally did, but would instead take his evangelistic message to the worlds’ most modern
nation.
That message concerned the practice of Kriya Yoga, but included a much larger
worldview that might be called modern Hinduism. “Hinduism” has become a heavily contested
label among a variety of scholars. The most critical scholars, generally postcolonialists, think
Hinduism is a fictional European entity “the way the ‘satyr’ and the ‘unicorn’ are.”
112
Without
getting mired in this debate, this dissertation sides with scholars who accept the legitimacy of
claim that Hinduism existed long before the British conquered India. Irrespective of one’s
position on that debate, most scholars agree that by the nineteenth century, some entity called

112
S.N. Balagangadhara, “Orientalism, Postcolonialism, and Religion,” in Block, Keppens, Hegde, 162. Scholars
have raised this issue at least since W. Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York, 1962), 65,
who claimed “there are Hindus, but there is no Hinduism.” Quoted in Halbfass, Tradition, 7. The first documented
use of the term in a religious (as opposed to ethnic) sense belongs to British missionaries from around the turn of the
nineteenth century. Geoffrey Oddie has documented the use of “Hindooism” from 1801. But missionaries used
related expressions somewhat earlier: use of “the Hindu faith” and “the Hindoo religion” date from 1768 and 1786,
respectively. According to Oddie, for “most Christians in the early nineteenth century, the term signified an all-
embracing religious system that was both the enemy and the opposite of Christianity. See Geoffrey A. Oddie,
“Constructing ‘Hinduism,’” in Robert Eric Frykenberg, ed., Christians and Missionaries in India: Cross-Cultural
Communication since 1500 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 155-182. The quote is from 157. Of course, as
other scholars point out, the fact that a word did not exist before a certain moment does not mean that the
phenomenon did not exist. As Wendy Doniger, On Hinduism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 3
colorfully puts it, Hinduism is “like the armadillo, part hedgehog, part tortoise. Yet there are armadillos, and they
were there before they had names.” Doniger points out elsewhere that Hindus long had labels of self-designation
that clearly indicate an awareness of a distinctive spiritual worldview and practice. They called themselves people of
the Veda, those who follow varnashramadharma, or Aryas (“nobles”). See Doniger, The Hindus: An Alternative
History (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), 26. Granted, “Hinduism” as shorthand may suggest more uniformity than
really obtains in India, but many scholars recognize that, used carefully, Hinduism may appropriately identify a
congeries of beliefs and practices common on the subcontinent for millennia before the British arrived. The most
radical critics object that the label “Hinduism” is only symptomatic of the real problem; European invention of
Hinduism simultaneously imposed the category of religion on India. The British, in this view, imposed normative
assumptions about “religion” on India based on Christianity as a model. David N. Lorenzen pleads for reasoned
moderation in defining religion, pointing out that despite the many differences in metaphysics, codes, and rituals,
“[r]eligions are grounded in a certain type of mental experience or emotion that somehow gives authority to cultural
and morel norms without the necessity of strict rational analysis.” Consequently, “the churches, mosques and
temples of different major religions…have much in common and are quite distinguishable from palaces and
parliaments and their approaches to these same questions.” Lorenzen, “Hindus and Others” in Esther Block,
Marianne Keppens, and Rajaram Hegde, eds., Rethinking Religion in India: The Colonial Construction of Hinduism
(New York: Routledge, 2010), 25-40; the quote is from 38. Thus, India must have an authoritative sacred text, a
creed, a priesthood, a transcendent deity, orderly worship, universal ethics, and some sort of divide between religion
and the state.
72
Hinduism existed, whether a recent reification or part of a longer tradition.
113

By the time Yogananda left India, his core views had already been formed. His ideas
would mature, to be sure, especially with intensive training under Sri Yukteswar, but the basic
pattern would remain throughout his career. In introductory textbooks, contemporary scholars
often keep these conventional categories within Hinduism for heuristic purposes, even while they
acknowledge their limited utility and the porousness that has always existed between their
boundaries.
114
If a broad diversity of views is apparent in intellectual traditions, it is even broader
when popular traditions are also taken into account.
However, the currents of Indian modernity within which the swami swam intensified the
drift toward intellectual eclecticism. To be sure, Yogananda received training through traditional
modes of instruction. He learned the Epics and Puranas through his mother’s storytelling at home
and through annual festivals. Sri Yukteswar’s instruction in the Vedas, Upanishads, and other
scholarly trajectories, represented another traditional strand of learning. But even here, the forces
of modernity come into play, since Yukteswar was college graduate as well as a renunciate
swami. Several features of Indian modernity drew Mukunda into an eclectic worldview. First, the
explosion in print culture facilitated access to a wide variety of texts on sacred subjects. The
cheap paperback copy of the Gospel of Ramakrishna that Yogananda carried around as a young
man might not have been available to a previous generation. Second, his mobility, particularly
through his father’s contacts in the railroad, enabled him to visit various sacred sites and

113
Richard King, “Colonialism, Hinduism and the Discourse of Religion” in Block, Keppens, Hegde, Rethinking
Religion, 111, while cautioning about the potential for anachronism in using Hinduism for the pre-modern period
acknowledges that “in the late colonial/modern context, the term ‘Hinduism’ certainly does take on increasing
significance and social power as an indicator of Hindu national identity and ahs become a powerful cultural vector
through which Indian civilizational history has been and is being interpreted.”
114
For example, learned intellectual traditions are typically divided into six schools of “philosophy,” but there has
long been significant overlap between schools. For one of the most perceptive introductions to both the saddarsanas,
or “six orthodox schools” and the relationships between them, see Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 231-249.
73
experiment with different traditions—such as the Bharat Mahamandal and the Ramakrishna
Mission—firsthand. Third, his college education, a function of British colonial modernity, aided
his development of Sanskrit, which enabled him to formally study a range of Vedic texts. Fourth,
the bhadralok public sphere, formed through newspapers and other periodicals, and informal
discussions with college classmates and in coffee houses, reinforced a nationalist understanding
of Indian traditions that had developed in response to Western critiques. Finally, as in the US at
the time, sheer exposure to a variety of options—which would never be available to, for
example, a boy in a small village—intensified the very notion of choice.
Yogananda’s worldview ultimately reflected the influence of several separate strands:
• Yoga: Yoga focuses on meditation and a dualist ontology, where the Self is ultimately
distinct from all of nature or material reality, a truth learned through meditation.
• Samkhya: Yogananda embraced the notion that the material universe was created
through a non-sentient process: a disturbance of the perfect balance between the
gunas, the three elements of all reality, posits ultimate reality as part of a non-sentient
process.
• Vedas: Yogananda learned Sanskrit, which facilitated formal training in the Vedas,
the oldest Indian textual tradition, which orthodox priests posited as the root of
Hinduism, containing hymns, prescriptions for sacred rituals, and mantras—rituals
statements with inherent spiritual power—the most important of which is the syllable
“Om,” the primal sound representing Brahman
• Vedanta: as a swami in the Sankara order, Yogananda was part of a particular lineage
in a guru-disciple relationship with roots in monistic Advaita Vedanta, which
emphasized that all reality is ultimately one, that is, Brahman; the impression of
74
duality, distinction, different creatures is real on the empirical level, but ultimately
maya, or cosmic delusion. The most important consequence of this view was the
recognition that the individual is not ultimately different from Brahman—“God” but
as the ground of existence, rather than a personal deity
• Tantra: individuals could ritually command great power by channeling Shakti, female
power, often envisioned as internally present, resting at the base of the spine; Tantra’s
focus on feminine divine power made goddess worship central.
• Epics and Puranas: the texts and oral traditions associated with the Puranas often
emphasized devotion—sometimes including great emotion—to a personal savior god,
and recognition that protection resulted from divine grace, not personal merit.
As should be immediately apparent, these strands provided different cosmologies and
theologies—whether monist, dualist, or qualified dualist—since they emerged from originally
distinct, often competing, traditions. In terms of devotion to particular deities, Yogananda’s
strands embraced all three of the great Hindu gods: Shiva (through yoga), Vishnu (through
bhakti, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Puranas), and the Great Goddess (through Tantra).
Yogananda forged these somewhat disparate traditions into a synthesis—not a rigidly systematic
belief set, but a coherent, if fluid worldview. Hinduism often tolerates a high level of flexibility,
partly as a function of having absorbed so many different views over several millennia. The
Upanishads in particular, with their view that ultimately all is Brahman, allow for the
reconciliation of many perceptual differences. Yogananda’s views, then, were not unprecedented
per se, but the broad sweep of his eclecticism was unique. The nature of Yogananda’s synthesis
will be unfolded over the next few chapters, so here it suffices to point out that he often latched
onto one key feature of a particular tradition—the practice of meditation, belief in maya, and
75
devotion to the goddess, for example—without feeling obligated to adopt the other features of
that tradition. He did not seem bothered by tensions among these traditions.
What must be noted above all, however, is that while Yogananda’s views reflected a
modern eclecticism, his worldview was firmly rooted in Indian soil, Indian categories, Indian
texts. While many scholars of nineteenth and twentieth century gurus and yogis often emphasizes
their generous borrowing from Western traditions—Christianity, New Thought, physical
culture—it would be a distortion to describe Yogananda as a syncretist. His mission to the US
sprang from the conviction that India possessed a uniquely rich spiritual tradition, one the West
did not possess.
The most significant innovation of the sanatana dharma strand of Hinduism that
Yogananda embraced was its radical reconsideration of the appropriate followers of the faith.
Indians had traditionally neither sought nor accepted converts, viewing their traditions as
inherent to their land and people. Universalizing Hinduism as eternal truth for all people
abstracted Indian belief from the land, culture, and people of the subcontinent and made them
transportable to new lands. This development was the sine qua non of Yogananda’s evangelistic
efforts—a radical, modern overhauling of Indian traditions, but not a Western one. Scholars
typically assume that all sanatana dharma proponents, like Vivekananda, embraced monistic
theologies influenced by Sankara’s advaita, or non-dualist, Vedanta. Yogananda demonstrates an
important alternative tradition that was more monotheistic than monistic.
115
Functionally, this
belief looks more theistic than monistic, allowing for, even encouraging, a devotional
relationship with a personal God, while one acknowledges utter identity in and dependence upon

115
See J.E. Llewellyn, “Gurus and Groups” in Robin Rinehart, Contemporary Hinduism: Ritual, Culture, and
Practice (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004), 228-230, where he argues that even Ramakrishna, the quintessential
monist, frequently talked about God in theistic ways. See also van der Veer, Imperial Encounters, 51, which
discusses the “Hindu monotheism” of Arya Samaj leader Dayananda, arguing that this monotheism is not in fact
derivative of Christianity, but a product of “very specific Hindu, discursive underpinnings.”
76
that deity.
116
As Torkel Brekke bluntly puts it, in the late nineteenth century, “Hinduism became
a missionary religion.” This was a dramatic development. “The thought that a Hindu should
travel abroad in order to preach Hinduism simply makes no sense before the transformation in
religious perception that took place in the nineteenth century,” which he identifies as consisting
of three stages: the objectification of religion as a separate element of social organization; the
individualization of religion that severed people from caste, life-stage, and regional festivals; and
the universalization of Hinduism that “now was linked to human nature and could be applied to
anyone, anywhere, any time.”
117

Conclusion
In becoming a missionary to the West, Yogananda made a cultural-nationalist declaration
that the East-West encounter was a two way affair: colonial India was not the passive recipient of
Western ideas but the ultimate source of all truth, the sanatana dharma the decadent United
States desperately needed. In Yogananda’s view, this truth—reformed in the face of criticism,
correlated with Western categories, and articulated in Western, often Christian language—
remained fundamentally Indian. It would be naïve to pretend that modern Indian thinkers like
Yogananda created their philosophies untouched by Western thought. Indeed, as later chapters
will demonstrate, to justify his mission to the United States Yogananda, like Vivekananda before
him, rhetorically embraced the dichotomy between a technologically advanced West and a
spiritual East promoted by Orientalist critics of India.
118
Embracing Western rhetoric—and the

116
Technically, it is “qualified non-dualism,” or the “non-dualism of what is qualified,” which says in essence that
everything owes its direct existence from God.
117
Torkel Brekke, “The Conceptual Foundation of Missionary Hinduism,” Journal of Religious History 23, no. 2
(June 1999): 203-214; quotes on 203-204.
118
Like their Christian counterparts, Hindu evangelists pragmatically recognized criticism and creatively used it to
their advantage—without necessarily conceding the truth of the pejorative element of Europeans’ claim. Yogananda
engaged in “judo,” taking tropes about the spiritual East and using them as weapons to celebrate the superiority of
77
larger effort to translate Hindu beliefs into a different language and culture—inevitably led to a
measure of hybridity and acculturation, but in the case of Yogananda the emphasis needs to fall
more heavily on continuity with Indian tradition, rather than innovation or syncretism.
119

The relationship Mukunda Lal Ghosh shared with Sri Yukteswar rarely matched the
Autobiography’s idyllic depiction of their first encounter. But it was profoundly transformative
for Yogananda. Yukteswar, who embodied the resolution to his childhood spiritual search,
mentored his protégé in mysteries of Kriya Yoga. When he sailed from Calcutta for the United
States as twenty-seven year old Swami Yogananda, he had sunk deep roots in this soil and had
been nurtured by its complex sedimentary layers. Out of this rich diversity he formed his own
distinctive understanding of modern Hinduism, focused on yoga and devotional theism. In so
doing, Yogananda presented himself to Americans as a swami capable of great bodily control,
mental and physical control, and ecstatic spiritual experiences. His spirituality was rooted in
ancient beliefs and practices, yet also in tune with the fast-paced, urban pragmatism of middle-
class business people. Nothing better captures the ancient-modern paradox of Yogananda’s self-
invention than his name change. Assuming a new title was a millennia-old practice for swamis,
illustrating Yogananda’s connection to ancient Indian traditions. At the same time, he pursued
the swami path in the face of family opposition while submitting to a college-educated guru who
espoused sanatana dharma views. In 1920, the ancient-modern yogi began his religiously
nationalist vocation of evangelism in the United States. One journey had ended and a much

Indian culture in a kind of cultural nationalism. See King, 207, but note King’s bleak assessment about the overall
effectiveness in capitulating to Western tropes.
119
Indeed, the observation that elements of one religion have been borrowed from other tradition is such a truism
that it hardly bears remarking. Peter van der Veer, “Syncretism, Multiculturalism and the Discourse of Tolerance,”
in Syncretism/Anti-syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis, edited by Charles Stewart and Rosalind Shaw
(New York: Routledge, 1994), 208, suggests that as a “simple descriptive term” it is a “useless concept.” But since
scholars often use syncretism to mean large scale borrowing of a foreign religious tradition that creates an
essentially new religion, it remains useful to make a distinction between syncretism and essential continuity with
small-scale syncretic elements.
78
longer one was about to begin.

79

Mukunda’s meditation room at his family home on 4 Garpar Road,
Calcutta (author photo).

Chapter Two:

The Yogi Evangelist Finds a Home for Scientific Religion:
Southern California as a Spiritual Frontier (1920-1925)

Self-Realization Fellowship Headquarters, Mt. Washington,
spiritual home on California’s spiritual frontier (author photo).

81
The somber, young bearded swami embarked for the United States in August 1920, a
visual paragon to Western audiences of the exotic and faintly sinister spirituality of the East.
1
His
physical journey from Calcutta to Boston—through the Suez Canal and then from Liverpool to
the US—also constituted a symbolic journey, a “crossing” from the only spiritual and physical
home he had ever known.
2
Before embarking Yogananda’s friends had suggested that, in
deference to American audiences, he cut off the beard he wore in keeping with samnyasi
practice. On board ship, he concluded that the unspoken hostility he sensed from fellow
passengers stemmed from his appearance. So he decided to shave his beard.
3
But he kept his hair
long—much longer than Western men at the time—and continued to wear his satiny ochre robes.
Yogananda’s sartorial compromise captures his “reflexive project of the self” in microcosm.
4

Traveling from one world to another offered unparalleled freedom to invent an image of himself
for American audiences. Understanding both the peril and the promise of his exotic identity, he
avoided extremes: He rejected the appearance of an extreme ascetic, which would have played
into American fears of the Oriental primitive, but he judiciously protected the cachet of his
Indian identity by refusing to wear western suits or cutting his hair short, as other Indian visitors
did. Yogananda’s appearance management reflected not syncretism, but rather a larger effort at
“translation”—an attempt to calibrate his message to his audience’s frame of reference without

1
This description is based on the photo that graced the inside cover of his first work, Swami Yogananda Giri, The
Science of Religion (Calcutta: Kuntaline Press, 1920), n.p. Given the way The Science of Religion was rushed into
print for the Boston conference, it seems likely that this photo was taken shortly before his departure.
2
Thomas A. Tweed, Dwelling and Crossing: A Theory of Religion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006).
3
Sri Silendra Bejoy Dasgupta, Paramhansa Swami Yogananda: Life-Portrait and Reminiscences (Yoga Niketan,
2006), 47-48. Carrying this idea further, Durga Mata explained that Yogananda exchanged cotton ochre robes for
silk when he discovered that Americans would think him “poverty-stricken” and be unwilling to follow him. See
Joan Wight, A Paramhansa Trilogy of Divine Love (Santa Monica, CA: William Yanes, 1992), 169.
4
Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1991), especially chapter 3. In this setting, it is worth noting that Giddens’ description of the
project includes the body as part of the project of the self. an ongoing, pervasive self-interrogation in which the
individual asks, “How can I use this moment to change?” a function of a modern world in which he confronted “a
diversity of open possibilities.” See Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 73.

82
fundamentally altering the message itself.
5
This was not syncretism but bridge-building.
So where does a Hindu swami fits into a narrative of 1920s America, where
Protestantism was still culturally ascendant?
6
On the subject of religion, the public and press at
the time were absorbed by the fundamentalist-modernist debate within Protestantism, the
growing ethno-religious diversity that prompted anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic nativism, and,
perhaps to a lesser extent, the growth of Pentecostalism.
7
For several decades, some American
religious historians have attempted to recast the dominant narrative from an account of
“mainstream” Protestant unity to a story of religious pluralism.
8
But scholars like Catherine
Albanese, who attempt to redress the neglect of metaphysical traditions and Eastern religious

5
Srinivas Aravamudan, Guru English: South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2006), 10, posits “Guru English” as an intentionally ambiguous transnational discourse of
translating “South Asian spiritual superiority in search of hegemony.” He includes Yogananda in his retinue of
global gurus, arguing that his Kriya Yoga message “subordinate[d] different aspects of Christianity as well as
Sankhya,” as he counseled audiences to “abandon the bullock cart vehicle of Western theological paths to God for
the Hindu equivalent of the aeroplane—surely a fitting ironic reversal of the perception of India as a technically
backward and historical underdeveloped culture.” (59) On translation, see also Lewis R. Rambo, Understanding
Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 98: “To communicate the new religious message
in a manner that is understandable, the missionary engages in translation. Kaplan…points to the creativity of
missionaries in finding comparisons and analogies with indigenous culture and customs that will familiarize the
message, clothe the new story in recognizable garb.”
6
On Protestantism as a dominant American cultural force, see Edwin S. Gaustad, “The Pulpit and the Pews,” in
Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment in America, 1900-1960, edited by William R.
Hutchison, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 21, where he comments that in “the first two
generations of the twentieth century, the local churches and parishes of establishment Protestantism still thought of
themselves largely as guardians of the moral and spiritual treasure carefully cached away by ancestors centuries
before.” As an example of Protestant cultural hegemony well into the twentieth century, see Dennis N. Voskuil,
“Reaching Out: Protestantism and the Media,” in Hutchison, ibid., 74, which points out that in the 1920s, major
American periodicals like Harpers, Scribners, and the Atlantic Monthly reflected Protestant establishment views in
the their editorials, and often in their articles as well.
7
The prominence of those themes at the time is reflected in many of the popular survey treatments of religion in
America. Sydney Ahlstrom’s magisterial classic, A Religious History of the American People, 2
nd
ed., (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2004), appends two chapters on these non-Christian movements to the end of his 1100-page
tome, recognizing their existence, but not integrating them chronologically into his narrative, This is true of religious
scholars, whether they hail from mainline or evangelical traditions. See, for example, Mark A. Noll, A History of
Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992); his more recent but briefer The Old
Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); and Jon
Butler, Grant Wacker, and Randall Balmer, Religion in American Life: A Short History. 2
nd
ed. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2011). For a work narrowly focused on religion in the interwar period, see Martin E. Marty,
Modern American Religion: Volume 2: The Noise of Conflict, 1919-1941 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1991).
8
Richard Hughes Seager, “Pluralism and the American Mainstream: The View from the World’s Parliament of
Religions,” Harvard Theological Review 82, no. 3 (1989): 301-324.

83
imports, largely treat these newer faiths in isolation from the dominant Protestant religion. But
the deeply Hindu Yogananda and his act of translation can only be properly understood through
a narrative that shows the intersection of Protestantism and Hinduism. When viewed in the
context of a nation whose Protestantism remained hegemonic, Yogananda’s effort to explain
himself in Christian terms becomes clear as an attempt to build a bridge to his Hindu worldview.
Yogananda was an evangelist of modern Hinduism, not a syncretized Hindu-Western yoga, as
Catherine Albanese insists.
9
Yogananda turned the conventional evangelism narrative on its
head; a subject of a region long targeted by American missionaries, he had himself become an
evangelist to America.
This chapter traces Yogananda’s early years in the United States in the context of
Protestant upheavals in the modern era. The first section examines his time in Boston: the
conference that brought him to the US, the larger Protestant debates within which that meeting
took place, and Yogananda’s relatively modest role in the proceedings. The intramural Protestant
debate of this period featured opponents who offered competing answers to the epistemological
challenges that modernity raised for Christianity’s universalistic claims. Framing Yogananda’s
experiences in the context reveals important ways that non-Christian religious teaching
intersected with the national religion of Protestantism.
10
This section also explores his

9
Apart from her unwillingness to acknowledge Protestant hegemony, her mischaracterization of Yogananda stems
from her easy conflation of “Western” and “modern,” preventing her from recognizing that Hinduism might
modernize without becoming Western, as the previous chapter argued. She argues that he was a “Westernized Hindu
long before he made his way to the West coast.” She also claims that he spoke more of the “Christ within” than he
did of “the Self,” completely ignoring the substance of Yogananda’s very Hindu understanding of “Christ.” See
Catherine Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 368-69. As the previous chapter indicated, translation inevitably produces a
degree of syncretism, which this chapter makes no attempt to deny. But the religion he proclaimed remained deeply
Hindu.
10
George M. Marsden has long made this point implicitly. Fundamentalism, he argues, can be seen in part as an
“intellectual movement:” fundamentalists retained their commitment to older Enlightenment views of science and
knowledge in the face of changing intellectual standards. See Fundamentalism and American Culture; The Shaping
of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 212-221, as well as

84
relationship with the Lewis family, his earliest devotees, who established the template for all his
later relationships. Given how challenging and exotic his gospel was, his followers tended to be
spiritual “seekers” who found him personally compelling, an authentic and authoritative Self.
This section concludes with the cross-country road trip that took Yogananda to Los Angeles,
which became his national headquarters.
The second section of the chapter shifts the focus of Protestant ferment to Los Angeles,
unfolding in some detail the religious context of the city that became a congenial home base for
Yogananda’s ministry. The need to make his own distinctive religious community explains his
ultimate decision to relocate from Boston to Los Angeles. The nation’s new “spiritual frontier,”
Los Angeles hosted a critical mass of spiritual seekers, many of whom couched salvation as a
form of self-understanding. Los Angeles was thus an ideal space for a new movement well
outside the Christian mainstream, a tolerant, hospitable center for Yogananda to launch a new
religious movement. Southern California offered another kind of openness. Boston’s landscape
had been claimed by European-American religious groups for centuries—by seventeenth-century
Puritans, then Irish Catholics, and, more recently, Christian Science. Southern California’s
landscape, in contrast, was still largely unmarked by religious markers and available to be
claimed as sacred space.
Finally, to account for the complicated welcome Yogananda received in Los Angeles, the
chapter draws on Orientalism to explores the ambivalent position of Indians in Southern
California. Indians, in the eyes of many Americans, were both a pagan people with a predilection
for lawlessness-- and the embodiment of the exotic East’s opulence, mystery, and ancient
traditions. For some cosmopolitan Angelenos, this latter image hinted that Indians might possess

his depiction of the evangelical “love affair” with Enlightenment science in Marsden, Understanding
Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 122-152.

85
unique spiritual wisdom. The chapter ends with Yogananda’s purchase of hotel and property in
Mt. Washington as his movement’s permanent home. In these crucial early years, Yogananda
experimented with the self he presented to audiences, challenged his first disciples to find their
own true selves in an intimate relationship with him, and found a headquarters in the nation’s
new spiritual epicenter—a quintessentially American place where seekers could encounter Hindu
spirituality.

Yogananda’s Science of Religion and Protestant Modernism
When Yogananda arrived in Boston September 1920, his Unitarian hosts were engaged in
a fierce debate with their Protestants opponents about the tenets of Christian faith in the modern
world.
11
Unitarians and other religious liberals, typically labeled modernists, found common
ground in their willingness to reconsider traditional tenets in light of scholarly and scientific

11
Gavin Flood’s explanation of the epistemological stakes of the science-religion debate in the modern world sheds
light on the fundamentalist-modernist debate: “The world is a mysterious place and science has been the human
enterprise which has sought to give an account of the mysterious in terms of material causation and natural laws.
Religion too has sought to give an account of the mysteries of the world and the two became competing worldviews
in the history of the West, with science trumping religion in terms of causal predictive power and tech. Science
clearly improves over time, having increasingly broader explanatory power in a way that religion does not. We
might want to speak of progress and development in science, if by that we mean more knowledge and accounts of
procedures in a way that we would not speak of religion.” See Gavin Flood, The Importance of Religion: Meaning
and Action in our Strange World (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 153.
Catholicism did face a controversy between modernists and anti-modernists at this time, but it took a distinctive
form because of the ways Catholicism differed theologically and structurally that made it less of an issue in the
United States. On Catholic modernism and anti-modernism, see Darrell Jodock, Catholicism Contending with
Modernity: Roman Catholic Modernism and Anti-Modernism in Historical Context (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000). American Catholics were busier focusing on the promises and perils of a different kind of
modernism: how to become a part of mainstream American culture while not succumbing to the dangers of
“Americanism.” See Paula M. Kane, Separatism and Subculture: Boston Catholicism, 1900-1920 (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1994). Still, Catholics amounted to a relatively small slice of the religious pie—
there were more Southern Baptists alone in 1926, for example, than Catholics. See Department of Commerce and
Labor, Bureau of the Census. Census of Religious Bodies, 1926, Part I: Summary and Detailed Tables. Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1930, 14. There is a common perception that the fundamentalist controversy
represents religion’s dying gasp in an increasingly secular nation, but the 1920s was a boom decade for American
religion, with Catholics and Protestants both growing significantly. See Martin E. Marty, Modern American
Religion. Volume 2: The Noise of Conflict, 1919-1941 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 25-26.

86
discoveries.
12
Liberals accepted a partly disenchanted world and, consequently, a shrunken role
for the Church in public life, particularly in the academic realm.
13
They began to think more in
terms of divine immanence, this-worldly goals and the significance of the mind rather than an
immortal soul. They also rethought the nature of missions, concluding that calls for conversion
smacked of cultural arrogance and that Christians instead might ask what they had to learn from
other religions.
14

Their opponents called themselves “fundamentalists” for the first time that very year,
acknowledging the significance of The Fundamentals, a set of pamphlets organized and
published in 1908 by faculty of the fledging Bible Institute of Los Angeles, with contributions

12
In his sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?,” Reverend Harry Fosdick of New York City’s First Presbyterian
Church and preeminent modernist argued that while fundamentalists were “driving in their stakes to mark out the
deadline of doctrine around the church, across which no one is to pass except on terms of agreement,” Christian
liberals—no less committed to their faith—took a different approach: “that they might really love the Lord their
God, not only with all their heart and soul and strength but with all their mind, they have been trying to see this new
knowledge in terms of the Christian faith and to see the Christian faith in terms of this new knowledge.” Harry
Emerson Fosdick, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” Christian Work 102 (June 10, 1922): 716–722. Many
Protestant leaders attempted to steer a middle course, but the intensely polarized debate left the less militant without
a voice. This dissertation will use “liberal,” “mainline,” and “modernist” interchangeably, as all of these terms were
in use in the early to mid twentieth century. While not identical in meaning, they overlap. Liberal will be used most
often as the broadest term. On the use (and appropriateness) of all these terms, see David Hollinger, After Cloven
Tongues of Fire: Protestant Liberalism in Modern American History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013),
xiii-xiv, Hollinger describes liberal Protestant Christianity as “accommodation with the Enlightenment.” Instead of
invoking disenchantment directly, he makes a similar point by identifying the process of “cognitive
demystification” and “demographic mystification,” or reassessing the truth claims of Protestant Christianity in light
of, respectively, scientific developments and growing awareness of religious diversity. These two processes often
overlap and reinforce each other. In the longer post-World War II trajectory, Protestant liberalism lost
organizationally even as their values—most notably ‘accommodation with secular liberalism”—transformed
American culture (6-7, 14).
13
For an earlier study of secularization in the academy, see George M. Marsden, The Soul of the University: From
Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). More recently,
Christian Smith, ed., The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Life
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), has extended that analysis to moral reform politics, psychology,
law, and journalism.
14
For liberal views of missions in the early decades of the twentieth century, see See Grant Wacker, “The Protestant
Awakening to World Religions,” in Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment in America,
1900-1960, edited by William R. Hutchison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 259-60 and Grant
Wacker, “Second Thoughts on the Great Commission: Liberal Protestants and Foreign Missions, 1890-1940” in Joel
A. Carpenter and Wilbert R. Shenk, eds., Earthen Vessels: American Evangelicals and Foreign Missions, 1880-
1980 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), especially 285 and 288-89. Again, Hollinger argues that the feature that
most distinguished liberal Protestantism from its more conservative varieties was its ecumenicalism, which
eventually reached beyond Christianity to embrace non-Christian religions in the postwar period (21). Of course, not
all Protestants—perhaps, early on not even the majority—gravitated toward one pole or the other, but given the high
stakes of the debate, polarization forced the issue.

87
from scholars around the world.
15
These conservatives defended several cardinal principles
regarding the supernatural dimension of Christianity, most notably the full divinity of Jesus, in
an era of grave skepticism about such beliefs.
16
Conservatives continued to affirm the
supernatural enchantment of the world—the reality of a transcendent God who had intervened in
human affairs in miraculous ways, an immortal soul, and life after death—and the need for
conversion, evangelism, and global missions.
17

Modernism had deeply affected both groups.
18
They were responding in divergent, but
equally creative ways to the challenges of modernity, which historian of religion Matthew
Hedstrom catalogs as “positivistic science, corporate and government bureaucracy, the research
university, Darwinism, historical-critical study of the Bible, consumerism, [and] urbanization.”
19

Their debate represented competing answers to modern challenges on three major
epistemological flashpoints with far-reaching implications: supernaturalism, including the

15
Marsden, Fundamentalism (2006), 119.
16
The editors apparently thought the collection of articles—and the project as a whole—spoke for itself. An
extremely brief forward to the first book in the series explained that it would be sent to “every pastor, evangelist,
missionary, theological professor, theological student, Sunday school superintendent, Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A.
secretary in the English speaking world” because the “time has come when a new statement of the fundamentals of
Christianity should be made.” “Foreword,” in The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth (Chicago: Testimony
Publishing, 1910), n.p.
17
Marsden identifies missions as a “crucial factor in the emergence of fundamentalism as an organized movement,”
167. On fundamentalist fears of a liberal takeover of foreign missions, see Carpenter, 28-31. On the question of the
theological message of missions, particularly the role of Christ’s divinity, see James Alan Patterson, “The Loss of a
Protestant Missionary Consensus: Foreign Missions and the Fundamentalist-Modernist Conflict,” in Earthen
Vessels: American Evangelicals and Foreign Missions, 1880-1980, edited by Joel A. Carpenter and Wilbert R.
Shenk (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), especially 74-75, and Joel A. Carpenter, “Propagating the Faith Once
Delivered: The Fundamentalist Missionary Enterprise, 1920-1945,” in ibid.
18
Fundamentalists were deeply indebted to the Enlightenment tradition of Scottish Common Sense Realism and
Baconian inductive empiricism. In their minds, science and religion needed to continue to coexist as they had before
the emergence of “speculative,” theory-driven science. George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American
Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press,
1980), 14-17. Fundamentalists were imbricated in and deeply shaped by modernist assumptions, despite the fact
that, as Bruce B. Lawrence, Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age (San Francisco:
Harper & Row, 1989), 2 correctly observes, fundamentalists opposed “modernism and its proponents,” “catalyzed
by their unremitting opposition to all those who equate modernity as an index of material potentials with modernism
as the sole value orientation appropriate to citizens of the ‘modern’ world.”
19
Matthew S. Hedstrom, The Rise of Liberal Religion: Book Culture and American Spirituality in the Twentieth
Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 15-16.

88
divinity of Christ; the relationship between contemporary and religion, which impinged on a
view of the natural world as a created teleological order and the uniqueness of human ontology;
and the rise of higher criticism, which called the Bible’s uniqueness and authority into question
by subjecting it to the same critical and textual judgments as any other text. The upshot of all of
these debates was to call into question Christianity’s universalism—the assumption that it was
meant for all people and all times, and having claims on all fields of human knowledge and
endeavor—and thus to was whether it remained plausible to view Christianity as a unique, divine
revelation.
Boston Unitarians were in the forefront of liberal Christians. They signaled their
repudiation of evangelism and openness to other religions by inviting non-Christians like
Yogananda to the 1920 International Congress of Free Christians and Other Religious Liberals.
The congress commemorated the four hundredth anniversary of the Pilgrim landing at Plymouth
Rock, and illustrates the trajectory of liberal Protestant religious pluralism, which long predates
the ecumenical efforts of the post-World War II period—let alone baby boomer interest in
Eastern spirituality. From the late eighteenth century, Boston had been the hub of Unitarianism,
an Enlightenment-inspired movement in Congregationalism that renounced the narrowness of its
Puritan heritage. The invitation to the conference expressed its conveners’ temperament: “All
religious liberals of constructive temper and disinterested purpose share the rich inheritance of
the Pilgrim spirit. All are endeavoring to express in the terms that befit the twentieth century the
principles and hopes that animated the Pilgrims at Plymouth. We believe, as they did, in liberty
under law, in religious toleration, in popular government, in industrial cooperation, and we seek
to make these principles vital in the life of modern commonwealths.”
20

Unitarians had corresponded with Indian intellectuals since the early nineteenth century;

20
New Pilgrimages, n.p.

89
they were especially influential in shaping the Brahmo Samaj, the flagship Hindu Renaissance
organization described in the previous chapter. Boston was the epicenter of this group—indeed,
many Bostonians were among the Unitarians who had warm friendships with Samaj members.
21

Yogananda’s modern Hinduism was quite congenial with early twentieth-century Unitarianism,
and with American religious liberalism more generally, and throughout his career he would find
allies among its ranks.
22

Despite its grand vision, the Congress was a modest affair. The World’s Parliament of
Religions in 1893, the model for this gathering in Yogananda’s mind, had included more than
two hundred formal addresses, drew several thousand participants a day, and lasted more than
two weeks.
23
The 1920 gathering lasted five days and offered a much smaller slate of
presentations. The keynote speakers were all Christian clergy, including Professor S. Uchigasaki,
leader of a Unitarian church in Tokyo. Along with Uchigaskaki and the Buddhist J. Rikumani,
Yogananda was relegated to a special session on the relationship between “Oriental” religions
and liberal Christianity.
24
Still, Yogananda viewed the gathering as an august body, and his own
participation as an honor and a significant milestone in his career. In a commemorative program
photograph of several delegates, Yogananda stands conspicuously front and center in turban and
flowing robes, surrounded by pale, stern Anglo-Americans in suits; Ushigasaki, with short hair
and a suit, peeks out from behind the group. Yogananda serves as an eloquent prop for the

21
Kopf, Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).
22
Hedstrom, Rise of Liberal Religion, 8-9, divides American religious liberals into two main categories, both of
which arose from “Anglo-American liberal Protestantism.” Those influenced by William James’ emphasis on
pragmatism and experience tended toward “the religion of healthy-mindedness.” Other liberals, while not rejecting
experience, emphasized “mystical sensibilities and ethical commitments,” prompting them to attend to “realities
beyond the self.” Yogananda satisfied both groups, with teachings on experiential religion, mysticism, and ethical
teachings.
23
Richard Seager, “Pluralism and the American Mainstream: The View From the World’s Parliament of Religion”
Harvard Theological Review 82, no. 3 (1989): 301-324.
24
International Congress of Free Christians and Other Religious Liberals, New Pilgrimages of the Spirit:
Proceedings and Papers of the Pilgrim Tercentenary Meeting of the International congress of Free Christians and
Other Religious Liberals (Boston: Beacon Press, 1921), 7.

90
organizers’ message of broadminded tolerance.
25
The official program described him and his
presentation this way:
Swami Yogananda Giri, delegate from the Brahmacharya Sanghasran of Ranchi, India,
brought the greetings of his Association to the Congress, with which his Society desires
henceforth to be enrolled. In fluent English and a forcible delivery he gave an address of a
philosophical character on “The Science of Religion,” which as been printed in pamphlet form
for wider distribution. Religion, he maintained, is universal and it is one. We cannot possibly
universalize particular customs and convictions, but the common element in religion can be
universalized, and we can ask all alike to follow and obey it. As God is one, necessary for all, so
religion is one, necessary and universal. It is only the limited human point of view that overlooks
the underlying and universal element in the so-called different religions of the world.
26

As the program indicates, Yogananda perfectly calibrated his presentation on rational
universal religion to appeal to the conference’s largely Unitarian audience. “Science of Religion”
derived from the booklet with the same name he had authored at Ranchi with his colleagues
before departing from India, and its contents displayed his dependence on Indian intellectual
traditions, rather than on original thinking. Indeed, “science of religion” was a catchphrase
among the Brahmo Samaj based on well-established Samaj ideas about the “discovery of natural
laws about religion” discerned through non-sectarian comparative religious study.
27
Joseph Alter
argues that modern Indian yoga literature frequently refers to yoga as a science, with a somewhat

25
New Pilgrimages, frontispiece.
26
New Pilgrimages, 8. A Boston news article on the conference described Yogananda, somewhat oddly, as
“principal of the Residential School of Religion for boys” and representative of “an organization in India which I
endeavoring to end religious strife and bigotry and develop broadmindedness.” Something seems to have gotten lost
in the effort to translate his work to a secular journalist. See “Declares Japan Doesn’t Want War,” Boston Daily
Globe, Oct 7, 1920, 5.
27
The Brahmo Samaj defined it as “the discovery of natural laws about religion [based on] the comparative study of
religions carried on without sectarian bias, and leading to a unified concept of the religion of man.” See Kopf,
Brahmo Samaj, 51-67.

91
idiosyncratic meaning of a “precise and special way of knowing” whose ultimate goal is “to
transcend knowledge and realize absolute truth through direct experience.”
28
In keeping with
modern sanatana dharma convictions, the talk avoided any discussion of polytheism, religious
icons, or sacrifices. God, Yogananda said, can be experienced through “four fundamental
methods:” intellect, devotion, meditation, and science.
Yogananda’s experiences in India prepared him to confront the challenges religious
belief faced in the modern world, but in but his responses did not fit neatly into conservative or
liberals camps. Like many Christian liberals, he saw the divine as immanent, spoke of a scientific
method of religious practice whose results could be systematically tested, and emphasized the
this-worldly benefits of spiritual experience. In other key ways, however, Yogananda more
closely paralleled religious conservatives. He viewed his truth claims as universally applicable,
bearing directly on health, psychology, business, physics, and chemistry.
29
In this way, he
insisted on applying theological insights directly to all areas of life, rather than accepting
religious liberals’ retraction of the sacred canopy.
30
His conception of divine immanence did not
keep him from talking about God as a transcendent personal being separate from the Self that
people could experience directly. But it was the narrative trajectory of “The Science of Religion”
that most echoed evangelical Christianity. The text’s arc imitates a revival sermon or a gospel

28
Joseph S. Alter, Yoga in Modern India: The Body Between Science and Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2004), 32.
29
The revised and enlarged 1925 edition of The Science of Religion extended its appeal beyond religion to the new
field of psychology—the book was advertised as a “true psychological account of inner culture, concentration and
religion”—but the fundamental Hindu assumptions that grounded the book remained unchanged. Swami
Yogananda, Science of Religion (Los Angeles: Yogoda and Sat Sanga Headquarters, 1924, 4
th
edition) after p. 107.
In a similar way, his 1925 Psychological Chart relied on the developing field of psychology and psychology
personality profiles based on Carl Jung’s work, to offer a range of personality types based directly on the ancient
Indian Samkhya’s faculty psychology derived from combinations of the three gunas, or prakriti’s primordial
“evolutes.” See Swami Yogananda, Psychological Chart, 9
th
ed. (Los Angeles: Yogoda and Sat-Sanga, 1926)
30
See Hollinger, After Cloven Tongues of Fire, 6-7, 14, on liberal Protestant Christianity as “accommodation with
the Enlightenment.” On the notion of a “sacred canopy,” see Peter Berger, Sacred Canopy: Elements of a
Sociological Theory of Religion (New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1969), which argues that the conditions of late
modernity challenged the “plausibility structures” of religion, leading to the removal of the cognitive framework that
had hitherto explained reality for people of religious faith.

92
tract that moves from despair to hope. It begins with the universal desire of humanity to know
God, the false and idolatrous substitutes humans find, and the liberating transformation that takes
place when people discover the truth. Yogananda’s evangelistic style, as much as his formulation
of content, would serve him well in his American mission.
“Science of Religion” is deeply indebted to Hindu ontology, cosmology, and
epistemology. Though Yogananda referred to the example of Jesus, quoted the New Testament,
and downplayed the “question of the variety of religions—that of Christ, of Mahomet, or of the
Hindus,” he did so from within a distinctly Indian cosmology.
31
He used the English word Bliss
instead of the Sanskrit word ananda, but he relied on Vedantic theology throughout. He argued
that Bliss was the goal of life (identical to Brahman and/or God), that the search for Bliss a goal
stifled by the “delusion” of confusing the Self with the body, that Bliss could only be achieved
by destroying desire and attachment, that a “life current” animates humans physically and
spiritually, and that behavior is shaped by innate tendencies known as Samskaras.
32
Rather than
forging a new, universal religion that combined the best of all religions, Yogananda used
scientific and Christian language to tout Hinduism as the uniquely satisfying answer to the
anomie of a modern materialist society—an inclusivist faith through which all other religions
found their true meaning.
While the conference assumed epic proportions in Yogananda’s autobiographical vision,
it failed to made national news but the coverage on that was still pretty thin as the 1893 World’s
Parliament had. Consequently, Yogananda did not become an immediate sensation like
Vivekananda, and when the meeting ended he was cast adrift in an unfamiliar country. The next

31
Science of Religion, 48.
32
See, e.g., the Taittiriya Upanishad.

93
few years proved challenging despite his efforts to place the best possible cast on events.
33

His salvation came through presenting himself as an exotic, Orientalized individual to
particularly receptive audiences. The pattern he developed in Boston would carry throughout his
ministry. Educated, middle-class women were generally most responsive, a gender pattern that
characterized Christian churches, but was even more pronounced among non-mainstream
spiritual movements.
34
Also, Yogananda rarely attracted either Christian conservatives or
agnostics, but rather individuals from liberal Protestant denominations or those involved with
new religious movements, like Theosophy and Rosicrucianism. His followers were typically
people characterized as—or who characterized themselves as—spiritual “seekers:” individuals
engaged in the “universal search for human meaning” outside the constraints of traditional
church structures.
35

In November, four weeks after the conference ended, he attended a Rosicrucian talk in

33
In a 450-page Autobiography, he devotes a few short, upbeat sentences to the period after the conference: “Four
happy years were spent in humble circumstances in Boston. I gave public lectures, taught classes, and wrote a book
of poems, Songs of the Soul, with a preface by Dr. Frederick B. Robinson, president of the College of the City of
New York.” See Autobiography of a Yogi, 357. Yogananda’s relative silence about this period testifies to the
difficulties he faced, a point he hinted at in the first issue of East-West Magazine, “History of Swami Yogananda’s
Work in America,” East-West Magazine 1.1 (Nov-Dec 1925), 7, which discusses “‘lean months,’” “difficulties,” and
“trials.” Dasgupta indicates that Yogananda could not meet his basic living expenses for the first two years he was in
America and relied on his father for routine support (Dasgupta, Paramhansa, 49).
34
There were 125 women for every 100 men in religious organizations across the nation in the 1920s. Marty, Noise
of Conflict, 31.
35
Leigh Eric Schmidt, Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco,
2005), especially 227-268 (quote on 228), invokes spiritual seekers to identify followers of liberal religious
traditions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While a vast literature has developed among religious
sociologists describing seekers of the baby boomer generation and, more recently, the millennial generation,
historians have been much more reticent to apply this label to patterns of American religious exploration,. For a
classic statement of seeking among the baby boomer generation, see Robert Wuthnow, After Heaven: Spirituality in
America Since the 1950s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, new edition). For more recent trends, see
Robert Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon
& Schuster, 2010). Rather than a new pattern in the late twentieth century, seeking is better understood as a thread
woven into the American fabric from the beginning that has grown thicker since the mid-nineteenth century.
Seeking intensifies in modern conditions of choice—major cities make sense because of ability to draw larger
audiences, but also because audience are more responsive in settings disembedded from traditional cultures.
Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphyiscal Religion (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2007) provides an account of the metaphysical tradition began to flourish in the
antebellum period and has grown down to the present, arguably offering a coherent narrative of American
“seeking,” though she avoids that terminology.

94
Boston. Rosicrucianism was a late nineteenth century esoteric spirituality with roots in late
medieval Europe that, in its Christian branch, emphasized secret inner teachings of Jesus. After
the talk, one of the meeting’s organizers introduced Yogananda to Mrs. Mildred Lewis, a blue-
blooded Bostonian. She was captivated by his exotic appearance: “a dark-skinned, Indian Swami
whose long black hair flowed over his shoulders. He was wearing an orange turban, orange coat,
puttees, and sort of orange-colored, high-laced shoes. I was not accustomed to seeing anyone
dressed this way; I must have been a strange-looking person to this Hindu Swami, as he was for
me.” She described her meeting with Yogananda to her husband, Minot. A graduate of Tufts’
school of dentistry and an occasional instructor of clinical dentistry there, he had been reared to
be wary of “charlatans in the name of religion.”
36
A short time after meeting Mildred,
Yogananda was visiting West Somerville Unitarian Church where he met Mrs. Alice Hasey who
invited him to her home to meet several women friends and discuss metaphysics. She also
contacted her good friend Dr. Lewis and encouraged him to meet Yogananda. Dr. Lewis finally
agreed to meet Yogananda after prodding from his wife and his friend Hasey.
Yogananda’s first meeting with Lewis illustrates both his facility with Christian teachings
and his commitment to a Hindu form of discipleship. Still skeptical, Minot tested Yogananda’s
theological acumen by challenging him to explain a cryptic apothegm from Jesus’s Sermon on
the Mount: “It says in the Bible, ‘If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of Light.’
Can you tell me anything about this? ...I have asked many, but no one seems to know about it.”
Yogananda’s study of the New Testament proved useful as he answered Lewis’s query with
another apothegm, “‘Can the blind lead the blind? They both fall into the same ditch.’” This sage
response prompted the doctor to exclaim, “For heaven 's sake, please show me.” Yogananda

36
The Life Story of Dr. M.W. Lewis: A Faithful Disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda for Forty Years (Los Angeles:
Self-Realization Fellowship, 1960), 8.

95
looked into Lewis's eyes and asked, “Will you always love me as I love you?” Though Lewis
“had never been talked to in such a manner before,” he looked at Yogananda and “saw
something that I had not seen before in anyone.” He quickly responded, “Yes, I will.”
Yogananda then proclaimed, “That’s fine. I take charge of your life.” He introduced Lewis to
meditation, as both men sat cross-legged on a tiger skin. Yogananda showed Lewis the Light,
“the star in the spiritual eye and the thousand-petaled lotus.”
37
Thus commenced Yogananda’s
first guru-disciple relationship. Mildred’s own much less dramatic conversion followed, but she
always struggled to submit to Yogananda unreservedly as her guru the way her husband had.
While characteristic of spiritual discipleship patterns in India, especially among swamis,
this pattern of mentorship is strikingly unfamiliar to American Christianity, which prizes
individual autonomy.
38
What led Americans reared outside Indian spiritual tradition to accede to
this audacious demand of total allegiance from someone they had just met? Yogananda
personified Max Weber’s as yet unpublished notion of charisma: “[A] certain quality of an
individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as
endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities.
These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin

37
Brenda Lewis Rosser, Treasures Against Time: Paramahansa Yogananda with Dr. and Mildred Lewis (Borrego,
CA: Borrego Publications, 1991), 3-4.
38
Protestants particularly, tended to strongly resist anything that smacked of authoritarianism among clergy. Anti-
Catholicism since the antebellum era characteristically included a critique of the Pope and Cardinals as leaders who
required absolute obedience. And many of the nation’s low-church traditions, most notably Baptists, included local
congregational control and a democratic polity where major decisions took place through elections by the
members—not by a central denominational body or even a local pastor’s decision. David Smith, Hinduism and
Modernity (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003), 167, points out the cognitive dissonance for Americans drawn to
gurus, commenting, “Nothing better characterizes the gulf between Hinduism and modernity than the guru, but
gurus have brought Hinduism to the West and given modern times a saffron tinge.” At the same time, concerns
about gurus’ authority and the possibilities of abuse have been expressed by Indians as well, from members of the
Brahmo Samaj to the contemporary Indian press. See Ellen Goldberg and Mark Singleton, “Introduction,” in Gurus
of Modern Yoga, edited by Mark Singleton and Ellen Goldberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 7-8.

96
or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a ‘leader.’”
39

Lewis had clearly been a spiritual seeker when he met Yogananda; Yogananda offered himself to
Lewis completely as the answer to his seeking, and demanded only devotion in return. As
Giddens explains, “self-identity is negotiated through linked processes of self-exploration.”
Paradoxically, it was the Lewises’ very unfamiliarity of the religious tradition Yogananda
represented that allowed them to embrace him as their guru. As seekers, they needed to remain
open to spiritual truth being revealed in unexpected, perhaps even uncomfortable, ways.
Yogananda’s bold demand conveyed a self-authenticating spiritual authority while promising
spiritual revelation whose depths they could only imagine.
For Yogananda, this pure relationship of trust brought a generous new benefactor, a
prerequisite for his ministry in the US to continue. The dentist was no maharaja, but he was as
lavish in his financial support as his means allowed. From the outset, Dr. Lewis—who had been
taken advantage of by an earlier acquaintance—pressed Yogananda for assurances that he would
not fleece them. Yogananda assured him that “with a truly religious man, that is not possible.”
40

He routinely pressed them to give more, sometimes large amounts, insisting that the work could
not continue without them. While Mildred and Minot both continued to wrestle with these
demands, Mildred was by far the more reluctant.
41
She occasionally became aloof from
Yogananda, which he treated as a form of spiritual weakness. The indispensable mediator of
their spiritual journey, a lack of faith in God’s provision always equated with lack of trust in

39
Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, translated by Guenther Roth and Claus
Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 242.
40
Rosser, Treasures Against Time, 49.
41
Mildred recalls “a blow I will never forget.” Yogananda said, “Doctor, I will have to have a thousand dollars.”
The Lewises had two young children, a house, and a new automobile. “I was completely upset by this, but that was
the way it went. Master got it; and so he went off to New York with Sister and two or three other students who had
been attending lectures in Boston.” See Rosser, Treasures Against Time, 17.

97
Yogananda.
42

The Lewises gradually overcame their doubts as their intimacy with Yogananda
deepened.
43
Ultimately, they became the Swami’s closest friends, most admiring followers, and
most generous early donors. Yogananda’s physical healing of their son, their daughter, and
Minot himself fostered trust.
44
Yogananda always expressed effusive gratitude for their support,
and reassured them of the spiritual—and perhaps material—benefits they would accrue as the
ministry matured.
45

Through the Lewises’ generosity, he founded his first “Sat-Sanga,” or spiritual
community of truth, in Boston and an ashram at Hardy’s Pond in Waltham. Ten miles from
Transcendentalism’s Concord birthplace, the modest Waltham cottage was undoubtedly a tribute
to Thoreau’s experiment there seventy-five years earlier. Despite these optimistic beginnings, the
Boston community struggled to survive. He tried to pitch the talks he gave in halls around
Boston to a popular audience: “the Inner Life,” “Quickening the Right Prosperity,” and

42
He occasionally rebuked her directly, or rebuked her in letters jointly written to the couple, or in asides in letters
to Dr. Lewis. “Please remember one thing,” he wrote to Mildred in 1923, “Sat-Sanga does not depend on anyone’s
mistakes, it is grounded in truth and its doctrines should be received as such. I invite constructive criticism, but
ruthless public criticism simply for the love of it is against the laws of even simple friendship.” He quoted Jesus to
her, “Judge ye not others that ye be [sic] judged.” Then he promised to visit her in Boston, commanding, “let the
virus, the inharmonious spirit that disturbs your own peace removed, and let Sat-Sanga be made alive with your
newer expressions during my absence.” See Swami Yogananda Giri to Dr. and Mildred Lewis, December 13, 1923
in Rosser, Treasures Against Time, 65. To both, he wrote the following year: “It sometimes becomes very hard for
me to rebuke Mildred, knowing what she feels within. I know and you know, how dearly God has grown our
friendship.” See Swami Yogananda to Doctor and Mil Lewis, June 24, 1924 in Rosser, Treasures Against Time, 77.
43
Giddens, 89-98.
44
In 1921, Yogananda’s naturopathic remedy rid their son Bradford of a persistent stomachache that never returned.
Mildred viewed this as a “miracle of healing,” so “from this time on, my faith was established in Master’s spiritual
powers.” This incident was her “first realization of the supernatural powers of Swami Yogananda.” (Rosser,
Treasures Against Time, 6-7). He also interceded for their daughter, healing her permanently from routine
convulsions. “ And so it is those things…which make us realized how blessed we were to have the Master present
with us in our own home.” (Rosser, Treasures Against Time, 47). Yogananda also healed Dr. Lewis from a “very
depressing, serious condition with the body, which caused me great pain and made the practice of my profession
very difficult” through a “very peculiar, drastic remedy.” Again, the illness left never to return. (Rosser, Treasures
Against Time, 53).
45
“Words fail to express,” he wrote in one 1923 letter, “what you have done for Sat-Sanga…You have been the
golden instrument of God’s Touch—to manifest His Work. You have shown to me again that God helps when
everybody fails.” Yogananda then wished them, “May He give you unceasing faith and fulfill your desires and make
you prosperous in every way.” (Swami Yogananda Giri to Doctor Lewis, November 23, 1924 in Rosser, Treasures,
62).

98
“Concentration.” He experimented with different ways of presenting himself, sacrificing
accuracy for the sake of presumed appeal: a “famous psychologist and educator of Calcutta” (he
did not study psychology), “representative of the Maharajah of India” (the definite article
suggested official sponsorship by a uniquely prominent ruler), and Swami from University of
Calcutta (he was never affiliated directly with that institution). His curious avoidance of religious
language—especially given his “Science of Religion” talk—suggests reticence to present himself
as a direct competitor with churches. Despite formal advertising and word of mouth promotion,
Yogananda rarely drew more than a few people into his community. The core faithful amounted
to about a dozen apart from the Lewises, Alice Haysey, and Minot’s sister, Laura Elliott.
Yogananda’s reassurances to Dr. Lewis that the movement would become nationwide must have
sounded hollow.
46

Yogananda’s ministry finally experienced success when he began a multi-city tour with
financial backing from the Lewises and promotional efforts by M. Rashid, a “scion of a
distinguished Mohammedan family” whom Yogananda had met on his voyage to the United
States. After joining Yogananda’s staff, Rashid rented Carnegie Hall, charged a modest but
respectable entrance fee, advertised aggressively, and made sure the press showed up to provide
more free publicity.
47
One advertisement, which displayed a picture of the “psychologist”

46
Eventually, the Boston organization had to be shut down. Life Story, 12, 18.
47
“History of Swami Yogananda’s Work in America,” East-West Magazine 1.1 (Nov-Dec 1925), 7, noted that
Rashid had “proved invaluable in the work.” The account of the New York campaign is related by Dasgupta. Based
on a recollection of a conversation with Yogananda in 1935, more than ten years after the first New York campaign,
it probably gets some details wrong, but captures the essence of Rashid’s advertising strategy: “After Captain Rashid
joined Yognandaji in his work, the propagation methods changed completely. He expertly arranged all of the
necessities for high-level propagation—renting the best halls in whichever city they would be in, advertising in the
most respected newspapers of those cities, putting up posters with color pictures of Swamiji from street corner to
street corner, and charging a proper entrance fee for the lectures. Right from the start, Carnegie Hall in New York
was rented for a lecture. The rental cost for this hall was high; on top of that, the other preparation mentioned above
were made. The entrance fee was set at one dollar. Rashid had done all of this on his won and then informed
Swamiji, Swamiji was shocked when he heard about the arrangements. He said, ‘Rashid! What have you done?
There’s not enough money in the bank account to rent Carnegie Hall!’…When Yoganandaji was describing this
situation to us, he commented, “It seemed that Rashid believed in the efforts to cause a stir to bring people to

99
wearing a prominent turban, appeared in the “Amusements” section, sandwiched between ads for
vaudeville productions, casinos, and an Al Jolson blackface performance. While this placement
risked reinforcing common American perceptions of Hindu speakers as novelty acts rather than
as spiritual leaders, it also suggested that Yogananda’s talk was unapologetically entertaining.
48

Yogananda did his own part to promote his speaking tour. The novelty of his dress provided free
publicity from the press; the Tribune printed a large photo of Yogananda strolling the streets of
Manhattan, with a caption “a famous Swami comes to town.” The content of his New York talk,
which still eschewed overt religious language, also stirred up interest. The “East Indian
mystic”—“wrapped in a salmon-pink robe, draped with sashes, well brushed black locks
cascading over his broad shoulders”— “assured his hearers they need never grow old.” The
article, more cheeky than respectful, informed readers that Yogananda “will establish his
fountain of youth at a popular hotel.”
49
Suddenly, a moribund ministry had been jolted to life.
Yogananda’s successes in New York, followed by visits to other eastern cities, spurred
him to more ambitious plans. He decided to take a cross-country automobile tour. Prompted by
“an inner call to further extend the work,” he “saw in his mind’s eye the West of America and
especially Los Angeles, swept by his teachings.” En route to the West Coast, he hoped to find
new audiences and gain additional financial support for his ministry. He also wanted to learn
more about his mission field by touring the nation from one end of the continent to the other.
50
A
cross-country road trip in the 1920s was a significant undertaking, eased marginally by a national
highway-building boom that was bringing a “slow, uneven, but steady improvement in roads and

Yogoda Satsanga even more than I did…The next day, an article came out in a respected newspaper lauding
Swamiji and his lecture. Of course, behind this too was Rashid’s skillful maneuvering” (Dasgupta, Paramhansa,
52).
48
“City College Unveiling—A Swami Comes to Town—Arkansas Travelers Arrive Here—Honored by France,”
New York Tribune, Nov 18, 1923, 11. Mark Singleton, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Postural Practice (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 64-70. See below for further discussion.
49
“Swami Offers Fount of Youth to New Yorkers,” New York Tribune, Nov 25, 1923, 3.
50
“History of Swami Yogananda’s Work,” 9.

100
technology.”
51
The Lewises enabled the 5,000-mile trip by loaning him their car. In a letter he
sent en route, he referred to “our car” as he told its owners, I “wish you both saw this wonderful
place.”
52

Combining lectures and sightseeing as he toured the country, Yogananda sought to forge
a link between his Hindu identity, the Indian landscape, and the US. He spoke on concentration
to a “cultured audience” of three thousand at Denver Auditorium. “Bedecked in a dazzling
orange turban and golden gown,” Yogananda met the mayor. Coloradans betrayed some
ignorance about Indian customs, assuming that his first name was Swami or that he was a prince.
Yogananda contributed to the confusion by unaccountably claiming that as “the owner of two
large schools in India,” he was in the country to study the school system.
53

En route to Denver, he drove to the 14,000 foot summit of Pike’s Peak, a journey that
inspired one of his many rhapsodies about the American landscape: “Ne’er did I expect to roam,
On wheels four, Where thousand clouds do soar.” But the Hindu missionary’s poetic praise of
American beauty typically spurred a comparison with the Indian landscape. “Enthralled” by the
beauty of Yellowstone’s natural wonders, he was “reminded of our Indian forests.” Later, on
board a ship along the Alaskan coast, he reflected “If it were possible to hold a beauty contest of
all Nature’s grandeurs and scenes of loveliness, it would be difficult to choose between Alaska

51
Highway proponents overcame opposition from states righters, especially strong in the pro-business 1920s, to
forge the Federal Highway Act of 1921, which developed a workable partnership between various levels of
governmental authority (federal, state, county, and sometimes municipal) to establish road building standards and
begin a nationwide network of narrow concrete highways with gravel shoulders and wire-rope guardrails linking the
nation. Bruce E. Seely, Building the American Highway System: Engineers as Policy Makers (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1987); the quote is from 96.
52
S. Yogananda to Doc and Mil Lewis, September 25, 1924 in Rosser, Treasures, 81. He occasionally wrote to
them during the journey, in part to thank them for their generosity. In one letter, for example, he said, “God has been
very kind to me. So he will be kind to you. Never did you bring so much goodness out of me as you have done.
What spiritual help you want, that is yours.” (S. Yogananda to Doctor and Mil Lewis, October 29, 1924 in Rosser,
Treasures 83).
53
“India Educator Visits Denver on Tour of Country. Swami Yogananda to Give Two Lectures Before Leaving
City.” Rocky Mountain News. August 2, 1924 and “Swami Yogananda to Lecture in Denver,” Rocky Mountain
News, August 7, 1924. Reprinted at http://www.srf-denver.org/History.html

101
and her Hindu sister Kashmere for the Queen’s throne.”
54
In this way, Yogananda shifted focus
from the scenery of his adopted land to the sublime, sacred landscape of his homeland. Photos
from the trip reinforce this link between the US and India, juxtaposing the turban-clad Indian
swami some of the most iconic American locales. Returning to the continental United States
from his Alaska trip, he spoke in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco with financial and
logistical support from local organizers. Finally, he set his sights for Los Angeles.

Southern California, Modern America’s Spiritual Frontier
When Yogananda arrived in Los Angeles in January 1925, he caught a glimpse of the
nation’s future, a “metropolis in the making” that would offer a more conducive environment for
his message than any place he had experienced throughout the nation. Long a “spiritual frontier”
for liberal Protestants, it had more recently become a haven for various non-Christian traditions,
including Hinduism. This diverse, largely tolerant metropolis, and the presence of metaphysical
religions it welcomed made Los Angeles an ideal home for a spiritual leader who was busy
inventing himself.
55
Los Angeles grew from a small village of 11,000 in 1880 to a metropolis of
1.2 million by 1930 and the nation’s fifth largest city.
56
City borders do not adequately capture
the region’s growth, as the county’s population added “an average of 350 newcomers a day for
ten years.”
57
A vibrant and diversified economy stimulated this urban growth, foreshortening into
a half-century features that typically accompany urbanization: geographic spread through both
growth and annexation, massive investment in infrastructure, real estate speculation, and thriving
centers of finance and economy—including oil, airplanes and automobiles, a nascent film

54
“History of Swami Yogananda’s Work in America,” East-West Magazine 1.1 (Nov-Dec 1925), 11.
55
Tom Sitton and William Deverell, eds., Metropolis in the Making: Los Angeles in the 1920s (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2001).
56
US Census Bureau, www.census.gov
57
Greg Hise, “Industry and Imaginative Geographies,” in Metropolis in the Making, 18.

102
industry, and a healthy tourism industry made possible by modern advertising and the disposable
income afforded by a burgeoning middle class.
58
The Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles
Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles Realty Board, and the Automobile Club of Southern
tirelessly promoted the region through savvy publicity to a national audience. Real estate
boomed and tourism flourished: a million and a half visitors came in 1923 and by the end of the
decade, the latter accounted for ten percent of the economy. The nascent Automobile Club of
Southern California promoted road trips as the “vanguard of an era of mass leisure and
recreation,” claiming that 125,000 cars visited the region in 1926.
59
No other region embraced
and celebrated automobile culture—and mobility—as Southern California.
60
Los Angeles was a
city on the move, a restlessness that translated into the spiritual realm.
In this setting, Anglo Protestant enjoyed cultural hegemony.
61
In 1900 Los Angeles was
one of the “most homogeneous cities West of the Mississippi,” whose white Midwestern
transplants had introduced a “staunch mainline Protestantism” that shaped a pious, abstemious
culture.
62
Protestant ministers spoke at all high school commencements, while Protestant lay
people dominated the local press, city government, school boards, and community organizations

58
Though its tourism and entertainment economies dominate popular perceptions of early twentieth-century Los
Angeles, the city was also the nation’s second largest tire manufacturer and the center of oil production after
“spectacular oil discoveries” in nearby Huntington Beach Long Beach, and Santa Fe Springs, turned the Port of Los
Angles into the second busiest port in the world behind New York. Jules Tygiel, “Metropolis in the Making: Los
Angeles in the 1920s,” in Metropolis in the Making, 2-3; Kevin Starr, Material Dreams: Southern California
through the 1920s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 90-104.
59
Starr, Material Dreams, 96. One popular tourist destination, made easily accessible by California’s highway
system, was the US equivalent to ancient Mediterranean ruins: the decaying Spanish missions. See Phoebe S. Kropp,
California Vieja: Culture and Memory in a Modern American Place (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2006). Even before the turn of the century, important boosters like Charles Fletcher Lummis had promoted the
Southland. See Kevin Starr, Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985), 64-98, and Lawrence Culver, Frontier of Leisure: Southern California and the Shaping of
Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 15-51.
60
Scott L. Bottles, Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of the Modern City (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1987).
61
Gregory Singleton, Religion in the City of Angels American Protestant Culture and Urbanization, Los Angeles,
1850-1930 (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1979).
62
Michael J. Engh, “’Practically Every Religion Being Represented,’” in Metropolis in the Making, 202.

103
including the YMCA, Woman’s Club, and Chamber of Commerce.
63
The scathing evaluation of
former resident Willard Huntington Wright reflected the views of many critics: “These good
folks brought with them a complete stock of rural beliefs, pieties, superstitions and habits” that
explained the “Quakerish regulation of public dance halls” and the “stupid censorship of the
theaters.”
64
One observer commented that Los Angeles represented “an interesting experiment
for the Anglo-Saxon in America.”
65
In the 1920s, Protestant religious leaders came to terms with
the challenges of modernity by essentially siding with “modernism,” ceding scientific authority
to the secular realm and concentrating on social outreach and other ethical implications of
Christianity.
66
More interested in uplifting the needy than in saving souls, religious workers like
Bromley Oxnam sought to reach out to the poor, increasingly non-Anglo population of Los
Angeles.
67

By the 1920s, migration began to change the religious profile of Los Angeles. The WPA
City Guide to Los Angeles commented, only a bit hyperbolically, that the “multiplicity and
diversity of faiths that flourish in the aptly named City of the Angles probably cannot be

63
Singleton, Religion, 105, 84, 96.
64
“Los Angeles, the Chemically Pure,” The Smart Set, 39 (March 1913), 109, quoted in Starr, Material Dreams,
133-134.
65
Joseph Lilly, “Metropolis of the West,” North American Review, 232 (September, 1931) 243, quoted in Starr,
Material Dreams, 120.
66
The University of Southern California, the central institution of higher learning in the city at the time, illustrated
this response to modernity. A Methodist-founded institution, USC was in the midst of shedding its denominational
skin in the 1920s—in part, to attract non-Methodist donors like Catholic convert Esther Doheny—and gradually
removing religion from coursework. Its cutting-edge sociology department, with faculty often trained at the pioneer
institution, the University of Chicago, contributed to the earnest concerns of social gospel ministers. Dave Neumann,
unpublished paper: “The University of Southern California’s First Half-Century: Protestant Hegemony in a Modern
Metropolis, 1880-1930.” This was part of a larger national phenomenon; see Dorothy C. Bass, “Ministry on the
Margin: Protestants and Education,” in Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment in America,
1900-1960, edited by William R. Hutchison, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 56-57. On early
twentieth century sociology and Christian outreach to the poor, see Paul T. Phillips, A Kingdom on Earth: Anglo-
American Social Christianity, 1880-1940 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 111-113.
67
William Deverell, “My America or Yours? Americanization and the Battle for the Youth of Los Angeles,” in
Metropolis in the Making, 277-301. Oxnam’s conflicts with the city establishment figures like Harry Chandler
stemmed from his political radicalism, not from his theological views per se.

104
duplicate in any other city on earth.”
68
Catholicism grew largely from Mexican immigration into
the state following the Mexican Revolution of 1910-11. While some were converts to
evangelicalism as a result of American missionary work in Mexico, the majority remained
faithful to Rome. By the 1920s, “the Great Migration” of black Southerners had expanded
beyond Northern industrial cities like New York, Chicago, and Detroit to western cities like Los
Angeles. African American visitors described Southern California as a new Eden, convincing
many Southern blacks that the region was a haven from the violence and discrimination of the
South.
69

New movements flourished in this dynamic global metropolis as well. New Protestant
sects with more Biblicist theology established deep roots in the Southland. These movements’
conservative theological beliefs should not obscure their spirit of innovation. Los Angeles was
one key center of the national fundamentalist movement, and the region’s leaders “were obsessed
with modernism,” using “every available modern means—magazines and radio, especially—to
voice their response to the transforming metropolis.”
70
The early Bible Institute of Los Angeles

68
Federal Writers Project, Los Angeles: A Guide to the City and its Environs (New York: Hastings, 1941), 67. The
section on religion concludes with an attempt to keep marginal sects from tarring the city’s reputation: “In Los
Angeles today,” mainstream religious organizations, “together with the less eccentric unorthodox groups, form a
dignified background against which the fantastic stands out in garish high lights.” (72) Michael Engh echoes the
contention that the trends in Los Angeles were unprecedented: “Religiously, something distinct from the rest of the
nation was happening in the City of Angles in the first decades” of the twentieth century…During the 1920s in
particular, the multiplicity of faiths and the variety of forms of worship aggravated the apprehension of many
outside observers and the skepticism of many residents.” (Engh, “Practically,” 201-202).
69
Lonnie G. Bunch, III, “‘The Greatest State for the Negro’: Jefferson L. Edmonds, Black Propagandist of the
California Dream,” in Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California, edited by Lawrence B. de Graaf, Kevin
Mulroy, and Quintard Taylor (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001). 129-148. These mythic evocations
overstated the case, as opportunity and prejudice expanded side by side. While the persistence of racism made the
formation of a separate black public sphere necessary, the modest opportunities the city afforded its black residents
made construction of such a sphere possible. Churches, primarily independent Baptist and American Methodist
Episcopal churches, constituted the core of this black public sphere. Douglas Flamming, Bound For Freedom: Black
Los Angeles in Jim Crow America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).
70
Philip Goff, “Fighting Like the Devil in the City of Angels: The Rise of Fundamentalist Charles E. Fuller,” in
Metropolis in the Making, 243.

105
(BIOLA) was a quintessentially LA institution.
71

Pentecostalism, currently the fastest-growing religious tradition worldwide, had crucial
Los Angeles roots. The Azusa Street Revival, often celebrated as the birth of Pentecostalism,
broke out in 1906 with an interracial group of Holiness Wesleyans who experienced the
supernatural gift of speaking in tongues.
72
On January 1, 1923 Aimee Semple McPherson, a
Canadian convert to Pentecostalism, officially opened the doors of Angelus Temple in Echo
Park, the headquarters of her nascent Foursquare Church, eventually an international
denomination. Though she upheld a literal interpretation of the Bible, she was an innovator in
both theology and presentation. She proclaimed a brand of Christianity that integrated the
physical, emotional, and spiritual. A dramatic performer who used radio effectively, she had
many friends in journalism and Hollywood. Even as she criticized modernism in religion, her
own ministry was indisputably a modern product. Ministers and evangelists from established
denominations certainly recognized the innovative qualities of her theology, as their frequent
criticisms reveal.
73

More importantly for Yogananda’s ministry, the region also drew spiritual seekers from
“metaphysical movements” outside the Christian mainstream, disproportionate to their size in
most of the rest of the country. While the absolute numbers of Christian Scientists and
Theosophists remained small, their presence shaped the region’s culture, helping to foster a sense

71
Begun in 1909 with funding from Unocal founder Lyman Stewart, the Bible Institute became a key
fundamentalist institution nationwide. Bible institutes served as new educational institutions, unaccredited
alternatives to theological seminaries and liberal arts colleges—and upstart challenges to them. Virgina Lieson
Brereton, Training God’s Army: The American Bible School, 1880-1940 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1990).
72
See Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century,
Second Ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 84-106.Synan notes that a decade before the Azusa revival, the
Nazarene denomination had been founded in Los Angeles, “the largest holiness denomination in America.” He
comments that the “reputation of Lost Angeles as a congenial home for new religious ideas was already well
founded before 1906” (85).
73
Prominent Los Angeles fundamentalist minister “Fighting Bob” Shuler was perhaps McPherson’s most visible and
persistent critic. See Matthew Avery Sutton, Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), passim but especially 36.

106
of tolerance that helped Yogananda feel at home there—while ultimately providing a gateway to
his brand of yoga and Hinduism.
74

Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy, who came from pious New England
Congregational stock, sought a harmony between science and religion, between mind and
spirit—a message broadly congruent with Yogananda’s, which aided his recruitment efforts even
as he sought to distinguish his own views from those of Christian Science. Speakers earnestly
promoted their movement’s Christian identity in response to criticisms of heresy and dissociated
themselves from suspect practices like mesmerism, hypnotism, and mind cure.
75
Despite its
Biblicism, core Christian Science tenets were more compatible with monistic Indian traditions
than with traditional Christian cosmology and ontology.
76
Christian Scientists viewed God as the
only reality, and God’s fundamental identity as Mind. Humans were a product of God’s thought
and thus only truly themselves in exercising thought. Matter was illusory, which meant that
evil—including sin and especially sickness—did not really exist and that sensory perception was
delusive. Salvation came from coming to understand the truth and being liberated from the
shackles of the body.

74
See Sandra Sizer Frankiel, California’s Spiritual Frontiers: Religious Alternatives in Anglo-Protestantism, 1850-
1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
75
While insisting on the uncompromising nature of their own distinctive convictions they pleaded for unity among
all Christians. “Last of Series of Talks Given,” Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1923, II5.One speaker noted that
Christian Scientists read the same King James Version Protestants did (“Spiritual Law Basis of Creed,” Los Angeles
Times, July 3, 1923, II8) and another claimed, “perhaps the most important thing that Christian Science does for the
real truth-seeker is that it gives him back his Bible.” (“Lectures Draw Large Crowds,” Los Angeles Times, Jan 26,
1920, II5). Eddy’s teachings restored primitive Christianity, closely follow the teachings of Jesus, who conquered
sin, banished evil and healed the sick. Emma Curtis Hopkins, founder of New Thought, had joined Christian Science
in 1883 and risen quickly to the prominent position of Christian Science Journal editor before Eddy abruptly
dismissed her from the organization for her theological eclecticism. New Thought was the most influential group
within the mind cure movement that promised that “one’s desires, whether spiritual or material, needed only to be
expressed and their fulfillment would follow.” Beryl Satter, “Emma Curtis Hopkins and the Spread of New Thought,
1885-1905,” in Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity, and the New Thought Movement, 1875-
1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). The quote is from 79.
76
Stephen Gottschalk, Rolling Away the Stone: Mary Baker Eddy's Challenge to Materialism (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2006), 140-143, dismisses any intentional link between Eddy’s views and Eastern beliefs, of which
she was apparently largely ignorant. She allowed an assistant to include an epigraph from The Bhagavad Gita, which
has led some (including Swami Abhedananda) to conclude that she was a student of Hindu scripture.

107
For a small new sect, Christian Science enjoyed a healthy presence in Los Angeles in the
early twentieth century, receiving frequent and generally positive coverage in the press. Speakers
from around the country, certified through the Mother Church’s Board of Lectureship, routinely
filled public spaces like the Philharmonic Auditorium. Reaching out to audiences using
evangelical-style rhetoric, they pointed out the elusiveness of the quest for liberty, comfort,
contentment, and peace, then explained how Christian Science could meet their audience’s
deepest needs.
77
But their talks never moved beyond rehearsing staple doctrines of health and
wholeness through connection to the One Absolute Mind. Similarities between Christian Science
and kriya yoga encouraged some Scientists to explore Yogananda’s movement, while the
movements’ shared use of Christian terminology deepened the apparent similarities. Yogananda
saw Christian Scientists as competitors, not fellow travelers, and he took great pains to highlight
the differences between the two groups.
Theosophy also had a minor but important presence in Southern California, and like
Christian Science it provided some assistance to Yogananda in his own recruitment efforts.
Unlike Christian Science, however, Theosophy was overtly hostile to Christianity. It had begun
in 1875, when two elites, Henry Olcott, attorney, Civil War veteran, and member of New York’s
“metropolitan gentry,” met Russian émigré aristocrat Helena Blavatsky. An esoteric movement
with doctrines unfamiliar to most Americans, Theosophy had begun as an elite reform of popular
spiritualism.
78
Its most important early work, Isis Revealed, revealed how an ancient tradition
rooted in Egypt had recently been rediscovered. One could contact ancient Masters and access
their power for one’s own growth and healing. Within a few years, Olcott and Blavatsky had

77
“Points Way to General Amity,” Los Angeles Times, Dec 20, 1921, II9. Speakers included a long-time former
Episcopal priest, a physician, and a judge—as well as some women, like long-term Los Angeles resident Blanche
Corby.
78
After Blavatksy’s death, her esoteric ideas became less prominent. Stephen Prothero, “From Spiritualism to
Theosophy: ‘Uplifting’ a Democratic Tradition,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 3, No.
2, (Summer 1993):197-216.

108
explicitly embraced Indian ideas. Eventually, they moved to India where they remained
permanently. They embraced Buddhist ideas, including reincarnation.
79

A split in the movement left Katherine Tingley, a Massachusetts woman of old
Congregational stock, head of the organization. She eventually relocated the national
headquarters to Point Loma, a San Diego bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. “Lomaland”
became a utopian community that experimented with equal gender roles and communal
childrearing.
80
Los Angeles benefitted from the proximity of the headquarters, with Tingley
herself regularly providing talks. But turning such a religion into a popular movement for
evangelistic purposes was no easy matter. Even more than Christian Science, Theosophy earned
criticism from Christian ministers.
81
Tingley and others tried to strike a balance between
highlighting their distinctive tenets and explaining those ideas in upbeat terms that fit the
optimism of the 1920s. Like many religious movements, its leaders rooted its authority in the
ancient past.
82
In reality, it was fundamentally a modern project of self-liberation, a syncretic
product of a globalized world. With greater interest in Buddhism than Hinduism, there was less
overlap with Yogananda, though for people in the “market” for Eastern spirituality, the obvious
eclecticism of the movement might have made it less appealing than the presumed authenticity of
a teacher straight from India.

79
They even considered merging their nascent organization with the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform organization not
unlike the Brahmo Samaj.
80
Evelyn A. Kirkley, “‘Equality of the Sexes, But…’: Women in Point Loma Theosophy, 1899-1942,” Nova
Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 1, no. 2 (April 1998): 272-288.
81
One Presbyterian minister in LA, for example, Dr. Herbert Booth Smith of Immanuel Presbyterian, complained
that while the movement claimed to embrace universal truth, it actually showed “strong preferences for Hindu
belief” while showing “scant appreciation for Christianity.” The result was to “make Jesus a debtor to Eastern
wisdom.” (“Pertinent Pulpit Paragraphs,” Los Angeles Times, January 10, 1921, II3).
82
In a 1921 address, for example, Tingley declared that the mission of Theosophy was “to break the molds of the
minds of men, to life them out of the ruts of misconception and false theories, and to bring home to them the know
of their essential divinity, of their essential divinity of their possibilities and of their responsibilities.” “Theosophy is
not modern,” Tingley claimed, “it is a restatement of the ancient wisdom—that religion adapted to recent conditions.
It is as old as the ages, and if one will study it he will find that it was lived and practiced very beautifully and
altruistically centuries before time of Jesus.”

(“Speaker Explains Aim of Theosophy,” Los Angeles Times, October
24, 1921, II5).

109
Two other groups that often overlapped with religion or spirituality flourished in
Southern California in this period; both contributed to making the region hospitable to
Yogananda. Good climate encouraged “health seekers” from the late nineteenth century, who
often mixed spirituality with their quest for health.
83
This quest often produced unorthodox
medical approaches, giving Los Angeles a reputation “throughout the medical world as one of
the richest stomping grounds in the country for medical quackery and ‘cultism,’” according to
the 1930 editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
84
The availability of open
spaces in a mild climate also encouraged Utopianism to flourish in late nineteenth century
California as in few other places. By no means were these communities all religious, but
“perfectionism lay at the heart of California utopianism,” a spiritual ethos encouraging members
to agree that humans “can achieve in this life not only freedom from sin, but the highest of the
virtues, truth, beauty, goodness. And society itself, like man, can be perfectly remolded. In this
sense, utopians were also millenarians looking for the coming of the ideal commonwealth and
eternal happiness on this earth.”
85
Elements of Yogananda’s teaching, and the community he
envisioned, resonated with these utopian traditions. As Sarah Strauss observes, “Yoga entered
the late-nineteenth-century global public arena on the coattails of these key values of modernity”

83
This included, for example, John Harvey Kellogg’s Adventist-inspired back-to-nature sanitariums and Christian
Scientists pursuing Eddy’s claim that tuberculosis existed only in the mind. John E. Baur, The Health Seekers of
Southern California, 1870-1900 (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library Press, 1959), 48, 93-96. David Sloane,
“Landscapes of Health and Rejuvenation,” in A Companion to Los Angeles, edited by William Deverell and Greg
Hise (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), disagrees with Baur’s contention that the health movement peaked in
1900 and declined thereafter, arguing instead of successive waves in the 1920s and again later.
84
Similarly, writer Louis Adamic found in the early 1920s “no end of chiropractors, osteopaths, ‘drugless
physicians,’ faith healers health lecturers, manufacturers and salesmen of all sorts of health ‘stabilizers’ and
‘normalizers,’ psychoanalysts, phynotists, mesmerists, the flow-of-life mystics, astro-therapeutists, miracle men and
women.” Both quotes are from David Sloane, “Landscapes of Health and Rejuvenation,” 449.
85
Robert V. Hine, California’s Utopian Communities, New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1953), 165-166. More
recently, Donald E. Pitzer has confirmed that around the turn of the century, “the focus of much of America’s
communal utiopian experimentation shifted” to the West Coast, “where all manner of religious and social causes
found a sympathetic hearing. See “Introduction,” in America’s Communal Utopias, edited by Donald E. Pitzer
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 10.

110
namely freedom, health, and self-development.
86

The fertility of new religious movements in Southern California helps explain
Yogananda’s decision to locate there, and why his subsequent ministry succeeded. There was
something in the soil—or at least the landscape. From at least the Gold Rush era, the
opportunities and hazards of America’s furthest Western frontier drew adventurers and non-
conformists of all types. Though gold provided the initial lure to westward migrants, by the late
nineteenth century the greater Southern California region became an increasingly powerful
magnet. Southern California’s real estate booms may not have been gold rushes, but they drew
some of the same types of risk-takers.
87
The lack of a single population center and the
geographic openness of the Los Angeles Basin allowed diversity to flourish despite Protestant
hegemony. Groups had space to invent their own eclectic traditions, while open space fostered a
libertarian ethos.
88
The landscape lured many who found the divine in nature—and converted
many who came for other reasons. Sublime encounters with blue skies, golden sunlight, and the
vast Pacific inspired evocations of Eden or the exotic Orient at the ocean’s far shore: “California
is a gilded state…The gold of California is the color of the orange, the glitter of dawn in the
Yosemite, the hue of the golden gate that opens the sunset way to mystic and terrible Cathay and

86
Strauss, Positioning Yoga, 31.
87
In the gold fields, freethinking ministers and lay people kept up their faith. California as a whole became a draw
for Wade Clark Roof argues that California “at the time of the westward movement was already emerging as the
crossroads of global religious and cultural encounters.” Wade Clark Roof, “Pluralism as a Culture: Religion and
Civility in Southern California,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 612, no.
1(July 2007): 82-99; reference on 86-87. Likewise, Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp concludes that the “privatized and
syncretistic patterns of spirituality that emerged during the years of the gold rush remained an important feature of
religion in the state…By the end of the century, California had become a new burnt-over district, boasting more
communitarian experiments than any other state.” Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, Religion and Society in Frontier
California (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 182-183.
88
A point Leo Braudy hints at in “Cultures and Communities,” in A Companion to Los Angeles, 276, but does not
develop. This is the converse of the argument by social geographers that high urban density forces one to confront
the religious other and often intensifies the sense of intrusion. See Bret E. Carroll, “Worlds in Space: American
Religious Pluralism in Geographic Perspective,” in Gods in America: Religious Pluralism in the United States,
edited by Charles L. Cohen and Ronald L. Numbers, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 74, where he
summarizes the work of William M. Newman, Rhys H. Williams, and others. Singleton suggests that a rapidly
changing environment encouraged the growth of “cults” (148).

111
Hindustan.”
89

Whatever the precise reasons, Southern California became a magnet for a self-selecting
group of spiritual eccentrics, a point that was obvious to contemporary observers as to later
scholars. From at least the beginning of the century, Los Angeles-area residents observed the
bewildering diversity of the region’s spiritual landscape with a mixture of anxiety, bemusement,
and a strange sort of local pride. A 1900 columnist proclaimed, “Los Angeles is the headquarters
for scientific, socialistic, humanitarian, occult and other societies dealing with matters—or rather
with ideas—that are more or less beyond the ken of the average every-day mortal,” including
“Harmonial Spiritualists, the Universal Brotherhood, the Cooperative Spiritual Workers, the
Theosophists, a School of Metaphysics, a school of ‘sciento-philosophy and psycho-pneumic
culture’ (God save us!) and a ‘home of truth.’” In such a spiritual climate, “it is a cold week
when some plausible Hindoo…does not mount a Los Angeles lecture stage to tell his hearers
about many things that a goodly proportion of the audience take to be true because they do not
understand.”
90
Willard Huntington Wright noted the city’s taste for “spiritualists, mediums,
astrologists, phrenologists, palmists and all other breeds of esoteric windjammers.”
91
A 1926

89
Vachel Lindsay, The Art of the Moving Picture (1915), reprinted in David L. Ulin, Writing Los Angeles: A
Literary Anthology (New York: Library of America, 2002), 48.
90
“Sou’ by Sou’west,” Los Angeles Times, January 28, 1900, IM29. In 1908, an editorial described the city’s
diversity: “The Swiss man and maid in costume…jostle the turbaned, swart Hindu from Calcutta or Benares…The
Brahmin from Bombay talks to the sun-worshiping Parsee from Teheran…” He encouraged readers to let them all
come and make the city a microcosm of the globe and avoid the inconveniences of travel. “We can have the world in
a nutshell, so to speak, in this cosmopolitan city.” (“Los Angeles a Microcosm,” Los Angeles Times, December 15,
1908, II4). Aldous Huxley’s 1926 “Los Angeles. A Rhapsody” includes a section on the diversity of the Los
Angeles spiritual marketplace: “Emerging, I bought a newspaper. It was Saturday’s; a whole page was filled with
the announcements of rival religious sects, advertising the spiritual wares that they would give away, or sell on the
Sabbath.” Then followed excerpts of various church announcements interspersed with snarky commentary. Aldous
Huxley, “Los Angeles. A Rhapsody,” in Jesting Pilate (1926) reprinted in Ulin, Writing, 57.
91
Quoted in Starr, Material Dreams, 135.This was, perhaps, the beginning of a journalist trend whose apogee was
reached in Carey McWilliams’s narrative of LA as home to aberrant religious and spiritual traditions, “the world’s
prize collection of cranks, semi-cranks, placid creatures whose bovine expression shows that each of them is
studying, without much hope of success, to be a high-grade moron, angry or ecstatic exponents of food fads, sun-
bathing, ancient Greek costumes, diaphragm breathing and the imminent second coming of Christ,” and, finally,
“cuckoo land.” See Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island on the Land (Salt Lake City: Peregrine
Books, 1973), 250. He sardonically recounted his own experiences. “In Los Angeles, I have attended the services of

112
article asked whether Oriental philosophers and religionists posed a danger to Christianity and
Western civilization; in passing, it claimed that, more than a bit hyperbolically, “Los Angeles
boasts more religious organizations than any other city in the United States.”
92

Early twentieth-century Southern California epitomized the spiritual options available in
the modern world. If Boston had historically been the nation’s spiritual foundation, as the city’s
Congress of Religious Liberals tried to remind delegates, it longer played that role in 1920.
93
By
the early twentieth century, the focus of spiritual energy had shifted to Southern California, the
nation’s “spiritual frontier.”
94
Yogananda could not have found a better place to call home.

Yogananda, Orientalism, and Hindu Spiritual Leaders in Southern California
Yogananda was not the first Hindu to settle in Los Angeles. He benefitted tremendously
from the pioneering efforts of previous Hindu leaders who reached out to white Americans while
doggedly challenging pernicious Indian stereotypes—and appropriating less critical Orientalist
tropes—in a patient exposition of their beliefs. As Balkrishna Govind Gokhale notes in reference
to the late nineteenth century, “America now looked at India through British eyes and news of
India largely came via London and the British Foreign Office,” so British views—particularly

the Agabeg occult Church, where the woman pastor who presided had violent hair (to match her name) and green-
painted eyelids (to emphasize their mystical insight); of the Great White Brotherhood, whose yellow-robed
followers celebrate the full moon of May with a special ritual; of the Ancient Mystical Order of Melchizedek; of the
Temple of the Jeweled Cross; of Sanford, “food scientist, psychologist, and health lecturer”; of the Baha’i World
Faith Center; of the Crusade of the New Civilization; of the Self-Realization Fellowship of America, which proposes
to construct a Golden Lotus Yoga Dream hermitage near Encinitas at a cost of $400,000; and the lectures of Dr.
Horton Held, who believes that California is an unusually healthy place to live since so many flowers find it possible
to grow in this vicinity. The flowers, cultivated or wild, give out certain chemicals which beneficially affect the
human body” (267-268).
92
“Civilization Peril Inward: Rationalist to Occupy Pulpit for Discussion of Theosophist Prophet,” Los Angeles
Times, August 28, 1926, A2. Similarly, Los Angeles journalist and historian John Steven McGroarty proclaimed,
“Los Angeles is the most celebrated incubator of new creeds, codes of ethics, philosophies and near philosophies
and schools of thought, occult, new and old.” cited in Engh, “Practically,” 201.
93
Indeed, one of the delegates to the convention shared his conclusion from a cross-country tour: the West and
South were the most spiritually vibrant regions of the country. See “Religious Boom in West and South, Says E.G.
Adams,” Boston Daily Globe, October 11, 1920, 9.
94
This phrase and the framework it represents come from Sandra Sizer Frankiel, California’s Spiritual Frontier:
Religious Alternatives in Anglo-Protestantism, 1850-1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

113
negative ones—shaped American views.
95
White Angelenos’ discussion of “Hindoos” typically
focused on the need to evangelize India, ushering in civilizational, not just religious,
transformation, including an end to infanticide, child marriage, and widow suicide. Though
Indians rarely registered on the national nativist radar, West Coast fears of a heathen Hindu
invasion fused racial, cultural, and religious elements in a region with a robust nativist
tradition.
96
Indian immigrants were typically poor indentured laborers, a variation on the coolie
“yellow menace” that had stoked whites’ fears in the nineteenth century West. In the early
twentieth century, Los Angeles residents became concerned that Indians in Vancouver might
begin migrating to Los Angeles.
97
Whites, who assumed a link between racial and civic
identities, doubted that Indians could make good citizens. Reverend Dana Bartlett, a
Congregationalist minister who operated a settlement house in Los Angeles, warned local
citizens that ten thousand Hindus were already in the city, and “this army is constantly being
augmented.” Bartlett contended that Indians were even more problematic than Mexicans,

95
See Balkrishna Govind Gokhale, India in the American Mind (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1992), 35.
96
Nativism included a history of included ethnic violence against Mexicans and Chinese. On violence towards
Mexicans, see Deverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of its Mexican Past
(Berkeley, University of California Press: 2004). Though Joshua Paddison, American Heathens: Religion, Race, and
Reconstruction in California (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 2012) covers an earlier period, the same
dynamics remained in play. By the 1920s, the region hosted a vibrant KKK focused on immigration restriction and
often received strong support from conservative Protestant churches. On the KKK in 1920s Southern California and
its relationship to labor, see Mike Davis, “Sunshine and the Open Shop: Ford and Darwin in 1920s Los Angeles,” in
Metropolis in the Making, 117. On the KKK’s relationship to Protestantism, see Engh, “‘Practically,’” 207.
97
These fears intensified in the wake of a white mob’s attack on Indians in Bellingham, Washington in 1907, which
prompted many Indians to leave the state. “Hindus are Coming South,” Los Angeles Times, Sept 25, 1907, I3.;
“Hegira of Hindus,” Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1907, I1; “Influx of Hindus: Thousands from Vancouver
Now Employed on Western Pacific in California,” Los Angeles Times, November 10, 1907, II11; and “The Secret of
the Green Turban,” Los Angeles Times, Nov 22 1907, II4. The fears were out of all proportion to the number of
actual Indians, which amounted to no more than a few hundred. Indians who migrated to California were a subset of
the fewer than 15,000 who immigrated to the United States in the entire period before 1965. Gurinder Singh, Paul
Numrich, and Raymond Williams, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs in America: A Short History (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 44-45. When the “first of their race to be employed so near here” began work on the Los
Angeles-Pacific trolley in 1908, the event was greeted with remarkable equanimity. “They are a picturesque lot in
their turbans,” a distinctive form of dress responsible for much of the hostility they faced. Because local law
“protects all who behave themselves whatever their race,” these hardworking laborers who are content with low
wages “may be but the advance guard of many who will come this way when they find that there they will be given
a chance to labor peacefully without molestation.” (“Turbans on Heads, Shovels in Hands,” Los Angeles Times, Dec
11 1908, II1).

114
Chinese, and Japanese, who all failed to assimilate.
98
Indians insisted on maintaining caste and
traditional food customs, refusing to “develop into good citizens.”
99
Indians’ unwillingness to
doff their turbans in a courtroom provided a key symbolic marker of their inability to
assimilate.
100
The civic critique of Indians intensified during World War I, as Indians agitating
for home rule made their headquarters on the Pacific Rim.
101

The landmark 1923 Supreme Court case United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind epitomized
the intersection of racial identity, citizenship, and religion that Hindu teachers in Los Angeles
were forced to combat. Thind, an American World War I veteran, sued for the right to become
naturalized based on his identity as an Aryan and therefore a white man, despite the 1790
Naturalization Act’s restriction of naturalization to “free white persons.” The government argued
that a vast cultural and civilizational chasm existed between Indians and whites irrespective of
biology, even quoting Kipling’s famous “White Man’s Burden” in support. Persuaded by the
government’s argument, a unanimous Supreme Court dismissed Thind’s claim in favor of a
definition of whiteness understood by the average American on the street.
102
The ruling, a

98
Stephanie Lewthwaite, “Race, Place, and Ethnicity in the Progressive Era,” in Companion to Los Angeles, 40-55.
99
“A Hindu Problem,” Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1910, II13.
100
This issue popped up in court intermittently for a decade, when Indians finally won the right to wear their turbans
in court, to the dismay of white citizens. It is important to note that the turban-wearing Indians were very likely
Sikhs, a distinct religious tradition that began in Northern India in the late fifteenth century, and typically considered
distinct from Hinduism. This distinction would have been lost on nearly all white observers at the time. See “People
of the Coast,” Los Angeles Times, Jan 30, 1907, II4; “Hindu’s Turban Sign of Guilt,” Los Angeles Times, Apr 28,
1913, II2; “Judge Scalps Hindu,” Los Angeles Times, Feb 17, 1914, I12; and “May Wear Turban,” Los Angeles
Times, May 19, 1916, II9.
101
Conservative middle class Americans trained to fear political radicalism were horrified by the self-rule
movement, especially when armed rebellion broke out in India. “Hindu Troops in Mutiny Kill British Officers,” Los
Angeles Times, February 19, 1916, I5. Several months later, the paper gleefully reported the execution of several
rebels: “Execute Indians for Rebellion,” Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1916, I2.
102
Bharati’s argument reflected the prevalent theory that North Indians descended from Caucasus migrants in the
ancient period, based on the linguistic scholarship of prominent Orientalist scholars William Jones and Max
Mueller. Indeed, the Supreme Court’s decision reversed the United States District Court’s ruling that Thind did
qualify for citizenship as a white man, based on the majority of lower court rulings that Indians were white. The
Supreme Court itself had recently affirmed two lower court rulings that high-caste whites were eligible for
naturalization, only to reverse course three months later and overrule the lower court rulings. See Doug Coluson,
“British Imperialism, the Indian Independence Movement, and the Racial Eligibility Provisions of the Naturalization

115
disaster for the region’s Indians, caused elation among white Angelenos, who expressed relief
that “considerable enlightenment was thrown by the Supreme Court” in reinforcing the boundary
of white identity against a novel, shrewd legal argument.
103

White critics insinuated that Hindus displayed a general disposition toward crime,
violence, and immorality. Whites feared that unfamiliar religious practices like meditation were
related to hypnotism, superstition, astrology, and palm reading—questionable practices often
popularly linked to crimes of passion and sexual degeneracy.
104
State and municipal government
officials took the threat of psychics and palm readers seriously enough to launch a major
campaign in late 1924 to “seriously cripple, if not eliminate, purported psychic and
pseudospiritualist activities on the Pacific Coast.”
105
Press coverage of a famous 1905 case
highlighted this amalgamation of racial, cultural, and religious perceptions. A “Hindu fake
palmist” named F. Rubel shot a white competitor during an altercation. On trial, “whatever
powers of occultism” he possessed, “he utterly failed to hypnotize the jury,” which found the

Act: United States v. Thind Revisited,” Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives 7 (2015):
1-42.
103
“Citizenship is Refused Hindu,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1923, I2. The article noted with approval the
Court’s argument that Congress’s recent decision to exclude admission to “all natives of Asia…including the whole
of India, constituted conclusive evidence…of the ‘Congressional attitude of opposition to Asiatic immigration
generally.’” Apart from jurisprudential considerations, Singh’s agitation on behalf of Indian self-rule played a role in
the Court’s final decision. As a founding member of the Ghadr Party, a radical nationalist group that advocated
violence in the pursuit of self-rule for India (and instigated the violent 1916 uprising against British troops in India),
US government officials argued that he was ineligible for citizenship. See Coulson, “British Imperialism.”
California attorneys sued to allow their clients to retain citizenship papers granted by state officials before Thind, but
these cases were defeated. Because California’s 1913 Alien Land Law—targeted primarily at Japanese
immigrants—prevented non-citizens from owning land or negotiating long-term leases Indians’ landholding claims
were annulled. See “Hindu Case Ends Local Discussion,” Los Angeles Times, Feb 21, 1923, I17; “Plea Made for
Hindu’s Citizenship,” Los Angeles Times, Sept 25, 1923, I15; “Citizenship Contest of Hindu Ends,” Los Angeles
Times, November 18, 1923, I5; and “Hindu Status to be Decided,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1924, A2.
103
“Culture Secrets,” Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1910, I1 and “Massaging too Much for Her,” Los Angeles Times,
May 14, 1910, I5. The paper devoted an occasional series to debunking various tricks by Hindu performers. The
image of the yogi as magician and imposter was a well-established theme in Europe as well. See Mark Singleton,
Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Postural Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 64-70.
104
The image of the yogi as magician and imposter was a well-established theme in Europe as well. See Mark
Singleton, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Postural Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 64-
70.
105
“State Prosecutors Ready for Psychic Inquiries,” Los Angeles Times, Nov 16, 1924, 14.

116
“long-haired Hindu with sensuous eyes” guilty of assault with a deadly weapon. In announcing
his sentence, Judge Smith commented that the altercation resulted from competition between one
Yankee faker and his upstart rival, the defendant “with the flowing locks and robe, and with the
melodious voice.”
106
The malign effects of Indian religious teachings threatened to spread
beyond their own communities into the living rooms of unsuspecting whites. The “entire trend of
the teaching is diametrically opposed to the Christian philosophy of thought—no sin, no hell, no
devil, but bliss absolute within the grasp of all.”
107

But despite this consistent negative discourse about Indians, American Orientalist
tropes—like their English counterparts—provided an alternative view of Indian beliefs and
practices. Though undeniably patronizing, Orientalist discourse did project positive associations
with India and Indians. Americans tended to collapse high-caste Indian people, their culture, and
fashion into a single exotic East of luxurious princedoms. When members of a “Hindu royal
family” from Bombay visited Los Angeles, the wife “created quite a sensation.” Reflecting the
vague Orientalist geography that collapsed South Asia and Southwest Asia, the article explained,

106
“Rubel Must Face a Jury,” Los Angeles Times, Mar 1, 1905, II2; “Hypnotize the Jury? Nay, Nay!,” Los Angeles
Times, Apr 26, 1905, II5; “Faker Sentenced,” Los Angeles Times, May 2, 1905, II2.
107
William T. Ellis, “Christian Endeavor,” Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1901, 14, betrayed his ignorance of
meditation when it described the silliness of “purging sin by staring at the end of your nose.” More accurately but no
more sympathetically, “Eyes Toward Nose, The Swami Meditated,” Los Angeles Times, April 4, 1901, 11, described
strange practices Indians followed in search of enlightenment: “A long, weird chant in Sanskrit and other
unintelligible things edify the faithful cross-legged congregation of a dozen.” Los Angeles swami Baba Bharati,
discussed below, became a national symbol of these fears through Mabel Potter Daggett, “Heathen Invasion,”
Hampton-Columbian Magazine 27:4 (October 1911), 399-400. Photographs of swamis like Bharati were placed
alongside images of American women in Victorian dress, suggesting the inappropriate domestic intimacy yoga
training fostered, where “dusky-hued Orientals sat on drawing-room sofas, the center of admiring attention, while
fair hands passed them cakes and served them tea in Sevres china.” Viewing religious allegiance in military terms,
Daggett warned that while churches were busy sending out missionaries, the “pagans have executed an amazing
flank movement; they have sent their emissaries to us.” Elizabeth Reed, a reputable scholar of Hinduism and
Buddhism and member of the Royal Asiatic Society, offered a more academic version of this argument. She warned
about the dangers of modern moneymaking gurus flourishing in the United States, who hypnotized hapless women
and exploited them sexually. See Elizabeth Reed, Hinduism in Europe and America (New York: G.P. Putnam’s
Sons, 1914) especially 117-122. Daggett warned that while yoga means the path that leads to wisdom, “it is proving
the way that leads to domestic infelicity and insanity and death.” She excoriated the shallowness of women and the
showmanship of the gurus who come “silken clad and sandal shod” with their “gorgeous robes,” outcompeting
plainly-dressed American ministers. Yoga’s “promise of eternal youth,” assures American women “health and long
life and the power to stay the ravages of time” (401).

117
“She is traveling in the native Hindu sari, which resembles the gowns worn by Egyptians and
residents of Palestine…Another feature of her dress that attracted considerable attention…was
that she wore a large diamond set on her right nostril.”
108
Oriental culture inspired fashions that
prompted one author to proclaim that Kipling needed to recant his statement that east and west
would never meet; “The orient, alluring, beautiful and with a mysterious charm, contributes a
fashion.”
109
In addition to the turban as a women’s fashion accessory, many desirable fabrics
were identified as “Hindu,” making that word a polyvalent reference to people and culture, the
positive connotations of the clothing attached to the perceived nobler features of the culture.
110

The visual appeal of Indian dress carried over to the arts, which were also enamored of an
undifferentiated “the Orient” that spanned from North Africa to India—an exotic region that
represented escapism, lush scenery, and erotic titillation.
111
Especially in the era before sound,
film relied on spectacle, making India an ideal subject. Though negative stereotypes of lower-
caste Indians were not absent, admiring portraits of wealthy elites overshadowed these negative
depictions.
112
Films like 1922’s The Young Rajah invited audiences to sympathize with Indians.

108
“Hindu Royalty as Los Angeles Guests,” Los Angeles Times, Jul 29, 1919, II3.
109
“The Orient Contributes a Fashion,” Los Angeles Times, Oct 10, 1915, VII8.
110
Advertisements announced girls dresses in “Hindoo crepe,” autumn frocks in “Hindoo brown,” white sport silks
in “Hindu crepe” Hindoos. Kristen Hoganson, Consumer’s Imperium: The Global Production of American
Domesticity, 1865-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007) deals with a slightly earlier period
and does not explicitly address Indian fashions in her assessment of Orientalism, but her argument about wealthy
middle-class women’s (superficial) aspirations to cosmopolitanism through consumption certainly fit here. Mari
Yoshihara, Embracing the East: White Women and American Orientalism (New York: Oxford University Press,
2003) addresses similar themes and extends her coverage to 1940, but deals exclusively with East Asian orientalist
interests.
111
Edwin Schallert, “A New Circle of Cinema,” Los Angeles Times, Feb 29, 1920, III13 and “Orient Spreads
Colorful Wings,” Los Angeles Times, Jul 11, 1920, III16.
112
The Cheat (“Pola Negri, Kosloff Dancers Big Lure,” Los Angeles Times, September 24, 1923, II7) and
Boomerang (“‘Boomerang’ Makes Welcome Film Fare,” Los Angeles Times, June 8, 1925, A7), both with Hindu
schemers, reinforced negative stereotypes. In Bombay, the Douglas Fairbanks movie The Thief of Baghdad thrilled
one Muslim Indian community. See “Hindus Howl Over Doug Film,” Los Angeles Times, Oct 20, 1925, A11. Sid
Grauman staged an elaborate stage production called City of Dreams—which included nautch girls (royal courtesan
dancers) and a Hindu conjurer—as an introduction to screenings of The Thief of Baghdad at The Egyptian Theater
in Hollywood. See “Fitting Introduction,” Los Angeles Times, September 28, 1924, B27. Early European film
portrayed similar images of Hindus. See Mark Singleton, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Postural Practice
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 66-67.

118
The film starred silent screen heartthrob Rudolph Valentino as a likable character raised in the
American South who discovers that he is really an Indian prince robbed of his kingdom. The
Young Rajah’s director, Philip Rosen, became “thoroughly familiar with Hindu lore” through
making the film and decided to include a “Rajah Dance” into 1923’s annual director’s ball.
113

Apart from film, Los Angeles residents encountered depictions of Indians through drama, dance,
and poetry.
114
The famous poet Rabindranath Tagore, gushingly branded the “Shakespeare of
India” by affectionate Angelenos, drew large audiences during visits in 1916 and 1923. Waxing
rhapsodic about the “many glories of California,” one commentator listed natural scenery, the
film industry, and diversity—including the opportunity to meet India’s famous poet.
115

Interest in health and non-traditional medicine also created respect for Indian traditions.
Los Angeles doctor Philip Lovell became a sort of 1920s public intellectual for health with his
regular Los Angeles Times column, “Care of the Body.”
116
Lovell was a naturopath deeply
interested in all dimensions of health—environment, diet, mind and exercise on overall health—
and a cosmopolitan with at least limited knowledge of many foreign traditions. His column
frequently noted beliefs held by “Hindoos,” including the importance of breathing and ayurvedic

113
“Plan Rajah Dance,” Los Angeles Times, December 16, 1922, II15. This also included some documentary-style
films. Indian dancer Roshanara, a Kipling family friend, announced plans in 1916 to feature in a film celebrating
Indian culture, but only if she could film in India. (Grace Kingsley, “From Stage to Studio: Roshanara May Do the
Hindu Dances on the Film,” Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1916, II14. Roshanara was the stage name of Olive
Craddock, the daughter of an English mother and an Anglo-Indian father.
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp55949/roshanara-olive-craddock
114
An extremely popular play called “The Hindu” showcased Hindu culture. See “Whiteside Will Play in ‘Hindu,’”
Los Angeles Times, March 25, 1923, III32. Ruth St. Denis, who had a background in Theosophy and Christian
Science, founded the Los Angeles Denishawn School in 1915, providing interpretations of Eastern dance. The
“Kama Dance,” inspired by Lawrence Hope’s poems of the Orient, was ultimately drawn from an Indian legend. See
Grace Kingsley, “At the Stage Door,” Los Angeles Times, October 1, 1915, III4. Romantic poems and florid prose
pieces by Calcutta-raised film director Surendra Guha were occasionally reprinted in the newspaper as well. See
Surendra N. Guha, “A Hindu Girl to Her Betrothed,” Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1922, VIII23; Surendra N.
Guha, “A Hindu’s Love Letter,” Los Angeles Times, March 26, VIII9.
115
Eugene Brown, “Break O’ Th’ Year,” Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1920, II4.
116
Lovell is probably most famous today for the home noted modernist architect Richard Neutra built for him in late
Twenties, Commonly called “The Health House,” it is “an acknowledged masterpiece of modern architecture and a
window into the alternative landscape of health in twentieth-century southern California.” (Sloane, “Landscapes” in
Companion, 447).

119
diet. His tone could be condescending at times, but his intellectual openness to Indian traditions
contributed a sense of tolerance to public discourse about Indians.
117

Like Rosen and Lovell, positive evaluations of Indian culture and religion largely
stemmed from elites or solidly middle-class Angelenos. At least some of the city’s cosmopolitan
whites found Indians and their culture intriguing. Unlike most other Americans, who could only
learn about Indians through various media, residents of LA’s diverse metropolis had the
opportunity to encounter Hindus in person. As early as 1901, one observer noted, “Hinduism has
a no [sic] considerable following in Los Angeles.”
118

While Vivekananda’s original visit to Los Angeles in 1900 made a splash, enthusiasm
soon waned, and Vedanta groups struggled to survive for several decades after his death.
119
This
trend began to reverse in the late 1910s, largely through the work of two teachers, Swami
Abhedananda and Swami Paramananda. Both were Bengalis and direct disciples of Swami
Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. Abhedananda originally came to New York in 1897. Tensions
grew when Paramananda, Abhedananda’s younger, more charismatic assistant, became a more

117
For example, May 23, 1926, K24; May 6, 1928, L26; July 1, 1928, K26; and September 9, 1928, K26. The
column had a similar tone when Harry Ellington Brook covered it. See, e.g., September 24, 1922, XI22. Similarly,
Barclay l. Severns ran a weekly column beginning in November, 1922 issues on health and fitness emphasizing diet,
exercise, posture, and breathing. He referenced an example of an Indian whose mental control contributed to his
overall health: “Ram Murth Naider lives in India. He has proven his almost superhuman strength before huge Hindu
and European audiences. Though short and stocky, “he can swim for two hours continuously and run twelve miles at
a stretch.” Incredibly strong, Naider broke heavy iron chains placed around his shoulders in a test of strength.
“Naider’s control of breath and power of concentration helped him to localize his energies in that part of his body
where they are most needed.” (Barclay L. Severns, June 26, 1923, II14).
118
“News and Business,” Los Angeles Times, March 25, 1901, I2. Commentators admitted that Swami Vivekananda
had taken “this country by storm” when he toured the United States at the end of the nineteenth century, including a
visit to Los Angeles. This response suggested that a sizeable number of Americans were interested in learning more
about Eastern traditions. (“Pagan Worship in the States,” Los Angeles Times, Aug 14, 1910, I7). Vivekananda’s
death only earned a terse obituary in the Times. See “Obituary,” Los Angeles Times, Jul 25, 1902, 2.
119
“‘Christ, the Messenger:,’ Swami Vivekananda’s Views on the World’s Redeemer, Los Angeles Times, January
8, 1900, I12. Between 1907 and 1915, Vedanta was moribund in Los Angeles. While California eventually became
nationally unprecedented “fertile ground for Vedanta,” this was not the case in the first decades of the twentieth
century. The movement only really picked up steam in the 1930s. What was true of Los Angeles was true of the
larger movement as well. There were only four organized Vedanta churches in the early 1920s—New York, Boston,
San Francisco, and Los Angeles—claiming a total of roughly 200 members altogether, though of course many more
heard talks without becoming members. See Carl T. Jackson, Vedanta for the West: The Ramakrishna Movement in
the United States, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994, 108-109.

120
popular speaker. In 1910, after a number of difficulties with the New York leadership
Abhedananda was suspended from the organization, touring the country on his own before
departing the United States for good in 1921.
120

Between 1917 and 1921, the turbaned Abhedananda spoke regularly in Los Angeles on
various topics aimed at modern Western audiences: “The Secret of Success,” “Evolution and
Religion,” “How to Gain Self-Mastery,” “What is Perfection?” and “The Spiritual Needs of
Today.”
121
He also wrote a swarm of publications. He labored to make unfamiliar ideas attractive
to modern American audiences in very similar ways to Yogananda. Both engaged in translation
not syncretism, using Western language and referring to the Bible—but always in the service of
Hindu ideas. For example, Abhedananda highlighted the notion of developing the self,
explaining, “Man's greatest achievement is to understand the mysteries of his own being to know
himself. No sage, whether a Buddha or a Christ, no saint, whether of the past or of the present,
has ever found peace without practising meditation.” He incorporated frequent references to
Jesus Christ and explicated the way Christianity was based on Jesus’s recognition of his “divine
nature,” that is his “God-consciousness.”
122
This seems to have been a common theme among
Hindu Renaissance intellectuals, including Vivekananda, though a sustained exegesis of Jesus’
identity and teachings from a Hindu perspective would wait until Yogananda’s efforts.
Abhedananda challenged the common assumption that reincarnation was a purely Eastern tenet,
adducing support from Greek, Muslim, and Jewish mystical traditions, as well as the New

120
Jackson, 50-56.
121
Display Ad, Los Angeles Times, January 13, 1917, II2; Display Ad, Los Angeles Times, January 27, 1917, II2;
Display Ad, Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1917, II2; Display Ad, Los Angeles Times, March 30, 1918, II2; and
Display Ad, Los Angeles Times, January 12, 1918, II2.
122
By attaining the “state of God-consciousness…The soul has now become a Christ, or a Buddha. Both these
words signify the highest spiritual state of God-consciousness and not any particular person.” See Swami
Abhedananda, Vedanta Philosophy: Three Lectures (New York: Vedanta Society, 1901), 25, 34, 42, 54-55.

121
Testament.
123
He contended that this ancient belief held obvious appeal in the modern age of
Darwin: “Vedanta accepts evolution and admits the laws of variation and natural selection, but
goes a step beyond modem science by explaining the cause of that ‘tendency to vary.’ It says,
“there is nothing in the end which was not also in the beginning.”
124
He contrasted the scientific
evidence for reincarnation with the “mythical” nature of Christian belief in resurrection.
125

Abhedananda moved beyond strictly religious topics with a book on Indian history that tackled
the most common American criticisms of Hinduism. He devoted most of his attention to the
East-West relationship, showing how the West had continually benefited from Indian wisdom
since the ancient period. Then he turned his attention to influences that flowed the other
direction: “European civilization…has left moral and spiritual standards in the background, and
made material prosperity and intellectual culture the chief factors of civilization.”
126
While not a
political activist, he was, like Vivekananda and other apostles of Hinduism, a cultural nationalist
who extolled his religious heritage as a fundamentally superior product to the Christian options
available to his American audiences.
127

123
“John the Baptist was according to the Jews a second Elijah; Jesus was believed by many to be the re-appearance
of some other prophet.” See Swami Abhedananda, Vedanta Philosophy: Five Lectures on Reincarnation (San
Francisco: The Vedanta Ashrama), 10-12; quote 11. He also made the first English translation of Ramakrishna’s
teaching, The Gospel of Ramakrishna, in 1907.
124
Reincarnation, 55-56. According to Vedanta, the end and aim of Evolution is the attainment of perfection” (62).
125
He devoted some time to tracing the historical development of this belief, which, if not eternal, must be a human
invention. Then he concluded that it could not be believed today because “modem science denies miracles” (75).
126
India and Her People (New York: Vedanta Society, 1906). He clarified that India’s religion was not polytheistic
and that caste was originally a flexible system based on aptitudes that gradually became corrupted. He also
explained the superiority of monism over other Indian philosophies, the “universal” and superior tradition out of
which Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and the Vedanta movement sprang. Ancient Western authors respected Indian
math, science and medicine. He also speculated that John the Baptist and Jesus were shaped by Buddhist
missionaries from India. More recently, philosophers like Schopenhauer and the Transcendentalist authors Emerson
and Thoreau had received inspiration from India. (India, 227, 244).
127
Ramakrishna leader Swami Atulananda acknowledged having “many friends among the New Thought people,”
but ultimately treated them with amused condescension for their simplistic views of health and happiness that often
amounted to “a refined form of materialism—where God is made the means and the world the end.” Similarly,
Swami Turiyananda chided lay people for reading New Thought books, saying, “Go to the source. Don’t waste your
time reading the ideas of every fool who wants to preach religion….Only those who have realized the truth can
speak with authority.” for See Prvrajika Brahmaprana, ed., With the Swamis in America: Swami Atulananda
(Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1988), 21-22, 75.

122
In 1916, Swami Paramananda opened a Vedanta Center in Los Angeles, joining his
former colleague and now rival in the city.
128
Paramananda’s appearance evoked the same
reaction from whites as Abhedananda—who were struck by his “Jet black hair and eyes,” “rich
brown” skin,” “mellow and resonant” voice, and an “irreproachable” command of English—but
he was more charismatic than his older rival.
129
This explains his greater popularity, since his
teaching was virtually indistinguishable from Abhedananda’s.
130
Paramananda’s plan to build a
retreat center for the national Vedanta movement in the warm Santa Clarita hills (rather than in
frigid Boston), stoked Angelenos’ concerns of that “a full-fledged colony of devotees” would be
established just a few miles from the city.
131
Paramananda’s devotees included a number of
women who fit a pattern similar to Yogananda’s. They were typically well off, from prominent
families in major areas like Boston, well educated, and often single. Many had at least dabbled in
Theosophy, New Thought, or some other non-mainstream metaphysical tradition.
132
One of these
women, Laura Franklin Glenn, became a prominent Vedanta speaker in her own right and

128
Jackson, 63-65, claims the year was 1915, while Harold W. French, The Swan’s Wide Waters: Ramakrishna and
Western Culture (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1974), 123, gives 1916. No evidence suggests preaching
activity by Paramananda before 1916. This was a second West Coast center, as the San Francisco center was one of
earliest and most successful.
129
“Cult Will Settle in Hills,” Los Angeles Times, May 27, 1923, II14.
130
For example, “How to Live?,” “What is Christianity?,” “Freedom,” “Sin and Salvation,” and the “Science of
Self-Mastery.” One short example is illustrative. Paramananda authored a short booklet explaining Vedanta that
sounded many of the same themes, relying on the Gospel of John (“I and the Father are one”) to demonstrate the
compatibility of Christianity and Eastern belief. Yoga means the union of the lower individual self with the “higher
Self.” In this sense, Jesus expresses the same idea when He speaks of “communion with God.” The booklet
concludes with a compilation of quotes from European scholars extolling the virtues of the Vedanta tradition. See
Swami Paramananda, Principles and Purpose of Vedanta (Washington, DC: Carnahan Press, 1910), 24; 35-37.
131
“Cult Will Settle in Hills,” Los Angeles Times, May 27, 1923, II14. On the desire for an ashram in warm
California, not cold Boston, see Sara Ann Levinsky, A Bridge of Dreams: The Story of Paramananda, a Modern
Mystic and his Ideal of All-Conquering Love (West Stockbridge, MA: Lindisfarne Press, 1984), 274.
132
Katherine Sherwood descended from the Saltonstalls, a first family of Boston. Growing up Unitarian, she had
drifted toward Christian Science before exploring a number of other philosophies. Eliza Kissim, descended from an
old New York Dutch family, became Sister Saya Prana. The unmarried Mary Lacy Staib, later Sister Shanta, grew
up in an aristocratic Southern family and attended New Thought lectures. See Levinsky, Bridge, 136-137, 228-229.
Mrs. May Gladwell, raised a Mormon, became a psychic. She heard Paramananda in Los Angeles in 1916 and later
became Sister Seva. Georgina Jones Walton, a Theosophist who married another Theosophist. Eventually the couple
moved to Krotona, the Theosophy commune in Los Angeles. This daughter of a US Senator and millionaire miner,
and a cultured cosmopolitan mother reared in France eventually became Sister Daya (Levinsky, Bridge, 209-210,
217-219).

123
delivered a number of talks in Los Angeles. A Vassar graduate, she took vows to became Sister
Devamata, Paramananda’s first female devotee. Rising in the organization, she came to view
herself as her guru’s partner and equal. A female Vedanta leader was a remarkable
development.
133
While Paramananda possessed the charisma that Abhedananda evidently lacked
and modernized Hinduism enough to make it transportable outside India and intelligible to an
American audience, his movement ultimately failed to take deep root in Los Angeles or
anywhere else. Like traditional gurus, he preferred a small group of devoted disciples to large
public presentations. But this refusal to adapt to the circumstances of large American audiences
kept his movement from growing. Likewise, as a strong critic of a materialistic society, he
refused to engage in the gimmicks other swamis used or to employ “Madison Avenue
techniques.”
134
In other words, Paramananda refused to employ modern techniques—advertising,
print media, mass movements—to spread his message in his pluralistic American setting.
The Hindu sage whose ministry in early twentieth-century Los Angeles most effectively
paved the way for Yogananda’s own work, however, was not associated with the Vedanta

133
Her involvement in Vedanta grew for over a decade before Swami Paramananda gave her official initiation in
1907. That year, she edited and published under his name excerpts of letters he had written to encourage her. The
letters do not include any personal details and read more as principles or aphorisms. Devamata organized them
according to the broad categories of devotion, purity, steadfastness, fearlessness, self-surrender. See Swami
Paramananda, The Path of Devotion (New York: Vedanta Society, 1907). Later, she dedicated her reminiscences of
living in an Indian monastery to Paramananda, “To whom I owe my Indian life.” See Sister Devamata, Days in an
Indian Monastery (La Crescenta, CA: Ananda-Ashrama, 1927). Outsiders sometimes mistook her deep devotion to
Paramananda as repressed eroticism, but those who understood the guru-disciple relationship viewed her affection as
purely spiritual. Paramananda and Sister Devamata, old enough to be his mother, unwittingly courted scandal in
1910, when most occupants of the Vedanta Society’s home in New York vacated, leaving the two of them alone
under one roof. Neither of them thought it an issue, but the Vedanta president ordered Paramananda to move to a
boarding house “to forestall people’s criticism. (Levinsky, Bridge, 148-150). Her Los Angeles talks include
“Evolution and Reincarnation,” “Mind-Control and Character,” “Sleep and Superconsciousness,” “Realization
through Daily Activity,” and “Self-Mastery and Self-Surrender.” (Display Ad, Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1917,
II2; Display Ad, Los Angeles Times, May 12, 1917, II6; Display Ad, Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1917, II2;
“Spokesman for the Armenians,” Los Angeles Times, May 26, 1917 II2; and Display Ad, Los Angeles Times, June
16, 1917, II2). Though not as prolific as Paramananda, she produced a number of writings. Her teachings, not
surprisingly, towed very closely to her mentor’s Besides her account of her experiences in India, she wrote several
other books: Sri Ramakrishna and His Disciples, Building of Character, What is Death?. The booklets were Health
and Healing, Practice of Devotion, Development of the Will, Sleep and Super-Consciousness
134
Levinsky, Bridge, 206, 163, 370. She explicitly contrasts Yogananda’s crass commercial style with the more
restrained approach of Paramananda, who “recoiled from the carnival atmosphere of mass movements” (263).

124
movement. Like Yogananda, Baba Bharati forged his own independent movement. His
biography remarkably paralleled Yogananda’s in many ways. Bharati was born into a well-off
Calcutta family and received a college education that included English.
135
Sponsored by Indian
elites, Bharati came to the US as a Hindu evangelist, the “chosen as instrument of God to carry
the religion of the sages of India to western lands.”
136
As with Paramananda, audiences viewed
him through an Orientalist lens, noting his piercing eyes, flowing locks, and command of
English.
137
He spent a few years in Boston and New York before settling in Los Angeles, since
he felt most at home in the nation’s spiritual frontier. As he put it, “of all spots of Columbia, the
most blessed is Southern California: more warm-hearted than any other part of the Union; in her
center here in Los Angeles, I have met the warmest American hearts.”
138
After returning to
Indian for a few years, he planned to build a large temple in Los Angeles, the city with “the
Greatest number of Brahmin Hindoos in America.”
139
His plans, however, never materialized;
with no institutional infrastructure, his movement eventually faded away.
Clearly, educated Bengali yogi missionaries’ talking points ran a well-worn groove, as
Bharati’s message was strikingly similar to Abhedananda’s and Paramananda—while strongly

135
J.N. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements in India (New York: MacMillan, 1915), 296.
136
A 1911 proclaimed that he had established a reputation as the “Henry Ward Beecher of India,” a comparison to
one of the late nineteenth-century’s most famous evangelical preachers and an acknowledgement of his missionary
impulse. (Classified Ad, Los Angeles Times, January 29, 1911, IV1). The Los Angeles Times book review author of
Sree Krishna framed Bharati as an evangelist, noting that he was “from the ancient race of Indians. He is a self-
appointed missionary coming to the Occident to shed the light of his spiritually illuminated soul on those “who sit in
darkness.”…His religion or philosophy is far from new. It came into being before physical science was dreamed of,
before modern luxury with all its pressing needs was born.” (Professor Guy Carleton Lee, “The Field of Fresh
Literature—What Authors are Saying, Doing, and Writing, Los Angeles Times, Oct 22, 1905, VI15). This was not
the only relatively neutral book review on Indian beliefs. A 1921 book review of Hereward Carrington’s Higher
Psychical Development fairly sympathetically relates this book’s attempt to explain “the Yoga philosophy as taught
by the Hindus.” Placing yoga in a very modern context, Carrington explains, “the primary purpose and practice of
Yoga is to give men the power of self-analysis. This is to be accomplished by turning the mind inward that it may
study its own nature.” Though skeptical that readers will find yoga “useful in aiding their thought and in the conduct
of their practical daily life,” he still offers a balanced and neutral review. (“Yoga Philosophy Analyzed,” Los
Angeles Times, III42).
137
“Venice Stands Up for Old India,” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1905, II9.
138
“Baba Bharati Bids Farewell,” Los Angeles Times, June 22, 1907, II6.
139
“Good-Goods and Now Brahmins,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1910, II10.

125
anticipating Yogananda’s. Bharati contrasted ancient Hindu spirituality favorably with the
emptiness of Western material progress and technology. The best wisdom for life could be found
in the Bhagavad Gita, “the Hindoo Bible.” His teachings about other religions revealed an
inclusivism common to the Bengali Renaissance. Bharati routinely asserted the superiority of
Hindu spirituality over competing religious traditions, but insisted that his views did not conflict
with Christianity. He talked about “the Coming Christ” and “Christ: Proofs of his Divinity.” Like
Vedanta preachers, what he meant by divinity differed from orthodox Christian understandings
of a unique, transcendent godhead. For Bharati Jesus was a “god-man” who fully embraced the
divinity within—just as Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, and, more recently, Caitanya.
140
In
addition to weekly sermons, Bharati conveyed his ideas through a regular magazine, The Light of
India, which mixed spiritual articles with devotional poetry and commentary on current events.
Most notably, he wrote Sree Krishna: Lord of Love, a 500-page exposition of Indian belief
detailing the laws of karma and samsara, the necessity of the four varnas, and the role of
dharma. Following the lead of fifteenth century ecstatic bhakti visionary Caitanya, he revealed a
vision of deity in stark contrast to the cold abstractness of Vedanta’s monism. Bharati talked
about the gracious love that Krishna—a popular avatar of Vishnu that Bharati presented as the
one God—had for his whole creation. Humans owed him loving devotion in response. In contrst
to the popular understanding of Indian religion as inherently monistic,.Bharati’s displays an
essentially monotheistic vision that anticipated Yogananda’s views in important ways.
Bharati found support among many Christian liberals, including members of the
Protestant clergy and a number of educated, cosmopolitan, upper middle-class women who
regularly contributed to his magazine and wrote about Indian spiritual traditions in other venues

140
“Greatest God Man,” Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1906, I12.

126
as well.
141
More remarkably, he managed to gain the respect of LA’s Protestant civic leadership.
The Los Angeles Times granted him lengthy space on several occasions to explain important
geopolitical issues including Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the Russo-Japanese War; the
disastrous effects of Lord Curzon’s viceroyalty of India; and the emergence of the swadeshi, or
self-rule, movement in India. Most intriguingly, Bharati was called in as an expert on Eastern
languages to unmask the claims of prominent area doctor, Henry S. Keyes, an Azusa Street
convert to Pentecostalism. Keyes claimed that when he spoke in tongues, he was speaking a
north Indian language. After examining words Keyes wrote under the Spirit’s influence, Bharati

141
B. Fay Mills is typical of the kind of broad-minded spiritually seeking Protestant clergy who supported Bharati.
Fay “threaded his way in and out of Congregational, Unitarian, Presbyterian, and Free Religious Association folds.
He was successively an advocate of revivalism, the social gospel, Unitarianism, and free religion.” When pastor of
First Unitarian church of Oakland, had invited Vivekananda to give a series of talks. Daniel Wilhelm Nelson, B Fay
Mills: Revivalist, Social Reform and Advocate of Free Religion, iii. On Vivekananda at Fay’s church, see French,
Swan’s, 74. Not surprisingly, evangelicals attacked Bharati for his unorthodox views of Jesus. In one case, he
defended himself against an evangelist who called him “an audacious pagan” and “an ass,” denouncing the man for
“speaking from his holy place in the pulpit, in the holy Church of Christ, the Preacher of Meekness, calling the
preacher of another religion who is perhaps a more enthusiastic preacher of Christ than he…language fit for the lips
of a swaggering saloon rough.” (“Reply of Hindoo,” Los Angeles Times, March 6, 1907, II6).
Three female supporters especially stand out. Rose Anton, a professional Broadway actress, became a
passionate devotee and moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1906 to be near her guru. She regularly provided
poems for Bharati’s magazine and authored a collection of folk stories called Tales of India. Like many other native-
born Americans, she made a point of rejecting any contradiction between her Vedic learning and Christian tradition.

“Rose Reinhardt Anthon: A Rarely Gifted Woman Now Living in Los Angeles,” Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1906,
VI18. Indeed, one of her poems, “The Risen Christ, included the following lines worthy of a Methodist hymnal:
Oh, pierced side and bleeding brow,
Though crucified, alive art thou;
The stone of earth is rolled away,
And through thy tomb man finds his day.
Similarly, Christina Albers wrote poems about Hindu and Buddhist traditions, as well as stories about India. Her
books include Palms and Temple Bells (1915), Himalayan Whispers (1923), and Ancient Tales of Hindustan (1923).
Elizabeth Delvine King was the most deeply influenced by Bharati. After his departure from Los Angeles, she
seems to have forged her own eclectic metaphysical tradition, publishing a number of works on spirituality
beginning in 1917. Even more boldly than Anton, she claimed spiritual guidance for her writings, proclaiming, “my
own mind has had nothing to do with it whatsoever.” She clearly explained that her revelation did not “through
hypnotism or possession,” but “through prayer, devotion, renunciation and self-denial.” And more boldly than
Anton, she also integrated Christian texts with Indian cosmology in a number of works, including The Lotus Path,
Something Jehovah, and The Higher Metaphysics. These works included frequent citations from the Bible, and
talked regularly about Christ, Christ-Consciousness, and the spiritual process of being “Christed.” Elizabeth Delvine
King, The Lotus Path (Los Angeles: J.F. Rowny Press, 1917), n.p. Despite infrequent direct references to Indian
scriptures, her larger cosmology was rooted in illumination of the “Real Self,” the Atman, Self-Realization of the
Oneness of the universe, and enlightenment as a grasp of the impersonal nature of the Deity. Long before the Age of
Aquarius, she announced, “We are in the dawn of the New Age, and the mass of mankind are hungering for
something, they know not what.”

127
testified that the words were “neither Hindoo or Persian or Arabic or Chinese or Japanese or
Sanskrit. Neither do they look like the characters of any Asiastic Language I know of.” The
credibility of Bharati’s conclusion hinged both on his linguistic expertise and his veracity,
qualities whites were often unwilling to grant to any Indian. Despite his remarkable cachet,
Bharati was ultimately unable to sustain his momentum, and his movement expired with him
when he died penniless in India in 1914.
142

Diverse Indian teachers and their followers in early twentieth century Los
Angeles shared a number of common features in common that facilitated Yogananda’s own
evangelistic efforts. These teachers understood their audience, as least to some degree, and
couched their message in modern terms, emphasizing realization of the self, the integration of
science and religion, and the optimistic potential of reincarnation. They also recognized that they
were addressing culturally Christian audiences, so they routinely quoted New Testament
scripture and lauded the example of Jesus. They pushed the attractiveness—indeed, the
superiority—of their spiritual product, attempting to balance assertiveness with the equanimity
expected in a pluralistic setting. They largely drew well-educated, often single women from
wealthy families, who had some experience in metaphysical or non-mainstream religious
traditions. And they all faced mixed responses to their racial identity—interest, prejudice, and
condescension. Despite their efforts, their movements were all either moribund or dead by the
time Yogananda arrived in Los Angeles. Each leader had liabilities alongside their strengths.
Yogananda would succeed where they failed because he largely avoided their liabilities while
possessing all of their individual strengths—deep learning, charisma, warm spiritual
devotionalism, savvy marketing, and the institutional structure necessary for his movement’s
longevity.

142
“Baba Bharati Says Not a Language,” Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1906, II6.

128
Yogananda received an enthusiastic welcome when he arrived in Los Angeles in early
1925. “The Great Divine Power seemed to have roused the whole city to receive the message of
Yogoda…Clubs, colleges, societies, educational centers, churches and newspapers extended him
every courtesy and Swami’s days were filled to overflowing with engagements to speak write
and be interviewed everywhere.” The Los Angeles Times substantiates this boosterist claim,
reporting that he drew “immense crowds” to his free talks at the Philharmonic Auditorium.
143

Inspired in part by the overwhelmingly favorable response he had received from Los Angeles
audiences, Yogananda made the momentous decision to establish the headquarters of his
ministry in the city. Shortly after he made this decision, he explained how he had found the
appropriate site:
One day during his Los Angeles stay, one of his students casually mentioned Mount
Washington. Swami’s soul was strangely stirred at the mention of this place and suggested that
they drive up there on the following day. When he entered the grounds of the Mount Washington
Hotel site, he strolled about, and then touching the bars surrounding the tennis court, he
exclaimed to his companions, This place feels like ours! Today it is “ours,” for thru the kind and
willing cooperation and donations of his thousands of students throughout America, this property
was purchased for the American Headquarters of Sat-Sanga and Yogoda.
144

Behind this upbeat explanation of divine providence lay hardheaded legal maneuvering.
The property on Mt. Washington had been a resort hotel of 18 guest rooms between 1910 and
1922. An incline rail system carried visitors and hotel guests up the steep hillside, though a road

143
Alma Whitaker, “Swami Praising Spiritual Calm,” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1925, A18.
144
“History of Swami Yogananda’s Work,” 11.

129
quickly supplemented the incline.
145
By the early 1920s, improved cars with stronger engines
could more easily navigate the steep road. After some financial struggle, the hotel closed and
vagrants began to occupy the space until Yogananda purchased it with the financial resources of
his supporters. Operating separately, they surreptitiously bought up nine separate parcels in quick
succession so as to not arouse suspicion.
146
The swami was blessed with legal agents with
shrewd skills.
Despite the site’s inaccessibility, the 940-foot high crest was hardly a mountain. But
Yogananda was eager to dramatize the site for two reasons. First, the aesthetic virtues made it a
potential tourist destination. Early promotional literature sounded like advertising for a hotel.
“The grounds are seven and half acres in extent, and are planted with camphor, date, palm,
pepper and other beautiful trees, as well as plants, shrubs and wonder flower-beds, making it one
of the most beautiful spots in Southern California.” More important than the grounds themselves
were the terrific views of the city available from Mt. Washington. “The Center commands an
unsurpassed view of the city below, as well as of other nearby cities, including Pasadena, the
‘City of Roses.’ The Pacific Ocean sparkles in the distance, and at night the million twinkling
lights of Los Angeles and distant cities may be seen below, a veritable fairyland.”
More important than the site’s tourist potential, however, Yogananda wanted to create a
sense of sacred space for his spiritual movement’s headquarters.
147
Inspired by the significance

145
The Electric Railway Historical Association of Southern California provides detailed information about Mt.
Washington, the hotel, and the incline rail that transported passengers in the early twentieth century:
http://www.erha.org/washington.htm
146
Jon Parsons, A Fight for Religious Freedom: A Lawyer’s Personal Account of Copyrights, Karma and Dharmic
Litigation (Nevada City, CA: Crystal Clarity Publishers, 2012), 67-68.
147
The emergence of tourism in the late nineteenth century had introduced Americans with the means to travel to
expeditions that blended sublime encounter and sightseeing escapism. David E. Nye, American Technological
Sublime (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994) describes the development of American attraction to sublime landscapes,
beginning with Niagara Falls and extending, later in the nineteenth century, to Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the
Grand Canyon. Often a religious experience, it was also a nationalistic one that prompted a proud recognition that
Europe did not possess equivalent sights of grandeur.

130
of sacred spaces across the Indian landscape, he wanted to turn Mt. Washington into a holy
pilgrimage site. Invoking one of the holiest pilgrimage sites in India, he later said, “I have always
considered Los Angles to be the Benares of America.”
148
In 1925, he composed a poem called
“Life’s Dream” that celebrated the place that he hoped would draw the spiritual East and earthly
West together:
The summer East
And the wintry West
They say—but Mount Washington
Named rightly after that pioneer
Of Freedoms great career,
Thou dost stand, the snowless guardian Himalaya
Of the angel land in perpetual green regalia.
Nippon’s camphor trees and perfumed wisteria and smiling roses
Palm, date and well-beloved spicy bay leaves of Hind stand close,
With endless scenic beauties
Of ocean, canyon, setting sun, moon-studded sky
And nightly twinkling cities
To declare
Thy ever-changing beauty.
On thy crown thou shalt newly wear
A priceless starry-school which in all future near
Shall draw the lost travellers of the East and West.
To find their goal and one place of rest.
Here one path
Shall merge with all other paths.
Here the love of earthly Freedom’s paradise, America,
Shall blend fore’er with spiritual Freedom’s paradise, India.
Here church in deepest friendliness shall all other churches meet,
Here the temple the mosque shall greet.
Here the long-divorced matter-laws
Will wed again in peace the spirit laws.
Here all minds will learn that true Art
Of living life and the way to start
Straight to the One great place
Where all must meet at last.
Jehovah! This is the land of solace
Where my life’s dream in truth reappears!
149

148
Paramhansa Yogananda, The Master Said: A Collection of Paramhansa Yogananda’s ayings and Wise Counsel
to Various Disciples (Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1952), 119.
149
“History of Swami Yogananda’s Work,” 12.

131
This sacredness of the site that the poem celebrates ultimately stemmed not from the
inherent beauty of the location but from anticipation of the spiritual work that would be done
there. A prophecy he recounted later in his autobiography linked the Himalayas to Mt.
Washington more explicitly. On a pilgrimage with Sri Yukteswar to visit a temple devoted to
Shankara, the putative founder of the Swami order, Yogananda said
As I gazed upon the mountain-peak hermitage, bold against the sky, I fell into an
ecstatic trance. A vision appeared of a hilltop mansion in a distant land; the lofty
Shankara temple in Srinagar became transformed into the edifice where, years
later, I established Self-Realization Fellowship headquarters in America. When I
first visited Los Angeles, and saw the large building on the crest of Mount
Washington, I recognized it at once from my long-past visions in Kashmir and
elsewhere.
150

In comparing Mt. Washington to Srinagar, Yogananda also implicitly compared himself to the
great Shankara. Mt. Washington was sacred because the Swami who would promulgate the
divine kriya yoga tradition lived there.

Conclusion
By early 1925, the young swami who had modified his appearance en route to the US in
an effort to present himself appropriately to American audiences had skilled in translating his
message in other ways as well. More than four years after arriving in his adopted homeland,
Swami Yogananda had established a firm foundation for “scientific religion” in a modern
America that was still deeply shaped by Protestantism. He had established a loyal base of
followers and financial supporters among spiritual seekers and found a spiritual headquarters that
suited his temperament in the nation’s spiritual frontier. Now he could settle down to the task of
refining and communicating his message of “self-realization” in powerful, engaging ways—and
honing his unique product to compete in the marketplace of American religion.

150
Autobiography, 205-206.

132

The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine, Pacific Palisades,
California (author photo).

Chapter Three:

Creating an Image, Honing a Message:
Advertising a Yogi Evangelist (1925-1932)

Self-Realization Fellowship Hollywood Temple, Sunset Blvd.,
Los Angeles, an apt location for a ministry attuned to image making
(author photo).

134
He gulps down an inadequate breakfast, hurries to his office, and sits at a
desk littered with papers that mutely shriek "unfinished business.” He picks up
one or two letters and glances at them, but before his mind has formulated any
replies he glimpses the appointment pad on his desk and realizes that he must
decide on a course of procedure before he talks with Mr. Blank.
He tries to concentrate on this problem. However, his mind keeps
reverting to the letters just put aside, and wants to mull over those problems
instead. The din of his secretary's typewriter annoys him. He shouts at her to stop.
A moment later, he realizes that she's typing on a rush assignment he gave her, so
he shouts at her to go on again.
To calm himself, he begins smoking his after-breakfast cigar. This brings
to mind another problem: he tells himself that he should be firm in his
determination to quit smoking. Ragged nerves tug at the sleeve of his conscience,
and finally he dashes the cigar into an ashtray.
1

This is how Yogananda portrayed the harried businessman who most needed his teachings. Now
imagine that businessman leaving his office to head to the train. Stopping at a corner newsstand,
he is drawn to the exotic-looking cover of East-West magazine. When he opens the front cover,
he would have found an advertisement promising to solve a problem he didn’t know he had.
Large bold letters announced a “Yogoda Correspondence Course,” providing instruction in a
technique to “recharge the body batteries with fresh life current by increasing dynamic power of
will.” Improved “beauty of form,” “grace of expression,” and “power of mental receptivity” are
just a few of the benefits he would receive. The technique also guarantees him all-around health,
the ability to take off (or put on!) fat “as desired,” and power over his spiritual destiny. All of
this was available through a correspondence course for a nominal fee.
2
Staring back from the
page is Swami Yogananda, clad in a silk robe, his long hair flowing over his shoulders, his
confident expression conveying assurance of the message’s authenticity.
While couched in modern technological language, Yogananda’s techniques offered the
businessman help using “timeless” Hindu practices and beliefs, though the religious language of
the ad was quite muted. This ad reveals the boldness and sophistication of Yogananda’s

1
Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons, S-1, P-18, 5.
2
On “Yogoda” as Yogananda’s own neologism, see below. For the ad, see East-West (May-June 1927), n.p.

135
marketing techniques. It also illustrates his flexibility in presenting—or refraining from
presenting—his teachings as a religious product, not out of a lack of conviction but, instead,
from a creative openness to doing whatever it took to get audiences to try his product, knowing
that once they did they would be back for more. Yogananda was a masterful marketer of religion
in the age of mass consumption.
For decades, scholars have investigated intersections between American religion and the
market; some have employed economic models positing a religious marketplace to gain insight
into the nation’s religious dynamics.
3
The notion of a religious marketplace illuminates
Yogananda’s ministry in crucial ways. First, as proponents of this model point out, the nation’s
early religious disestablishment has long offered freedom for a wide range of religions to
“compete,” though analysis is usually limited to Christian competitors. Understanding that
context is essential for making sense of Yogananda’s challenges and opportunities. Markets
assume zero-sum competition: if an individual belongs to one church, by definition she does not
belong to another. Church membership determines not only the vitality of community feeling,
but a ministry’s practical ability to finance operations. Yogananda’s frequent references to
Christianity and metaphysical movements cannot be simply as expressions of ecumenical
concern or syncretistic impulse. Instead, these references need to be seen as efforts to draw
comparisons to similar, but ultimately inferior, products within a competitive religious

3
The scholars, particularly those who apply a market model most formally, are mostly sociologists of religion. See,
for example, Laurence Iannaccone, “Religious Markets and the Economics of Religion,” Social Compass 39, no. 1
(1992): 123-131, and Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in
Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005). For a formal model of rational
human decision-making among religious choices, see Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the
Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). The historian Frank Lambert, The
Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003) has applied
market insights in a less rigid way to the colonial and early republican periods. Wade Clark Roof, Spiritual
Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999)
focuses his analysis on the post-World War II period. The recent Jan Stievermann, Philip Goff, Detlef Junker, eds,
Religion and the Marketplace in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015) illustrates the
continued focus almost exclusively on Christianity.

136
marketplace.
Second, exploring the paradoxical relationship between God and mammon illumines
Yogananda’s marketing strategies. On one hand, worldly goods tempt the faithful away from the
spiritual path, but on the other, American religious organizations have long demonstrated an
ability to market both literal and metaphorical products.
4
Particularly in the evangelical tradition,
which pioneered revivals in the eighteenth century, attempts to persuade the audience to accept
Jesus have often gone hand in hand with hawking religious products. Recently, scholars have
applied this analysis, or thinly veiled critique, to contemporary yoga.
5
But little work has been
done that explores the role of markets and commodities in selling Hindu spirituality in the early
twentieth century.
Yogananda began his ministry at the height of modern American capitalism.
Consumption peaked in the 1920s, aided by a revolution in manufacturing, mass communication,
increased disposable income, and the easy availability of credit.
6
It was strongly aided by new
forms of advertising, which became ubiquitous—besides newspapers and magazines, people
encountered ads on roadside billboards and bus stops, and, increasingly, on the radio.
Advertising, relying heavily on the new field of psychology and innovations in print technology
that yielded rich colors, created a sense of transcendence through material goods that threatened

4
The historian who has explored this connection through compelling, carefully structured analysis is R. Laurence
Moore, Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994),
who analyzes the entwinement between religion and consumption from the antebellum period through the New Age.
In contrast, for a looser and less effective application of this model, see the absurdly jocular James B. Twitchell,
Shopping for God: How Christianity went from in your Heart to in your Face (New York: Simon and Schuster,
2007).
5
Jeremy Carrette and Richard King, Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion (London: Routledge,
2004). The hand-ringing subtitle captures the book’s earnest attempt to “uncover what amounts to a silent takeover
of ‘the religious’ by contemporary capitalist ideologies y means of he increasingly popular discourse of
‘spirituality.’” This concern seems overwrought in light of the long-term relationship between consumption and
religion. See also the more recent and less strident Andrea R. Jain, Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop
Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).
6
The value of goods produced in the first quarter of the twentieth century quadrupled. See Frank Presbrey, The
History and Development of Advertising (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1929), 598.

137
to displace religion. Consumption promised the fulfillment of personal desires, as well as the
cultivation an individual’s potential. Spiritual leaders like Yogananda had to assure audiences
that their product could deliver happiness and aid in self-creation in ways consumer goods never
could.
The three sections that comprise this chapter explore Yogananda’s early ministry in a
marketplace context. The first section investigates the religious products he touted, most
centrally, the course he created to teach a systematic, practical method for God-realization
through yoga—in the form of a correspondence course. Through his method, adherents would
achieve health and well-being now, as well as ultimate spiritual liberation; there was no need to
decide between here and hereafter, body or soul. But much more than a set of meditative
techniques, Yogananda’s instruction inculcated a larger Hindu worldview, a claim to universal
truth with its own distinctive cosmological, theological, ontological underpinnings. Yoga by
distance learning was a truly radical invention appropriate for the age of mass marketing. A
dramatic departure from Indian face-to-face instruction, distance learning allowed him to enroll a
much larger number of followers than he could ever have trained personally.
His East-West magazine served a number of strategic purposes. Regular contributions by
Yogananda, as well as news updates helped to deepen the personal link between guru and
disciple that was absent as a result of his distance learning strategy. The magazine was also a
promotional tool designed to appeal to the cultured middle-class Americans who represented his
most likely target audience. In the magazine’s pages, he sought to strike a careful balance
between demonstrating his common ground with Christianity and other metaphysical movements
on one hand, and carefully highlighting Yogoda’s distinctiveness to prevent brand confusion on
the other. His magazine was also a vehicle for expressing Indian cultural and religious

138
nationalism, which reflected a desire to protect the reputation of his homeland, the source of his
distinctive teachings. His final product was a community—whether virtual or real—of shared
values and common practices. A few lucky devotees got to experience personal connection with
the guru, but for most their experienced was mediated through written products.
The second section addresses the way the Yogi promoted his message to a modern
America saturated in savvy advertising and modern products. Consumers of religion and of
materials goods faced the same challenge: with so many brands, how could they know what was
authentic? In the 1920s, advertisers “relentlessly tried to persuade Americans to buy a particular
manufacturer’s brands and, above all, to accept no substitutes.”
7
Ads used authority and expertise
to gain the audience’s trust. Ironically, evangelical preachers, who differed the most from
Yogananda theologically, offer the closest parallel to his own personality-based style of religious
branding. Like them, Yogananda embodied sacred authority through his image—both his literal
appearance and his persona—as well as through his religious expertise. Also like them, he
understood that religious preaching was part entertainment. He used radio effectively and
recognized the importance of the new medium of film, developing a trope about life as a movie
that he returned to time and time again. As Yogananda crisscrossed the nation speaking to
audiences of thousands, he evoked—and subverted—Orientalist tropes to manage his message
and his image as an exotic, authoritative, sacred Self.
The final section considers the hazards of the religious market—the practical challenges
staying afloat financially in a competitive market. While savvy in some ways, Yogananda was
surprisingly naïve in others, unaware of how different the Southern market was—until he riled
masculine white Southerners who drove him out of town. He faced several lawsuits that

7
Juliann Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising (Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, 1998), 93.

139
threatened his brand image as well as his solvency. And, like many churches during the
Depression, he suffered financially. But just when things looked bleakest, he was rescued from
his distress: he found his biggest customer, a millionaire disciple who financed the ministry from
that point on. Even the most serious and damaging lawsuit had an upside: it forced adoption of
the name Self-Realization Fellowship, the apt title it has maintained ever since.

Yogananda’s Religious Products
As the introduction established, many scholars view religion from the standpoint of the
market. A recent pair of scholars, for example, argues that “religious suppliers thrive in a
competitive spiritual marketplace because they are quick, decisive, and flexible in reacting to
changing conditions, savvy at packaging and marketing their ministries, and resourceful at
offering spiritual rewards that resonate with the existential needs and cultural tastes of the
public.”
8
While these models have great potential, they often lack conceptual clarity regarding
the nature of “goods,” whether tangible, spiritual, or both. This chapter assumes that religious
products include personal goods like salvation and well-being, communal goods experienced
through community, and consumer goods like books and magazines that link people to their
religious tradition.
9

A market view of Yogananda’s religion demands a definition of the “products” he
provided, both spiritual and material. Yogananda’s greatest spiritual product was the promise of
liberation devotees would experience through yoga, a set of scientific disciplines that allowed
“God-contact” and, conversely, self-realization, since the self could only be fully understood

8
Shayne Lee and Phillip Luke Sinitiere, Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace
(New York: New York University Press, 2009), 3.
9
This typology borrows from Jorg Stolz, “Salvation Goods and Religious Markets: Integrating Rational Choice and
Weberian Perspectives,” Social Compass 53, no. 1 (2006): 13-32, builds off of the insights of Max Weber, who first
conceptualized religion as a commodity.

140
through its relationship with God. Of course, as a complete spiritual system, yoga also brought
emotional and physical benefits. Early on, Yogananda introduced a yoga correspondence course,
a modern form of “virtual discipleship” that ushered enrollees into increasingly difficult levels of
yoga practice without the traditional personal relationship with a guru. As local centers were
established around the country, practitioners also could join a Yogoda Sat-Sangha group, a
community of like-minded individuals, which became an important consumer product in its own
right, providing fellowship and ritual. East-West magazine, along with a number of Yogananda
books, helped to sustain this sense of community through spiritual teachings and news about
sister churches around the country. The magazine itself, of course, was a “product” as a material
object that devotees could receive through subscription, and a tangible reminder of community
membership. The magazine functioned as a vehicle for advancing the brand by highlighting the
unique strengths of Yogananda’s teachings relative to other religious traditions.
As with every product associated with the restless ad man, Yogananda gave various
names to his yoga method. In the early years, he commonly labeled it “Yogoda,” a neologism
designed to differentiate his product from the other forms of yoga practice customers might have
learned about from the Vedanta society or elsewhere.
10
Indeed, for his first fifteen years in the
US, his organization was official labeled Yogoda Sat-Sanga, or Yogoda Community, until he
renamed it Self-Realization Fellowship in 1935.
He first provided an introduction to his teachings in his 1923Yogoda or Muscle-Will
System of Physical Perfection, a series of physical and breathing exercises designed to provide

10
According to Satyeswarananda, a disciple of Yogananda’s former colleague and childhood friend Satyananda,
Yogananda created the word “Yogoda” for his own planned organization in the US, inspired by Satyananda’s Yogad
Sat Sanga Sova meetings in India. In this title, “Yogad” translates the Sanskrit for “Yoga.” When informed that
“Yogoda” was a grammatically incorrect rendition of the Sanskrit—and inappropriate because it sounded too much
like Yogananda’s own name, and would thus confuse a large organization of many teachers with one
representative—Yogananda brushed off the objections, “Oh! For us it is okay.” See Swami Satyeswananda Giri,
Kriya: Finding the True Path (San Diego: Sanskrit Classics, 1991), 145-146.

141
healing and wholeness through control of the life force, was essentially an introduction to more
detailed coursework for those who were interested.
11
Beginning with proper posture, Yogananda
guided practitioners through a set of exercises to concentrate on muscles, and then systematically
tense and relax them. Unlike many practitioners at this time, however, Yogananda made some
concessions for his American audiences, avoiding āsanas and allowing practitioners to sit in
chairs while meditating, rather than sitting cross-legged on the ground.
12

At the beginning of Yogoda, Yogananda directs the practitioner to invoke the Eternal
Energy, a capacious term that evoked a larger discourse of the body as mechanism that needed
electricity to run. Electricity fascinated early twentieth century Americans, who saw its power to
change their lives—through transportation, amusement parks, artificial lighting that turned night
into day, and, increasingly, for new labor-saving appliances.
13
And electricity reshaped the very

11
While the concepts underpinning these exercises stemmed from Yogananda’s training in Hindu traditions, he
seems to have borrowed the exercises themselves from the Danish physical culturalist J.P. Muller, who made a
similar pitch about the ability to practice these exercises in the midst of a busy life in the modern world. J.P. Muller,
My System: 15 Minutes Exercise a Day for Health (London: Link House, n.d.) His childhood friend and ashram
partner, Satyananda, seems to report Muller’s influence, though with some imprecision: “About a year before the
founding of the school, a book written by a German physical culturist named Miller came into Yoganandaji's hands.
He was enthused and excited upon reading in the book about muscle-building through mental power. Seeing me, he
said, ‘I have found exactly what I was looking for.’ This book had greatly helped in systematizing the ‘Yogoda’
method. Swamiji had experienced that power could be gathered via the inexhaustible internal will of human beings,
by which, different muscles could be controlled and strengthened; without using tools and machines, the body could
be made strong and powerful by natural techniques [body and mind] alone” (Satyananda, 244). The physical
exercises, however, were only the entrée to the more important goal of God-contact, which required a specific set of
meditational techniques. Mark Singleton, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010), 131-132, briefly discusses Yogananda in the context of the international physical cultural
context in which modern yoga practice developed, borrowing heavily from European practices. This may have been
true, but Singleton exaggerates the centrality of muscle control in Yogananda’s overall routine. Satyeswarananda,
258, explains that these “energizing techniques…are not at all a part of original Kriya tradition…He found these
techniques useful to inspire and motivate his Western devotees who love exercises.” But Satyeswrananda, who often
criticizes Yogananda for his compromises, nowhere else accuses him of borrowing Western techniques. Instead, he
complains that Yogananda introduced techniques from other Vedic paths that, however acceptable on their own, should
not be mixed with Kriya Yoga (278).
12
Satyeswarananda explains Yogananda’s concessions with distaste: “He advised that Kriya be practiced while
sitting on an armless chair, legs hanging and set on the ground. This is a fundamental modification and deviation
from the original Kriya tradition….Yoga in general, and Kriya, in particular, require a sitting posture with legs
folded. The prescribed posture is called Padmasana (lotus). All the ancient Yogis prescribed this Asana for
practicing Raja or Kriya Yoga” (Satyeswarananda 258).
13
Regarding electricity and laborsaving devices as consumer products in the 1910s and ‘20s, see Sivulka, Soap, Sex,
and Cigarettes, 126-130.

142
notion of the Self: “Electricity, conceived as an energy flowing between mind and body, merged
with new therapeutic conceptions of the psyche and the self…Americans made electricity a
metaphor for mental power, psychological energy, and sexual attraction.”
14
Yogananda seized on
this ontological redefinition and developed it into a compelling, coherent explanation of his
program’s efficacy. He translated the conventional yogic understanding of the real but intangible
pranayama, or life force—whose control ensured power and longevity—into the most powerful
force the modern world knew. Yogananda regularly proffered the trope of the body as an engine.
He also talked about will as the “dynamo” that drove the individual to direct “energy” to the part
of the body that needed it. Invoking one of the most complex machines of the era, he explained
that the body required “recharging” in the same way as a car battery.
As a small booklet, Yogoda failed to capture Yogananda’s larger worldview; it was
largely devoid of discussion of metaphysics, cosmology, or theology. To attract modern
audiences he assumed were more concerned with health and energy than with spiritual benefits,
he emphasized the temporal benefits of Yogoda. Like a physician, Yogananda provided a
prescription, a frequency, and expected outcomes of Yogoda exercises: 15 minutes of practice a
day would lead to remarkable results. This specifically appealed to the busy working person with
only sporadic free time throughout the day. Employing a trick any evangelist might have
employed, Yogananda used the booklet as a teaser to appeal to the widest possible audience that,
once engaged, might be open to deeper spiritual truths.

14
Given how much of the country remained without electricity well into the twentieth century, this force highlighted
differences in lifestyle, in rural and urban life, and symbolized the very nature of the future: hope and excitement
through the possibilities of technology. More personally, electricity was a “perfect subject for speculation and
confusion,” “its effects visible but unseen.” By the late nineteenth century, a number of commercial devices
promised to restore health, strength, or sexual potency through electricity. David E. Nye, Electrifying America:
Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990) 155. Scholars often assume that a fascination
with electricity automatically proves a connection to New Thought or mesmeric traditions. As The Theology of
Electricity: On the Encounter and Explanation of Theology and Science in the 17th and 18th Centuries (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1989) demonstrates, followers of mainstream Catholic and Protestant traditions had been
fascinated by the theological implications of electricity for centuries before the emergence of New Thought.

143
In 1925, Yogananda launched his Yogoda correspondence course, a lengthier, more
elaborate form of Yogoda instruction and the fullest expression of his views. The Yogoda
Correspondence Course included 182 main lessons, seven sets of 26 lessons each.
15
After the 26
lessons came four summary lessons reviewing the material covered in that set. The summaries
functioned essentially as study guides for the “intermediate exam” that followed each 26-lesson
set. Originally, a successful exam score enabled the disciple to receive the next set of lessons.
Each lesson followed a consistent structure. It began with an inspirational poem or affirmation
and a prayer. The bulk of the lesson consisted of detailed instruction on one technique of
concentration or meditation, including a philosophical introduction and practical implementation,
often with sequential steps. The lesson concluded with an “apologue”—a fable or allegory that
provided some moral truth about yoga—and another affirmation.
But the meditation techniques were only the practical elements of a larger Hindu
worldview from which they derived their intelligibility. Yogananda saw his cosmology as
universal truth of sanatana dharma, the same way that Christians typically saw their own views
as claims to universal truth. Consequently, the purpose of his instruction was to inculcate that
cosmology. Yoga practice only made sense within the larger universe of Hindu truth, which
explained the totality of existence. This included the truth that the universe is a vibration caused
by the primordial sound “Aum,” which manifests the divine changelessness by separating the
three gunas that constitute all reality. Varying combinations of those gunas yield the elements of

15
There is some confusion regarding the intended length of instruction. There is evidence that each lesson was
originally intended to be “fortnightly,” suggesting that each 26-lesson set would require a year to complete, and thus
the entire sequence would last seven years. But each lesson is also described occasionally as “weekly.” The extant
introduction to the lessons, copyrighted 1956 and renewed in 1984, only confuses matters further when it indicates
that the first 52 lessons can be completed in a period of approximately one year if disciples follow the typical pattern
of receiving lessons “without interruption on a biweekly basis.” As with most sources related to Yogananda, the
correspondence course lessons are problematic. Reserved “for member’s use only,” they are not publicly available.
Like most Yogananda writings, Self-Realization Fellowship has edited and reorganized the lessons since his death,
though the core teachings remain intact and the basic sequence from exercises, to concentration, to meditation, to
Kriya Yoga is consistent.

144
material existence corresponding to classical Hindu philosophy.
16
The cosmos has three modes:
ideational, astral, and material; all material reality consists of five koshas or sheaths. Creation,
while real, is also in a profound sense maya or delusion, in that it masks the absolute reality,
which is spiritual and dependent directly on God. Human experience is fundamentally
constituted by the endless cycles of reincarnation that depend on one’s karma. It is only the
teachings of the ancient Hindu yogis that can liberate humans from the limitations and
confusions of human existence, providing both guidance for living successfully on earth—health,
prosperity, work success, and happy relationships—as well as ultimate wisdom and spiritual
liberation.
In terms of explicit instruction related to yoga, the lessons concentrated on three basic
techniques: Energization exercises, essentially the Yogoda activities described above, consisted
largely of physical exercises designed to bring health and mental energy; concentration
techniques that taught disciplined focus on any subject; and meditation proper, which Yogananda
described as concentration specifically on God. Once the initiate completed the first two sets of
lessons (the first 52), she was ready to apply for initiation to “Kriya Yoga.”
17

Despite the use of unique labels and the promise that initiates would learn proprietary
techniques that were the product of special revelation, the yoga practices (including Kriya Yoga),
were hardly unique to Yogananda. He obliquely acknowledged widespread availability of similar
teachings, commenting that while “any yoga book or world scripture may be bought for a few
cents and intellectually swallowed with little effort,” it could only be properly digested through

16
Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons, S-6 P-132, 3.
17
Kriya Yoga was sometimes called Raja Yoga following Vivekananda and other modern yoga teachers. Though
Yogananda’s progression reflects his own idiosyncratic formulation, the basic distinction between focusing on
empirical, physical objects and meditating on transcendent spiritual truths mirrors the teachings of Patanjali’s Yoga
Sutras. See Gerald James Larson, “Introduction to the Philosophy of Yoga,” in Gerald James Larson and Ram
Shankar Bhattacharya, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies Vol. 12: Yoga: India’s Philosophy of Meditation (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 2011).

145
systematic study through a guru’s guidance.
18
Kriya Yoga, the culmination of the Yogoda
Correspondence course, owed a large philosophical debt to Tantric yoga traditions. Yogananda
taught the tantric-derived belief in kundalini, or serpent energy, lying coiled at the base of the
spine, which must be raised by meditation through an invisible channel in the spine piercing six
chakras or wheels along the way. Through great effort and focus on a point between the
eyebrows, the “third eye”, the energy reached the seventh chakra, residing above the head and
the practitioner reached samādhi. But what did samādhi—which Yogananda usually termed
“Christ consciousness” in appropriative fashion—actually mean?
As Elizabeth De Michelis argues, modern yoga, particularly as represented in
Vivekananda, combines different Indian philosophical streams with competing ontologies and
soteriologies.
19
The prana model assumes the fundamentally material nature of human beings.
Controlled breathing channels cosmic energy to achieve control over the “gross” elements of the
cosmos, leading to personal health and growth that ultimately liberates the individual from
earthly limitations. The samādhi model privileges a fundamentally spiritual Self that mistakenly
sees itself as physical. In this model, the Self, or mind, achieves ultimate knowledge through
meditation and detachment from physical reality to recognize its “divine nature.” Despite the use
of theological language, “[t]here is no question of supernatural achievements here…, but just of
accessing our true power and nature, which we have forgotten through identification with our
lower modes of consciousness.
20
For most modern yoga teachers, the prana model is
functionally subsumed under the samādhi model, and the goal of yoga practice becomes the

18
Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons, S-5, P-105, 2.
19
Kenneth Liberman, “The Reflexivity of the Authenticity of Hatha Yoga,” in Yoga in the Modern World:
Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Mark Singleton and J Byrne (New York: Routledge, 2008), 104, points out
that “the ‘yoga’ that is known and practiced in the modern world is derived from a tradition that was itself a
derivative and syncretic form of spiritual practice” (emphasis in the original).
20
Elizabeth De Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga: Patanjani and Western Esotericism (New York: Continuum,
2004), 175.

146
spiritual liberation known as kaivalya, or transcendent consciousness.
More recently, yoga scholars have offered a different binary for yoga practice. Stuart
Sarbacker traces both a “cessative” and a “numinous” strand of yoga teaching.
21
The first
emphasizes the familiar goal of kaivalya, while the second celebrates supernatural powers
enjoyed through various methods, including communion with the divine. These powers include
cognitive abilities like knowledge of one’s previous births, intuition of one’s impending death,
and awareness of another’s thoughts, as well as physical powers like invisibility, incredible
strength, temporary disembodiment, and the ability to fly.
22
Sarbacker argues that many modern
yogis ignored or downplayed the numinous dimension, as they found it an impediment to a
rational or “scientific” approach to yoga. David Gordon White has traced the long pedigree of
supernatural Indian yoga practice, a traditional that comes into focus quite clearly when the
scholarly lens widens beyond formal yoga manuals to include descriptions of yogis in narrative
traditions. White suggests that “it is the life and teachings of Yogananda that have had the
greatest impact on modern-day conceptions of yoga as a marriage between the physical and the
spiritual, the human and the superhuman.”
23

21
Stuart Ray Sarbacker, “The Numinous and Cessative in Modern Yoga,” in, eds. Yoga in the Modern World:
Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Mark Singleton and J Byrne (New York: Routledge, 2008) and Sarbacker,
Samadhi: The Numinous and Cessative in Indo-Tibetan Yoga (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005).
Sarbacker’s work contests the earlier, and still foundational, binary of Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and
Freedom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958) which characterized yoga as “enstasis,” the truth experienced
by looking within oneself, rather than ecstasy, literally an out-of-body or transcendent experience. David Gordon
White, Sinister Yogis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 29, makes a similar argument about yoga as a
“soteriological system that culminates in union or identity with a supreme being.
22
See Gerald James Larson, “Introduction to the Philosophy of Yoga,” in Gerald James Larson and Ram Shankar
Bhattacharya, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies Vol 12: Yoga: India’s Philosophy of Meditation (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 2011, 125-130. Note, however, that Larson views these achievements as “imaginative fantasies,” not
literal capacities, in contrast to other recent scholars who see them as literal. As will be clear later from the
Autobiography, whatever later scholars think, Yogananda indisputably read these achievements as literal.
23
While White, Sinister Yogis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009) overemphasizes the supernatural in
Yogananda’s teaching, he is nevertheless correct to point out that supernatural achievements constitute an important
element of his instruction. He claims that Yogananda’s Autobiography “presents the yogis of India as a group far
more interested in supernatural powers and self-externalization than in the quietistic, meditative realization of the
divine within.” (47) Later, he states, “Yogi practice and miracles form the warp and weft of Yogananda’s
autobiography, which includes accounts of levitation, the production of multiple bodies, and so on” (246). White

147
Yogananda’s views of samādhi valued both the cessative and numinous goals of
meditation, but the balance was heavily weighted toward the numinous. His lessons defined
Self-realization, a common way of describing the outcome of samādhi, in explicitly theological
terms: “the knowing—in body, mind, and soul—that we are one with the omnipresence of God;
that we do not have to pray that it come to us, that we are not merely near it at all times, but that
God's omnipresence is our omnipresence; that we are just as much a part of Him now as we ever
will be. All we have to do is improve our knowing.”
24
Self-realization meant a devotional
position of deep connection and intimacy with the divine, a recognition that the divine spirit
infuses the individual and enables them to experience healing and immortality. While
Vivekananda and other yoga leaders espoused the monism of Advaita, Yogananda embraced
theism, a devotionalism that kept him from collapsing the seeker and deity into one reality. True,
humans, like all of creation, owed their origin and continued existence to God’s benevolence, but
despite this dependence, God remained ontologically distinct from humans.
25

If the content of Yogananda’s teaching was innovative, the approach was even more so.
Yoga by distance learning was a radical invention—it was only in the context of modern mass
marketing and a vibrant consumer culture. In offering a religious correspondence course,
Yogananda was adopting a common American strategy to provide a very Indian teaching.

seems to be overcorrecting in response to the inattention generally given to the supernatural in modern yoga studies.
Also, his sole reliance on the Autobiography as a source presents a somewhat unbalanced understanding of
Yogananda’s views.
24
Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons, S-1, P-5, 5.
25
Andrew J. Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2014) has recently demonstrated the long tradition of theism within samkhya and yoga
traditions, effectively challenging popular notions that these traditions have historically been monistic or materialist.
Though yoga scholars sometimes ignore discussions of God altogether, the key ancient yoga text, Patanjali’s Yoga
Sutra, has a very particular kind of deity untouched “by afflictions, actions, the consequences of actions, and the
resulting traces and/or predispositions,” an omniscient, eternal being whose unchangeability and transcendence
preclude him from being either a creator or a personal God. In Nath and Tantric versions of yoga, devotion to one or
more of the great Hindu gods is assumed—whether Shiva, Shakti (the goddess), or Vishnu. Yogananda was
influenced by Tantric traditions, and perhaps Nath traditions as well. See Gerald James Larson, “Introduction to the
Philosophy of Yoga,” in Gerald James Larson and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies
Vol 12: Yoga: India’s Philosophy of Meditation (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2011), 91-100, 136-147.

148
Correspondence courses fit with the United States’ spirit of self-improvement, its belief in the
equality of opportunity, the growing importance of education in an industrialized society, and a
pragmatic business model of efficiency and profit maximizing. As the consumer economy
blossomed in the early twentieth century, correspondence courses flourished as well.
26
While
offerings included cultural and liberal arts courses, 80% of correspondence courses provided
training in technical, vocational, or business fields. Lack of accreditation or accountability led to
wildly varying levels of quality, but despite shortcomings, distance learning offered a practical
instrument for meeting demonstrable educational needs.
27

While practical courses predominated, many theological and religious courses were
available by correspondence as well. Moody Bible Institute, the premier turn of the century
fundamentalist Bible school, began correspondence courses in 1901. A 1915 encyclopedia of
religious education explained features “of great value” correspondence courses provided: an

26
Von V. Pittman, “University Correspondence Study: A Revised Historiographic Perspective,” in Handbook of
Distance Education, edited by Michael G. Moore, 3
rd
ed. (New York: Routledge, 2013), 22, and Otto Peters, “The
Most Industrialized Form of Education,” in Handbook of Distance Education, edited by Michael G. Moore, 2nd ed.
(Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2007), 58-59. Distance learning courses did not attempt to replace
traditional higher education and largely recruited students from a different pool. Originally a variation on extension
programs run by universities by the early twentieth century, they were increasingly offered through for-profit
companies of widely varying quality.

The University of Chicago is usually credited with initiating the model in
1892. See G.A. Berg, “Contemporary Implications of the History of Correspondence instruction in American Higher
Education,” Education at a Distance, 13, no. 3 (1999): 11-17, cited in Charles Feasley and Ellen L. Bunker, “A
History of National and Regional Organizations and the ICDE,” in Handbook of Distance Education, edited by
Michael G. Moore, 2nd ed. (Mahwah, N.J. : L. Erlbaum Associates, 2007), 17.
27
Famed sociologist Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of
Universities by Business Men (New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1918) worried about the “partial submersion of the
university” through programs tangential to its core intellectual mission, such as “professional training,
undergraduate instruction, supervision and guidance of the secondary school system, edification of the unlearned by
‘university extension’ and similar excursions into the field of public amusement, training of secondary school
teachers, encouragement of amateurs by ‘correspondence,’ etc.” An earlier study in the same series sponsored by
Carnegie, but focused on university extension programs, identified the challenge universities had in advertising,
managing registration, and handling the mechanics of grading and returning papers. They acknowledged the need to
provide this service to a growing number of individuals, their slowness in responding, and the willingness of other,
less disinterested parties in filling the vacuum. See Alfred Lawrence Hall-Quest, The University Afield (New York:
MacMillan, 1926).
A report commissioned by the Carnegie Foundation in 1926 found that private, for-profit correspondence
courses enrolled four times as many persons were studying by correspondence with privately owned schools as there
were in all the resident colleges, universities and professional schools combined.” See John S. Noffsinger,
Correspondence Schools, Lyceums, Chautauquas (New York: Macmillan 1926), especially the conclusion, 86-90.

149
educational opportunity that was otherwise unavailable, an incentive to study that an individual
usually could not muster on his own, interaction with a specialist, and the opportunity for a good
fit between the course and the individual’s needs. And there was a biblical precedent for such
learning: the catalog argued that the “first correspondence school was conducted by the Apostle
Paul, and his pupils included private individuals and whole churches.”
28

But while Yogananda’s course had precedents in Bible courses, there were crucial
differences as well. A course designed largely to teach intellectual content, like the message of
Matthew’s gospel, was quite different from one offering to mentor devotees in a complex
sequence of spiritual practices. This was an extremely novel approach within the Hindu tradition
as well, a dramatic departure from the face-to-face model of transmission from guru to disciple
that swamis considered indispensible. Direct (and secret) transmission of knowledge was the sine
qua non of spiritual mentorship.
29
Yogananda explained emphatically in the course materials,
“Only through the guru-disciple relationship may a truant human soul retrace its footsteps to
God. It is a perfect relationship of true unconditional friendship between one who makes a
conscious effort to know God (the disciple) and one who actually knows God (the guru).”
30
But
Yogananda’s mentorship was at best virtual, not the flesh-and-blood presence he had received

28
William Rainey Harper, widely credited with launching the university-based version of correspondence courses
when he became president of University of Chicago in 1891, actually offered a correspondence course in Hebrew
ten years earlier. By early twentieth century it had expanded to “Thirty-one advanced correspondence courses in
Hebrew, New Testament Greek, Biblical theology and literature, church history and religious education are of
University grade, and give university credit under special conditions.” See John T. McFarland, Benjamin S.
Winchester, R. Douglas Fraser, J. Williams Butcher, eds., The Encyclopedia of Sunday School and Religious
Education (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1915), 23-24. This publication viewed the genesis of the distance
learning movement as an outgrowth of Chautauqua movement (thus rooted in the church) and now represented by
courses offered by several denominations and/or affiliated seminaries. On Moody, see Pittman, 24.
29
This approach was extremely controversial among swamis trained by Yogananda’s mentor, Sri Yukteswar, who
continued to grouse about it even decades later. Satswarananda, True Kriya Path, 280, complains that “the learning of
any spiritual discipline through easily available materials, such as, lessons, books, literature, lectures, seminars, and
through organizations, is not the righteous way. Learning through these means could never solve the subtle problems of
the seeker.
30
Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons, S-2, P-51, 2.

150
from his own guru.
31

Yogananda’s willingness to adapt his strategies and techniques had practical
consequences. It allowed him to enroll a much larger number of followers than he could ever
have trained personally, and thus also provided a steady source of ongoing income. At the same
time, the call to reserve the lessons for a “member’s use only” followed the traditional stricture
that disciples not reveal their guru’s training to anyone except their own future disciples. More
pragmatically, secrecy affirmed the lessons’ value, creating a kind of mystique about teachings
that, as discussed above, were often available in some form from other sources. Secrecy also
protected an important source of revenue.
32
The lessons played a crucial role in what eventually
became his programmatic vision, as explained by a later disciple:
…Yogananda saw the individual students first receiving the SRF lessons, and
practicing Kriya Yoga in their own homes; then, in time, forming spiritual centers
where they could meet once or twice weekly for group study and meditation. In
areas where there was enough interest to warrant it, he wanted…churches,
perhaps with full- or part-time ministers.
33

The lessons were central to the organization: enrolling constituted membership. Those who
expressed interest in beginning the course but did not follow through received aggressive follow
up messages (“Delay in taking up this valuable course of study…may lead to serious losses in
your all-round material and spiritual development and your life’s happiness.”) and an offer of
discounted prices on the lessons and free copies of the magazine.
34

31
Strauss, 47, discusses Sivananda’s similar strategy in the 1950s, several decades after Yogananda—and only as a
response to inability to keep up with actual correspondence (not as a primary strategy, as with Yogananda) and the
tension with traditional face-to-face instruction, so “books, tapes, and photographs remain only supplements;” the
“ideal situation was for them to visit the ashram at some point.”
32
On this combination of traditional focus on secrecy and modern entrepreneurial concern, see a similar example in
Joanne Punzo Waghorne, “Engineering an Artful Practice: On Jaggi Vasudev’s Isha Yoga and Sri Sri Ravi
Shankar’s Artful Living,” in Gurus in America, edited by Thomas A. Forsthoeffel and Cynthia Ann Humes (Albany:
State University of New York, 2005), 296.
33
Swami Kriyananda, The Path: Autobiography of a Western Yogi (Nevada City: Crystal Clarity Publishers, 1979),
324, cited in Polly Trout, Eastern Seeds, Western Soil: Three Gurus in America (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield
Publishing Company, 2001), 121.
34
L.Y. Royston to Miss Mary Friedel, August 6, 1941, in author’s possession.

151
Yogananda’s early published works reinforced Yogoda course content in various ways.
Continuing a theme introduced in Science of Religion and continued in Yogoda, Scientific
Healing Affirmations emphasized the “scientific” nature of his approach to spiritual wholeness,
instructing readers in the systematic study and recitation of mantras Yogoda assumed the tight
correspondence between the mind’s attention, the senses, breathing, muscles, the spine, and
posture. Scientific Healing Affirmations assumed a strong connection between attentiveness,
words, and physical health, but Yogananda specified in great detail the mechanisms by which the
mind healed the body. The latter part of the book included the mantras themselves, whose
recitation ensured physical and mental well-being.
35
The notion that reciting spiritual truths had
inherent power is deeply rooted in the Upanishads. At the same time, the idea that a person could
essentially will positive change harmonized with the upbeat ethos of 1920s America, even while
it anticipated the “power of positive thinking” by several decades. The power of the word was
ultimately rooted in God’s great cosmic “Om,” which brought the world into existence.
36

35
For example, readers should recite
I shall not say 'tis Thy Will
That I am wrong or I am ill
'Tis my will divorced from Thee
That makes me bound, unfree.
I will wish, I will will
I will work, I will drill
Not led by Ego but by Thee
But by Thee, but by Thee
I will work, exert my will
Swami Yogananda, Scientific Healing Affirmations (Los Angeles: Yogoda and Sat-Sanga, 1924).
36
See “Om Song,” with music by E.G Richdale, which announced that people could “learn the secret, ancient Hindu
art of Yogoda concentration to actually contact the Great Spirit through (Om, Amen, the Word) or Cosmic
Vibration.” Directions for voice indicated that the song should be song “slowly and sympathetically” these words of
the first stanza:
Whence, Oh this soundless roar doth come
When drowseth matter’s dreary drum?
The booming Om on bliss’ shore breaks;
All heav’n, all earth, all body shakes
Then, singing faster,
“The bumble bee doth hum along, Baby Om, now hark ye! Sings his song;
Krishna’s flute is sounding sweet
‘Tis time the wat’ry God to meet.
See Swami Yogananda, Om Song (Los Angeles: Yogoda Sat Sanga Headquarters, 1926).

152
“Scientific,” a favored word among Bengali elites, signaled three desirable qualities for the
book’s religious affirmations.
37
First, scientific instruction was precise and targeted to particular
needs. Also, the efficacy of scientific techniques could be verified through the practitioner’s
experience: did he have more energy, feel healthier, or lose troubling symptoms?
38
Finally,
unlike doctrinal particularities—which are essentially irrational, unproven, and divisive—
scientific healing is universally true.
Alongside the Yogoda lessons, East-West Magazine, launched at the end of 1925, was his
most important published religious product. It supplemented the lessons in providing a sense of
personal connection with their guru-from-a-distance. The bi-monthly magazine provided
subscribers with ongoing teaching—including regular articles by Yogananda—and news, much
of which was also about the master. The magazine also facilitated readers’ experience of Yogoda
as a national community that transcended a local group they might be attending. The terse title
elegantly captured Yogananda’s vision of himself as the messenger of Eastern spiritual truth to
the superficial, technologically advanced West, which would thereby heal the rift between the
locales. The cover announced that this magazine was “devoted to Spiritual Realization,
Development of Body, Mind and Soul; Practical Metaphysics, and Hindu Psychology.” A
“Special Notice to Friends and Students of Swami Yogananda” suggested that readers were
personal followers of the guru, not just devotees of his teaching methods. He explained the
magazine’s purpose as being “to inspire, to enlighten, and to encourage all to live the Practical
Spiritual Life.” In keeping with Yogananda’s view of his own centrality in meditating spiritual

37
As discussed in the previous chapter, this was part of a larger Brahmo Samaj discourse about “scientific religion”
discussed by David Kopf, Brahmo Samaj. Albanese, 369, seems unaware of this pedigree when she assumes that
Yogananda’s use of the word was meant to evoke Christian Science, Religious Science, Divine Science, “and a
modest army of self-conscious metaphysicians.”
38
An echo of William James can be heard in this celebration of practical religion: James was quite friendly with
Vivekananda, whose view in turn deeply shaped Yogananda’s. See De Michelis, A History of Modern Yoga, 171-
173.

153
experience, the inaugural issue was “mainly devoted to Swami Yogananda and his Education
work in India and America, also his ideals and plans for the future.”
39

From the beginning, the magazine signaled an ostensible commitment to ecumenical
spirituality by including contributions from a variety of religious traditions. Stories, images,
poetic tributes and texts by and about Buddha were prolific, including an early poem by Buddhist
leader Dharmapala. Yogananda also featured Sufism, a popular, non-doctrinaire form of Islam
prominent in North India with devotional impulses it shared with bhakti. An early issue included
a story about Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism, a monotheistic northern Indian movement with
roots in devotional bhakti Hinduism and Sufi Islam.
40

But a closer look at Yogananda’s frequent references to other religions reveals the limits
of Yogananda’s ecumenical generosity. Ultimately, he offered a universal claim to truth, which
implied that all other claims were at best only partial. Never accepting any traditional Christian
tenets, Yogananda always interpreted Christianity through the lens of Hinduism. Yogananda
frequently explained that St. Paul’s announcement “I die daily”—originally a comment about
sacrificing his own desires in submission to Jesus—actually revealed a technique where one’s
breathing essentially stops in a controlled simulation of death. An early article quoted the Gospel
of John, Yogananda’s favorite gospel due to its penchant for esoteric expositions, that
propounded the “spiritual meaning” of John 6:27: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but
for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him
that God the Father has set his seal.” Yogananda made frequent swipes at Christianity’s doctrinal

39
“Special Notice To Friends and Students of Swami Yogananda,” East-West, Nov-Dec, 1925, n.p.
40
He even expressed his concern for fellow performer-evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, defending her after she
suddenly reappeared from what she claimed was a kidnapping, but the press widely reported as a romantic
rendezvous in Mexico. “If Mrs. McPherson has done no wrong, then what untold injustice and persecution is being
heaped upon her! And if she has committed any error then that error should be balanced against the great works she
has done by inspiring thousands of people.” See “Sympathy for Aimee Semple McPherson, East-West, Sept-Oct
1926, 24.

154
rigidly, both overtly and, as here, more subtly. In a very lengthy 1926 article, Yogananda
explained the difference between the Oriental Christ and the Occidental Christ. “True
Christianity is neither Oriental nor Occidental, nor does it belong to Jesus and His Saints alone.”
Instead, true Christianity was “the property of every truth-seeking soul,” called Hinduism by
Hindus and Christianity by Christians. But any sense of equality between the two religions was
withdrawn by the explanation that sincere seekers could experience Christ fully not through
churches but only through Yogoda.
41
Indeed, the Yogoda lessons discuss the secret of true
religion, which comes only from India, where “great yogis have discovered through their
religious experimentations the practical means of destroying by the roots the threefold suffering
of man—body, mind, and soul—so that there is no possibility of recurrence.”
42
He offered to
reintegrate what Christianity body, mind, and spirit, which Christianity had torn asunder.
Scholars have often concluded that Yogananda had many affinities toward, and even
borrowed heavily from, metaphysical movements like Christian Science, Theosophy, and New
Thought. But this conclusion is often based on superficial analyses of shared language and an
unproven assumption about Yogananda’s willingness to borrow syncretistically.
43
In one piece,
comparing Christian Science and Hinduism, Yogananda cited the dubious view that Mary Baker

41
Swami Yogananda, “Oriental Christianity, Occidental Christianity and Yogoda,” East-West, Sept-Oct, 1926, 5-9;
quote on 5. As De Michelis points out, Vivekananda adopted a similar stance of subsuming all other spiritual
traditions under the rubric of Hindu cosmology. Whether Yogananda learned this view directly from Vivekananda
or imbibed it through the larger Bengali intellectual of his upbringing is difficult to determine. It seems clear,
though, that Yogananda did not simply develop this view independently.
42
Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons, S-4, P-85, 2.
43
For example, Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American
Metaphysical Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007) describes Yogananda’s self-realization language
as influenced from New Thought, illustrating a tendency to assume rather than to demonstrate connections and
mistaking the direction of causation. Realization language, a popular term with Vivekananda, was used by a number
of other modern yoga teachers, reflecting an entirely appropriate translation of the crucial Sanskrit brahmajnana,
found throughout the ancient Upanishads. In the same way, Yogananda’s frequent references to the mind betray not
a dependence on New Thought but a deep understanding of the Upanishads. Recognizing that such language
resonated with New Thought followers is quite different from assuming that it derived from them. Larson claims
that ancient yoga scholars define their own tradition as “a learned scientific tradition concerning the study of
mind…” See Larson, “Introduction to the Philosophy of Yoga,” 54-55. Likewise, Trout, Eastern Seeds, 202-210,
speculates about the “possibility” that Yogananda may have taught a form of self-hypnosis, though what she
describes is essentially standard meditative practice.

155
Eddy’s teachings were inspired by the Bhagavad Gita, and thus bore an ancient Indian pedigree.
But after Yogananda affirmed Eddy’s belief in the ability of the mind to heal, he also provided
correctives to her views: she attributed healing to imagination when she should have attributed it
to will, and she unwisely denied the reality of the material world, when a more accurate view
would have recognized the relative unreality of the world—that is, the ultimate insignificance of
material reality in light of the greater truth of Brahman.
44
In the Yogoda lessons, Yogananda also
attacked a familiar Christian Science tenet, though without calling out the organization by name:
“Some people say that evil doesn't exist. But that is not true. If your illness is not real, why do
you need healing? When you want to be healed, you have accepted disease, and therefore evil, as
a fact. It is inconsistent to deny disease and then to seek healing; or to say that all is mind, that
the body does not exist, and yet to go on eating three meals a day.”
45
He demonstrated a similar
stance to Theosophy. He acknowledged the movement’s contributions to the West’s
understanding of reincarnation, but criticized its confused understanding of kundalini energy,
which had made American audiences unnecessarily anxious about the potential dangers of
meditation.
46
He was least critical of New Thought, perhaps perceiving it to be so general that it
functioned more an ally than a competitor. He reprinted a lengthy excerpt from the popular In
Tune with the Infinite by prominent New Thought figure Ralph Waldo Trine, and invited him to
be a special guest of honor at the fourth anniversary celebration of Mt. Washington in 1929.
There is no reason to think, however, that his attitude toward New Thought extended beyond a
respectful cordiality.
47
While Yogananda always sought to convey a sense of broadmindedness,

44
Swami Yogananda, “Christian Science and Hindu Philosophy,” East-West, May-June, 1926, 7-10.
45
Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons, S-4, P-94, 2.
46
Swami Yogananda, “Yellow Journalism Versus Truth: Are Eastern Teachings Dangerous?,” East-West, Jan-Feb
1928, 3-8.
47
Yogananda and Vedanta leaders shared the same basic stance toward Christianity and metaphysical movements:
cordiality along with a clear sense of the inferiority of these other groups. See the comments on this subject in the

156
he never lost sight of the need to justify his value in a crowded religious market by suggesting
the inferiority of these faiths.
While East-West advanced the Yogoda brand through articles on India, Hinduism, and
yoga, it functioned as a commercial product in more literal ways. Magazine subscriptions helped
support the ministry, and casual readers were routinely encouraged to subscribe so they could re-
read important articles. East-West sold advertising space in the magazine, mostly promoting
books on healthy diets and the occult. Key sections of the magazine also served as advertorials
for Yogoda, where news and information was hopelessly entangled with boosterist reports of
large audiences, impressive venues, and new converts. Yogoda advertisements and news updates
typically profiled professionals—business people, artists, and performers—whose occupations
made them especially concerned about physical health and energy. Yogananda coveted the
testimony of such upwardly mobile individuals, for the prestige they brought to his organization
and work. Yogananda also emulated Protestant church patterns by using magazine space to
request financial pledges from members.
48

Finally, the magazine offered sacred objects for sale: Yogoda pins and lapel buttons.
“Gold-plated, in orange and blue enamel,” these emblems “proclaim to the world your adherence
to Yogoda principles” while presumably deepening their wearers’ sense of identity with the
organization at the same time. Mt. Washington also sold mounted photographs of Yogananda,

previous chapter. Ralph Waldo Trine, “Extracts from In Tune with the Infinite,” East-West, Sept-Oct, 1926, 23-24.
“Churches Heed Armistice,” Los Angeles Times, Nov 9, 1929, A6.
48
By the Twenties, many Protestant churches had embraced an approach to finance in tune with the contemporary
consumer and business-savvy ethos. As James Hudnut indicates, “ritualizing a definite pledge for the coming year
was becoming increasingly prevalent in Protestant churches that were embracing business methods such as annual
budgeting, accounting for gift receipts to donors quarterly, and urging weekly gifts on the analogy of an installment
plan of credit.”

See Hudnut, In Pursuit of the Almighty’s Dollar: A History of Money and American Protestantism
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 115. One major contribution to the literature of church
“stewardship” in that period was Lutheran pastor Herbert Bosch’s Not Slothful for Business. The book embraced
advertising and marketing within a larger theological framework of market choice: as Hudnut says, “what people
give to a church is a function of what it is worth to them…when Christian civilization was at stake, the church was a
real bargain” (111).

157
which helped disciples to maintain connection with their guru from a distance and create a sense
of sacred space within their own homes. Christmas proved an especially fruitful opportunity for
sales: a specially-priced set of books, Whispers from Eternity in cloth binding “exquisitely gotten
up,” and beautiful Christmas greeting cards with Yogoda sentiments and designs for sale at the
various Yogoda centers throughout the country.”
49
Yogananda took a cue from the widespread
sales of Christian art objects, both Catholic and Protestant, from candles and decorative Bibles,
to rosary beads and artwork. Material objects deepen people’s connection to their spiritual
tradition and provide a link in their daily life when they might otherwise feel disconnected.

Marketing Yogoda Religion
As the previous chapter established, early twentieth-century Southern California
epitomized a spiritual marketplace, the result of a diverse, mobile, recent community that
included a large self-selecting contingent of spiritual seekers scattered among the majority of
Midwestern Protestant plain folk. A glance at any newspaper’s religious advertisement section in
the 1920s would reveal announcements for dozens of established denominations, newer
movements like Theosophy and Christian Science, and permutations within each group jostled
for space. Sophisticated religious leaders like Yogananda used advertising, an intrinsic element
of the nation’s new consumer economy, to “sell religion”—from literal newspaper
advertisements to personal testimonials from respected figures in science, the arts, and
Hollywood. Ultimately, a religious figure’s persona—their personality, appearance, and delivery
style— was both a product and a sales tool. Yogananda bore many similarities to the flamboyant
evangelists of the era though his product and audience differed from theirs in crucial ways.
Modern advertising and the sacred increasingly blurred in the Twenties. America

49
East-West, Nov-Dec, 1929, n.p.

158
witnessed an explosion in the volume of consumer advertising, in newspapers, magazines, and
billboards of various kinds in the 1920s. As advertising executives came to understand
contemporary theories of psychology better—needs, desires, sexual drives, and insecurities—
their techniques became modern.
50
As advertisers sought to elevate the desirability of their
products, they often subtly evoked familiar sacred imagery to convey the transcendent
possibilities of consumption.
51
Some observers in the 1920s characterized advertising itself as a
kind of religion, one critic, for example, declaring it “America’s cruelest and most ruthless sport,
religion, or profession, or what your choose to call it.”
52

Not everyone was critical of the blurring of sacred and materialistic; some praised
advertising’s emerging aesthetic, which aspired to evoke the sublime realm where
transcendentalists and other romantics experienced the divine.
53
Advertisers, the “attention
engineers” of mass culture, often former ministers or their offspring, were seen as “spiritual and
cultural redeemers.” President Calvin Coolidge congratulated advertisers for their work in “the
regeneration and redemption of mankind,” through “inspiring and ennobling the commercial

50
According to Roland Marchand, “As it came to accept the paradox of its role as both apostle of modernity and
buffer against the effects of modern impersonalities of scale, and as it developed strategies for accommodating the
public to modern complexities, American advertising in the 1920s and 1930s took on what we now recognize as a
distinctly modern cast.” See Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-
1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) 9.
51
Marchand, 271-273, for example, analyzes tableaus reminiscent of nativity scenes. Consumers replaced shepherds
and wise men, whose “religious ecstasy” turned towards sublime refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and radios rather
than the Christ Child in the manger. Because the visual associations were implied rather than overt, few viewers
seemed to perceive a heretical link between products and the sacred.
52
J. Thorne Smith, “Advertising” in Civilization in the United States, an Inquiry by Thirty Americans, edited by
Harold Stearns (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1922), 383. Others identified the goods advertisers hawked as the real
sacrilege, complaining that in the “Age of the Salesman,” “commerce is taking upon itself all the sanctions of the
church, and so slowly but surely transforming its common street behavior into a semisacred cult whose rituals are
not to be profaned.” Stuart Chase, “Six Cylinder Ethics,” Forum (January 1928), 22-34, cited in Gary D. Best,
Dollar Decade: Mammon and the Machine in 1920s America (New York: Praeger, 2003), 35.
53
One article praised the “fine work in advertising” that was “making a very real contribution to the sum total of
aesthetic achievement in this country.” “Advertising for Health,” Literary Digest, 29 November 1919, cited in Best,
Dollar Decade, 33. American Christianity had a century-long entanglement with the market by this time, as a force
of innovation being forced to come to terms with it. See R. Laurence Moore, Selling God: American Religion in the
Marketplace of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

159
world.”
54

Even within the religious fold, some embraced the creative possibilities of the new
consumer culture. Most famously, advertising executive Bruce Barton, the son of a
Congregational minister, penned The Man Nobody Knows, an immediate bestseller that revealed
Jesus as a worldly man who displayed remarkable commercial acumen. “The founder of modern
business,” “Jesus picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into
an organization that conquered the world.” Barton outlined Jesus as an executive and advertiser
with a clear method.
55
Barton’s interpretation of Jesus healing “shattered nerves,” “divided
minds” and “‘complexes’” reflected a modern fusion of religion and psychology.
56
Matthew
Hedstrom comments that the The Man Nobody Knows “perfectly encapsulated the confluence of
consumer cult, religious publishing, theological liberalism, and gender anxiety in the 1920s.
Barton’s book received intense scorn from both conserve and liberal critics, mostly for its
indisputable theological shallowness and naked celebration of American capitalism.”
57

Yogananda was much more sanguine. He favorably reviewed Barton’s book in 1926,
proclaiming it “original, gripping, alive! It succeeds in actually conveying the personality of
Jesus. It takes a great historical figure, somewhat vague from the mist of centuries, and sharpens
His outline ...until the reader can see, feel and understand His compelling charm and power.

54
Gregory W. Bush, Lord of Attention: Gerald Stanley Lee and the Crowd Metaphor in Industrializing America
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991), 5. The Coolidge quote is from p. 5. For a contemporary
example of advertising as a positive social good, including the belief that “advertising probably is our greatest
agency for spreading an understanding and love of beauty in all things” and its “peculiar power as an educative
force.” See Prebrey, The History and Development of Advertising, 608-618; the quotes are from 611 and 617.
55
Bruce Barton, The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc.,
1925). As an advertising director, Barton appreciated that Jesus was “successful in mastering public attention,”
“because he recognized the basic principle that all good advertising is news…Reporters would have followed him
every single hour, for it was impossible to predict what he would say or do; every action and word were news. (126).
56
This interpretation comes from Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in
America (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 177-178.
57
He cites a typical review from Gilbert Seldes in The New Republic, who opined, “The author is a man so fanatic
about American business that he must reduce his Savior to the terms of the executive and organizer and go-getter.”
See Michael S. Hedstrom, The Rise of Liberal Religion: Book Culture and American Spirituality in the Twentieth
Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 25.

160
Jesus as an executive, and the founder of modern business! His methods and advertising! These
chapter headings hint at the contents. Every Yogoda student should read it!”
58
Rather than
feeling squeamish about associating pragmatism, advertising, and organization with the West’s
greatest spiritual figure, Yogananda celebrated this connection—a significant clue to his views of
the relationship between advertisement and spirituality in the age of consumption.
Yogananda’s marketing shrewdness is evident in his newspaper advertisements for the
benefits of Yogoda. The ads benefitted early on from his promoter, M. Rashid, who recognized
that Yogananda’s appeal lay in his ability to entertain, not just to teach people about spiritual
matters. Yogananda decided to place ads in both the religion and entertainment sections of local
newspapers. This advertising strategy risked reinforcing common American perceptions of
Hindu speakers as novelty acts rather than as spiritual leaders. At the same time, the uniqueness
of a Yogananda ad sandwiched between promotions for vaudeville productions, casinos, and an
Al Jolson blackface performance gave him a competitive advantage compared with religious
leaders who refrained from advertising in this section, while frankly conceding that he provided
cheap entertainment.
59
The ads themselves, while terse, typically included a headshot of
Yogananda wearing a prominent turban, designed to arrest newspaper readers’ attention. In the
religious advertisement section, his image was often the only visual on the entire page. He also
relied heavily on volume: he barraged audiences with ads, offering readers multiple opportunities
to learn about his talks. This was a risky calculation, as he gambled that his extensive up-front
advertising costs would pay for themselves when larger audiences showed up.
In his advertisements, Yogananda sought to convey that he possessed the personal

58
“Book Review: The Man Nobody Knows,” East-West, May-June, 1926.
59
“City College Unveiling—A Swami Comes to Town—Arkansas Travelers Arrive Here—Honored by France,”
New York Tribune, Nov 18, 1923, 11. Mark Singleton, Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Postural Practice (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 64-70. See below for further discussion.

161
authority to make his message compelling and trustworthy. From the time of his arrival in the
US, he had experimented with different ways of presenting himself. The frontispiece to his 1923
Songs of the Soul established his bona fides with a cascade of titles: founder of “Ranchi and Puri
Brahmacharya Residential Schools in India, Sat Sanga (Fellowship with Truth), Boston; Sat
Sanga Summer School, Waltham; Vice-President: SADHU SABHA, India; Delegate from India
to International Congress of Religions, Boston 1920.” He often sacrificed accuracy for the sake
of presumed appeal in presenting his credentials: a “famous psychologist and educator of
Calcutta” (he did not study psychology) and Swami from University of Calcutta (he was never
affiliated directly with that institution). Likewise, in Denver during his 1924 cross-country trip,
Yogananda claimed that as “the owner of two large schools in India,” he was in the country to
study the school system.
60
He described himself as the personal representative of the Maharajah
of Kasimbazar, a “powerful reigning prince of India.”
61
While the maharaja did support the
Ranchi ashram, there is no evidence that he financially underwrote Yogananda’s ministry in the
United States or that Yogananda was his “personal representative.” He exploited the glamor of
Oriental rulers—as well as Americans’ ignorance of Indian governance structure, which included
thousands of princely states, each with its own maharaja—to suggest a prestigious, quasi-formal
mission to the US sponsored by India.
Endorsements by famous Americans provided significant cachet for Yogananda and his
work. The famous horticulturalist Luther Burbank invoked his own scientific authority to
provide a vigorous testimonial about Yogananda and his teaching:
I have examined the Yogoda system of Swami Yogananda and in my
opinion it is ideal for training and harmonizing man’s physical, mental and

60
“India Educator Visits Denver on Tour of Country. Swami Yogananda to Give Two Lectures Before Leaving
City.” Rocky Mountain News. August 2, 1924 and “Swami Yogananda to Lecture in Denver,” Rocky Mountain
News, August 7, 1924. Reprinted at http://www.srf-denver.org/History.html
61
Advertisement, Washington Post, January 2, 1927, 31.

162
spiritual natures…Through the Yogoda system of physical, mental and spiritual
unfoldment by simple and scientific methods of concentration and meditation,
most of the complex problems of life may be solved, and peace and good-will
come upon earth.
The Swami’s idea of right education is plain common-sense, free from all
mysticism or non-practicality, otherwise it would not have my approval…I am
glad to have this opportunity of heartily joining with the Swami in his appeal for
international schools on the art of living, which, if established, will come as near
to bringing the millenium [sic] as anything with which I am acquainted.
62

Burbank, whose experiments with plant hybrids made him a perfect example of the kind of
practical scientific application Yogananda admired, authoritatively confirmed the harmony
between science and religion in Yogananda’s teachings.
63

Opera singer Madame Amelita Galli-Curci’s endorsement won Yogananda his first
reference in a national publication, as Time described their relationship in 1928: “Amelita Galli-
Curci (coloratura soprano) gave her name for advertising purposes to Swami Yogananda of India
and Los Angeles, Calif., a man who looks like a plump woman. She was quoted in copy in
Manhattan theatre programs as saying: ‘YOGODA gives Health, Strength, Power to Accomplish,
Peace and Poise.’ Among other things, YOGODA claims to teach people ‘to Recharge their
body, mind and soul Batteries from Inner Cosmic Energy ... to meditate, to know Divine

62
Swami Yogananda, East-West World Wide, Nov-Dec, 1925, n.p. Burbank contributed an article to the first issue
of Yogananda’s magazine, discussing science and civilization. The article included a photo of a stern Burbank, with
a shock of white hair, standing next to a grinning Yogananda in splendid robe and turban. Yogananda expressed his
admiration for “Beatific Burbank” in verse a few pages later in the same issue, calling him “The great reformer
Luther…Of living plants and flowers.” His admiration for Burbank extended beyond his scientific expertise to his
reverence for “the Mighty Invisible Sun…That lights little plants, distant stars, the bursting bubble, thee and me and
man.” Two pictures accompany the poem. The first is a view of a walnut tree that “reached in 12 years a growth
usually attained after 150 years” due to Burbank’s “wonderful knowledge of how to quicken the natural evolution of
plant life.” The second shows Burbank, Yogananda, and “the noted journalist” Ralph Parker Anderson in front of
Burbank’s “edible ‘spineless’ cactus.” On the relationship between Yogananda and Burbank, see Jane S. Smith,
“Luther Burbank’s Spineless Cactus: Boom Times in the California Desert,” California History 87, no. 4 (2010): 26-
47; 66-68.
63
A liberal Christian, Burbank gained notoriety shortly after this endorsement when he labeled himself an “infidel”
for his criticism of existing religions and his denial of resurrection and the afterlife “Burbank Declares he is True
Infidel,” Baltimore Sun, January 23, 1926, 1. His ideas were largely within the realm of liberal Christianity of the
time, just not usually stated so provocatively, which did not protect him from a flood of criticism. “Call his Views
Unscientific,” New York Times, Jan 24, 1926, 9 offers a selection of contemporary criticisms. He also had his
defenders. See Frederick W. Clampett, Luther Burbank: “Our Beloved Infidel:” His Religion of Humanity (New
York: MacMillan Company, 1926).

163
truths.’’
64
Time’s snide tone notwithstanding, the article provided remarkable national attention.
Galli-Curci wrote the dedication to Yogananda’s Whispers from Eternity, celebrating a scientific
approach to relationship with God that culminated in realization of the self:
The prayers in this book serve to bring God closer, by describing the
feelings which directly arise from actual God-contact. God is expressed here as
something definite and tangible. The Cosmic Idol is the grand conception of the
Infinite and Invisible made finite and visible. Nature, man, mind, and every
visible object are all taken as materials to build a colossal Divine Idol, on which
we can easily concentrate.
Followers of all religions may drink from this fountain of universal
prayers. These prayers are an answer to the modern scientific mind, seeking God
intelligently. This book gives us a great variety of prayers, which enables one to
choose that prayer most suited and helpful to his particular need.
My humble request to the reader, I express in the following lines:
Pass not by, with hurried intellectual reading, the mines of realization
hidden beneath the soil of words in this sacred book. But, as the Swami says,
daily and repeatedly dig deep into them with the pickax of your attentive,
reverential and meditative study, when you will find the priceless gem of self-
realization.
65

Yogananda forged relationships with other entertainers, taking full advantage of his
proximity to Hollywood to cultivate friendships with key industry figures. In 1928, Sid Grauman
invited Yogananda and Dhirananda to a Hollywood Association of Foreign Correspondents
dinner in honor of Carl Laemmle. Samuel Goldwyn, D. W. Griffith, William C. DeMille (older
brother of Cecil B. DeMille), actress Delores Del Rio, and “dozens of other screen luminaries”
were in attendance. Yogananda delivered a talk on India to these guests who frequently purveyed
images of the exotic East on the screen.
66
Clearly taken with the film industry, Yogananda began
to describe life as a “Paramount picture, shown in serials and by installments, infinitely
interesting, ever-fresh, ever-stirring, ever-complex.” Everyone could play his part, but need not
fear that the movie is a tragedy, since the “great Director of the Motion Picture Company of Life

64
Time Magazine, February 20, 1928, 26.
65
Amelita Galli-Curci, “Foreword,” in Swami Yogananda, Whispers from Eternity (Los Angeles: Yogoda and Sat
Sanga, 1929), 9-11.
66
“Los Angeles News,” East-West, Jul-Aug 1928, 25.

164
is made of Joy.”
67

As Douglas Little comments, “orientalism American style became a staple of popular
during the 1920s through such media as B movies, best-selling books, and mass circulation
magazines.”
68
Yogananda embraced the possibilities of the motion picture industry in another
way. Because “the birth of cinema itself coincided with the imperialist moment,” film had been
drawn to Orientalism.
69
Yogananda saw the commercial potential of Orientalism. Vincent J.
Miller provocatively suggests that “religions that lend themselves to visual intensity and
symbolism have greater appeal in consumer culture.”
70
Yogananda displayed his intuitive
understanding of this principle with his knack for the theatrical. Apart from playing up his hair,
turban, and robes, he controlled his voice in tone, volume, and pitch, undulating dramatically as
part of his calculated performance. Audiences noted how his resonant “God power-driven voice”
complemented his eyes, face, and gestures.
71
As one disciple appreciatively explained, “Master’s
voice—well modulated—rose and fell in pitch and decibels to express the internal feelings he
projected. To capture the full attention of his listeners, his voice ranged from whispered phrases
to a great booming volume. It always commanded attention and, no doubt, kept the listeners
interested.”
72
Even his Indian accent—which occasionally made him difficult to understand—
conveyed a charming, exotic wisdom. In effect, he presented himself as if constantly aware that
he was on screen—or at least in front of the camera lens.

67
Swami Yogananda, “Watching the Cosmic Motion Picture of Life,” East-West, May-June 1928, 3-4.
68
Douglas Little, American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945 (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 2008), 17. Though Little is referring to American views of the Middle East, given the way
Americans often lumped the entirety of Asia together, his comment remains apropos for views of India.
69
Ella Shohat, “Gender and Culture of Empire: Toward a Feminist Ethnography of the Cinema,” in Visions of the
East: Orientalism in Film, edited by Matthew Bernstein and Gaylyn Studlar (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1997), 25; Gaylyn Studlar, “‘Out-Salomeing Salome’: Dance, the New Woman, and Fan Magazine
Orientalism,” in ibid., 99.
70
Vincent J. Miller, Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture (New York:
Continuum, 2005), 79.
71
Wight, Trilogy, 173.
72
Mary Peck Stockton, A Testimony of Love and Devotion: My Life Journey with Paramahansa Yogananda
(Portland, OR: Tamaltree Books, 2015), 28.

165
As all of these advertising approaches illustrate, Yogananda profoundly understood how
inseparable his marketing of his message was from his marketing of himself. In making this
connection, he identified one of the modern era’s key transformations in the understanding of the
individual: what cultural historian Warren Susman has called the development of personality. By
the early twentieth century, “the development of consciousness of self” emerged in conjunction
with a consumer economy, mass culture, and the expansion of leisure time, emphasizing
“individual idiosyncrasies, personal needs and interests.” The nineteenth century vision of an
individual committed to duty, work, honor, and reputation began to give way to an ideology that
stressed the attractive, magnetic, forceful, and creative elements of each individual, in short, to
“self-realization.”
73
According to Susman, the 1920s new technologies of radio and film gave
birth to celebrity culture, in which audiences paid attention to athletes, performers, and film
actors at all times, not just when they performed. “Stars” were famous simply for being
themselves.
Yogananda found himself in a crowded field of religious “stars” promoting their own
personality-driven brands in the 1920s. Given evangelical preachers’ long tradition of theatrical
performance, it is no surprise that they were effective promoters.
74
It was often the evangelists’
personas, including their endearing personal idiosyncrasies, that enabled them to entertain large
audiences through public addresses, modern print, and radio ministries.
75
Billy Sunday is a

73
It is worth noting that the Emersonian tradition of the transcendent self played a crucial role in Susman’s
understanding of how the culture of personality was cultivated. Warren Susman, “‘Personality’ and the Making of
Twentieth-Century Culture” in Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth
Century (New York: Pantheon, 1984). The quote is from 276, emphasis mine.
74
Revivalists had long been popular dramatic performers, from George Whitefield, “the divine dramatist” and
“pedlar in divinity” in the eighteenth century, through Charles Finney and Lorenzo Dow in the nineteenth. For
Whitefield, see Harry Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmands, 1991) and Frank Lambert, “Pedlar in Divinity:” George Whitefield and the
Transatlantic Revivals, 1737-1770 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); for Finney and Dow, see Nathan
O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
75
Their flamboyance, self-promotion, and attention to rhetorical flourish over oratorical substance inspired Sinclair
Lewis’ Elmer Gantry in 1927. An immediate bestseller, the novel deeply shaped the public’s perception of

166
prime example of this phenomenon. An Iowa native and former professional baseball player,
Sunday possessed more passion than intellect, but he had a canny knack for drawing large
audiences. While not all Americans loved this flamboyant showman, he became a household
name in the 1910s and 1920s, and gained a number of friends in Hollywood.
76
He marketed
everything he could think of: his biography; postcards of himself, his family, and his evangelical
team; his sermons; and hymn books.
77
“Fighting Bob” Shuler was one of several fundamentalist
preachers whose nickname hinted at his unwillingness to compromise theologically, but also an
aggressively pugnacious style of communication. A Tennessee native, he relocated to Los
Angeles in 1920, continuing to pastor there until his retirement in 1953, though the FCC revoked
his radio license in 1931 for libel.
78
Aimee Semple McPherson, whose ministry was described
briefly in the previous chapter, claims pride of place as a personality-driven minister. “Sister
Aimee,” who became friends with Hollywood celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, was an extremely
innovative presenter who appeared on stage on a motorcycle for one sermon, staged theatrical
productions, and dramatically displayed the crutches of those physically healed through her
ministry.
79

evangelical preachers, according to John Weaver, Evangelicals and the Arts in Fiction: Portrayals of Tension in
Non-Evangelical Works Since 1895 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013) 51-64.
76
Lyle W. Dorsett, Billy and the Redemption of Urban America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 95. On religion
and entertainment, see Moore, Selling God, 106-112. Moore points out that despite many preachers’ criticisms of
materialism, their innovative approach inevitably turned them into purveyors of religion as a commodity for
consumption (119).
77
Moore, Selling God, 186-187.
78
He directed his militancy as much toward internal enemies like Sister Aimee as he did toward political targets he
accused of misdeeds. Charles Fuller, later founder of Fuller Seminary, might be included in this group as well. He
was the only California native in the group. Born in Los Angeles, he graduated from Pomona College, converted to
fundamentalism in 1916 after hearing Paul Rader, “master of a new style of evangelism using large auditoriums,
entertaining gospel music, and dramatic preaching styles.” See Joel Carpenter, Revive us Again: The Awakening of
American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 78-79. His radio ministry did not begin
until 1937, and he pioneered a more moderate fundamentalism that was less militant, and forged an
interdenominational ministry. See Philip Goff, “Fighting Like the Devil in the City of Angels: The Rise of
Fundamentalist Charles E. Fuller,” in Metropolis in the Making, 220-252.
79
In her 1927 autobiography, she explained, “Religion, to thrive in the present day, must utilize present-day
methods.” See Matthew Avery Sutton, Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007); the quote is from 76.

167
Yogananda shared much in common with these popular evangelists. He was every bit the
entertainer they were, from costume to intonation, to physicality. He created a distinctive and
intriguing cult of personality. He believed in the importance of a tangible, energetic encounter
with the divine. Most importantly, like these evangelists, he recognized that his persona was his
most potent weapon. As one student of the movement perceptively noted at the time:
Swami Yogananda himself is the biggest advertisement for the Society, in
spite of a newspaper announcement that “Swami Yogananda keeps himself in the
background.” His face appears in newspapers and on billboards, in some of his
books, and several times in his magazine. Every Yogoda class has its photograph;
the class-members are seated while the swami stands well in the foreground. On
one Fourth of July a large notice board at the entrance of the Mount Washington
grounds displayed a life sized picture of the swami beside his message to
America. The organization arranges for photographs of the swami playing one of
his four musical instruments or conversing with some American notable such as
Governor Fuller of Massachusetts or President Coolidge.
80

Understanding that he was part of a crowded marketplace, he shouted to make himself heard
over the noise of competitors, making extravagant claims like the promise of “Everlasting
Youth.”
81
He even stole a page from Sister Aimee’s playbook. A report in 1926 announced that a
“Los Angeles student, Mrs. Otto Crimman” had thrown away her crutch “in the presence of a
large number of students.” Her name and address were offered as verifiable proof of the
effectiveness of his cures.
82

But he differed from these evangelists in equally crucial ways. First, for many
evangelists, their lack of formal education underscored the divine nature of their calling: God
chose the instruments through whom he wished to work. These preachers were ambivalent

80
Wendell Thomas, Hinduism Invades America (New York: Beacon Press, 1930), 171.
81
Advertisement, Washington Post, January 2, 1927, 31.
82
“Student Throws Away Crutch at Swami’s Healing Meeting,” East-West, Jan-Feb, 1926, 31. In one case,
McPherson’s ad appeared directly above Yogananda’s. Other than the foreign-sounding name and exotic image,
Yogananda’s ad sounded scarcely distinguishable from one McPherson might publish: he described a Sunday
devotional service and Sunday School; announced the upcoming talk, “Healing by Christ Power;” and described that
last week’s “Healing Prayer” service led to a lady being healed and throwing away her crutch. This juxtaposition
offers a tangible symbol of the religious-marketplace competition between them. See Los Angeles Times, November
7, 1925, A2.

168
toward intellect at best, and sometimes outright hostile. While Yogananda felt strong
ambivalence about his own college education, his advertisements always mentioned his
bachelor’s degree; he recognized that his education was an asset in promoting himself as an
authoritative persona. A number of his publications included technical illustrations and official-
sounding jargon, from medical terms to anatomical labels, to health and exercise techniques.
Yogananda convincingly demonstrated his expertise in addressing health issues through religion
at a time when science was accorded great authority.
Second and related, Yogananda targeted a very different audience—both in religious
identity and in class. He calculated that he would never win doctrinaire Christians, so he never
really tried. Neither would his esoteric message win many faithful followers from the masses
who often crowded to his meetings seeking entertainment. Liberal Christians and followers of
metaphysical traditions, Yogananda’s typical audience, disdained evangelists’ brand of
showmanship, preferring a dignified intellectual approach more suitable to a club meeting or
lyceum.
Yogananda reached out particularly to this striving professional middle class, open to his
self-improvement message as a path toward advancement. The 1920s consumer and service
revolution catalyzed the emergence of a new “white collar” middle class composed of civil
servants, salesmen, managers, and advertising agents.
83
Los Angeles’ booming economy in the
manufacturing, real estate, film production, and leisure industries increased the region’s white-
collar pool as well.
84
He appealed to such workers, who he assumed felt a spiritual void in
striving only after earthly reward. One correspondence course lesson contrasted “the life of a

83
William E. Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Prosperity 1914-1932, 2
nd
ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1993), 197-198.
84
Clark Davis, “The Corporate Reconstruction of Middle-Class Manhood,” in The Middling Sorts: Explorations in
the History of the American Middle Class, edited by Burton J. Bledstein and Robert D. Johnston (New York:
Routledge, 2001), 201-216; for Los Angeles see 205-206.

169
yogi versus a business life:” “The one-sided businessman who is forgetful of his other duties of
life, is not a truly successful man.”
85
In one provocative essay, “Who is a Yogi?,” Yogananda
confronted stereotypes about yogis as tricksters and fakers, revealing that the real yogis hailed
from respectable middle-class backgrounds. The article denied that “a sword-swallower, crystal
gazer or snake charmer” was a real yogi. Though anyone could follow yoga, it was particularly
the nation’s “business man, literary man, artist, musician” who was drawn to the path. These
kinds of seekers understood “the scientific psycho-physical technique of uniting the matter-
bound body and soul with their source of origin, the Blessed Spirit.” was drawn to the path. He
re-appropriated “yogi” as a dignified term and applied it to his many followers.
86

Given the centrality of his personality to the authenticity of Yogoda, there was no better
way to promote his ministry than to travel the country and give audiences an experience of his
live presence. A large photo in the L.A. Times from 1925 announcing “Swami Buys Swanky
Car” showed Yogananda, who apparently needed to replace the Lewis’ roadster, posing next to
his new automobile. Clearly ignorant of Yogananda’s real experiences in India, the paper
commented that the Packard was “a far cry from the crude transportation of India.”
87
The Times
thought it amusing to show the incongruity of the enrobed swami standing next to an
automobile—the ancient juxtaposed with the modern—completely unaware of Yogananda’s
utter dependence on rapid transportation.
In 1925, Yogananda took to the road—and the rails—becoming an indefatigable traveler.
For the next ten years, he rarely spent more than a few nights at a time at Mt. Washington, and
not more than a few weeks altogether in that decade. It was fortunate that he had learned to
charge his body battery, because he kept up a grueling pace that would have tired most mortals,

85
Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons, S-4, P-96, 5.
86
Swami Yogananda, “Who is a Swami?,” East-West World Wide, January-February 1926, 16.
87
“Swami Buys Swanky Car,” Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1925, G3.

170
wracking up thousands of miles, and hundreds of speaking presentations in major—and not so
major—cities across the United States. Yogananda’s childhood in India, its mobility and regular
use of trains, served him in good stead in his US ministry.
88
This relentless travel spawned the
growth of new Yogoda Sat Sanga centers around the country.
89

As Yogananda’s movement became a national phenomenon, his fame spread as well. In
1927, Yogananda was a guest of President Calvin Coolidge at the White House. It is not entirely
clear what prompted the invitation, though British ambassador Balfour apparently brokered the
meeting. While lecturing in DC, Yogananda had offered advice on the president’s diet in the
Washington Post. This included “meatless Mondays,” a ban on ice water, and a regimen of
exercise and meditation.
90
The novel Swami and his equally novel vegetarian recipes may have
prompted the president’s curiosity. Though a White House invitation was a tremendous honor,

88
The following gives some idea of Yogananda’s itinerary. From the beginning of 1926 through the end of 1928,
Yogananda traveled to the following locations in order, staying anywhere from a few days to several months:
Cleveland, Los Angeles Pittsburgh, New York, Detroit, Pittsburgh, New York, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Cleveland,
Washington, DC, Pittsburgh, Detroit. Buffalo, Washington, DC, Cleveland. Connecticut, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh,
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Cleveland, Washington, DC, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Miami, Philadelphia, Buffalo,
Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, DC, New York,
Philadelphia.
89
This dramatic growth in little more than a decade far surpassed what the Vedanta Society was able to accomplish
in the same amount of time a few decades earlier. Interestingly, though, about this same time the Vedanta Society
began to make a comeback, from four functioning societies to more than a dozen by the late 1930s, in Hollywood,
San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Providence, and Boston. See Harold W.
French, The Swan’s Wide Waters: Ramakrishna and Western Culture (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1974),
128-138. Vedanta and Self-Realization Fellowship shared a synergy rather than competing, or tapped into a larger
interest in Eastern spirituality. While some centers, like Philadelphia, failed to thrive, relentless expansion largely
characterized the period. By mid-1932, the Boston and Los Angeles centers had been joined by centers in Oakland,
Salt Lake City, Denver, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and
Washington DC. The heavy concentration in the Northeast, the most urban, diverse, and densely populated region of
the country, is striking. In addition to areas of significant growth, two regions are notable for their absences as well.
The lack of any presence in the Pacific Northwest is surprising, since he made many trips early on to Seattle,
Tacoma, and Portland. But perhaps he could not get local support, the sine qua non for getting a center established.
The other notable absence is the entire South, from Texas to Florida, from the Carolinas to Virginia. St. Louis and
Washington, DC, arguably anomalous Southern cities, were the furthest South he penetrated. Bible Belt culture left
no spiritual vacuum to fill and, conversely, encouraged deep suspicion of Eastern traditions. The nation’s cultural
boundaries limited the expansion of even the most innovative spiritual entrepreneur.
90
“Meatless Coolidge Meals Prescribed by Yogananda,” Washington Post, January 15, 1927, 8.

171
the actual event was brief and anti-climactic.
91
But Yogananda played up the visit in organization
publications, explaining that he had met with the president “for several minutes,” and had told
him that spirituality was the only way to bring peace.” The president agreed, “Yes, that’s the
only way for peace.” However cursory and banal, a private meeting with the president provided
another sign that Yogananda was reaching his long-prophesied fame.
92

His growing fame was also represented through lengthy coverage in Wendell Thomas’s
1930 book The Hindu Invasion.
93
Despite its alarmist title, the book attempted a fairly neutral
tone.
94
After historical chapters devoted to Vedanta, Ramakrishna, and Vivekananda, Thomas
turned to contemporary American movements. The Vedanta Society and Yogoda Sat Sanga were
the only two organizations to which he devoted individual chapters; he lumped individual
speakers, smaller movements, and hybrid groups like Theosophy together into one chapter.
Thomas devoted more than forty pages to Yogananda’s biography, a synopsis of his writings and
teachings, and a profile of members based on fifty surveys. Though probing, Thomas was hardly
hostile. He raised some philosophical challenges to the conception of bliss, and exaggerated the
yoga evangelist’s willingness to adapt his message to his audience’s interests. Still, Thomas
viewed Yogananda not as a charlatan, but as a fundamentally sincere leader.
95

Even as astute an observer as Thomas viewed the ministry as a one man show, which is

91
The White House activity schedule tersely announced, “The President received Swami Yogananda, Indian
lecturer.” It must have been quite cursory, as Coolidge biographers do not mention it.
92
Apparently, Mildred Lewis foresaw just such an eventuality earlier in their relationship: “Tell Mildred her
prophesy [sic] came true, that some one of these days I’d see Cal (Calvin Coolidge). I did see him. I send an
enclosed picture. In God’s work here I have been progressive.” [Swami Yogananda] to Dr. M.W. Lewis, in
Treasures Against Time, 103.
93
Wendell Thomas, Hinduism Invades America (New York: Beacon Press, 1930).
94
Thomas carefully explained his neutrality in the Foreword: “This work is not an attack on Hinduism. It is not
meant to inflame American citizens by pointing to a foreign menace. Nor is it a defense of Hinduism. Nor is it a
defense of Christianity or anything else. It is simply a study of the amazing adventure of an Eastern faith in a
Western land.” Among many supporters, he thanked “Hindu friends” for their help. Thomas, “Foreword,” n.p.
95
In particular, he erroneously attributed Yogananda’s emphasis on “healing” to the influence of Christian Science
and New Thought. Thomas reported a membership of “twenty-five thousand Yogodans scattered over the United
States in groups and as individuals.” This number, which may have been supplied by the organization itself,
suggests a vibrant, if modest, national movement. Thomas, Hinduism Invades America, 150.

172
not a surprise given how hard Yogananda worked to cultivate his persona as a wise,
omnicompetent individual. In reality, he could not manage the ministry workload on his own. He
tapped three gifted friends from India to be his associates. Basu Kumar Bagchi was Yogananda’s
friend from Ranchi whom he initiated into the Swami order in Ranchi, renaming him Swami
Dhirananda. In 1925, Yogananda appointed Dhirananda the head of the Mt. Washington center,
overseeing operations there while Yogananda traveled. In 1928, Yogananda sent for
Bramacharee Jotin, a friend of the Ghosh family that Yogananda had ordained before he left
India in 1920.
96
Jotin took over the challenging task of running the Washington, D.C. center,
located in a poor section of the city, an assignment that caused him physical and emotion
suffering. He persevered with the thought that one day India would be an independent nation,
and his ministry in the nation’s capital—indeed, the world’s capital—would uniquely position
him to offer the world “something of the best, the highest and the noblest that India has to
offer.”
97
Nirod R. Choudhuri, who came to be known as Brahmacharee Nerode was a young
Bengali whose family was friendly with both Gandhi and Tagore. He graduated from the
University of Calcutta with a degree in Sanskrit and traveled throughout India, Burma, and
China, before coming to the United States for graduate school at Harvard. In 1927, Yogananda
appointed him to take charge of the Detroit Yogoda Center.
98

More important than their leadership of regional centers, these bright, knowledgeable
yoga students contributed significantly to the religious products Yogoda Sat-Sanga produced.
When Yogananda departed for the US in 1920, Dhirananda had remained in India to revise

96
On his way to the train station, Jotin visited Yogananda’s father, “to offer my reverential salutation at his
hallowed feet. He blessed me with these words, ‘Jotin, now go to America and spread my Guru’s (Lahiri’s)
message.’ I promised him with my soul that I would do my very best to fulfill his wish.” Swami Premananda, “My
Gurudev: Swami Yogananda Paramhansa,” in The Mystic Cross, n.d., 5.
97
Premananda, “My Gurudev,” ibid.
98
Yogananda named him a brahmachari, or student, as a preliminary step before becoming a
swami.http://www.math.cornell.edu/~anil/ad.html

173
Science of Religion, the basis of Yogananda’s Boston conference address, and prepare it for
publication.
99
Dhirananda was listed on the cover as an “Associate,” in acknowledgement of his
substantial role in preparing materials for publication, though the narrative inside the booklet told
a story solely about Yogananda’s unique and innovative vision. Dhirananda came to the United
States later that year, became indispensible in the writing and preparation of Yogananda’s course
materials and books, beginning with the first Yogoda booklet.
100
Dhirananda, and later Nerode,
became essential to Yogoda’s publications. Yogananda thought it essential to his persona to be
the sole, undisputed Yogoda authority, so he presented most writings under his own name and
his friends’ contributions remained largely behind the scenes.
101

Weathering Hazards of the Spiritual Marketplace
Religious markets can be as hazardous as traditional consumer markets. Competition
creates opportunities, but it also creates risks. Ventures into new regional markets can be flops,
negative publicity can damage the brand, and economic downturns can harm religious

99
Dhirananda was substantially responsible for both the first and the second, revised, editions of The Science of
Religion. See Swami Satyeswarananda Giri, Kriya: Finding the True Path (San Diego: Sanskrit Classics, 1991),
173. Satyeswaranda argues that this was a general pattern with Yogananda’s writings, including the Autobiography.
He claims that Yogananda wrote to Satyananda acknowledging, “Listen! You know that I am good at publicity, and
people come in my way, but I cannot manage things properly and I cannot write systematically” (180).
100
The Lewises financed its production, though this was unacknowledged in the document itself. Privately,
Yogananda gratefully acknowledged their help: “I am very sorry that I have to put you in so much trouble. Don’t be
impatient dear Doctor just when the fruition is coming. Do I understand that you are going to borrow for the work
$800 over and above the $500 you promised to give (of which $200 you have already paid to my bank). Well that
you extremely for your saving the life o the work, which ahs been founded and brought back after so much
struggle.” See Swami Yogananda to Dr. Minot Lewis, January 7, 1924 in Treasures Against Time, 73. The couple
also provided administrative support. Mildred Lewis recalled, “The first advertisement of Yogoda Sat-Sanga
occurred in 1921 or 1922 [sic], when Master wanted to advertise the little Yogoda Booklet. Master requested the
reader to send ten cents, to cover postage and mailing, to our address at 24 Electric Avenue. Once in a while, a letter
would come with a request for the booklet. The mailing was then prepared from our dining room table.” (“Mildred
Lewis Reminisces” in Treasures Against Time, 15-16).
101
These leaders did, however, publish a range of materials under their own names that were not part of the core
Yogoda-SRF “brand.” Dhirananda, who later completed a PhD at the University of Iowa, wrote Philosophical
Insights and a collection of articles based on his talks. Jotin produced a number of learned writings for the Self-
Realization Fellowship on the Upanishads. Nerode wrote many publications as well, most not formally published,
which reveal the extent to which his intellectual contribution assisted Yogananda’s work.

174
organizations as much as corporations. The first decade at Mt. Washington brought its share of
difficulties. Yogananda’s reputation came under attack from hostile audiences and lawsuits from
former associates that publicly aired dirty laundry. A threat to his character could be fatal to the
ministry. He also faced financial struggles brought by the onset of the Great Depression. But the
man who traveled penniless to the US and established a successful ministry was nothing if not
resourceful, and he ultimately proved more than a match for all these challenges.
The first challenge he faced was the harsh stereotypes about India, Indians, and Hinduism
that threatened his ministry’s legitimacy. Yogananda’s deeply felt Indian nationalism provided
an appropriate counteroffensive to such attacks. A number of articles in East-West displayed
political views common in Indian nationalist circles. Gandhi was a favorite magazine subject,
and a piece comparing him with Jesus was only the most heavy-handed of a number of obviously
didactic articles. A tribute to Sarojini Naidu, president of the Indian National Congress, the
political wing of the Indian swadeshi movement, showed the magazine’s support for Indian self-
rule. East-West’s nationalist effort included a desire to sensitize its largely white readership to
racism’s impact on Indians in America.
102
In one article, Yogananda endorsed a bill by New
York Senator Royal S. Copeland that attempted to define Indians as whites eligible for
naturalization. Yogananda urged readers to contact their representatives to express their support.
He concluded by prodding
truth-loving, Christian Americans that their high and sacred duty is to uphold the
beautiful standards of Christianity, whose Founder said, ‘All ye are brethren’
(Matthew 23:8). If Christianity is to remain a vital and redeeming faith in the
world, it must inspire its followers with courage to maintain its principles. Mental
sloth is spiritual stagnation. We must fight for the right, and be willing to actively

102
A short piece on Columbus’s mistreatment of Native Americans, otherwise of uncertain relevance to
Yogananda’s followers, makes sense in light of his desire to alert audiences to a long tradition of racial injustice in
the New World, particularly in light of the Thind case, which continued to resonate three years after the Supreme
Court’s ruling.

175
bestir ourselves in a spiritual cause against injustice.
103

But Indian nationalism was more often expressed in cultural forms. Cultural nationalism
and respect for Hinduism shared a chicken-egg relationship: the richness of Hindu spirituality
provided incontrovertible evidence that Indians were civilized people; conversely, national pride
was a logical prerequisite to people’s acceptance of Indian beliefs and their messenger. East-
West articles about Indian pageants, folk tales, dance, and the sacred nature of Indian music
complemented frequent discussions of sacred Indian texts. When the 1932 summer Olympics
were held in Los Angeles, the Mt. Washington Center hosted a celebration for the Indian
competitors.
104
Inspired by the great Punjabi poet Swami Rama Tirtha, Yogananda often
expressed his love for India in verse. For example, “My Native Land” celebrates the natural
landscape, the “inviting shades of banian [sic] tree” and “the holy Ganges flowing by,” before
turning to its spiritual gift: India taught him “first to love…the God above.” He concluded with
the maternal personification familiar to Indian nationalists: “I bow to thee, my native land/The
Mother of my love so grand.”
105

Showing India’s positive influence on the US was another way to reveal its rich spiritual
character. A young scholar, Arthur Christy, contributed a 1929 article based on his PhD
dissertation demonstrating that Transcendentalism had been deeply influenced by Vedic ideals.
Christy made this case specifically with respect to Emerson, providing evidence that Emerson

103
Swami Yogananda, “Ethnologists vs. the ‘Common Man,’” East-West, Jul-Aug, 1926, 10-13; the quote is from
13. Los Angeles attorney S.G. Pandit’s “America’s Ideal,” took a related tack, arguing that the American values
enshrined in the Declaration of Independence were at odds with the Supreme Court’s recent decision. The true
values of the nation pointed to an open embrace of racial diversity. Pandit encouraged readers to restore the “proud
spirit of our fathers which put the dignity of man above the considerations of wealth and class, and held that to be an
American was greater than to be a king. Then, perhaps, we may some day make ourselves worthy to see the dawn of
that day when there shall be neither kings nor Americans,—only Men; over the whole earth, MEN.” S.G. Pandit,
“America’s Ideal,” East-West, Sep-Oct 1926, 14-17.
104
East-West, October 1932.
105
Swami Yogananda, Songs of the Soul (Boston: Yogoda Sat Sanga, 1923), 85-87. On Yogananda’s inspiration
from Tirtha, see Satyeswarananda, Kriya, 174-175.

176
borrowed from the Hindu scriptures, particularly in his “Song of the Soul (Brahma)” and notion
of the Over-Soul. More provocatively, he argued that the quintessentially American ideal of Self-
Reliance derived, at least in part, from Indian sources.
106
However dubious later scholars have
been about this connection, it was intriguing at the time, lending cachet to Indian ideas,
especially as the centenary of Emerson’s most famous literary pieces neared.
Defense of Indian culture became urgent with Katherine Mayo’s publication of Mother
India in 1927, a scathing indictment of India’s animal sacrifices, gender relations, sexual
practices, and hygiene.
107
Designed for a popular audience, published by a reputable press, and
filled with plausibly detailed documentary evidence, the book clearly represented an existential
challenge to Indian civilization—and to anyone whose ministry hinged on the legitimacy of that
heritage. The January-February 1928 issue of East-West joined a chorus of Indiaphile
rebuttals.
108
One article explained how Mayo’s book had unleashed an Indian backlash against

106
Two years later, Christy would expand his dissertation into a book, The Orient in American Transcendentalism:
A Study of Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott. Arthur Christy, The Orient in American Transcendentalism: A Study of
Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932). Frederic Ives Carpenter, Emerson and
Asia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930) made a similar case two years earlier.
107
Katherine Mayo, Mother India (New York, Harcourt Brace, 1927). Ultimately, cultural lethargy (and its spiritual
roots) explained this lack of motivation to grow up into civilizational adulthood. Inertia, helplessness, lack of
initiative and originality, lack of staying power and of sustained loyalties, sterility of enthusiasm, weakness of life-
vigor itself—all are traits that truly characterize the Indian not only of today, but of long-past history.” Only British
intervention had begun to rescue India from itself. Mayo saw herself as an advocate for Indians, separating their
culture from their essence as people who deserved rescue. “Some few Indians will take plain speech as it is meant--
as the faithful wounds of a friend; far more will be hurt at heart. Would that this task of truth-telling might prove so
radically performed that all shock of resentment were finally absorbed in it, and that there need be no further waste
of life and time for lack of a challenge and a declaration!” She was also an advocate of immigration restrictions and
critic of independence for the Philippines. See Mrinalini Sinha, Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring
of an Empire (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006).
108
Kamakshi Natarajan, Miss Mayo’s Mother India: A Rejoinder (Madras: G. A. Natesan & Co, 1928). Natarajan
was editor of The Indian Social Reformer, concentrated on a point by point rebuttal of her charges by challenging
her evidentiary base (particularly her use of a century plus old French Christian source), the distortions she
introduced by selectively citing the worst examples, and pointing out the ongoing efforts of reformers such as his
own organization to root out these evils. C.S. Ranga Iyer, Father India: A Reply to Mother India (London: Selwyn
& Blount, 1927) concentrated on her charges of sexual misbehavior and turned the tables by systematically
highlighting the sexual depravity of American society. His basic thesis was Jesus’s challenge to remove the plank
from one’s own eye before taking speck out of an opponent’s eye. Like Iyer, a number of Indian critics—including
Jawarhalal Nehru, Indian National Congress leader and a future independent India’s first prime minister—
forthrightly acknowledged their motherland’s troubles, but attributed them to political rather than social causes,
notably exploitation by Britain retarding economic development and self-rule. Sinha, Specters of Mother India, 120-

177
Americans, warning about harm to the delicate relationship between East and West. The
magazine included a reprint of a reply by Professor Cornelius, former professor of philosophy at
Lucknow, who said that criticisms were welcome as long as they were fair, but that Mayo “packs
her book full of half-truths and no-truths. She overstates, suppresses, misinterprets facts and
distorts evidence to support her prejudices; she uncompromisingly condemns the moral and
religious life of a whole people.”
109
Finally there was an on-the-nose poetic rebuttal that
displayed more loyalty than skill:
Mother India
Oh India! Country of Divine discontent
Grieve thou not, at the cruel comment
In a recent book;
Having eyes the author seeth not at all.
Having ears she heareth not the call
Of thy soul.

Vicious anti-Indian and anti-Hindu stereotypes sometimes targeted Yogananda and his
ministry more directly. An anti-cult hysteria reached its peak in the 1920s, with fears that
secretive groups, particularly led by mediums and new groups like Theosophy, amounted to
confidence tricks—deceptive practices that lured people into sexual misdeeds and eventual
insanity.
110
Echoing previous warnings from critics about inappropriate domestic intimacy
between swarthy swamis and delicate white women, in January 1928 the Los Angeles district
attorney’s office investigated accusations that Mt. Washington was maintaining a “love-cult”
“under the cloak of the Vedantic religion of India.” The investigation was driven by a review of
Yogananda’s “various books and pamphlets in which an unusual philosophy of love and sex
control” were expounded. The accusations ultimately proved baseless and the investigation

124. Still a third defense—even longer than Mayo’s original—came from Englishman Ernest Wood, former
Principal of Sind National College in Hyderbad. See Ernest Wood, An Englishman Defends Mother India: A
Complete Constructive Reply to “Mother India” (Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1929).
109
Dale Stuart, “Some Replies to an American Critic of India,” East-West, Jan-Feb, 1928, 23.
110
Philip Jenkins, Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000), 121-148.

178
fizzled.
111

The following month, a much more serious accusation was hurled at Yogananda during a
rare trip to the South. In Miami, outraged husbands threatened to lynch Yogananda when they
heard about instruction taking place inside women’s homes without men present. Breathless
newspaper accounts included salacious, and undoubtedly inaccurate, reports: “The Hindu, it was
alleged by indignant husbands, charged $35 a head for approximately 200 Women to hear his
private lectures entitled ‘Sex Consciousness.’ He said the money was going to be used to start a
love cult school over which he would preside.” City Manager Welton A. Snow issued an
injunction preventing Yogananda from speaking, while Chief of Police Leslie Quigg forced him
from the city “for his own good.”
112
Tear-gas wielding police surrounded the hall where
Yogananda had been slated to speak, to quell the anger that remained even after his lecture was
cancelled.
113

Despite routine brushes with American prejudice, Yogananda underestimated the South’s
deep racial divide and capacity for mob violence. Rather than cutting his losses, Yogananda sued
for the right to speak. When his attorney protested the injunction preventing his client from
appearing at his scheduled presentation, a Miami circuit judge heard the case. Witnesses claimed
that two followers had gone insane from Yogananda’s teaching, one of whom was then in an
asylum refusing to eat until reassured that her food had been “contacted” by Yogananda.
114
The
flood of outrage that ensued drowned out Yogananda’s defense.
115
He claimed, for example, that
the mentally ill woman had suffered from that condition for twenty years, that he had her
husband’s permission to treat her, and that the husband was not angry with Yogananda. In

111
“Swami Returns from East,” Los Angeles Times, Jan 15, 1928, B2.
112
“Fined for Telling Women of Love,” Indiana Evening Gazette, Feb 6, 1928,
113
“New of the Night in Brief,” Fitchburg Sentinel, February 4, 1928, 3.
114
“Judge Withholds Ruling on Ouster of Hindu Mystic,” Atlanta Constitution, Feb 9, 1928, 16.
115
The Atlanta Constitution mockingly reported that Yogananda had indeed conducted one successful healing: he
cured a horse of palsy. See “Federal Court Suit Threatened by Hindu Swami,” Atlanta Constitution, Feb 8, 1928, 20.

179
addition, former US District Attorney James McLachlan in LA testified by telegram that he had
known Yogananda well for four years and found him one of the most godly men he had ever
met.
116
This testimony, which was absent from many papers, proved ineffective as the judge
refused to lift the injunction.
Because wire news stories were syndicated, Yogananda’s ouster from Florida was
recounted in papers across the nation, often preserving intact the negative judgment rendered by
Southern papers that covered the story directly. Yogananda had a few defenders in the press. One
man wrote a lengthy letter to the editor of the Washington Post describing his experiences with
the Yogoda center in D.C. and attempting to clarify misunderstandings about Yogananda’s
teachings.
117
A woman echoed this sentiment with her own positive story about her experiences
with Yogananda.
118
But these few voices could not be heard over the din of stereotyped
accusations.
Clearly shocked by the incident, Yogananda wrote in East-West about the press’s ability
to destroy a person’s reputation through slanderous accusations. While acknowledging the
importance of journalism, he excoriated “yellow journalism” for catering “to a depraved public
taste that lacks sufficient moral and intellectual background to enable it to detect truth from
falsehood; its “only aim was sensationalism and ‘thrills.’”
119
To avoid further airing the slanders
raised against him, he only alluded very obliquely to the specific situation that prompted his
article.
120

116
“Swami’s Lectures to Women Face Ban as Miami Official Forsees Violence,” New York Times, Feb 4, 1928, 1.
117
Washington Post, Feb 12, 1928, S2.
118
Washington Post, Feb 19, 1928, S2.
119
Swami Yogananda, “Yellow Journalism Versus Truth: Are Eastern Teachings Dangerous?,” East-West, Jan-Feb
1928, 3-8.
120
The magazine also noted when Quigg was charged with first-degree murder for the death of a black prisoner in
his custody. Without mentioning the incident with Yogananda, the article explained how Quigg was known
“throughout America thru his race and color prejudice against non-whites and his high-handed methods of dealing

180
A number of lawsuits also led to bad press. The first suit happened within months of
Yogananda’s establishment of his Mt. Washington headquarters. Miss Emma S. Mitchell sued
Yogananda for the return of a piece of Mar Vista property estimated to be worth $13,000. She
claimed that she had granted it to his organization on the understanding that he would be opening
a school for children. Feeling deceived that the land was not to be used for this purpose, she
wanted it back. Yogananda addressed the charges head on, both through his attorney and in
person after one of his Philharmonic talks. He proved that he had title to the property free and
clear and that he had never deceived anyone; still, he magnanimously offered to return the
property anyway. To the Philharmonic audience, he lamented that he understood how Jesus felt
being persecuted. The case was shortly settled out of court, but in the meantime Walter Carr, a
local immigration official, promised to look into Yogananda’s immigration status. This question
had no direct bearing on the case, which suggests a presumption of Yogananda’s guilt and a
desire to rid the city of a stereotypical swindler.
121
About the same time, Yogananda’s partner M.
Rashid, who had masterminded his successful advertising campaign, sued for twenty-five
percent of the “net proceeds of all lectures, fees, contributions or other monies received” by
Yogananda. Rashid obtained a writ of attachment on two Yogananda bank accounts, effectively
freezing the funds. The two ultimately settled out of court, and the controversy stayed out of the
press.
122

Yogananda’s long-time associate, Swami Dhirananda, filed the lawsuit that most
damaged the organization’s finances and image. In April 1929, a sharp disagreement between
Dhirananda and Yogananda had ruptured their relationship irrevocably. Dhirananda had traveled

with them” It might seem that his crimes would go unpunished. “However, the day of reckoning comes in its own
good time.” See “Chief of Police Quigg Arrested in Miami,” East-West, Mar-Apr 1928.
121
“Swami Under Investigation,” Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1925, A1; “Indian Seer in Civil Suit: Action Filed
as Yogananda Continues Lectures; Immigration Officers Start Quiz,” Los Angeles Times, October 18, 1925, 3.
122
Jon R. Parsons, A Fight for Religious Freedom: A Lawyer’s Personal Account of Copyrights, Karma and
Dharmic Litigation (Nevada City: Crystal Clarity Publishing, 2012), 68.

181
from Los Angeles to New York to meet Yogananda on tour. After a heated exchange,
Yogananda signed a promissory note for the sizeable sum of $8,000, to be paid in monthly
installments, for Dhirananda’s seven years of unpaid service to the organization. Returning to
Mt. Washington, Dhirananda unceremoniously packed his bags and departed, leaving the
national headquarters rudderless. Nearly six years later, Dhirananda sued Yogananda for failure
to pay; Yogananda had paid one $100 installment in late 1929 and then reneged on his legal
responsibility. Yogananda countersued, claiming that Dhirananda had agreed to waive any right
to remuneration after being named a swami. He also asserted that Dhirananda had coerced
Yogananda into signing the promissory note through blackmail: he had threatened to destroy
Yogananda’s reputation through slanderous accusations if Yogananda failed to pay.
123

The judge ruled against Yogananda on all counts: having failed to pay the promissory
note, he owed the original balance (minus the $100 payment) plus 7% interest per year on all
payments in arrears. The judge further found that Yogananda’s countersuit had no merit and that
his accusations against Dhirananda had no basis in fact.
124
This unseemly legal squabble marred
the reputation of the organization and its leader, suggesting that he was motivated by crass
monetary goals. The judge’s finding that Yogananda’s countersuit was baseless implied that he
had lied, reinforcing the stereotype of untrustworthy trickster yogis.
The third and final challenge of this period came from the financial juggernaut of the
Great Depression. From the Maharaja of Kazimbar to the Lewises, Yogananda had proved
effective at finding financial backers for his ministry. Another Yogananda benefactor, Mary E.
Foster, provided generous support that allowed for the launching of East-West magazine. This

123
“Swami Row to be Aired,” Los Angeles Times, August 21, 1935, A8; “Swamis Air Money Row,” Los Angeles
Times, Aug 22, 1935, A3.
124
Swami Giri-Dhirananda, also known as Basu Kumar Bagchi vs. Swami Yogananda, also known as Mukunda Lal
Ghosh, 387391 (S.C. Ca 1936).

182
storied multi-millionaire was already a lavish patron of Dharmapala, a Buddhist Indian who
traveled to the United States to attend the World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893 where
Vivekananda became famous. At some point in 1925, she also met Yogananda, and he quickly
charmed her into supporting his brand new magazine venture.
125

But early in the Depression, financial support dried up dramatically. One early sign of
financial difficulties was East-West’s spotty publication schedule. The magazine had already
missed one issue in September-October 1928, substantially before the Depression’s onset, but the
following year only half of the year’s issues would be published. In 1930, two issues appeared.
After July 1930, the magazine ceased publication altogether for nearly two years. Yogoda Sat
Sanga was not alone in its financial situation; churches suffered during Depression. Mainline
churches particularly “experienced an institutional ‘religious depression’ to match the nation’s
economic depression.”
126
Church leaders made special pleas for people to keep giving. They
debated whether it was appropriate to coerce people to give. They recognized that the sincerity of
the giver’s motive mattered, but also that without sufficient finances the church could do no
ministry.
127
Instead of public pleas for support, Yogananda wrote privately to Lewis begging for

125
Foster had a storied life, the offspring of a white shipwrecked captain and a Hawaiian princess, she had become
disenchanted with Christianity and established a Theosophical branch in Hawaii. She later converted to Buddhism.
met Foster in Honolulu on his way back to Sri Lanka. A multi-millionaire, she became a lavish patron of
Dharmapala’s work. Patricia Lee Masters and Karma Lekshe Tsomo, “Mary Foster: The First Hawaiian Buddhist,”
in Innovative Buddhist Women Swimming Against the Stream, edited by Karma Lekshe (Richmond, UK: Curzon
Press, 2000), 235-248. She gave Yogananda $20,000 and supported at least three other Indian gurus. See Steven
Kemper, Rescued from the Nation: Anagarika Dharmapala and the Buddhist World (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2015), 110 and 363. In fact, Yogananda and Dharmapala apparently met at the latter’s recently-
founded Mahabodhi College Bhavan in 1913, when Yogananda, Satyananda, and two other companions journeyed
across south India and over to Sri Lanka. See Satyananda, 208.
126
Mark Noll, A History of Christianity, 431-433. Some fundamentalist and Pentecostal churches actually
experienced substantial finance and numerical growth, as did Catholics, largely through population increase.
127
As one minister said, “if the person gives cheerfully; if he brings his gift regularly to the Church as an act of
worship; if makes the matter a subject of prayer; if his gift really represents his ability to support the Kingdom and is
consequently sacrificial; if he really feels that his is giving unto the Lord”; then the gift would inevitably result in
spiritual growth (Hudnut, 123).

183
more money.
128
As donations at public talks dried up, Yogananda could no longer afford the cost
of travel, accommodations, and venues. In 1931, he gave up campaigning for a time and
remained at Mt. Washington, eating soup and bread or fasting.
129

In the early 1930s, Yogananda’s desperation for funds overrode his concern about his
reputation and he decided to tour with his friend Hamid Bey, a vaudeville performer who
originally traveled to the US to compete with Houdini before Houdini unexpectedly died. Bey
masterfully exploited American Orientalist tropes. A Coptic Christian, referred to himself as a
Muslim fakir and a Hindu yogi. Yogananda was complicit in burnishing this misleading identity.
He described Bey as an Egyptian from the Soudan, “famous land of sheiks,” “reared under an
austere mystical training, and the feats he performs are a part of the religious rites of his sect,”
including Bey’s famous trick of being buried alive. Between 1931 and 1933, the two took their
show on the road. Bey did his standard burial routine while Yogananda lectured on
superconsiousness and breath-control before introducing his partner’s act.
130

In January 1932, near the Depression’s nadir, a providential encounter proved
Yogananda’s ability to direct the divine will to his desired ends. During a rare tour in Kansas
City—he traveled to the Midwestern plains states only infrequently—he met James Lynn, a
businessman with an astounding fortune and a restless heart. Their meeting would change the
organization forever. Lynn had a remarkable rags-to-riches tale: the child of sharecroppers, his
intuitive business acumen, hard work, and good luck allowed him to acquire a range of
businesses that included citrus farm, insurance company, railroads, and oil. But by his own

128
In May 1929, he wrote: “I would never have taxed you further if God did not already respond. Without your
cooperation we will be soon in the same trial we were before. So please do not fail God at this hour. It may be very
hard but please do it. Without your help great danger is in sight. We will fight our way to freedom.” See Swami
Yogananda to Minot Lewis, in Treasures Against Time, 112.
129
Sri Daya Mata, Finding the Joy Within You: Personal Counsel for God-Centered Living (Los Angeles: Self-
Realization Fellowship, 1990), 250.
130
Bey also maintained a relationship with Nerode, participating in his wedding in Los Angeles in 1931, and sharing
about the ups and downs of his tours. Bey to Nerode; Bey to Nerode By 1935, Bey was a YSS board member.

184
reckoning, when he met Yogananda “my soul was sick and my body was decaying and my mind
was disturbed.” In short, “I was a totally frustrated man.”
131
Lynn found salvation in Yogananda,
who immediately became the millionaire’s guru. Yogananda, in turn, found financial salvation in
Lynn, who quickly demonstrated his generosity: within a few weeks of their initial meeting,
Yogananda thanked Lynn for “saving the work at a very critical period of its existence.”
132

The two immediately formed an intimate bond. In one letter, Yogananda told Lynn, “You
are the Hindu yogi of Himalayan hermitages of the past who was sent in this life as an American
prince, a Western maharaja-yogi, to light the lamp of Yogoda in many groping hearts.”
133
In
another letter, Yogananda deftly converted a letter of apology for his delay in communication
into an almost erotic affirmation of the bond they shared: “I have been so intoxicated with the
God in you, and with the remembrance of the pillar of light that we saw enveloping us during the
meditation in Chicago, that I did not realize I have been so long in writing you. You have never
before been so strongly present in men. (You are always with me now, so I can’t miss you). So
vividly have I seen your soul, like a glimmering jewel and an ornament in God’s
omnipresence.”
134
The intimacy between Yogananda and Lynn quickly surpassed his depth of
relationship with the Lewises. The two met each other’s needs perfectly. Lynn needed a deeper
sense of life purpose, and Yogananda offered routine affirmation of Lynn’s unwavering devotion
and precocious spiritual development, calling him “Saint Lynn.” For his part, Yogananda could
not have found a more loyal “customer,” deeply committed to the ministry and with boundless
buying power.
Despite the legal flogging Yogananda suffered with Dhirananda’s lawsuit, even that trial

131
Rajarsi, 29.
132
Yogananda to Lynn, February 27, 1932 in Rajarsi, 53.
133
Yogananda to Lynn, February 27, 1932 in Rajarsi, 53.
134
Yogananda to Lynn, October 13, 1933. In 54.

185
had a silver lining. Yogananda’s attorneys assisted him in turning Yogoda Sat Sanga into a non-
profit corporation to protect Mt. Washington and any other assets from seizure in the case of a
legal defeat.
135
Beyond this pragmatic legal strategy, incorporation compelled Yogananda to
clearly articulate his organization’s purpose and identity. He had experimented with a number of
names in the years leading up to the incorporation, for example calling the organization
“Christian Yogoda” for a while in the early 1930s. But he had also used “Self-realization”
language for some time, both in East-West and in the Yogoda lessons.
136
The 1935 Articles of
Incorporation listed the official name as Self-Realization Fellowship Church. This name aptly
captured the essence of the ministry, an essence very much in tune with modern audiences. The
redundant use of both fellowship and church emphatically underscored that the organization was
a religious body just like other American (Christian) bodies. The statement of the organization’s
purpose was a verbatim reprint of the Aims and Purposes of the Movement first published in
East-West in March-April 1928, with the addition of three ambitious points: “establishment of a
small altar of right meditation in each home;” “Temples of Self Realization Fellowship for
collective worship;” and “development of a world spiritual University…where an universal
technique of salvation, art of self-realization, art of super-living and super-technique of body,
mind and soul perfection would be taught.”
137
He envisioned all of these aims as literally global
in scale. While Yogananda’s reach well exceeded his grasp, even in the midst of the world’s
worst recession and vicious personal attacks he continued to ambitiously imagine new products.

135
Parsons, Fight, 40-41.
136
Thee was certainly nothing innovative about that the use of the label—it was in widespread usage, but choosing
to entitle the organization that was a way of capturing the essence of the ministry, an essence very much in tune with
modern audiences. As part of its defense against a Self-Realization Fellowship lawsuit, discussed in Chapter 5,
attorneys for Ananda catalogued examples of the use of this term from ancient and contemporary times—and from
around the world—in such volume that it was placed in 12 3-ring binders. See Jon Parsons, The Fight, 64-65.
137
California Department of State, Articles of Incorporation of Self-Realization Fellowship Church, 162095 (Los
Angeles, 1935).

186
Conclusion
Many harried businessmen like the fictitious one Yogananda depicted in the
correspondence course lesson sketch did find relaxation, energy, and enlightenment from
Yogananda’s teachings. With savvy marketing and a clear understanding that his brand appeal
hinged on his own persona, Yogananda convinced thousands of Americans to consider his
product. He deftly navigated the religious marketplace’s treacherous waters in the midst of a
dramatic financial storm. His ministry survived, even thrived, as his own stature grew. In 1935,
his prestige would become global. Through Lynn’s generous financial support, Yogananda
undertook an extensive tour of England, continental Europe, and his own beloved homeland in
the comfort of a brand-new luxury car. When he came back to Calcutta for the first time since he
departed on the SS Sparta fifteen years earlier, he was not the same young man. He returned to
the United States a “global guru,” a spiritual leader of international stature and with increasing
hints of divine power.

187

Self-Realization Fellowship Temple, Encinitas, California (author photo).

Chapter Four:

Apotheosis of a Global Guru:
Paramhansa Yogananda and his Autobiography (1933-1946)

The ashram of Swami Yukteswar, Puri, Odissa. Yukteswar died here not
long after his break with Yogananda, his former disciple (author photo)

189
Near the end of Autobiography of a Yogi, the 500-page epic that established his global
spiritual reputation, Yogananda includes a seemingly minor event from late 1936. Playing Santa
Claus at Mt. Washington’s Christmas party, Yogananda handed E.E. Dickinson a box containing
a silver cup Yogananda had bought in Calcutta during a recent return trip to his homeland.
Dickinson opened the box and exclaimed, “For forty-three years I have been waiting for that
silver cup! It is a long story, one I have kept hidden within me.” Dickinson proceeded to relate
that as a five-year-old, he had almost drowned in a Nebraska pond. Just before he sank to his
death, he had a vision of a man in a “dazzling flash of light.” He was rescued immediately
thereafter. Twelve years later, he was in Chicago during the World Parliament of Religions when
he spotted Swami Vivekananda, and immediately recognized him as the man who had appeared
when he was drowning. After Vivekananda’s lecture, Dickinson went to the front of the
auditorium to meet the Hindu master. “He smiled on me graciously, as though we were old
friends. I was so young that I did not know how to give expression to my feelings, but in my
heart I was hoping that he would offer to be my teacher. He read my thought.” “‘No, my son, I
am not your guru.’ Vivekananda gazed with his beautiful, piercing eyes deep into my own. ‘Your
teacher will come later. He will give you a silver cup.’ After a little pause, he added, smiling,
‘He will pour out to you more blessings than you are now able to hold.’” When Yogananda gave
Dickinson the silver cup that Christmas, Dickinson saw the same flash of light as he had at
moment of his rescue nearly a half-century earlier.
1

Why include this anecdote about an otherwise insignificant SRF member, particularly in
the Autobiography’s penultimate chapter—the only account set in the decade between
Yogananda’s return from India and the time he began writing his life story? The Dickinson
narrative is no mere afterthought. It provides a fitting conclusion to Yogananda’s autobiography

1
Paramhansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946), 474-476.
190
by conveying his position vis-à-vis the great the “guru” to American seekers of Hindu truth,
Swami Vivekananda. In Hindu tradition, a guru is a uniquely venerable personal spiritual
instructor. Dickinson’s story revealed that the baton—or the silver cup—had been passed from
Vivekananda to his spiritual heir, who not only matched but surpassed his predecessor.
Passionate seekers like Dickinson had waited their whole lives for their guru, and he had finally
appeared. The Autobiography’s conclusion revealed that such seekers could be found all over the
world. The swami from India had become a guru to America, and, from that base of operations, a
guru to an increasingly globalized world.
Aided by advances in transportation and communication, many forms of internationalism
sprang up in the early twentieth-century world. “Cultural internationalism,” as Akira Iriye, one of
the premier scholars of the subject terms the phenomenon, sprang up alongside political and
economic internationalism.
2
The Great War’s devastation led many to conclude that more
meaningful connections could prevent future large-scale tragedies, a hope that drove efforts to
ensure world peace through global non-governmental organizations. Though scholars have all
but ignored religious internationalism, transnational religious organizations played a key role in
efforts at global peace.
3
Indeed, when cultural internationalism essentially collapsed in the
1930s, two World Fellowship of Faith meetings continued, representing one of the few
expressions of cultural internationalism during the global Great Depression. Yogananda, whose
East-West magazine had always attempted to convey a cosmopolitan sensibility, presented
himself as a key member of these Fellowship meetings. Like many other figures at the time,
Yogananda’s internationalism and nationalism were deeply interwoven. Yogananda held up

2
Akira Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
3
Emily Rosenberg, “Transnational Currents in a Shrinking World,” in A World Connecting, 1870-1945, edited by
Emily S. Rosenberg (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012). is an exception, though she
largely concentrates on intrareligious denominational efforts, not interfaith organizing that better parallels the
activities of other non-state organizations.
191
Hinduism—particularly its Self-Realization Fellowship version—as a unique expression of
universal truth that could fulfill the promise of world peace. At the same time, he presented
himself as an authoritative interpreter of religion writ large, providing extensive commentary on
the great Scriptures of Hinduism and Christianity, the Bhagavad Gita and the New Testament.
His careful exegesis of the New Testament demonstrated the ultimate compatibility of pure
Christianity with Hindu truth, while revealing the central role of yogi guru—an exalted teacher
and, ultimately, a manifestation of divinity—in the quest for spiritual truth.
By the early 1930s, Yogananda was becoming a “global guru,” a transnational figure
with a following in the US, India, and, increasingly, around the world as well. Gurus with
international followings have typically been distinguished by their tremendous personal
charisma, and are often thought of as divine avatāras displaying supernatural powers. While he
had presented himself as a uniquely gifted spiritual teacher since his 1920 arrival in Boston,
Yogananda only achieved global guru status in the mid-1930s, when he undertook a dramatic
worldwide trip as part of a return visit to his homeland. By the time he returned to the US a
global celebrity, his guru Sri Yukteswar had christened him “Paramhansa,” or “Supreme Swan,”
the highest title a swami could receive. Just as his initial swami vows had made Mukunda Lal
Ghosh “Swami Yogananda,” this new title signaled a major turning point. Yukteswar died while
Yogananda was in India, which allowed Yogananda to claim his guru’s mantle and claim
increasingly exalted status as a Paramhansa. Global gurus have generally emerged only in the
later twentieth century, bolstered by Indian audiences and diaspora communities, and availing
themselves of modern transportation and communication to sustain these communities. But long
before a vibrant Indian diaspora had formed in the US, Yogananda managed to achieve the same
status, with a very different configuration: bolstered by overwhelmingly white followers in the
192
US, and only reinforced by devotees in India and elsewhere.
Yogananda penned a remarkable autobiography that reaffirmed his reputation as a global
guru from the moment of its 1946 publication. He presented his spiritual journey in a fully
enchanted world culminating in his manifestation as the great self-realized yogi, the embodiment
of divinity in human form. While following many tropes of Indian hagiography, the
Autobiography also diverged from tradition in important ways. While most hagiographic
accounts of supernatural feats gradually accreted over centuries, Yogananda presented a fully
formed miraculous narrative. Also, while Hindu hagiography usually develops through the
storytelling efforts of later disciples, Yogananda took charge of inventing his own dramatic life
story.
This chapter explores Yogananda’s apotheosis in three parts. The first part places
Yogananda in the context of religious internationalism, a subset of the interwar cultural
internationalism driven by concerns for global peace. It details his use of East-West as a vehicle
for cosmopolitan sentiments, his growing international spiritual vision, and his role as
authoritative interpreter of world religion by examining in some detail his lengthy exegesis of
New Testament gospel narratives, which alchemically transmuted the story of Jesus and his
teachings into a revelation of yogic truth—while hinting about the authoritative, and ultimately
divine, role of the yogi guru.
The second part explores the way Yogananda solidified his reputation as a “global guru”
through an extravagant worldwide journey from California to England, the Continent, the Middle
East, and ultimately to his home city of Calcutta—and then back again. The young man who left
India for the US in 1920 with negligible prospects of success triumphantly to India a mature
spiritual leader who drew crowds wherever he went and could now claim an audience with
193
Gandhi. He returned home to great fanfare—and to the gift of a beautiful new ashram on the
Encinitas bluffs overlooking the Pacific, a new sacred space to rival Mt. Washington.
The third section analyzes the 1946 Autobiography of a Yogi, which firmly established
Yogananda’s reputation as a guru to the world. A rhetorical analysis of this text’s structural
features reveals it to be functionally a new scripture, designed to inculcate belief in the spiritual
world Yogananda evoked, but, equally importantly, in the Yogi who brought the message.

Yogananda and Religious Internationalism
Given Yogananda’s transnational identity, an Indian spiritual teacher evangelizing
American audiences about ancient Hindu wisdom, it is perhaps no surprise that he viewed
himself as something of a cosmopolite. Internationalism enjoyed some popularity in the decades
following World War I as various groups forged “world citizenship” identities based on political,
cultural, scientific, or gender ideals, spurred by both the hopes and disappointments of the Treaty
of Versailles’ “Wilsonian Moment.”
4
Yogananda also attempted, however ham-handedly, to
present East-West as a cosmopolitan periodical, a forum for an ostensible universalism built on
pluralism, curiosity, engagement, and conversation.
5
Yogananda’s strategy aimed to elevate the
magazine’s sophistication and thus appeal to a discerning upper-middle class American
readership that could appreciate both broader global trends and Hindu meditation. The
magazine’s title announced the central goal of uniting Orient and Occident. A broad definition of

4
Glenda Sluga and Julia Horne, “Cosmopolitanism: Its Pasts and Practices,” Journal of World History 21, no. 3
(2010), 369-373 and Glenda Sluga, Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2013). For various forms of international and transnational connections in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, see also Sebastian Conrad and Dominic Sachsenmaier, Competing Visions of World
Order: Global Moments and Movements, 1880s-1930s (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Emily S.
Rosenberg, “Transnational Currents in a Shrinking World,” in A World Connecting, 1870-1945, edited by Emily S.
Rosenberg (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012).
5
This definition is a paraphrase of Julia Horne, “The Cosmopolitan Life of Alice Erh-Soon Tay, Journal of World
History 21:3 (2010), 422, which is in turn adapted from Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a
World of Strangers (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006).
194
“spirituality” already allowed a place in East-West for discussions of diet and health, landscape
and beauty, mind and spirit. But from the beginning, the magazine addressed an even broader
range of issues, including a number of global topics. Readers routinely encountered stories about
Gandhi; one piece, for example, reputedly explaining his “nationalism” turned into a disquisition
on global identity, as citizenship knew no nation-state boundaries. Other pieces were essentially
travel writing that gave audiences a window into exotic places they might never get to travel to
themselves, like a Cleveland Yogoda member’s detailed Holy Land travelogue. When East-West
ventured beyond international cultural trends into the realm of politics, it often revealed the
ignorance and political naiveté of its authors, particularly Yogananda.
6
An assessment of the
League of Nations’ prospects for achieving world peace was innocuous. But Yogananda
discussed fascist leader Benito Mussolini’s ideas and activities on several occasions with no
sense of disapprobation.
7
Even more disturbing, in 1935 he expressed enthusiasm for “the
German awakening—a new Germany,” presumably the political and economic revolution Hitler
had recently introduced.
8
Unqualified admiration for Nazi Germany was a stunning oversight for
a spiritual teacher who routinely affirmed the importance of racial equality.
Though cosmopolitanism and religion have not typically been linked, they intuitively

6
East-West essentially represented Yogananda’s views. Besides being its executive editor, he was a frequent
contributor. From the beginning of East-West in 1925 through Yogananda’s death in early 1952, he was credited
with over 850 articles, often providing multiple articles in any given issue.
7
He chose to reprint a1927 Mussolini speech; lauded Mussolini’s plans for a brown rice-based diet, reintroducing
brown bread, and “other sensible and health-giving ideas on diet;” and proclaimed that a “master brain like that of
Mussolini does more good than millions of social organizations of group intelligence…Great individuals are sent on
earth as a pattern after which ordinary members of society must model themselves.” “Benito Mussolini on Science
and Religion,” East-West, May-June 1927, 10; November-December 1927; Swami Yogananda, “An Interview,”
Inner Culture, February 1934, 3, 25.
8
Though he does not mention Hitler by name, it is hard to imagine any other reference. The context of the comment
suggests political and economic renewal, especially given Germany’s recent deep recession. The sentence that
immediately follows uses the same language of “renewal” to refer to Jewish nationalism in Palestine, “where they
are trying to establish a country of their own” (Inner Culture, October 1935, 23). Sailendra Bejoy Dasputa confirms
this interpretation: “Hitler had begun to rise in Germany at that time and the entire country was being molded to a
new state of uniformity and rules. The scenes in the land at that time brought up feelings of great admiration in
Yoganandaji. He used to say that the entire German nation was alive, and that it was absolutely mesmerizing to see
groups of young men marching together with the ‘clack, clack’ sounds of their boots resonating in unison”
(Dasgupta, Paramhansa Swami Yogananda, 74).
195
belonged together in Yogananda’s thinking.
9
As the threat of war intensified in the 1930s,
Yogananda spoke repeatedly on themes of world peace and cooperation.
10
He continued to
present spiritual unity as the solution to global turmoil. In a 1936 article, “Success through
Unity,” he proclaimed, “It seems as if God is trying to evolve the art of right living by expressing
His Truth through a combination of particular civilizations, mentalities, and nationalities. No
nation is complete in itself.”
11
“Amidst the prevailing confusion of so many ideas and ideologies,
here and abroad, what we need most is the materialization of that for which Jesus lived and died,
peace on earth and good will to mankind,” he proclaimed on the eve of war.
12
While war raged
on across the globe, Inner Culture bucked the nationalist trend with a poem invoking a global
community entitled “The United States of the World,” that began
Oh, poets and singers,
Oh, preachers, statesmen, teachers and seers,
In Asia, Africa, North America, South America
Europe and Australia
Take up this chant and sing a song of songs:
The Song of the United States of the World
13

As the war wound down, one contributor to Inner Culture authored “Wreath of Unity,” which
envisioned the motherly image of deity as the healer of the world.
14
Another argued that lack of

9
Acknowledging that a link between cosmopolitanism and religion may “appear counterintuitive,” “especially as the
Voltairean-Kantian-Weberian legacy of Enlightenment modernity has depicted the dominant line of
cosmopolitanism as resulting from the privatization of religion, and indeed, disenchantment with the world,”
Srinivas Aravamudan nevertheless argues that the transnational language of Hindu spirituality provides one
“amongst several alternative and popular forms of cosmopolitanism.” See Srinivas Aravamudan, Guru English:
South Asian Religion in a Cosmopolitan Language (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 10-11.
10
Yogananda spoke on “World Fellowship” in October 1937, Los Angeles Times, October 16, 1937, A2.
11
Swami Yogananda, “Success Through Unity,” Inner Culture, May 1936, 3.
12
“Teachings of Jesus Applauded as Science,” Los Angeles Times, February 27, 1939, 10.
13
Goldie Laden, “The United States of the World,” Inner Culture, July-Aug-Sept 1944, inside front cover.
14
Nicholas Roerich, “The Wreath of Unity, East-West, January 1945, 13-15. In response to a local minister’s 1945
proclamation of the end of world, Yogananda countered Long’s “hallucinary vision,” “When the Creator of the
Universe does destroy this little earth it will be millions of years hence—after all His children have learned to use
His gift of free choice wisely and have evolved beyond this earth.” Prophet Turns Silent on Eve of ‘World’s End,’”
Los Angeles Times, September 21, 1945, A1. Yogananda’s entire cosmology centered on energy, which prompted
196
understanding, literal and metaphorical, was the root of global conflict and advocated “Mondi
Linguo,” a new global language on the model of Esperanto
15
As World War II gave way to the
Cold War, Yogananda spoke on issues like “Averting the Coming Atomic War.”
16

Rather than simply expostulating on the need for peace, Yogananda held forth Self-
Realization Fellowship as an organization capable of tangibly advancing global peace efforts. A
1937 article in East-West (now named Inner Culture) entitled “The Spread of Self-Realization
Fellowship…Over the Earth,” narrated Yogananda’s ministry as the creation of a global
fellowship. The article then shared Yogananda vision for the formation of a “World Brotherhood
City” that aimed to “make each man an ideal world-citizen” by following the religion of
knowing and loving God, speaking one universal language (besides one’s native language),
following universal laws of hygiene and diet, recognizing the unity of all races, and teaching
“one religion of Self-Realization.”
17
While this plan never moved from the drafting table to the
building site, it expressed his religious idealism, hopes for peace, and conviction that he and his
organization could play a role in promoting peace.
Yogananda’s outlook thus reflected a growing globalism as he envisioned spirituality as a
unifying force, and himself as an important broker of such religious internationalism. The post-
Great War world had witnessed the emergence of “global community” with the formation of
hundreds of non-governmental organizations.
18
“Cultural internationalism” sprang up alongside

him to express considerable enthusiasm about developments with atomic power as late as 1941; the unleashing of
atomic weapons on Japan prompted only horror. “Scientific Digest,” Inner Culture, October-November 1941, 46-47.
15
A. Lavagnini, “An International Language,” East-West, April 1945, 4-8.
16
Los Angeles Times, November 6, 1948, A3.
17
C. Richard Wright, “The Spread of Self-Realization Fellowship (Yogoda Sat-Sanga) Over the Earth,” Inner
Culture, March 1937, 3ff.
18
By 1932, the League of Nations counted well over 500 international organizations, more than 90% of which were
private or nongovernmental. A report the following year commented that these “organizations influence almost
every activity of human beings,” as “of all the things human beings are interested in there is little indeed which does
not fall within he field of activity of one or another of these hundreds of private international organizations.” See
Lyman Cromwell White, The Structure of Private International Organizations (Philadelphia: George S. Ferguson
Company, 1933), 11.
197
political and economic internationalism. The League of Nations became a major sponsor of
organizations supporting intellectual cooperation, with activities with Japan and the US joining
European nations as sponsors. One major concern, as the League’s sponsorship suggests, was the
prospect for promoting peace.
19

Yogananda may have been right to see spiritual fellowship as a key element of future
peace: cultural internationalism essentially collapsed in the 1930s, making the World Fellowship
of Faiths meetings in 1933 and 1936 among the few expressions of cultural internationalism in
the decade.
20
In September of 1933, the worst year of the Great Depression in the United States,
Yogananda was one of 200 invited speakers at the World Fellowship of Faiths, an interfaith
conference held in Chicago to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the original 1893 World’s
Parliament of Religions and thus the true successor to the meeting that made Vivekananda
famous. Yogananda’s invitation to address this gathering cemented his reputation as a legitimate
guru on the world religion scene.
The meeting took seriously the vision of religion as a worldwide force for peace. Bishop

19
Akira Iriye, Global Community: The Role of International Organization in the Making of the Contemporary
World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 28.
20
Akira Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 147.
Iriye sees the roots of this cultural internationalism in the late nineteenth century. Indeed, he points to the World’s
Parliament of Religions as one of the founding moments of the movement. However, in general, he thinks that
racism and the assumption of the superiority of Western culture, kept the movement from gaining much ground
before it was shattered by the guns of August. Social scientists John Boli and George M. Thomas, more boldly than
Iriye, claim that for “a century and more, the world has constituted a singular polity,” as the “often unconscious
adoption of this cultural frame by politicians, businesspeople, travelers, and activists, and explicitly, in the discourse
of intellectuals, policy analysts, and academicians” (14). They point to “intercorrelations” showing the seamlessness
of growth in “economies, states, constitutions, educational systems, communications, transportation, energy
production, armies and weaponry,” and “interstate relations” (26). While they certainly overstate the emergence of a
rival to the international system of nation states, they capture the ways in which many internationalists had begun to
reconceptualize the world by the turn of the twentieth century. International non-governmental organizations have
carried a world culture stressing, among other things, notions of universalism, progress, and “world citizenship.”
(35-41) John Boli and George M. Thomas, “Introduction,” in Constructing World Culture: International
Nongovernmental Organizations Since 1875, edited by John Boli and George M. Thomas (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1999). UNESCO’s constitution proclaimed “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the
minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.” Iriye argues that the language of the constitution’s
preamble “echoed exactly the rhetoric of prewar cultural internationalism.” In the postwar period, the United
Nations formed the Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with peacemaking in mind.
198
Francis J. McConnell, National Chairman of the World Fellowship of Faiths, explained that the
meaning gathering by paying careful attention to all three names of the organization. The
meeting was “world-wide in its scope,” as “no part of the world is outside its reach.” The
meeting promoted fellowship so that, despite their many differences, “fellowship between these
religions as they are and as they aspire to be, in the common attempt to solves man’s deepest
problems, is the very heart of the movement.” And, rather than use the restrictive word
“religion,” the organization invited into its fellowship people, wherever they “are to be found
dominated by a great faith or conviction by which they are impelled to seek a more abundant life
for men individually or socially.”
21
In his aptly titled “Fellowship with the Universe,” conference
co-organizer Francis Younghusband affirmed McConnell’s outlook, stressing that a spiritual
worldview facilitated genuine human connection. “The really significant thing about the
universe,” he explained, “is its coherence. It is a real whole in which all part are interrelated,
interconnected and united together.” Many people needed to replace their childhood views of a
“Power outside and above him” with a recognition that the Power is “in each of us—in us as well
as around and above us, as I am in and around and above each one of the million million million
cells of which I am composed.”
22
In the wake of Japan’s invasion of China and Hitler’s rise to
power, a number of speakers specifically addressed the role of religion in the geopolitical context
of war prevention.
23

21
Francis J. McConnell, “Explaining the World Fellowship of Faiths,” in World Fellowship: Addresses and
Messages by Leading Spokesmen of all Faiths, Races and Countries, edited by Charles Frederick Weller (New
York: Liverlight Publishing, 1935), 9.
22
Francis Younghusband, “Fellowship with the Universe,” in in World Fellowship: Addresses and Messages by
Leading Spokesmen of all Faiths, Races and Countries, edited by Charles Frederick Weller (New York: Liverlight
Publishing, 1935), 46-47.
23
Nepalese prince Rajah Jai Prithvi Bahadur Singh called the World Fellowship meeting “the most outstanding
event of the century,” noting that never “before have the representatives of all faiths, races and countries come
together to seek for spiritual solutions to the urgent present problems which impede human progress.” Rajah Jai
Prithvi Bahadur Singh, “The Most Outstanding Event in the Century,” in World Fellowship: Addresses and
Messages by Leading Spokesmen of all Faiths, Races and Countries, edited by Charles Frederick Weller (New
York: Liverlight Publishing, 1935), 10. Former Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg telegraphed his good wishes to
199
Yogananda’s conference address, “What Nineteenth Faiths Contribute to Spiritual
Technique,” envisioned a spirituality that surpassed specific religious doctrines.
24
Yogananda
called on all religious groups—“Protestants, Catholics, Christian Scientists, Jews, Quakers,
followers of Unity, Rosicrucians, Theosophists, Buddhists, Shintoists, Mohammadens, Jains,
Mormons, Zoroastrians and Hindus”—to end their conflicts over the “infallibility of their
individual dogmas” and instead to cooperate in finding “the real meaning of life.” In issuing this
challenge, Yogananda characteristically placed himself on the high road of tolerance, while
foreclosing unacceptable religious paths. In defining religion’s essence as practical and
experiential “spiritual technique,” Yogananda ruled a priori that theological tenets were obstacles
on the road to genuine meaning.
The bulk of his address was devoted to what appears at first to be a measured and
magnanimous evaluation of a number of religious traditions. But the “Nineteen Faiths” he
discussed constituted a truly eclectic assortment of religious groups. Beginning his list with
Hinduism and Buddhism, he stacked the deck heavily with groups rooted in India, irrespective of

the conference. Kellogg, co-author of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a remarkable 1928 international treaty in which
signatories “condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an
instrument of national policy in their relations with one another,” noted in his telegram that in light of “world
depression, the burden of taxation, the agitation, rivalry and bitterness existing between nations,” there “never was a
time when the peoples of the world needed to exercise their influence on governments for world peace.” “Six
American Leaders’ Greetings,” in World Fellowship: Addresses and Messages by Leading Spokesmen of all Faiths,
Races and Countries, edited by Charles Frederick Weller (New York: Liverlight Publishing, 1935), 13. Salmon O.
Levison, author of the Outlawry of War, and Arthur Henderson, President of the World Disarmament Conference
echoed Kellogg’s sentiments regarding the urgent need to prevent war at that moment—as did more famous global
figures like Gandhi and Jane Addams.
24
Other speakers adopted a similar stance, essentially anticipating world harmony through the formation of some
sort of super-religion, rather than through an interfaith dialogue that acknowledged both similarities and differences
among religions. Dr. Manly Hall, for example, eschewing any comparison among different religions, posed what he
considered the “real question” of the day: “which of these cults is approaching most closely to the practice of
spiritual principles? He who performs most completely the work of the Universal Father is most acceptable in the
sight of the Universal Father. Religions are not great because of the vastness of their membership, the wealth of their
orders, the complexity of their dogmas, or the smugness of their clergy. Religions are truly great only when they
apply spiritual principles to the material problems of the race and make an honest contribution to the ethical
betterment of mankind.” Manly Hall, “Fellowship of Faiths,” in in World Fellowship: Addresses and Messages by
Leading Spokesmen of all Faiths, Races and Countries, edited by Charles Frederick Weller (New York: Liverlight
Publishing, 1935), 37.
200
how small their followings were.
25
Rather immodestly, Yogananda counted “The Self-
Realization Fellowship (Yogoda Sat-Sanga)” as one of the faiths as well. In line with his view of
religion as a living phenomenon subject to evaluation and improvement, he reviewed the unique
strengths of each tradition—Catholic devotion to God, Jewish “hygienic teachings,” Islamic
“spirit of resignation”—before bluntly indicating the weakness of each. Invariably, Yogananda
pointed out some form of exclusivism, which he labeled “sect exclusiveness,” “clannishness,” or
“clannish spirit.” Apart from Gandhi, the only organization that avoided criticism of any kind
was the Self-Realization Fellowship, a group that, despite being listed as a distinct faith, “is not a
sect.” Even in the august meeting of the World Fellowship of Faiths, the entrepreneurial yogi
could not stop promoting his product.
26

Three years later, Yogananda attended the 1936 World Congress of Faiths in London, a
gathering with loose connections to the 1933 Chicago meeting. Frances Younghusband, the
Congress’s organizer, had been a key organizer of the 1933 Chicago meeting, along with Charles
Weller and Surendranath Dasgupta.
27
Younghusband’s own experiences—he was a native Indian
of English descent and former British soldier who had experienced a spiritual awakening in Tibet
in 1903—made him especially interested in South Asia, which was heavily represented at the

25
Ultimately fourteen of the nineteen groups had connections to India. The globally insignificant Brahmo Samaj,
Arya Samaj, and Bharat Dharma Mahamandal all counted as separate members of the nineteen faiths. So did
“Gandhi,” since, as Yogananda explained, he has “outdone all the saints and prophets who preceded him.” Swami
Yogananda, “What Nineteen Faiths Contribute to Scientific Technique,” in World Fellowship: Addresses and
Messages by Leading Spokesmen of all Faiths, Races and Countries, edited by Charles Frederick Weller (New
York: Liverlight Publishing, 1935), 567-573.
26
Swami Yogananda, “What Nineteen Faiths Contribute to Spiritual Technique,” in World Fellowship: Addresses
and Messages by Leading Spokesmen of all Faiths, Races and Countries, edited by Charles Frederick Weller (New
York: Liverlight Publishing, 1935).
27
In convalescence after a serious automobile accident in Belgium, he completed Within, a book that rejected the
notion of divine providence in favor of an interiorized religious experience Yogananda would have found quite
congenial: “Now if we men are thus imbued with a mighty World-Spirit; if we are each manifestations and
expressions of that spirit; then we may reasonably have faith in ourselves. We may safely rely on ourselves rather
than lean on any outside Providence.” See Francis Younghusband, Within: Thoughts During Convalescence
(London: Williams & Norgate, 1912), 77.
201
meeting.
28
The purpose of the 1936 conference was to “bring out and intensify that sense of
community which is latent in all men, and so form a fellowship of common understanding and
mutual appreciation.” This vision, shared by many conference presenters, assumed that religion
had a crucial role to play in maintaining world peace.
29
Several speakers shared a basic
theological outlook congenial to Yogananda, assuming a kind of universal religion offered the
best hope for world peace.
30
Since Yogananda was not a presenter at the conference, he took
advantage of a critical mass of religiously curious individuals to host a number of Yogoda
classes. The response was enormous. The London Star described one Caxton Hall meeting where
“[h]all, floor and balconies” were “crammed.” A reporter attending a meeting on another night
exclaimed, “Never before have I noticed such deep interest in Hindu philosophy in England!”
The following day, the reporter “sat spell-bound for an hour and a quarter listening to a
remarkable piece of reverent entertainment.”
In many ways Yogananda’s most remarkable project as a leader of the global interfaith
movement was a regular column in East-West that he wrote for years entitled The Second

28
The conference’s commemorative volume includes important speeches by more than two dozen individuals, and
provides a “Congress Who’s Who” of the 65 representatives, a dozen of whom were South Asians, the majority of
them Hindus. See A. Douglas Millard, ed., Faiths and Fellowship: Being the Proceedings of the World Congress of
Faiths held in London, July 3
rd
-17
th
, 1936 (London: J.M. Watkins, 1936).
29
Rev. Canon F.R. Barry viewed the basic global conflict of the day as one between spiritual and materialistic
worldviews: “Whatever may be the immediate tasks of government, it is quite clear that the fundamental issue of the
world to-day is not really political at all, but spiritual. The real conflict of our time is not a conflict between any two
groups of Powers, it is a conflict between two rival and incompatible philosophies, interpretations of human life,
which are struggling for the allegiance of the soul of man” (Rev. Canon F.R. Barry in Millard, ed., Faiths, 412). The
Maharaja of Baroda also evoked world citizenship, calling for the “simple moral tenets common to all religions to
guide not only individual interactions but those between states as well. Those tenets should be inculcated in children,
since the “child of to-day is the citizen of to-morrow.” (Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda in Millard, ed., Faiths, 395).
30
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan uttered words that could have easily come from Yogananda in explaining religion’s
universal ideal: “to make oneself perfectly human, profoundly human; that is, to make oneself conform to the ideal
pattern, or bring out the image of God…The whole man, the complete man is the ideal man, the divine man. Self-
knowledge, self-discovery, self-fulfillment, is the destiny of man, and that is the ideal which we are called upon to
achieve and attain.” (Dr. Sir S. Radhakrishnan in Millard, ed., Faiths, 422-423). In closing Professor J. Emile Marc
Ault proclaimed, “we have a certain proof that that which knows and loves and acts in us, in each one of us, is
universal, and we might perhaps…see in the continuance of human efforts from the beginning of the history of the
human race to this day, and from this day to the last day, when the last man passes the gates of death into life, the
soul of man revealing itself as universal and also eternal” (Professor J. Emile Marc Ault in Millard, ed., Faiths, 453).
202
Coming of Christ.
31
A commentary on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in the New
Testament, this article series superficially epitomizes Hindu-Christian syncretism. In reality,
however, The Second Coming represented the zenith of Yogananda’s inclusivism, a systematic
effort to interpret Jesus and Christianity in light of universal Hindu truth.
32
Indologist Paul
Hacker offered this definition of inclusivism, which captures Yogananda accurately:
the practice of ‘claiming for, and thus including in, one’s own religion’ or world-
view what belongs in reality to another, foreign or competing system. It is a
subordinating identification of the other, the foreign with parts or preliminary
states of one’s own sphere. It is not considered to be a process of additive
annexation; nor is it a form of syncretism or eclecticism. The other, the foreign is
not seen as something that could be added to, or combined with, one’s own
system; instead, it is something a priori contained in it.

As Hacker’s definition suggests, it would be a mistake to describe Yogananda’s strategy as a
form of syncretism; it is better understood as appropriation: whenever Yogananda discussed
Christianity, he pointed out some lack, weakness, or fundamental misunderstanding. He never
conceded that Christianity had anything substantive to contribute to spiritual wisdom.
Interpreting Christian teaching in light of Hinduism typically led him to views that were quite
foreign to Christians’ own understanding. Simon J. Joseph comments that “Yogananda’s interest
was explicitly ‘missionary;’ he had “vested interests in uniting Jesus and India.” His description
of later New Age teachers fits Yogananda well: they “tend not to reject Christianity so much as
revise and transform it by searching for a hidden tradition or ‘lost Christianity’ in which Jesus’

31
This series began in May 1932 and ran through July 1942, and included 118 installments. As with all of
Yogananda’s publications, later editions published by Self-Realization Fellowship have been heavily edited and thus
differ dramatically from the texts Yogananda originally produced.
32
This definition of Hacker’s views is provided by his student and interpreter, Paul Halbfass, India and Europe: An
Essay in Understanding (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), 411. While Hacker made tendentious
attacks on the “false” tolerance of Hinduism, as a non-normative description, his definition of Neo-Hindu or Neo-
Vedanta “inclusivism” captures Yogananda’s strategy well. Vivekananda adopted a similar stance, though, unlike
Yogananda, he insisted on the centrality of advaita vedanta. Dermot Killingley, “Manufacturing Yogis: Swami
Vivekananda as a Yoga Teacher,” in Gurus in America, edited by Thomas A. Forsthoefel and Cynthia Ann Humes
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 26, describes Vivekananda’s American yoga classes as
“serving an agenda of his own,” “to show that conflict between religions could be resolved only by Hinduism, or
more precisely by advaita vedanta—and not by Christianity, as some participants in the Parliament, including some
of its organizers, supposed.”
203
‘original’ message is historically reinterpreted and found to be in harmony with the esoteric
tenets of other often Eastern, religious traditions.”
33

The title of the series already hinted at Yogananda’s legerdemain. In Christian parlance,
the “Second Coming” traditionally identified the apocalyptic return of the resurrected Jesus to
earth in “the last days.” Christian liberals had generally spiritualized Jesus’ return and often
avoided “Second Coming” language, but fundamentalists, evangelicals, and Pentecostals
continued to anticipate Christ’s return. But Yogananda meant something quite different by his
use of the term: the yoga disciple’s full experience of self-realization, which he often termed
“Christ-consciousness.” This was a Second Coming in which the believer no longer expected to
encounter Jesus but to eventually become Jesus. Through his commentary, Yogananda sought to
reach a wide group of Americans only loosely tied to the Christian tradition, but who retained
some sense of reverence for Jesus or the Bible. He wanted to show them that Yogoda was not
antithetical to genuine Christianity; in fact, Yogoda offered the substance of which Christianity
was merely the shadow.
This was a bold, unprecedented strategy: rather than delve deeply into ancient Hindu
texts to explain esoteric truths, he aggressively reinterpreted the core of the Christian Bible as
Hindu truth.
34
How did Yogananda defend this hermeneutical move? As one SRF monk, Brother
Bernard, explained to a unconvinced newcomer, “Jesus, too, through the practice of meditation,
is becoming a living reality for people—a being with whom they can commune, instead of one
whom they merely read about in the Bible. This was what Jesus meant when he said that he

33
Simon J. Joseph, “Jesus in India? Transgressing Social and Religious Boundaries,” Journal of the American
Academy of Religion, 80, no. 1 (2012), 161-199; quotes on 172 and 181.
34
As Chapter One indicated, nineteenth century Indian authors had placed Jesus and his teachings in India, but they
wrote more broadly about his message rather than providing detailed exegesis. The closest parallel to The Second
Coming of Christ is P.C. Mozoomdar, The Oriental Christ (Boston: Geo. H. Ellis, 1883), which follows Jesus’
career from baptism through his crucifixion and resurrection, drawing connections to Indian traditions. But
Mozoomdar’s Jesus is still recognizable as the figure from the Christian gospels. Yogananda did pen a parallel series
on the Bhagavad Gita, but this column was much shorter and less robust than the Second Coming series.
204
would come again. Master often speaks of this work as the Second Coming of Jesus—not to
return again outwardly, but in the souls of those who loved him and communed with him.” When
the newcomer objected that this understanding was not what most Christians believed, Bernard
replied that Jesus himself rebuked his disciples “for taking his words literally, when he meat
them metaphorically.”
35
Yogananda preempted potential criticism of his intuitively perceived
understanding of Jesus by going on the offensive, accusing Christians of allowing petty
denominationalism and dogmatism of destroying genuine Christianity, of which he was the
legitimate representative.
36

Rather than adopting the much easier strategy of using a gospel passage as a point of
departure for a broad, thematic teaching, he provided detailed exegesis. Given how far his
interpretations diverged from the surface sense of the text, this required him to provide ever more
elaborate explanations of symbols, codes, and spiritualized interpretation.
37
For example, John
the Baptist’s prophecy that Jesus was the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,”
referred not to the Passover sacrifice, but to the deeper allegorical truth that “Jesus came as the

35
The newcomer was Donald Walters, later Swami Kriyananda. See Swami Kriyananda, The Path: Autobiography
of a Western Yogi (Nevada City, CA: Ananda, 1977), 217. While this explanation satisfied Walters in the short run,
he later experienced grave doubts about Yogananda’s authority to make such interpretations. He provides a candid,
albeit brief, glimpse of his master’s interpretation in action. “Suddenly, without any conscious intention on my part,
I found myself plunged into violent doubts.” Yogananda would write, “‘This means so and so,’ then turn around—
almost, to my mind, as though correcting himself—and say, ‘But on the other hand, it also means…’ and go on to
suggest an interpretation which—again, to my way of thinking—bore little relation to the first one. ‘Can’t he make
up his mind?’ I marveled. ‘How is it possible for the same passage to have both meanings?’” Eventually he made his
peace with the philosophical sophistication of Yogananda’s position, commonly found in Indian teaching
(Kriyananda, The Path, 395).
36
To take one of many examples, he proclaimed “To be an Orthodox, unquestioning believer in any Spiritual
doctrine, without the scrutiny of experimentation, makes one ossified with dogmatism.” He routinely used the
derisive term “Churchianity” to deplore the Christian tradition’s perversion of its own beliefs: “The leaders of
modern Christian churches, in order to be loyal to Christ and God, must change their methods of holding people by
hackneyed repetition and revamping of the same sermon every Sunday, by social gatherings, movies, bazaars and
dances, and must try to keep the people together in the church, if they want to keep together, by the spontaneous
loyalty born of their self-realization garnered in the school of discipline and meditation taught by the church.” See
Swami Yogananda, “The Second Coming of Christ,” Inner Culture, January 1939, 26ff.
37
Christian exegetes would doubtless have disagreed with Yogananda’s interpretation on nearly every point, but,
ironically, the democratic spirit of Protestantism itself had paved the way for such idiosyncratic interpretations,
making “every man his own interpreter” of the Bible. Nathan Hatch, “Sola Scriptura and Novus Ordo Seclorum,” in
Mark Noll, ed., The Bible in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 74.
205
lamb of spirituality, humble, loyal to God, ready to offer Himself as a sacrifice before the
Temple of Truth, so that by His supreme example of purity, humbleness, and meekness He might
act as the greatest spiritual light to drive away the dark sins of the world.”
38

Yoga philosophy traditionally granted great authority to an individual’s intuition as a
source of true knowledge. As Gerald Larson indicates, intuitive knowledge is central to the Yoga
Sutras, the core text of the yoga tradition. The Sanskrit term for “knowledge” appears more than
a dozen times in Book Three of the Sutras and it “appears to be consistently used in the sense of
the higher cognitive awarenesses that occur as a result of doing comprehensive reflection that is,
the simultaneous exercise of meditative fixation, meditation and concentration.”
39
Larson
consistently translates these instances of knowledge as “intuition.” Yogananda seized both the
substance of Yoga teaching and its understanding of intuition, and applied them to a spiritual
understanding of New Testament truth. In his worldview, the understanding he received through
meditation and reflection constituted genuine spiritual truth rather than invention.
As Yogananda unfolded Jesus’ identity, he made it clear that Christ could only be
understood in light of India. Yogananda began with a review of Jesus’ baptism at the hand of
John the Baptist, as recorded in the gospels. The reader soon learned that baptism was originally
an Indian practice; the contemporary Christian sacrament preserved only a faint remnant of that
ancient tradition. The name “Jesus,” as it is known in Western tradition, is a corruption of a
Sanskrit word, “Isa,” Lord of Creation. The Sanskrit name “Kutasha Chaitanya,” or Christ
Consciousness, is also the name of a great Indian prophet from 1500 BC, Jadava, the Christna.

38
The need to uncover yoga meditation techniques led to even more imaginative constructions. When John
announced that first-century Jews should “Make straight the way of the Lord,” Yogananda clarified John’s meaning
that Christ Consciousness could only be experienced through meditating with a straight spine. Swami Yogananda,
“The Second Coming of Christ,” East-West, March 1933, 5ff.
39
Gerald James Larson, “Introduction to the Philosophy of Yoga,” in Gerald James Larson and Ram Shankar
Bhattacharya, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies Vol 12: Yoga: India’s Philosophy of Meditation (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 2011), 124-129.
206
Thus, the Hindu incarnation of Jesus preceded the Christian one by more than a millennium.
However exalted Jesus might be, Yogananda was emphatic that he could not be God incarnate,
because “God never created Himself into a human being, subject to the weakness of flesh and
mental limitations.”
40

The relationship between John and Jesus represented the crucial guru-disciple
relationship—only in such a bond could “complete satisfaction, comfort, and God-consciousness
be found.” Yogananda used the opportunity provided by this text to lecture readers about the
authority of the guru, the only one able to assist the seeker in growing spiritually. In another
place, he paused from the main subject to draw this lesson: “The disciple who practices
insincerity toward his Guru-Preceptor, not only hides the disease, but refuses the healing help of
the Master. In this way an error-stricken disciple makes his moral transgression grow upon him.
To hide the moral disease from the Spiritual doctor is extremely dangerous to Spiritual health.”
41

The subtext of Yogananda’s own authority was not far from the surface.
The appearance of the Holy Spirit, which descended on Jesus at his baptism, allowed
Yogananda to introduce his understanding of the Trinity. His effort to fit this Christian tenet into
a Hindu Procrustean bed constituted one of his most awkward interpretive efforts. The Father
represented Cosmic Consciousness residing outside the vibratory creation, the Spirit was the
“creator of creative vibration,” and Christ was present in creation as the manifestation of the
Father—divine intelligence “to create, recreate, preserve, and mould it according to its divine
purpose.”
42

40
He continued, “Omnipresent God would never be born on earth as a human being, for God in his greatness could
never completely identify Himself with the limitations of temptation, mortality, and so forth of human existence.”
See Swami Yogananda, “The Second Coming of Christ,” East-West, May 1933, 5ff.
41
Swami Yogananda, “The Second Coming of Christ,” Inner Culture, March 1934, 5ff.
42
Swami Yogananda, “The Second Coming of Christ,” East-West, June 1932, 5ff. Readers of The Second Coming
of Christ encountered all the stories, teachings, and doctrines they would expect to encounter in church, including
207
In the gospels, immediately following Jesus’ baptism, Satan tempted him in the desert.
Surprisingly, Yogananda endorsed the objective existence of such a being, who used his free will
as an angel to rebel against God. Satan tempted Adam and Eve, who sinned not by disobeying
God but by surrendering to lust and procreating through sex, instead of through willpower.
Through a very convoluted explanation, Yogananda revealed that Satan created the mechanism
of karma and the cycles of death and rebirth. Satan also created māyā, or delusion, that keeps
humans from seeing their true spiritual identity.
43
To successfully face Satan’s challenges, Jesus
had to fast. Great yogis like Jesus had long practiced this physical discipline, tapping into the
stored up energy of their “body battery” (a diagram accompanied this article, showing a large
wired-up battery) demonstrating their victory over physical bodily needs. Deep meditation must
accompany such physical austerity. When Satan tempted Jesus in the desert, Jesus famously
retorted, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of
God,” Yogananda’s elaborate paraphrase of this retort brought out Jesus’ underlying meaning:
The battery of man’s wisdom, intelligence, life, and body shall not live (be
sustained) by bread (outer material, solids, liquids, and so forth) alone, but by

the Trinity, Satan, and the historicity of Jesus’ miracles—ironically, given Yogananda’s audience, these were all
tenets that liberal Christians had banished from their modern creeds.
43
Like Satan, evil spiritual forces are objective realities, not imaginary or symbolic forces. In one of the few cases
where Yogananda used the word “modern” pejoratively, his shrill denunciation sounded truly fundamentalist: “No
amount of skin-deep liberal thinking can explain away these works of Jesus of casting out the devils. Because most
modern theologians do not know anything about healing or casting out devils, that does not mean that the physical
and mental and spiritual healing of man is impossible or that casting out of devils is superstition.” While evoking
Satan might seem like clear evidence of syncretism, like Yogananda’s use of “Christ,” it reflects a translational
concession to his target audience; evil spiritual forces are part and parcel of Hindu cosmology. While there is no
direct counterpart to Satan, Hindu written traditions—including the Vedas, Epics, and Puranas—and local folk
traditions include a host of ghosts, spirits, and demons. Ghosts attack victims and cause illness, functioning as one
means of implementing karmic justice; see Ruth S. Freed and Stanley A. Freed, Ghosts: Life and Death in North
India (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993), 9. The most powerful harmful forces are essentially evil
deities, an “inverted pantheon,” that regularly battles the gods. Evil forces possess humans and harm them in a
variety of ways, causing disease, death, and other misfortunes. See N.N. Bhattacharya, Indian Demonology: The
Inverted Pantheon (Delhi: Manohar, 2000). As the discussion of the Autobiography will highlight, Yogananda’s
own status depended on having opponents to fight and no opponent was more sinister—for him or for Christ who he
emulated—than Satan. As Philip Smith argues, “images of ‘evil’ must be present in the forest of symbols
surrounding each charismatic leader. There must be something for them to fight against, something from which their
followers can be saved.” See Philip Smith, “Culture and Charisma: Outline of a Theory,” Acta Sociolgica 43, 2
(2000) 101-111, quotation on 103.
208
every word (unit of intelligent living vibration) that proceedeth out of the mouth
of God. The Cosmic Energy or Life Energy, as it proceedeth out of medulla,
through which mouth or opening, God breathes His breath of life (Cosmic
Energy) into the soul, mind, and body battery of man.
44

When Jesus went up on a mountainside to pray before selecting his apostles, he also took
advantage of “the pure oxygen” there and engaged in breathing exercises “calculated to burn the
carbon on the system, quiet the heart and switch off the life current from the five sense
telephones so that the sensations cannot bother the brain and attention directed to God.” He came
down the mountain, picked his twelve disciples, and commissioned them to heal the sick and cast
out demons.
Jesus’ admonition that his disciples be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” gave
Yogananda an opportunity to introduce kundalinī, the “serpent power” or śakti lying coiled at the
base of the spine. More creatively, Yogananda injected a discussion of kundalinī into one of the
central gospel texts, where Jesus cryptically informed Nicodemus that a person must be “born
again”—that is, from the Holy Spirit—to enter the Kingdom of God. In Yogananda’s hands,
being “born again,” became an endorsement of yoga meditation as the mean of lifting the
sleeping śakti power.
45
As this dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus continues, it moves to the
famous New Testament statement that “whosoever believes in [Jesus] shall not perish, but inherit
eternal life.” Through Yogananda’s interpretive alchemy this became, “whosever believes in the
doctrine of lifting the bodily consciousness (Son of Man) from the physical to the Astral body
reversing the Life Force through the coiled passage at the base of the spine, will not perish, that
is, be subject to mortal changes of life and death, but will gradually acquire the changeless

44
Swami Yogananda, “The Second Coming of Christ,” East-West, January 1933, 5ff.
45
Swami Yogananda, “The Second Coming of Christ,” East-West, November 1933, 5ff. He continued, “Jesus said
that each Son of Man, or each bodily consciousness, must be lifted from the plane of the senses to the Astral
Kingdom by reversing the Life Force through the serpent-like coiled passage at the base of the spine. Every time
you mediate deeply, you automatically reverse the Life Force and consciousness from matter to God. This helps to
loosen the Astral and physical knot at the base of the spine.”
209
Eternal State.” Likewise, in Yogananda’s hands, the atoning crucifixion of Jesus became a great
karmic event, where Jesus’ “seeds of actions are burned up in the fires of wisdom,” leading him
to find immortality beyond death.
46

Beyond its creative appropriation of Christian teaching, Yogananda’s text is striking for
the veiled hints it provides about Yogananda’s own spiritual authority. The very human Jesus of
The Second Coming was admirable primarily for his unwavering devotion to the yoga path,
culminating in his achievement of “Christ consciousness,” which made him divine. While
Yogananda held out the theoretical possibility that all followers of yoga discipline could emulate
Jesus’ spiritual journey, the text made that feat seem remote for the average devotee. Yogananda
repeatedly emphasizes the need for a guru in one’s spiritual journey. “The first requisite in your
spiritual path lies,” he explained, “in finding your spiritual GURU who will discipline you and
take a personal interest in your spiritual welfare and lead you as far along the spiritual path as
you wish to go. Having found him, follow him closely, obey him with intelligent devotion, and
practice what he teaches you; thus ultimately you will attain your highest goal.”
47
The guru best
exemplified Jesus’ own advanced consciousness, and thus held the greatest likelihood of
transmitting that knowledge to eager disciples. As Yogananda explained, “God uses only about-
to-be-perfect souls to serve as examples and teachers to deluded humans.”
48
In various ways,
Yogananda made two points abundantly clear: true gurus were few and far between, and he
himself was such a guru—he knew how to achieve Christ consciousness.
49
In addition to the
gloss on the “Second Coming of Christ” Brother Bernard gave, the return of Christ may well

46
Swami Yogananda, “The Second Coming of Christ,” Inner Culture, June 1939, 25ff.
47
Swami Yogananda, “The Second Coming of Christ,” East-West, May 1932, 5ff.
48
Swami Yogananda, “The Second Coming of Christ,” East-West, May1933, 5ff.
49
More than once, he lamented the weaknesses of Christian denomination and their ministers, calling for more
“God-known, God-contacting ministers.” Given his criteria for such ministers, it is no stretch to see Yogananda
commending himself here. See Swami Yogananda, “The Second Coming of Christ,” Inner Culture, November 1938,
30 ff.
210
have referred to the appearance of Yogananda. The veiled, implicit character of this assertion
blunted its boldness; more direct revelation awaited a different forum.

Yogananda as Global Guru
Since the 1960s, Indian gurus have sometimes achieved global status by acquiring large
numbers of followers in multiple international locations, a consequence of clever advertising,
widespread international travel and, more recently, the use of modern media like video to close
the distance between teacher and disciple.
50
Much of the technology that has facilitated such an
international presence was not available to Yogananda in the 1930s, despite his ambitions to
global status. His participation in world religion conferences helped to establish an international
reputation, but he needed to do more. In 1935-36, he undertook a major return voyage to India—
a reverse pilgrimage to his spiritual and physical home that would allow him revisit the
formative places of his childhood and enjoy tearful reunions with family members, Yukteswar,
and brother disciples, while extending his ministry within his homeland. The trip would also
allow Yogananda to leave the unpleasant details of litigation to his attorneys while avoiding the
embarrassment and press attention of direct questioning by Dhirananda’s attorneys.
A decade earlier, Yogananda had driven west to California from New York in a car
belonging to wealthy supporters. Now, in the midst of the nation’s worst recession, he began a

50
Satya Sai Baba is one of the most successful contemporary examples. The label “global guru” comes from Norris
W. Palmer, “Baba’s World: A Global Guru and His Movement” in, Gurus in America, edited by Thomas A.
Forsthoefel and Cynthia Ann Humes (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005). Robert Alter and Andrea
Jain offer similar paradigms, the former describing “global gurudom” and the latter “a global entrepreneurial
godman.” While global gurus are undoubtedly modern figures, Alter seems to exaggerate this point by claiming that
“gurus represent modernity, even though they do so indirectly by embodying what modernity seems to have left
behind or lost touch with. Gurus are, to various degrees, self-consciously out of sync with the present, both in terms
of time and place. This produces their popular authority as well as a range of paradoxes and contradictions.” Surely
being “out of sync” with the present suggests that their position represents a continuity with the longer tradition of
gurudom. See Joseph S. Alter, “Shri Yogendra: Magic, Modernity, and the Burden of the Middle-Class Yogi,” in
Mark Singleton and Ellen Goldberg, Gurus in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), quote on 60,
and Andrea R. Jain, “Muktananda: Entrepreneurial Godman, Tantric Hero” in Ibid.
211
strikingly similar reverse journey from California to New York in a car donated by a devotee,
this time James Lynn. But unlike 1925, this trip did not end in North America. Lynn not only
financed the elegant touring car’s purchase, but the costs to fuel and maintain it and to ship it all
over the world. Yogananda traveled in style to England, the European continent, and the Middle
East, before heading on to India. As Dasgupta, Yogananda’s personal secretary in India, put it,
“Thus Swamiji’s return trip to home was arranged to be in royal fashion.”
51

On June 9, he and his retinue boarded the Europa in New York bound for London.
Yogananda visited England and Scotland by car the second half of June, and lectured at
London’s Caxton Hall in July. Then he took a ferry to Calais in order to tour all over France,
Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy and Greece. The highlight of his European trip was
his visit to Catholic sister Therese Neumann in Germany, who survived without eating or
drinking. Yogananda displayed genuine interest in such feats, as he had with his sometime
touring partner Hamid Bey. Most of Neumann’s admirers understood her activities from within
the confines of Christian tradition, but Yogananda viewed her as part of an adept who mastered
physical existence by understanding universal truths—truths ultimately best explained through
Hindu teachings even to those who did not acknowledge their authority.
52
After a lecture in
Rome, he toured the Holy Land and Egypt, rapturous over the opportunity to walk where Jesus

51
Dasgupta, 72.
52
He witnessed the miracle of her stigmata as she bled from her eyes and left breast, and noted that her hands and
feet had square nail-mark wounds. Josef Teodorowicz, Archbishop of Lemberg, undertook his own examination,
which he published in 1947, more than a decade after Yogananda’s visit. His study fell strictly within the bounds of
Catholic Church orthodoxy. Therese’s fasting was only one remarkable element of her life. He was more intrigued
by her ecstatic states, her visions, her clairvoyance, and particularly, her stigmatization—which he took to be a true
indication of the Holy Spirit’s presence. Still, he did devote a chapter to her fasting, confirming that all the carefully
accumulated evidence of investigations and interviews pointed to the reality that she had neither eaten nor drunk
anything since September 1927, save the Eucharist, which was the only nourishment that stirred hunger pangs in
her. Josef Teodorowicz, Mystical Phenomena in the Life of Theresa Neumann (London: B. Herder, 1947), 65.
Johannes Steiner’s posthumous account of Neumann takes a similar line, except that even greater powers have
accrued to her in the intervening years, powers the siddhi Yogananda would have appreciated, including bilocation
and levitation. The importance of her fasting has receded even further into the background of the story. Johannes
Steiner, Therese Neumann: A Portrait Based on Authentic Accounts, Journals and Documents (Staten Island, N.Y.:
Alba House, 1967).
212
lived and taught. Finally, he boarded the S.S. Rajputana to cross the Indian Ocean, landing at
Bombay on India’s northwest coast in mid-September, 1935.
Yogananda deployed his common tactic of transforming the literal distance between the
US and India into a metaphorical one, taking advantage of imperfect communication between the
two lands to present himself to audiences in the grandest light. For fifteen years, he had carefully
packaged his Indian background for American consumption. On his India trip, Yogananda
employed this strategy in reverse: Indian audiences were treated to an inflated account of his
activities in the United States. Yogananda described Mt. Washington as an “immense hotel,” one
of the three main tourist attractions in Los Angeles—the other two being Hollywood and “the
planetarium,” presumably Mt. Griffith observatory, which opened to the public that year. While
the old (and rather modest) Mt. Washington was the organization’s only property, ads for
Yogananda’s Indian talks announced that he had “established Hindu Temples in America.” In
1930, Yogananda had reported 25,000 Yogoda students, but an ad five years later bragged that
he had “initiated more than One Hundred Fifty Thousand AMERICANS Yogananda
inexplicably claimed some official status for Self-Realization Fellowship, presenting it as “the
only institution of its kind recognised by the American Government.” Reversing Western
missionary tropes about the challenges of working in heathen India, he reassured listeners that
the dangers he faced as an evangelist in the American missionary field were overblown—
“despite all that one hears of gangsters and kidnapping, the country has a big quota of spiritual
men.”
53

53
His childhood friend, Satyananda corroborates this view of Mt. Washington, indicated that it “became one of the
sights to see in America” (267). Yogananda also reimagined his ignominious ejection from Miami years earlier for
inappropriate contact with women as a victorious vindication. Rather than his attorney appearing in court on his
behalf, Yogananda himself arrived in court, as Dasgupta reports, “radiant, magnetically attractive in form, with
beautiful yet incisive yes brimming with virtue. When those eyes cast their gaze on the judge, the magistrate could
not withstand its power…Swamiji was cleared of all charges and walked away in dignity with the highest respect of
the court. The next day, most newspapers and journals had their headlines boldly announcing the verdict, and
213
Yogananda also met privately with Gandhi, which helped legitimate his stature as both an
American representative of Indian nationalism and a world leader. Yogananda’s account of his
meeting with one of the twentieth century’s greatest leaders portrays not a meeting of equals, but
an encounter in which Gandhi submitted to Yogananda’s superior wisdom. The only extant
account of dialog between the two would actually suggest the opposite—Gandhi as the sage and
Yogananda as his questioner and conversation partner.
54
. Shortly after the visit, Yogananda
claimed that Gandhi had received Kriya Yoga instruction from him.
55
This claim is difficult to
verify independently, but seems dubious.
56
In any case, Yogananda thought it crucial to present

Swamiji’s message of practical spirituality went on to gain even more fame.” Satyananda corroborates this
triumphal version of events, saying that Yogananda’s attackers “failed because of Swamiji’s firmness of strength.”
(269). Yogananda’s invitation to the White House epitomized this fame, which required him to expand his
operation, including inviting Swami Premananda, “the only Asian in the capital city of Washington, D.C. who has
an ashram-temple situated on his own personal residential property. There is no possibility any more for anyone to
win such a property in that city because the United States Government secured all of the appropriate available land
many years ago for the future development of the capital.” See also “Swami’s Fellowship Centres in America,”
Times of India, Aug 23, 1935, 14 and Ad, Times of India, Sep 25, 1936, 4.
54
Yogananda offered few independent thoughts; the few thoughts he did propose, Gandhi either rejected or
at least reframed. A sample of their exchange illustrates this:
Gandhiji: Why is there evil in the world, is a difficult question to answer. I can only give what I may call a
villager’s answer. If there is good there must also be evil, just as where there is light there is also darkness,
but it is true only so far as we human mortals are concerned. Before God there is nothing good, nothing
evil…I therefore say that I am not going to bother my head about it. Even if I was allowed to peep into the
innermost recess of God’s chamber I should not care to do it. For I should not know what to do there. It is
enough for our spiritual growth to know that God is always with the doer of good…
Yogananda: But if He is All-mighty, as unquestionably He is, why does he not free us from evil?
Gandhiji: I would rule out this question, too. God and we are not equals. Equals may put such questions to
one another, but not unequals. Villagers do not ask why town-dwellers do things which if they did would
mean certain destruction.
Yogananda: I quite see what you mean. It is a strong point you have made. But who made God?
Gandhiji: If He is All-powerful, He must have made Himself.
Yogananda: Do you think He is an autocrat or a democrat?
Gandhiji: I do not think these things at all. I do not want to want to divide power with Him and hence I am absolved
from having to consider these questions. I am content with the doing of the task in front of me. I do not worry about
the why and wherefore of things (“Discussion with Swami Yogananda” in The Collected Works of Mahatma
Gandhi , 392).
55
He mentioned this claim first shortly after his visit with Gandhi in letters to James Lynn on September 19 and
October 1. See Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, September 19, 1935, in Rajarsi Janakananda, 75, and Swami
Yogananda to James Lynn, October 1, 1935, in Ibid., 79. He repeated this claim in more elaborate form in the
Autobiography: “Gandhi had expressed a wish to receive the KRIYA YOGA of Lahiri Mahasaya. I was touched by
the Mahatma's open-mindedness and spirit of inquiry. He is childlike in his divine quest, revealing that pure
receptivity which Jesus praised in children, ‘. . . of such is the kingdom of heaven’” (Yogananda, Autobiography,
444).
56
Self-Realization Fellowship’s earliest reference to the meeting between Yogananda and Gandhi, a reprint of an
Associated Press article, makes no mention of this yoga training—a surprising omission if the initiation transpired as
214
the encounter as Gandhi submitting himself to Yogananda’s authority in a “childlike” manner.
57

In late September, Yogananda arrived at the Calcutta train station to a fantastic welcome
reception hosted by his long-time Ranchi supporter, the Maharaja of Kasimbazar. The young
man who had departed Calcutta heading to an uncertain fate in the US was returning in
triumph—a hero to his physical father and his spiritual one. Of the two, his reunion with
Yukteswar was much more important to Yogananda. Yogananda’s American companion,
Richard Wright, described Yogananda’s momentous meeting with Yukteswar:
"In grave humility I walked behind Yoganandaji into the courtyard within the
hermitage walls. Hearts beating fast, we proceeded up some old cement steps,
trod, no doubt, by myriads of truth-seekers. The tension grew keener and keener
as on we strode. Before us, near the head of the stairs, quietly appeared the Great
One, Swami Sri Yukteswarji, standing in the noble pose of a sage.
"My heart heaved and swelled as I felt myself blessed by the privilege of being in
his sublime presence. Tears blurred my eager sight when Yoganandaji dropped to
his knees, and with bowed head offered his soul's gratitude and greeting, touching
with his hand his guru's feet and then, in humble obeisance, his own head. He rose
then and was embraced on both sides of the bosom by Sri Yukteswarji.
"No words passed at the beginning, but the most intense feeling was expressed in
the mute phrases of the soul. How their eyes sparkled and were fired with the
warmth of renewed soul-union! A tender vibration surged through the quiet patio,
and even the sun eluded the clouds to add a sudden blaze of glory.
58

Yogananda recounted. See “Mahatma Gandhi is Host to Swami Yogananda,” “Mahatma Gandhi is Host to Swami
Yogananda,” Inner Culture, March 1937, 49. Major biographies of Gandhi never report this training. For example, a
recent, nearly 700-page biography written by his grandson makes no mention of Yogananda or being introduced to
Kriya Yoga. If the induction took place as Yogananda described, it apparently did not have a significant impact on
Gandhi. See Rajmohan Gandhi, Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2008).
57
See Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, October 1, 1935, in Rajarsi Janakananda, 80.
58
In a letter to Lynn, Yogananda described the reunion thus: “We flew into each other’s arms and remained
there in sobs for long.” He tacked on a literally parenthetical statement about his own father, “We are
staying at Father’s. Father and I embraced each other and remained that way for long, crying.” (Rajarsi,
76). Yogananda’s younger brother Sananda describes a more grandiose, affective reunion than Yogananda.
It is difficult to determine whether the difference in tone between the two descriptions has more to do with
Yogananda’s reticence regarding his father or Amanda’s later embellishment:
“Our youngest brother, Bishnu Charan, drove Mejda and the Maharaja with the greatest of
enthusiasm. I myself rode on a motorcycle, heading the long procession like a pilot! On arrival at Father’s
home, conch shells were blown, flowers and rice were strewn over Mejda’s path, devotional melodies filled
the house with bright, uplifting music.
215
For Yogananda’s own self-understanding and self-presentation, the most important
interaction between him and his mentor occurred when Yukteswar formally initiated him as a
Paramhansa, appropriately enough for a yogi with Christ consciousness, on Christmas Day 1935.
While this title grew in significance over time, particularly after Yogananda’s return to the US,
he initially shared the news with Lynn without much elaboration or expression of emotion.
59

Dasgupta, Yogananda’s personal secretary, who was present at the event—and generally spoke
of Yogananda with great deference—reported an earthy account of how Yukteswar (referred to
here as “Gurudev”) bestowed the title. If accurate, this account would explain why Yogananda
did not immediately brag to American devotees about the title’s grandeur:
It was almost nightfall. Maharajaji was standing on the upstairs veranda and
someone was standing next to him. Ananda-da and the write were downstairs.
Before going upstairs, Yoganandaji went to a drainage spot, a bit apart from the
area, and began to urinate into the drainage passage. This caught Gurudev’s
attention and he cryptically joked, “Yogananda has become a ‘paramhansa’ [great
swan or great soul]!” After urinating, Yoganandaji saw Andanda-da standing at
the front door and quietly said, “Andanda-da! Did you hear? Swamiji
[Sriyukteshvarji] called me a ‘paramhansa!’” Later, Ananda-da laughed and said
to the writer, “You’ll see. Yogananda will one day use this title!”
60

Ananda-da’s comment eventually proved prophetic. However Yogananda acquired the honorific
from his guru, Yogananda ultimately embraced it as a mark of his exalted guru status.
The bliss Yogananda and his guru shared was short-lived. Yogananda was anxious to

Then Mejda stood before Father. They embrace one another as though their reunion were a gift from God.
Tears of joy flowed copiously—there was not a dry eye in the crowed. Even our stoic father was occasionally
wiping his eyes” (‘Mejda,’ 198-199).
59
“I told you Master has elected me as deputy president of his estates and Sadhu Sabha, and has blessed me by
calling me Paramahansa.” See Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, January 30, 1936, in Rajarsi Janakananda, 100.
The account in Autobiography is likewise terse, especially given the immense later significance of this designation.
Here is the entire exchange related to the title: “The next afternoon, with a few simple words of blessing, Sri
Yukteswar bestowed on me the further monastic title of Paramhansa. "It now formally supersedes your former title
of swami," he said as I knelt before him. With a silent chuckle I thought of the struggle which my American students
would undergo over the pronunciation of Paramhansaji.” A footnote explains, “Literally, param, highest; hansa,
swan. The hansa is represented in scriptural lore as the vehicle of Brahma, Supreme Spirit; as the symbol of
discrimination, the white hansa swan is thought of as able to separate the true soma nectar from a mixture of milk
and water. Ham-sa (pronounced hong-sau) are two sacred Sanskrit chant words possessing a vibratory connection
with the incoming and outgoing breath. Aham-sa is literally “I am he” (Autobiography, 400).
60
Dasgupta, 93.
216
acquire property in India to expand his organization. He was particularly interested in
establishing a presence near the famous Dakshineswar Temple, where Ramakrishna lived for
years, and Belur Math, the mission founded by Vivekananda directly across the Hooghly River
from Dakshineswar. His childhood friend Satyananda remembers Yogananda standing “on the
bank of Ganges, at Dakshineswar, pointing to the Belur Math,…he said to me, ‘Bama! I will
make mine bigger than theirs.’ It seemed to me as if Swamiji was caught up with some kind of
competetion [sic] game with Swami Vivekananda.
61
Yogananda’s thirst for glory as an
international guru irreparably damaged his relationship with Yukteswar at the very moment
when his desire for property in India was on the verge of realization—though not in
Dakshineswar. The two met with an attorney so that Yukteswar could will all his property to
Yogananda at his death. The attorney drew up a legal deed describing Yukteswar as founder of
“Yogoda Sat Sanga Society of India and America” and Yogananda as president. When it came
time to sign, Yogananda was unable to contain his resentment at not being considered the
organization’s founder. He burst out, “I was really the one who did everything…” Yukteswar
stared at Yogananda momentarily, before collecting his walking stick and stalking out, leaving
everyone in the attorney’s office “absolutely dumbstruck.” In the car, an enraged Yukteswar
exploded, “That is not self will; that is unlawful conduct.”
62

61
Satyananda also recognized that “Sriyutkeswar was aware that Yogananda might be envious of the image of
Swami Vivekananda, because of Yogananda’s ambition of wanting to be great” and tried to educate Yogananda to
appreciate Vivekananda’s works properly without envy. Swami Satyeswarananda, disciple of Yogananda’s
childhood friend and ashram partner, Satyananda, reports this dialogue as an account Satyananda shared with him
late in his life. See Swami Satyeswarananda Giri, Kriya: The True Path (San Diego: Sanskrit Classics, 1991), 150.
62
Dasgupta, 94-95. Yogananda’s younger brother Sananda, witness to Yukteswar’s outburst in the car, quietly
passed over any conflict between Yogananda and Yukteswar in his own account of their interactions. His entire
description of their time together amounts to a single clause—not even a full sentence: “After a few days with the
devotees in Calcutta, and with his guru, Sri Yukteswarji, in nearby Serampore, Mejda made plans to travel by car to
Ranchi.” (‘Mejda,’ 199). In the Autobiography, Yogananda mentions none of this conflict, known only to the
handful of people at the attorney’s office. Instead, he claims that Yukteswar entrusted the Puri ashram to his care—
which he attended to by sending a Ranchi devotee, Swami Sebananda, to oversee it—while making no mention
whatsoever of the Serampore ashram. See Autobiography, 400n. Regarding questions about Gandhi, the granting of
the “Paramhansa” title, the fight with Yukteswar, and a number of other important issues, the travel diary kept by
217
The conflict between the two still raw, Yogananda decided to attend the Allahabad
kumbha mela—the great religious pilgrimage that drew millions—in January. Yukteswar
ridiculed Yogananda’s desire to attend, asking him what he would gain by witnessing naked
sadhus, but Yogananda persisted with his plans.
63
Consequently, Yogananda was away from the
Yukteswar’s Puri ashram when he became gravely ill. Receiving word of the illness, Yogananda
hesitated to return, behavior his brother found inexplicable.
64
As a result of Yogananda’s delay,
he was absent from his guru’s bedside at his moment of death, an unexpected outcome for
someone who claimed he traveled halfway around the world at his guru’s behest to meet him
before he died.
But Yogananda soon claimed to have experienced a supernatural vision of the resurrected
Yukteswar. Like the earlier presentiments of his mother and brother’s deaths, Yukteswar’s
postmortem appearance provided reassurance that seemingly tragic events fit within a larger
cosmic scheme.
65
Yukteswar absolved Yogananda of responsibility for his questionable behavior
and expressed his explicit, unconditional love, an affirmation the exacting guru had never
offered Yogananda while he was alive. He also gave Yogananda an extraordinary cosmological
revelation—he was now living on an astral planet where travel and reproduction both happened

Richard Wright would likely be very illuminating, but its contents remain publically unknown, as the diary remains
in SRF’s possession. Other than a few small excerpts in the Autobiography and Inner Culture, it has never been
published.
63
Though Yogananda omitted the mockery from his recollection of the incident, he did corroborate Dasgupta’s
claim that he departed for the kumbha mela against Yukteswar’s wishes (Autobiography, 401).
64
Yogananda to Lynn, March 17, 1936, in Rajarsi, 103. ‘Mejda,’ 224, comments that, despite having received a
telegram demanding “Come to Puri at once,” Yogananda did not leave on the night train, but waited until the next
night. “I did not understand why, at the time,” he states.
65
As early as July 1, 1936, he had written to the Lewises that “the other day I saw him resurrected in a strange new
way—and I was very happy. He answered ally my questions…” See S. Yogananda to Doc and Mil [Lewis], July 1,
1936 in Rosser, Treasures Against Time, 143. He sent one important letter to Lynn, assuring him of his spiritual
importance by acting as a channel for the resurrected Yukteswar, who was “more real to me than ever” after his
resurrection. “Beloved son, your life and actions have glorified us. You are a celestial instrument. Expand fearlessly
in the realm of renunciation for the cause of Self-Realization, India, and humanity. India’s spiritual habits mark your
forehead. Your actions are joyfully recognized and witnessed by the All-Supreme and by the Gurus.” See Swami
Yogananda to James Lynn, October 1, 1936, in Rajarshi Janakananda, 35. He elaborated on this encounter in his
Autobiography a decade later (Autobiography, 413-433).
218
by thought, not the efforts of the body. In light of the argument that ruptured their relationship,
perhaps the most imaginative element of Yukteswar’s appearance was his assurance that
Yogananda had received authority to inherit and administer all of his master’s property.
66

Ultimately, the resurrection appearance functioned as a transfer of power. Yukteswar’s death
created a leadership vacuum in the swami lineage, a vacuum naturally filled by his hand-picked
successor, their disagreements notwithstanding.
For those left in charge of daily affairs at Mt. Washington, the long absence of their
global guru caused difficulty. Throughout the trip, Yogananda wrote regularly to key leaders,
informing them of his progress and striving to keep morale up.
67
But he devoted most of his
correspondence to James Lynn—three dozen letters, most of them quite long compared with the
terse notes dashed off to others. Deploying the most effusive “wish you were here” sentiments,
Yogananda wrote “My heart died within me not to have you with us here in this beautiful vale of
Kashmir with lakes” and “I am taking your soul with me to every spiritual place. Your soul and I
meditate in every spiritual place I meet.”
68
With effusive, erotic prose, he reassured Lynn of the
deep, unique bond the two shared:
“I am with you always, ever going deeper, ever feeling deeper bliss in you and in
your devoted group and in me and all.”

“You have satisfied all my desires for an ideal beloved one who has carried out all

66
Neither the Serampore nor the Puri ashram (where Yukteswar died) was deeded to Yogananda; presently, they
remain outside of SRF ownership.
67
He sent brief notes to Sister Gyanamata, in charge of Mt. Washington and its financial and housing challenges, to
encourage her steadfastness. He reminded this “guardian angel” that “Mt. Washington needs you—I need you,” and
that her “[t]wenty years of your loyalty has become loyalty for eternity given to God.” See Yogananda to Sister
[Gyanamata], November 24, 1935; S Yogananda to Sister [Gyanamata], January 6, 1936, and S.Y. to Sister
[Gyanamata], May 19, 1937. To Dr. Lewis, his earliest and most faithful supporter, he said how pleased he was that
the “organization is being looked after ably by you.” He affirmed their friendship, telling Lewis that he was “heart-
sick” that he was not on the trip, and reassuring him that “you have been my greatest friend in need next to God,
Master and my earthly father.” Yogananda added a footnote to one letter, indicating “expenses are terrific—however
getting along through God’s Grace.” See S. Yogananda to Doc and Mil [Lewis], July 2, 1935; SY to Doctor [Lewis]
July 21, 1935; and S. Yogananda to Doctor [Lewis], October 3, 1935; in Rosser, Treasures Against Time, 140-142.
68
Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, May 19, 1936, in Rajarshi Janakananda, 110; Swami Yogananda to James
Lynn, July 31, 1935, in Ibid., 69.
219
the demands of divine discipline. What more could I want?”

“Dreams about our divine communion often flit by my mind, and I have caught
one of those dreams of happiness and painted it in words as it comes straight from
the chamber of my heart.”
69

While Lynn was saddled with great stress and responsibility, Yogananda remained on what
seemed like an extended worldwide sightseeing tour. Yogananda snuffed any smoldering
resentment by portraying the trip as unrelenting work. “I was busy in America,” he explained,
“but I did not imagine completely what work was waiting for me here. Hundreds visiting me,
clamoring for lessons. I am busy from morning till one o’clock at night.”
70

Given the financial investment required to establish an international presence for his
ministry, it was essential for Yogananda to maintain close ties with Lynn. Even in the midst of
financial difficulties and a legal judgment, Yogananda boldly pressed Lynn for more funds,
assuring him that he wanted nothing for himself and only thought about SRF’s well being. In a
long letter, he pressed Lynn to set up a trust fund promptly, warning him “not to give Satan
opportunity to cause us and our work trouble.” He flattered and pressured Lynn simultaneously,
while calling Mt. Washington the child Lynn had never had:
You are the chosen instrument of God; you can do it, you must, no one else can,
for you are the chosen one. That is your spiritual test and supreme problem to
solve. God has given you no child for that reason, that you may provide and make
secure your spiritual child of Mt. Washington. This would remove from us the
desire to make C.C. [correspondence course] paying. C.C. would be used as a
divine agent only to uplift people and not be thought as a means of financial
support, even to make the work self-supporting.
71

Lynn’s reluctance to provide the required funding stemmed partly from a concern that his
financial resources were being used to commercialize religious work. This prompted a lengthy

69
Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, July 28, 1935, in Rajarsi Janakananda, 69; Swami Yogananda to James Lynn,
August 9, 1935, in Ibid., 73; Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, June 26, 1936, Ibid., 115.
70
Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, September 19, 1935, in Rajarshi Janakananda, 75.
71
Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, April 6, 1936, in Rajarshi Janakananda 105-107. In another letter, Yogananda
referred to Mt. Washington as Lynn’s “supreme child.” See Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, November 16, 1935,
Ibid., 91-92.
220
response from Yogananda, offering rare insight into his thinking about the role of promotion:
I want to tell you my opinion about what I see: About commercializing
our work, I really do hate to see anyone commercializing religion. By
commercializing it means “using religion for individual benefit or benefit of the
business.” Are we doing that? No. Then what are we doing? We are not using
religion for business, but we are using business methods in religion, which we
must do. Sincere seekers won’t be found in a hundred years unless they know our
work and me. The quicker they know through advertisements, the better it is.
Some may turn away because of advertisements, but careful wording would not
turn sincere seekers away; they would be increasingly found. Aren’t Bibles sold?
Somebody has to pay for them. What sin in selling to-the-point benefitting
instructions and using the money to print more of such. You must know of
hundreds of others who hungrily wait for the weekly Lessons. Sincere seekers are
satisfied with truth, and they never mind helping the cause of spreading same by
paying…”
72

Besides the blessing his generosity bestowed on others, Lynn himself would receive—indeed,
had already received—spiritual payment for his material support.
73
Yogananda’s lobbying
eventually paid off, as Lynn agreed to pay off not only Mt. Washington’s mortgage, but to
purchase the Ranchi ashram as well.
74

After a lengthy return journey, Yogananda arrived at Mt. Washington at long last in
December 1936, eighteen months after he departed. He was greeted with a huge celebration
banquet, which included an announcement of Lynn’s further generosity. Lynn had purchased
land on a beautiful bluff in Encinitas, near San Diego, for an ashram. In his autobiography,

72
Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, April 27, 1936, in Rajarshi Janakananda, 108.
73
“Half of my spiritual realization is yours. I have given so much to none but you…I have taken almost all of your
karma on myself—and I will work the sufferance out in this body—that you may be free from the subtle traps of
desires and attachments and have a clear sailing, like a shooting star in the distant heavens. [As a result] of all my
efforts, you have been blest with ever-increasing joy and spiritual development without interruption. This is my
spontaneous gift of my deepest love to you, which you have acquired with utter unselfishness, love, and devotion,
and relieving me of a great many organizational duties.” See Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, July 31, 1935,
Rajarshi Janakananda, 69. He also reassured him that “all you have renounced for God is reserved for you manifold
in heaven, to be used in any incarnation you want.” See Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, October 1, 1935, in Ibid.,
80.
74
“Blessed one, words cannot express my happiness to know that right along with all of your responsibilities you
have freed our beloved Mt. Washington from practically all debts. What freedom you have given to the institution;
may that freedom be yours in spirit and in material things.” See Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, November 16,
1935, in Rajarshi Janakananda, 90. Lynn topped off his generosity by paying for the Ranchi ashram. See Swami
Yogananda to James Lynn August 20, 1936, in Ibid., 128.
221
Yogananda characterized this as a surprise welcome home gift, to which he reacted with
“astonishment” and “delight,” as “[n]ot a word of the hermitage construction had been allowed
to reach me during my stay in India and Europe.”
75
While construction of an ashram on the site
may have caught Yogananda off guard, acquisition of the property could not have been a
surprise; a year before his India trip, he had urged Lynn to purchase that precise tract of land, and
after he left he repeatedly directed his secretary Merna Brown to press Lynn on the matter.
76
This
breathtaking spot overlooking the Pacific Ocean was prime real estate in a healthful climate.
Prominent Los Angeles architect Charles C. Frye, first Civil Works Administration director in
Los Angeles County and creator of the San Francisco Palace Hotel, designed the buildings.
77
As
an Inner Culture article described it, “The Yogoda Dream Hermitage, nestled on a hill, mirrored
in the sea, unsurpassed in splendor, [is] one of the garden spots of the world…a combination of
the highest devices of utility offered by modern science and the finest beauty of sky, mountain,
ocean, trees and caves offered by Nature.”
78
Apart from the importance of a pleasing aesthetic
environment for meditation, the ocean was a crucial metaphor for the relationship between the
individual soul and God in Yogananda’s view. It also functioned as an important symbol the
bridge between East and West, as the ocean laps both shores.
79
Encinitas quickly became the
soul of SRF. Southern California had been SRF’s headquarters for a decade, and Yogananda had

75
Yogananda, Autobiography, 477-478.
76
In a 1934 letter, Yogananda had written to Lynn about the Encinitas tract, “Some day I know God will free you
from your business lie and then you could come there, free from the entanglements of an organization, and meditate
on that sacred hill in complete ecstasy with God. Swami Yogananda to James Lynn, 1934, in Rajarshi Janakananda,
54. He told Brown before he departed, “When Mr. Lynn comes, show him the Encinitas beach property.” On the
trip, he wrote in June and again in October, urging, “Positively show Mr. Lynn the place on the beach hill in
Encinitas When he acquires that land, my last wish will be fulfilled. There is no place like it. Try your utmost.” See
Joan Wight, A Trilogy of Divine Love (Beverly Hills: Joan Wight, 1992), 99.
77
“Frye Funeral Today,” Los Angeles Times, Nov 9, 1937, A1.
78
Wright, “The Spread of Self-Realization Fellowship,” Inner Culture, March 1937, 44-46. The Los Angeles Times
proclaimed that the $400,000 project on 17 acres, “conspicuous by its oriental design and striking decorative
features, is easily seen by motorists traveling over the Coast Highway.” See “Temple and Hermitage Completed
Near Encinitas,” Los Angeles Times, November 2, 1937, 9.
79
See Autobiography, 484.
222
developed a strong connection to the region as a whole, routinely viewing it as the part of the US
most like India—a uniquely sacred place.
80
Encinitas became the center of that sacred space,
surpassing Mt. Washington as SRF’s central sacred location. Yogananda spent most of his
remaining years in Encinitas, often in the company of its benefactor, James Lynn. The two
enjoyed the divine presence together in a heavenly setting.
The December 1936 welcome banquet was also punctuated by speeches from important
leaders that paid tribute to Yogananda’s exalted status. Lynn paid homage to his mentor with an
adulatory speech. A bland presenter Lynn reflected on Yogananda’s American ministry in light
of common stereotypes about India, commenting, “What a blessing it has been for us that India,
a country that many people think of as a land of snake-charmers, did send one to our shores who
could bring us God consciousness that our souls might be revealed and bring us Divine Joy and
Divine Happiness.” Nerode characterized Yogananda as the one who had “washed away” the
“many sorrows” in his life, and a “great flame” from which he had “tried to gather light.” Jotin
compared Yogananda’s physical presence to the sacredness of pilgrimage places, proclaiming
“Being here at my Master’s feet, I have visited all the holy places on earth.” Sri Ranendra Kumar
Das offered the boldest tribute: “There is only one parallel that can be given to the life of Swami
Yogananda. As nineteen hundred years ago in the streets of Galilee Jesus used to walk, his long
robe flowing, his benign countenance lightened with the consciousness and realization of God,
his mouth uttering the divine message to bring the wayward souls back to God, so similarly
Swamiji goes on unselfishly, pursuing the ideal of service to all the children of God.”
81
In light

80
Anne Feldhaus, Connected Places: Region, Pilgrimage, and Geographical Imagination in India (Gordonsville,
VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 5, 7. Geographer Anne Feldhaus describes a sacred region as “an area with a
distinct identity and significance,” spurring affective and cognitive attachment, “a sense of the place as one’s own
place, one’s home, a place that one belongs to and that belongs to one in some important way. Even further,
awareness of where one is…can become an important element in understanding who one is: it can become a vital
aspect of a person’s identity.”
81
“Convocation Banquet Speeches,” Inner Culture, March 1937, 14ff.
223
of Yogananda’s hints about his Christ-like identity in The Second Coming, Das’s comparison
probably did not strike Yogananda or his audience as excessive.
While his close disciples closed ranks in their adulation of Yogananda, rank and file SRF
members did not seem to understand the grandeur of the teacher they were blessed to have in
their midst. So a campaign to educate SRF members about their guru’s true identity was
launched. Richard Wright explained the new title of Paramhansa in Inner Culture, so that
Yogananda did not have to trumpet his own swan title directly. There is little doubt, however,
that he was behind Wright’s instruction, given his oversight of all SRF activities and
publications:
During Swami Yogananda’s visit to India in 1936, after fifteen years’
spiritual work in America at the command of his great master, Swami Sri
Yukteswarji of Puri, the latter honored him with the title of Paramhansa. Param
means “supreme” and hamsa means “soul”. It is the highest spiritual title which a
divine guru-preceptor can bestow on his disciple. It is never merely a title, given
without reason or just in recognition of material service to others. The guru only
bestows it on his disciple when the latter has reached a very high state of Cosmic
Concsiousness, Divine Joy, Wisdom-Bliss, and God-contact in Self-Realization.

The Divine Swan
Another meaning of hamsa in the word Paramhansa, is “swan.” The
ancient scriptures speak of a fabled swan which when drinking can separate the
milk from the water if the two are mixed. In this sense, the title Paramhansa
means the divine swan or he who is able to extract the milk of spiritual bliss from
the waters of material life. The swan also flats in water without drowning or
getting its feathers wet. So the royal divine swan or Paramhansa is he who can
float on the waters of material life without getting attached to it or drowned in it.
82

This educational campaign was apparently slow to catch on. Five years later, Inner Culture was
still posting announcements in each issue, explaining the significance of the term. More than
simply providing information, these announcements seem designed to procure appropriate
deference to Yogananda:
The English equivalent of Paramhansa is “Master.” The title Paramhansa

82
“Golden Lotus Temple of All Religions,” Inner Culture (December 1937), 59.
224
supersedes the title of Swami. The followers of Yogananda's teachings now
address him, in accordance with his Guru Sri Yukteswarji's wishes, a Paramhansa
(or Paramhansaji. Ji is a term of respect in India and is always used when
addressing spiritual teacher, as Guruji, Yoganandaji, Mahatmaji, Swamiji, etc.)
The title of Paramhansa was bestowed on Yogananda when he visited his Guru in
India in 1936.
83

The growth and expansion of SRF throughout the 1940s largely matched Yogananda’s
pretensions to the title “global guru.” While Yogananda liked to portray a vision of continuous
unrelenting progress, church growth actually followed a pattern of expansion, contraction, and
relocation.
84
Some shrinkage in the early 1940s may have been the result of extensive negative
press stemming from another lawsuit by a former partner. Sri Nerode claimed that Yogananda
“has been conducting himself in a matter repugnant to the organization and been teaching
doctrines opposed to those of the Hindu self-realization philosophy.” Among other things,
Yogananda’s alleged misconduct included holding himself up as “a sort of deity.”
85
In any case,
SRF experienced consistent post-World War II growth with several notable features. First,
Southern California remained the organization’s spiritual center, with domestic church expansion
especially prominent there. A congregation was established in nearby Long Beach and a temple
constructed in San Diego. The Lake Shrine, a Pacific Palisades meditation site, was dedicated in

83
“Title of ‘Paramhansa,’” Inner Culture, Oct-Dec 1941, 56.
84
By the onset of World War II, there were 34 SRF centers, including overseas centers in London, Latvia,
Johannesburg, and 7 centers in India. By the late 1940s, at least a dozen centers had closed, including centers in
prominent cities—many of which had been established for a number of years. Santa Barbara, Fresno, San Francisco,
New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Dayton, St. Paul, Milwaukee, and Salt Lake City centers present in 1940
had disappeared by 1948. It is not clear what prompted this contraction.
85
Nerode also claimed that Yogananda lived in luxurious conditions and was “visited at all times of night by young
women.” But mostly, as a co-author of many SRF materials, Nerode seemed upset by being cut out of the ministry’s
profits, which he calculated at $1 million. Nerode lost the suit when Yogananda’s attorney produced letters proving
that no partnership existed between the two. Yogananda had learned his lesson from the earlier Dhirananda lawsuit
and had required Nerode to sign a release indicating that he would never claim “any part of the proceeds derived
from Swami Yogananda’s Correspondence Course, or his books, magazine, or any income of his whatsoever,” and
that Nerode would only receive “free minimum board and lodging for his services,” and could be let go at any time.
See “Swami Sued for $500,000: Action Charges Girls Living at Headquarters of Religious Leader,” Los Angeles
Times, Oct 24, 1939; “Swami's Share Profits Pledge Told at Trial: Plaintiff Quotes Yogananda as Declaring Their
Assets Valued at $1,000,000,” Los Angeles Times, December 5, 1940, 2; “Absent Swami Wins in Court: Former
Associate’s Claim for $500,000 Partnership Denied,” Los Angeles Times, December 11, 1940, 2. Jon R. Parsons, A
Fight for Religious Freedom: A Lawyer’s Personal Account of Copyrights, Karma and Dharmic Litigation (Nevada
City: Crystal Clarity Publishing, 2012), 94-96.
225
a public ceremony attended by the California lieutenant governor.
86
Most significantly,
Yogananda oversaw the building of a Temple in Hollywood, on the prominent thoroughfare of
Sunset Blvd. Lined by palm trees, it conveyed his aspiration to be at symbolic center of Southern
Californian culture. An “India Center” auditorium was added to the site in 1951. Second, the
earlier broad national dispersion of SRF centers disappeared, as major Eastern and Midwestern
cities no longer hosted groups, perhaps as a consequence of lingering cultural conservatism
stirred by the war.
87
Finally, the growth of international centers was quite remarkable. Eight
centers in India were complemented by a dozen others: two in England, one in Germany, four in
West Africa, two in Mexico, and two in Canada.
88
More than half of all Self-Realization
Fellowship centers were now located overseas, symbolizing an important international shift in
membership and outlook.

Autobiography of a Divine Global Yogi
Of all the texts that established Yogananda’s vision of himself and his role in the world,
none is more crucial than The Autobiography of a Yogi.
89
Even granting that as a “corrective
intervention into the past” an autobiography always recreates childhood experiences “the way the
individual would have liked it to happen, with new dialogue, feelings and resolution of the

86
Ad, Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1950, A2.
87
Possibly, there was a lack of interest in a foreign-seeming faith in the midst of patriotic war fervor, a feeling
which continued after the war’s end. While Gerald Sittser, A Cautious Patriotism: The American Churches and the
Second World War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997) contends that World War II saw much
less religious fervor than before, in part because religious leaders had come to view their embrace of the nation
during World War I as idolatrous, he still acknowledges that the war reinforced the perceived link between Christian
identity and the American nation. In any case, the closures reveal the tenuous hold many of these centers had. The
establishment of new centers offset this loss of churches, with the number of facilities at 35 by 1948.
88
The importance of the British Dominion is apparent, as all but three of the international centers were in current or
former British territories.
89
Perhaps more than any other text by Yogananda, The Autobiography has been heavily edited since his death.
Previous scholars studying Yogananda have used later editions of the book without seeming to be aware of how they
differ from the 1946 publication.
226
episode,” Yogananda’s nearly 500-page book remains atypical.
90
His omissions are surprising.
Yogananda recounts virtually nothing about his twenty-five year ministry in the United States,
which constituted nearly half of his life at the time of writing. He also left out many conventional
features of childhood accounts, including childhood play, likes and dislikes, early schooling,
romantic attractions, etc. In place of these typical autobiographical features, he filled his book
with fantastic accounts like this:
"I saw a yogi remain in the air, several feet above the ground, last night at
a group meeting." My friend, Upendra Mohun Chowdhury, spoke impressively.
I gave him an enthusiastic smile. "Perhaps I can guess his name. Was it
Bhaduri Mahasaya, of Upper Circular Road?"
Upendra nodded, a little crestfallen not to be a news-bearer. My
inquisitiveness about saints was well-known among my friends; they delighted in
setting me on a fresh track.
"The yogi lives so close to my home that I often visit him." My words
brought keen interest to Upendra's face, and I made a further confidence.
"I have seen him in remarkable feats. He has expertly mastered the various
pranayamas of the ancient eightfold yoga outlined by Patanjali. Once Bhaduri
Mahasaya performed the Bhastrika Pranayama before me with such amazing
force that it seemed an actual storm had arisen in the room! Then he extinguished
the thundering breath and remained motionless in a high state of
superconsciousness. The aura of peace after the storm was vivid beyond
forgetting."
"I heard that the saint never leaves his home." Upendra's tone was a trifle
incredulous.
"Indeed it is true! He has lived indoors for the past twenty years. He
slightly relaxes his self-imposed rule at the times of our holy festivals, when he
goes as far as his front sidewalk! The beggars gather there, because Saint Bhaduri
is known for his tender heart."
"How does he remain in the air, defying the law of gravitation?"
"A yogi's body loses its grossness after use of certain pranayamas. Then it
will levitate or hop about like a leaping frog. Even saints who do not practice a
formal yoga have been known to levitate during a state of intense devotion to
God."
"I would like to know more of this sage. Do you attend his evening
meetings?" Upendra's eyes were sparkling with curiosity.
"Yes, I go often. I am vastly entertained by the wit in his wisdom.

90
Giddens, 76, 73. Dermot Killingley, “Manufacturing Yogis: Swami Vivekananda as a Yoga Teacher,” in Gurus in
America, edited by Thomas A. Forsthoefel and Cynthia Ann Humes (Albany: State University of New York Press,
2005), 20, describes how Vivekananda “takes liberties with his own biography,” though these are on a much more
modest level (generally errors in chronology) than the program Yogananda undertook.
227
Occasionally my prolonged laughter mars the solemnity of his gatherings. The
saint is not displeased, but his disciples look daggers!"
91

Too often, questions about the veracity of the miraculous events have distracted scholars
reviewing the Autobiography, leading them to focus their attention on the wrong time and place;
while early-twentieth century India was Yogananda’s narrative world, investigation should focus
on the text’s rhetorical effect on his mid-century American audience.
92
The question to ask is,
What was Yogananda trying to DO with this book?
93
The short answer is this:
Yogananda sought to create a new scripture for the modern world with himself as
the Messianic messenger sent by God to proclaim self-realization through yoga.

To develop the claim that the Autobiography is scripture, this section will begin by applying a
drastically simplified model of A.J. Greimas’s structural semantics, which focuses on how
narratives function within their own self-enclosed universes of meaning. Greimas argued that
nearly all stories share a few stock features, which he represented by the following graphic:

91
Autobiography, 62-63.
92
For example, Polly Trout, “Hindu Gurus, American Disciples, and the Search for Modern Religion, 1900 -1950,”
133, canvases the options and makes her own conclusion without considering the rhetorical nature of the text.
“There are several possibilities:
1) The miracles Yogananda describes are veridically, literally true.
2) They did not "really" happen as Yogananda perceived them, but he is genuinely convinced that they did, and is
therefore entirely honest in his account of them.
3) They did not "really" happen, and Yogananda knows this, but he is using these stories as metaphorical
pedagogical devices. In other words, he is engaging in a mode of discourse in which literalist definitions of truth and
falsity are irrelevant.
4) Yogananda was a liar.
I am inclined to believe that either the second or third option is the case.”
93
Another way to pose this question is to ask, How does the book function as a performative speech act? Speech act
theory focuses on the way language—extended here to written texts— can be “performative,” causing something to
be by proclaiming it so, creates relationships between speaker and audience, provoking particular responses from
their audiences. See J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, second edition (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1975).
228

A story involves a sender commissioning a subject to accomplish some object (sometimes, the
delivery of a message) to a receiver. Along the way, the subject faces both opposition from
opponents and assistance from helpers. The story’s outcome depends on its genre, a function of
the setting in which the narrative transpires.
94

Analysis of the Autobiography will begin with a consideration of the setting. This
requires recognizing that Yogananda perceived the United States as epitomizing what Max
Weber described as the “iron cage” of modernity: a society that had become “disenchanted,”
abandoning spirituality in its quest for material comfort and technological prowess.
95
Borrowing
a stock criticism employed at least since Vivekananda, Yogananda routinely deplored the
shallowness and materialism of the West, offering India as the spiritual counterpoint to this
superficiality. The Autobiography’s setting was not turn of the century India per se, but an
imagined India Yogananda appropriated from Western Orientalists; one evidence of the fictitious
nature of his India was the utter absence of the British colonial presence—the pure, spiritual
India was untainted by the West. In Yogananda’s usage, India was more than a place; it was a
parallel but distinct reality from the disenchanted Western world. Readers could experience

94
Algirdas Julien Greimas, On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press), 1987, especially Chapter 6, “Actants, Actors, and Figures;” A.J. Greimas, Structural Semantics:
An Attempt at a Method (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966).
95
This chapter is not necessarily arguing for the veracity Weber’s secularization thesis, but rather that Yogananda
functionally worked from a similar set of assumptions. On Weber and “disenchantment” see Richard Jenkins,
Disenchantment, Enchantment and Re-Enchantment: Max Weber at the Millennium,” Max Weber Studies 1 (2000),
11-32.
229
“India” as an alternative reality—wherever they lived—if they sought constant awareness of the
spiritual realm. Audiences certainly found it easier to embrace an enchanted universe, where
astounding miracles transpired everyday, when it was located in the mystical Orient, far from the
mundane setting of their own workaday lives.
Yogananda employed an arsenal of strategies to re-enchant the world. First, he gave the
Autobiography the “feel” of sacred text. His word choice was strategic. Throughout the book, he
imitated Scripture with intentionally archaic language that evoked the English Bible.
96
He
routinely cited sacred texts in his copious footnotes—the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita,
Ramayana, and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, as well as the Bible, especially the Gospels—as
authoritative sources. Most importantly, however, he imitated common Indian storytelling
traditions. Yogananda structures his narrative through a series of dialogs with the many strange
spiritual figures he encountered on his spiritual path. These dialogs, besides serving the basic
storytelling function of making the events more lifelike and exciting, created a story-within-a-
story or “frame story” pattern familiar to Indians from the great epics, like the Mahabharata and
Ramayana, to the Puranas.
97
As originally oral tales, smaller narratives gradually accreted
around the main narrative, creating a meandering, non-linear structure in which one fantastic
account segued into another—an enchanted world where supernatural occurrences routinely take

96
In 1946, the proliferation of English vernacular translations had not yet begun; the vast majority of American
Protestants knew the Bible through the Authorized, or King James, Version of 1611; Catholics were familiar with
the similarly archaic-sounding Douai-Rheims translation. Autobiography readers would be reminded of the Bible
because it was the only place they might routinely encounter such dated language. As a small, unscientific sample,
Chapter One includes the following words, all of which can be found in the King James Bible, but most of which
had an archaic ring in twentieth-century American language: verities, dwell, blessings, bulwarked, beguiling.
Though English was not Yogananda’s first language, he had been in the United States for 25 years at this point
(besides having learned English in India) and that his other writings do not display this kind of archaism, so this
strategy seems intentional.
97
On “frame stories” in Indian epics, see Alf Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabharata: A Reader's Guide to the
Education of the Dharma King (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 93-97.
230
place. In this genre, historical verifiability is not the point.
98
The basic trajectory of the story also
follows established stages of Indian hagiography:
1) miraculous origins: a child is born under unusual circumstances into a well-off
family and grows up demonstrating precocious abilities
2) spiritual search: the individual begins a search for spiritual truth, experiencing
humiliation or loss as the trigger for the search or as a consequence of it
3) initiation by a guru: after many adventures, journeys, and guidance by holy
men, the individual finds his guru, who initiates him into a formal spiritual path
4) growing ministry: the individual, who displays a commanding personality,
grows in independent spiritual authority—usually defying some norm or
authority—founding his own ashram or sect, confounding spiritual rivals, and
gathering an increasing number of followers
5) approaching the end: often near the end of life (which may be supernaturally
foreknown), the individual achieves spiritual enlightenment, merging with or
becoming God.
99

This overall pattern fits the Autobiography remarkably well. The one partial exception is step
five. Yogananda certainly depicts his own spiritual enlightenment, but since he is writing his
own hagiography he cannot narrate his own death. Hagiographic autobiography is a unique
phenomenon in its own right. Like the epics, hagiographic accounts typically accreted over the
centuries as later disciples invented new details; Yogananda created his own hagiography about
himself de novo.
He filled this hagiographic narrative world with miraculous events performed by
advanced yogis. Though a great many such events fill the book, they fall into a half-dozen
different formulaic categories, all of which fit within the expectations of siddhi yogic powers

98
See comment and citations in Orianne Aymard, When a Goddess Dies: Worshipping Ma Anadamayi after Her
Death (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 236.
99
This sequence has been compiled from a number of sources. Not all of the sources include all of the stages, but
there is enough similarity and overlap that together they form a gestalt of a saint’s life. Charles S.J. White, “Swami
Muktananda and the Enlightenment Through Sakti-Pat,” History of Religions 13, no. 4: (1981): 306-322; A.K.
Ramanujan, “On Women Saints,” in Radha and the Divine Consorts of India, edited by John Stratton Hawley and
Donna Marie Wulff (Berkeley: Berkeley Religious Studies Series, 1982), 316-324; William J. Jackson, “A Life
Becomes a Legend: Sri Tyagaraja as Exemplar,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 60, no. 4 (Winter,
1992): 717-736; Rupert Snell, “Introduction: Themes in Indian Hagiography,” in According to Tradition:
Hagiographical Writing in India, edited by Winand M. Callewaert and Rupert Snell (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
Verlag, 1994), 1-13; and David N. Lorenzen, “The Lives of Nirguni Saints,” in Bhakti Religion in North India:
Community Identity and Political Action, edited by David N. Lorenzen (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1995).
231
described in the Yoga Sutra.
100
Regardless of type, each miracle follows a stock formula that
begins with a narrative of the miracle itself. Next, characters who witness the miracle, including
Yogananda, express surprise or amazement. Finally, expressions of surprise provide an opening
for an enlightened figure to utter a divine revelation ultimately designed for the reader’s
edification. In some, though not all, cases the miracle serves a practical function for some
character that the narrative makes clear; in others, the purpose seems to be evocation of awe and
a concomitant explanation of cosmological truth.
The first miracle type, levitation, has already been described. As the account explained,
all physical reality—including human beings—is composed of energy and the realized yogi can
command energy to do whatever it wishes. Yogananda’s second miraculous type was mind
reading. As the narrator, Yogananda reveals to the reader something a character, often he
himself, was thinking. A yogi would vocalize the secret thought accurately, and respond
authoritatively to it. Not long after Yogananda and Yukteswar met, for example, the master
provided divinely-intuited guidance about Yogananda’s life at the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal
ashram: “It is time for a change, inasmuch as you are unhappily situated in the hermitage.” This
announcement surprised Yogananda, since he had shared nothing about his unhappiness with
Yukteswar. “By his natural, unemphatic manner, I understood that he wished no astonished
ejaculations at his clairvoyance.” Yukteswar counseled Yogananda to go back to Calcutta to live
with his family, which relieved the anguish Yogananda felt by providing authoritative guidance
for his dilemma.
101

Clairvoyance was the third type of miracle. A spiritual authority would announce some

100
Gerald James Larson, “Introduction to the Philosophy of Yoga,” in Gerald James Larson and Ram Shankar
Bhattacharya, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies Vol. 12: Yoga: India’s Philosophy of Meditation (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 2011), 125-129.
101
Autobiography, 95.
232
future event in detail and either counsel an appropriate response or explain how the person’s fate
could not be avoided. In one case, for example, Yukteswar announced, “The stars are about to
take an unfriendly interest in you, Mukunda. Fear not; you shall be protected. In about a month
your liver will cause you much trouble. The illness is scheduled to last for six months, but your
use of an astrological armlet will shorten the period to twenty-four days.” Yukteswar directed
Yogananda to purchase a silver bangle to lessen the severity of the malady. Because of his
excellent health, however, “Master's prediction slipped from my mind. He left Serampore to visit
Benares. Thirty days after our conversation, I felt a sudden pain in the region of my liver.”
Yukteswar’s clairvoyance communicated that fate could be foreknown and even, to an extent,
counteracted, if one responded with the appropriate faith.
102

The fourth type of miraculous feat was bilocation. A spiritual figure was expected to be
in one location, but a trustworthy eyewitness met him simultaneously in a completely different
location. The witness remembered some specific detail that provided the linchpin proving that
the saint really had been in two places at the same time. Swami Pranabananda was meeting with
Yogananda at his home even while he met Yogananda’s friend KedarNath Bubu down by the
river. When the dual appearances were discovered, Kedar Nath pointed out, “Look, those are the
very sandals he was wearing at the ghat.” Pranabananda turned to Yogananda “with a quizzical
smile.” He asked, “Why are you stupefied at all this? The subtle unity of the phenomenal world
is not hidden from true yogis. I instantly see and converse with my disciples in distant Calcutta.
They can similarly transcend at will every obstacle of gross matter.” Rather than a parlor trick,
bilocation, like levitation, revealed profound truth about mastery over physical matter.
103

Finally, there were the feats of strength: going without food, demonstrating superhuman

102
Autobiography, 171-172.
103
Autobiography, 24-25.
233
might, or living without breathing for extended periods of time. The Tiger Swami, a man who
subdued wild tigers with his own brute strength, most colorfully illustrates the Autobiography’s
accounts of superhuman power. Challenged by a maharajah to fight his newly-capture tiger, the
Tiger Swami prevailed, using unnatural strength. Yogananda relayed the Tiger Swami’s account
in his own words. After being injured by the tiger, “I swung my left arm in a bone-cracking
blow. The beast reeled back, swirled around the rear of the cage, and sprang forward
convulsively. My famous fistic punishment rained on his head.” The fight continued as the rivals
exchanged blows. “The cage was pandemonium, as blood splashed in all directions, and blasts of
pain and lethal lust came from the bestial throat.” Finally, “I mustered all my will force,
bellowed fiercely, and landed a final concussive blow. The tiger collapsed and lay quietly.”
104

The table below summarizes the various types of miraculous feats, provides a brief definition of
each, and describes the spiritual revelation provided by that miracle type.
Type Definition Revelation
levitation floating in the air in defiance of gravity Human beings are composed of energy
that a yogi can control as he wishes
mind-reading knowing what another person is thinking A person’s inner being is not hidden from
a yogi
clairvoyance knowing the future before it happens Time does not function in a linear manner
for a yogi; he knows the future because he
experiences it already. Nothing surprises
him.
bilocation appearing in two places at one time Space does not function in a predictable
manner for a yogi; he can be in two places
at once because the body is energy that
he controls at will
feats of
strength
going without food, water, and or air for
long periods of time; demonstrating
extraordinary strength
The yogi is not limited by the body, but
with supreme mental control overcomes
the body’s constraints

Yogananda recognized that his canny modern audience might be skeptical of the truth of
such amazing claims. He created verisimilitude using a variety of subtle, creative strategies,
addressing readers’ doubt obliquely rather than through blunt direct statement. One strategy was

104
Autobiography, 59-60.
234
to play the vicarious role of the reader, putting himself in their position—open, but needing
confirmation. By putting skeptics’ words in his own mouth, he disarmed them. Conversely, he
put important expressions of truth into other people’s mouths, allowing others to articulate
spiritual truth without Yogananda directly adopting a didactic role. For example, when
Yogananda’s friend encountered the bilocating swami, he exclaimed, “Are we living in this
material age, or are we dreaming? I never expected to witness such a miracle in my life!”
105

Though Yogananda does not utter this comment, his ventriloquism subtly won readers to his
message to readers. Yogananda’s his perspective. Another strategy of verisimilitude was the way
he handled prophecies. While the content of prophetic announcements was not always
intrinsically remarkable, precise forecasting of even mundane future occurrences underscored the
power of prophecy. Since every prophecy Yogananda recounted had found fulfillment by the
time he described it, the reader finds it impossible not to wonder whether they are all vaticinium
ex eventu pronouncements.
106
Yogananda addressed this problem by creating long gaps between
the announcement of a prophecy and its fulfillment, claiming to have forgotten a specific
prophecy until after its fulfillment.
Having established the setting, it is time to turn to the subject or, perhaps, the hero. It will
be no surprise that Yogananda is the hero of his autobiography, though his full identity does not
become clear until the end of the narrative. The early chapters establish his spiritual precocity,
including the siddhi feat of remembering his previous existence, a memory that fades as his soul
awakens in the body of the newborn Mukunda. He also describes being frustrated at his infant
body not cooperating with his mind’s knowledge and abilities—he wants to walk, wants to

105
Autobiography, 25.
106
Swami Satyeswarananda Giri, Kriya, 179, comments, “Now, it seems that many additions, alterations, and
changes were made in the process of writing the book. Ideas were interjected to look as if some divine hands were
working behind the scenes. Mystifications were well thought out during the ten long years period of editing the
forty-nine chapters from the materials Yogananda had collected.”
235
speak, but cannot make his thoughts coalesce into language until Bengali settles in his mind.
Yogananda’s frequent descriptions of his unquenchable spiritual thirst would suggest that he was
his own sender—his yearning for spiritual truth sent him on the quest. But there are hints
throughout, including a prophecy given to his pregnant mother that she will give birth to a great
yogi, that his life path was foreordained. This suggests that the narrative’s ultimate sender is
God.
Along the way, he encountered many spiritual figures who functioned as helpers in his
spiritual quest. Most of the yogis who performed the miraculous feats described above
functioned as helpers who guided him into deeper understanding. But Sri Yukteswar, as
Yogananda’s personal guru, played the most significant role in his spiritual development.
Yogananda labored to show the worthiness of his mentor, someone possessing great wisdom and
supernatural power. Then Yogananda had to show that he enjoyed a uniquely intimate guru-
disciple relationship with the great master. He conveyed through descriptions of an exclusive
bond they shared. Beyond their dramatic first encounter, Yogananda recounted instances of
unique physical intimacy: touching Yukteswar’s feet, being tenderly cared for while ill, and,
most strikingly, sharing his master’s bed as a unique privilege. When Yukteswar appeared to
Yogananda after his death, Yogananda recognized him in part by his unique bodily odor. He also
related a number of private revelations of privileged information that intimated Yukteswar’s trust
and his transmission of authority to Yogananda, as the principle vehicle for Yukteswar’s
message to the West.
Because plot only exists where there is conflict, the Autobiography is suffused with
opponents. From his earliest years, opponents at every level conspired to thwart his spiritual
journey. But he ultimately prevailed against all odds. It is remarkable how consistently his
236
opponents were his own family members, rather than some sinister figure. Nearly every story he
recounts from his childhood involves opposition, skepticism, or doubt from a family member
over some spiritual reality or some event spiritually perceived. The upshot of these opposition
stories is always Yogananda’s complete vindication, though sometimes only after a delay. For
example, when his sister mocks his devotion to the Mother Goddess, Yogananda predicts that the
deity will give him victory in a kite battle where Indian children smeared glass fragments on
their kite strings and attempt to cut rivals’ strings. Needless to say, Yogananda gets precisely
what he foretells, to his sister’s chagrin.
Yogananda relates a great number of incidents of opposition from his oldest brother,
Ananta, perhaps most notably his attempt to keep Yogananda and his friends from escaping to
the Himalayas. But there are less dramatic examples. A fortune-teller predicts that Yogananda
will marry three times. Ananta accepts this prophecy and teases his brother, whose fate is clearly
sealed. But Yogananda rejects the legitimacy of this prediction; while he did in fact receive three
marriage arrangements, he rejected them all and never married.
Yogananda even clashed with his father, most notably in the example of the conflict
between the two over the decision not to depart immediately when news arrived of his mother’s
illness. Yogananda’s prophecy of her death proved prescient, despite his father’s dismissal of his
fears. Yogananda’s conflict with his father is especially surprising, given that his father was not a
skeptic but a deeply religious man who followed the same lineage. All of these accounts—a very
small sampling of a much larger collection—follow the same pattern: through spiritual
immaturity, blindness, or mean-spiritedness, Yogananda’s family members all doubted or
challenged him and all eventually have to admit their error. The only person free of such
opposition was Yogananda’s beloved mother, whose death left him so bereft he never desired to
237
cast her as a barrier on his spiritual path. While Yogananda probably experienced real grievances
with family members, he also seems to manufacture tension to make his life—which was
otherwise not especially difficult—fit the hagiographic pattern.
As the plot’s hero, Yogananda successfully conveys his message of yoga not only to the
spiritually hungry in America, but to the world. The final chapter finds Yogananda in his
beautiful Encinitas ashram, overlooking the great Pacific Ocean, writing the very volume that
readers hold in their hand. In brief compass, he surveyed his rapid institutional expansion—
Washington D.C., Temple, Hollywood Temple, and San Diego Temple—and hinted at plans he
had hatched with Dr. Lewis for a new venture in line with his global ambitions, a World Colony
of all Nations.
“‘World’ is a large term, but man must enlarge his allegiance, considering
himself in the light of a world citizen,” I continued. “A person who truly feels:
‘The world is my homeland; it is my America, my India, my Philippines, my
England, my Africa,’ will never lack scope for a useful and happy life. His natural
local pride will know limitless expansion; he will be in touch with creative
universal currents."”
Dr. Lewis and I halted above the lotus pool near the hermitage. Below us
lay the illimitable Pacific.
“These same waters break equally on the coasts of West and East, in
California and China.” My companion threw a little stone into the first of the
oceanic seventy million square miles. “Encinitas is a symbolic spot for a world
colony.”

The Autobiography closes with Yogananda’s reflection, “Lord,…Thou hast given this monk a
large family!”
107
The guru from India had become a guru to America, and he would soon be a
guru to the world.
Returning to Greimas’s structural analysis, the Autobiography might be initially
represented as below.

107
Autobiography, 484-485
238

A structural reading of the Autobiography thus suggests that it offers a “scriptural” account of
the divine messenger Yogananda’s successful quest to share yoga with the world. But just as the
subtext of The Second Coming hints at Yogananda’s exalted status, the Autobiography points
beyond Yogananda’s role as a mere missionary of yoga to something more profound. In the
course of the book, Yogananda established his spiritual pedigree through an unbroken line of
guru yogis from the mysterious, mythical Babaji, a “deathless” guru in the Himalayas about
whom people know very little; through his disciple, Lahiri Mahasaya, whose devotees included
Yogananda’s own parents; to Yukteswar, Yogananda’s personal guru. Those great self-realized
yogis all experienced siddhi powers like mindreading, clairvoyance, bilocation, and fantastic
feats of strength. Yogananda bestows titles like Yogi-Christ, divine guru, Savior, Divinity Itself
in the form of flesh on these yogis.
Even before Yogananda’s text began, the Preface already announced the link between
Yogananda and these other yogis. “The value of Yogananda's AUTOBIOGRAPHY,” W. Y.
Evans-Wentz proclaimed, “is greatly enhanced by the fact that it is one of the few books in
English about the wise men of India which has been written, not by a journalist or foreigner, but
by one of their own race and training—in short, a book ABOUT yogis BY a yogi.”
108
Given that
Yogananda was a yogi like his illustrious forebears, Babaji, Mahasaya, and Yukteswar, he was at

108
W. Y. Evans-Wentz, “Preface” in Paramhansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (New York: Philosophical
Library, 1946), vii-viii.
239
least their equal and worthy of the same respect. But since his global ministry far exceeded their,
his divine self-realization even exceeded theirs. Given their already exalted status, this could
only mean that he was presenting himself as a new Christ figure. In the Autobiography’s
narrative world, neither Yogananda’s exalted status nor the devotion it inspired was the result of
his own self-promotion. Rather, whatever had come to pass—fame, travel, property—had been
divinely ordained and was to be accepted humbly and gratefully. The final analysis of the
Autobiography thus looks like this, with Yogananda as both subject and object, commissioned by
God to offer himself—in part as a model, but more importantly, his presence—to the world, with
the Autobiography as one important vehicle of this message:

Critical reception of the Autobiography was generally unfavorable. The book merited
only a capsule review in New York Times, which read in its entirety: “A rare account of the
Indian cult from within, by one who practices it, with many photographs. An incident is contact
with Luther Burbank and his talks with the plants which responded to his conversation.”
109
A
review in the Chicago Daily Tribune Review entitled “Study of Yogi Mysticism and Swami
Tricks” described the first part of the book as a series of miracles. Later, the author claimed,
Yogananda attempts to explain these miracles in the language of modern science. “Whether he
succeeds in this, or merely wraps one mysticism up in another, you will have to judge for

109
“Religious Books of Recent Issue,” New York Times, Mar 15, 1947, 11.
240
yourself.”
110
The peer-reviewed Philosophy East and West offered the most denunciatory review.
“The book, widely advertised and read,” University of Hawaii Professor S.K. Saksena
commented, “will no doubt acquaint the reader with India, yoga, and Swami Yogananda, but
whether it will portray them truly is quite doubtful. Truth never suffers so much from its
opponent as from its over-zealous devotee.” Saksena was impatient with the book’s frequent
descriptions of miracles, but more with Yogananda’s self-promotion, as “it is not traditional for a
yogi in India to speak of himself as such; nor does a spiritual man style himself by the highest
title ‘Paramhansa,’ which is reserved for only those rare souls who have attained their liberation
from the bondage of earthly life and activity and live in complete equanimity of mind.”
111

International reviews showed only slightly more enthusiasm than domestic ones. A China
Weekly Review began by noting, “the contents of this book are unusual, to say the least.” The
author found that Yogananda’s accounts of miracles “arouse curiosity rather than conviction,”
including his account of passing his university exams without studying, which the reviewer
though “faintly ludicrous.” But he found the philosophical passages “very intriguing” and
ultimately concluded that the book was “well worth reading.” Given recent Western interest in
the Orient, “some idea of Eastern spiritual development is essential.”
112
A 1950 review of the
Dutch translation was rather bland. “Aside from the esoteric background, the book is interesting
in any case as an intimate description of life in India and some passages, e.g., where the young
boys set out on their own to become hermits in the Himalayas, are not devoid of humor.”
113
Only
the Times of India provided a gushing, if brief, endorsement: “The autobiography of this sage
makes captivating reading, and its value lies in the portrait of saints he has presented to the

110
“Study of Yogi Mysticism and Swami Tricks,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 15, 1947, C11.
111
S.K. Saksena, “Review of Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda,” Philosophy East and West 1,
No. 2 (Jul., 1951): 78-79.
112
“Sit Lux,” China Weekly Review, May 3, 1947, VI.
113
“Books in Various Languages,” Books Abroad 24, no. 4 (Fall 1950), 421.
241
reader, spiritual giants portrayed with remarkable fidelity to truth.”
114

But formal reviews do not provide the full picture. Popular interest in the Autobiography,
both in the US and abroad, belied these lukewarm or even hostile critical assessments, as it was
quickly translated into a number of foreign languages. Within eighteen months of its American
publication, the Autobiography had been translated into Bengali, Hindi, Spanish, French, Dutch,
and Swedish, and a British edition had been prepared. Global interest was due in no small part to
SRF’s aggressive promotion of “the book that is awakening thousands.” As SRF beamed, “This
is the first time that an authentic Hindu yogi has written his life experiences for a Western
audience. India’s great masters live in these unforgettable stories told by Paramhansa
Yogananda, chosen to bring their message to all. Entertaining from cover to cover.”
115

Enthusiastic responses poured in from all over the world—England, Australia, Germany,
Sweden, Austria, Canada, Argentina, Kenya, and Italy—thanking SRF for publishing a
“wonderful,” “marvelous,” “fascinating” book, “the greatest reading experience of my life.” The
Autobiography revealed profound spiritual truth that some readers had been seeking their whole
lives, and which other readers did not even know existed. Most readers, however, recognized that
the central message of the book was not the mere existence of truth, or even a yoga technique to
experience it, but about the yogi who told his story within its pages. As one Viennese reader pled
to Yogananda, “I ask you for help, Divine Master! Don’t refuse my request! Teach me Kriya
Yoga. Give me a sign of your grace which makes me an accepted disciple of your group. Grant
my supplication! Sitting at your sacred feet, I am waiting for a word of response from you.”
116

114
“Yoga,” The Times of India, Nov 19, 1950, 7.
115
Los Angeles Times, December 14, 1947, H6.
116
“Comments on ‘Autobiography of a Yogi,’” Self-Realization, September 1952, 40-41; “Comments on
‘Autobiography of a Yogi,’” Self-Realization, November 1952, 37-38; “Comments on ‘Autobiography of a Yogi,’”
Self-Realization, January 1953, 37; “Comments on ‘Autobiography of a Yogi,’” Self-Realization, May 1953, 35-36.
The quote is from September 1952, 41.

242
Conclusion
E.E. Dickinson, whose receipt of a silver cup confirmed the identity of Yogananda as his
true guru, became an exemplar of the many Americans who had a similar epiphany in the 1940s.
The Autobiography clearly did its work well, enlightening readers and drawing seekers from
across the country to prostrate themselves at their guru’s feet, whether literally or more
metaphorically. They were drawn by his authoritative spirituality and, at least implicitly, by his
claim to incarnated divinity. It is not clear precisely when Yogananda began to view himself as a
gurudev, a pure incarnation of deity whose mere presence conveys a blessing. It seems likely that
it began at his return in 1936, freshly crowned a Paramhansa. But certainly by the time he wrote
the Autobiography that tradition was well underway, the Autobiography only providing the
crowning touch. At some point, he began to limit access to his presence, encouraged people to
treat him with great reverence including touching his feet, and to view him as infallible. He took
shelter in cryptic comments and “līlā”—the quirky playfulness of a fully God-intoxicated
individual— to legitimize any behavior others might perceive as eccentric or inappropriate. But
even as the incarnated deity had reached his apotheosis, he was just a few years short of his
dramatic public death from a massive heart attack, presaged by a number of heart failure-related
health issues throughout the late 1940s. His followers would hail his death as his mahasamādhi,
a willed release from the physical realm. The carefully cultivated image of a divinely incarnated
swami would only grow more vibrant under his successors’ care, even as they struggled to guide
SRF and its mission after the loss of the charismatic figure who had made it all possible.

243

Encinitas Ashram, Encinitas, California (author photo).

Chapter Five:

An Immortal Guru Dies:
Charisma, Succession, and the Fate of Yogananda’s Legacy (1946-1952)

Former Music Room, Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles, where Paramhansa
Yogananda entered mahasamādhi, March 7, 1952 (author photo).

245
By 1952, Bramacharee Jotin had enjoyed the longest relationship with Yogananda of any
living disciple. One of three SRF leaders born in India, he had been an ashram student at Ranchi
when Yogananda received his call to the United States in 1920. Jotin had been summoned to
help with the ministry in 1928. The other two Indians, Dhirananda and Nerode, had long ago left
amidst acrimonious disputes with Yogananda regarding his authority and unwillingness to share
ministry proceeds that had spurred lawsuits. Jotin served the Washington, D.C. center faithfully,
enduring many hardships and ultimately earning Yogananda’s admiration, “Jotin, what you have
accomplished in Washington, I could not have done.” In 1941, during one of the many summers
he spent with his guru at Encinitas, Yogananda ordained him and he took the title Swami
Premananda.
Given the long, affectionate relationship the two shared, Yogananda’s death on March 5,
1952 came as a heavy blow to Premananda. He provided a lengthy account of his final
communion with Yogananda’s physical form, conveying Yogananda’s living presence by
directing his reverie to his guru in second person. Ushered into the bedroom where the body lay,
Premananda underwent a sublime experience. “Immersed in etheric radiance your earthly form
laid still—still as the summit of the Everest Mount beneath the star-lit heaven of midnight blue.
Even in death your countenance was shining in a heavenly glow.” Premananda prayed for one
more meeting with his master. “I placed my right hand upon your heart and motioned to my
fellow sister disciples to do the same…I felt your presence.” Then a miracle occurred. “To assure
us of your presence among us and the joyousness of your soul you shed tears. Tears of love and
joy trickled down the corners of both of your closed eyes. The disciples stood transfixed
observing this unbelievable occurrence.” Premananda commanded those present not to share
what they had witnessed. Shortly thereafter, he watched Yogananda’s soul depart its body.
246
The leaders present deliberated over what to do with their master’s body, ultimately
deciding for local burial. Lynn asked Premananda to perform Yogananda’s funeral, and
Premananda was honored to accept. He performed “the holy rite of liberation,” “ the last hand to
touch your sacred body”—he touched Yogananda’s shoulders, heart, and forehead as he chanted
a mantra,
By the touch of this fire, this body is purified,
By the touch of this water, this body is returned to its immortal nature,
By the touch of this sandalwood paste, this body is returned to God with devotion.

But the most significant moment for Premananda in Yogananda’s death and burial was
not the honor of conducting the funeral rites. The earlier bedside scene was much more
significant. Premananda had portrayed the other disciples as passive and mostly nameless, as
Yogananda’s soul communicated with him. “Now I realize why you sent for me to come almost
immediately after your dehatyag (renunciation of the body). You beckoned me in order that I
may receive a small portion of your deathless life to my life. In your death you gave the
affirmation of the transitory nature of the body and the immortality of the soul. What greater
blessing can a disciple receive from his Gurudeva.”
1
The “small portion” of Yogananda’s
“deathless life” that Premananda received from his guru represented a unique transfer of
charisma that allowed him to minister with Yogananda’s blessing, authority, and prestige.
Premananda would not be the only disciple to make this claim. In the wake of Yogananda’s
death, many disciples would claim such experiences—both those who remained within SRF and
those, like Jotin, who went their separate ways. A few had enjoyed lengthy relationships with
Yogananda, but others, despite a much shorter period of training, still felt intensely close to the
Master and just as qualified to carry his spiritual mantle after his death.
Who were the people who chose to follow this Indian guru? The dissertation’s earlier

1
Swami Premananda, “My Gurudev: Swami Yogananda Paramhansa,” The Mystic Cross, n.d., 7-9.
247
argument that Yogananda’s teaching is best understood as a religious practice becomes important
here, as it suggests that embracing Kriya Yoga was rarely an additive practice, but rather called
for total surrender. If a devotee had previously been a follower of another religion, they had to
abandon that religion to follow Yogananda. Given pre-Baby Boom America’s lingering Christian
cultural ethos, discipleship often represented a significant commitment and sacrifice. The first
section of this chapter will explore profiles of more than a dozen Yogananda disciples whose
stories can be traced. Employing a structural model of conversion, this section offers insight into
common patterns of those who chose to follow Yogananda, from their backgrounds, through
their spiritual search, to their first encounter with Yogananda. It concludes with a lengthy
examination of disciples’ experiences, particularly the intense demands Yogananda placed on
them, and how they viewed their often-difficult spiritual apprenticeship as Americans raised in a
cultural ethos of permissive behavior and exalted individualism.
Following this, the circumstances surrounding Yogananda’s death will be considered in
the second section. Given that his sudden death by massive heart attack took place during a
welcome dinner for the first ambassador of the newly independent Indian state, this section
includes a brief survey of Yogananda’s continued commitment to Indian nationalism, and his
emergence as a de facto representative of India to American audiences. Yogananda had suffered
from poor health for years, most likely heart-related issues. Those closest to him knew about his
physical condition, so they may have sensed that his death was imminent. But to most of the
community, his passing must have come as a shock—after all, sixty-year-old Yogananda had
taught for years about the importance of health and the yogic ability to increase human longevity.
The belief that advanced yogis could carry the karmic burdens of their disciples, and suffer the
consequent physical effects, reduced the cognitive dissonance Yogananda’s death created. Even
248
as tributes to Yogananda poured in from the US and across the world, rank-and-file disciples
experienced profound spiritual encounters with their guru. Not content to allow free-form
reshaping of Yogananda’s memory, core disciples quickly produced several works—anecdotes
and collections of sayings that provided an official imprimatur on Yogananda’s identity.
The third section explores the crisis in leadership that Yogananda’s death produced. Max
Weber’s model of the routinization of charisma, and theoretical additions by subsequent
scholars, offer insight into the common challenge faced by organizations led by charismatic
individuals, particularly after their death. In one way, Yogananda provided his own solution to
this leadership problem by indicating that his writings were to become the “guru” after his
departure, thus reducing the importance of human leadership. Still, the sprawling international
organization did require a leader. A number of candidates were out of consideration to replace
Yogananda: Lewis was old and in failing health, Jotin had formed an independent congregation
years before, other disciples were too young and too recently initiated. Given his indispensible
role in ensuring SRF’s survival, it was perhaps inevitable that James Lynn would receive the
mantle, despite his evident incapacity for leadership. After Lynn’s brief tenure, Daya Mata
decades’ long presidency ensured stability and continuity of leadership. Her elevation a result
more of pragmatism than feminism, she forged deeper ties with India and Indianized the
organization more than her Master had.
But this only represents the response within SRF itself. A number of disciples left SRF to
form their own organizations, out of dissatisfaction with SRF’s leadership or simply a desire to
become independent spiritual leaders. The third section concludes by exploring the organizations
formed by a half-dozen different individuals, who represented a range of positions on a
spectrum—some very faithful to Yogananda and his teachings, others quite different—while all
249
claiming direct authority from their former guru. Some of these organizations died quickly, but
those that survived became part of the communal phenomenon of the baby boomer
counterculture, thus providing a bridge between Yogananda and later New Age expressions of
Hindu-inspired spirituality and yoga. A brief epilogue will follow, providing an overview of the
legacy of Paramhansa Yogananda, whose ministry has continued for more than six decades since
his death.

Converting to Yogananda’s Leadership
Yogananda’s ministry in the United States began in the Roaring Twenties, carried
through the Great Depression and World War II, and continued into the dawn of the Cold War.
During these three decades, he drew thousands of followers, who ranged widely in their level of
commitment. Many individuals had only a mild interest, enrolling in the correspondence course,
maybe while continuing to attend their own churches, but later dropping out. Others became
followers in a loose sense by reading the Autobiography and adopting yoga practices as best they
could based on their understanding of the text. More committed devotees persisted in the lessons
until they reached the stage of Kriya Yoga initiation, whether they relied entirely on the lessons
as their form of instruction, or supplemented their study by attending a local SRF congregation.
But those who embraced Yogananda and his teachings fully had to jettison their previous
religion. Yogananda positioned Self-Realization Fellowship as a church, not just a meditation
center: he advertised in newspapers’ religion section, held services in “churches” on Sunday
mornings with scripture-based sermons and singing, and espoused a range of theological, ethical,
and cosmological instruction. One could not be deeply involved in SRF and committed to
another church. Thus, it is instructive to view people’s embrace of Yogananda and/or Kriya Yoga
250
as a form of conversion. This form of conversion was especially challenging for two reasons.
First, a Hindu-based movement fell well outside the mainstream of American religion throughout
the duration of Yogananda’s ministry, so converting might incur higher social costs than
membership in a more mainstream religion.
2
Also, devotion to Yogananda required an additional
level of commitment, as he demanded exceptional personal loyalty and made extravagant claims,
not just about his movement but about his own personal identity.
Remaining in the religious tradition—or lack of tradition, in the rare case of an SRF
follower who came from a spiritually uninvolved background —in which one is raised is always
the default option, and the vast majority of those exposed to new beliefs do not choose to
convert. To understand Yogananda’s ministry, therefore, it is crucial to determine what drew
people to him and his teachings.
3
A number of disciples from the earliest days through the late
period of his ministry left recollections of their relationship with him. Fifteen such accounts are
considered in this chapter, which does not include the stories of conversions that have already
been described, such as Dr. and Mildred Lewis and James Lynn, or the biographies of
Yogananda’s three Indian colleagues, as it is probably inaccurate to describe them as converts of
Yogananda. The accounts explored here suffer from the same pitfalls, and hence require the
same caveats, as all other sources related to Yogananda’s life and ministry. These sources
include written spiritual biographies and autobiographies, both formally and personally
published, and recorded oral recollections. Self-Realization Fellowship sponsored some, others
produced by SRF members independently of the organization, and still others were published
completely independently—without SRF’s blessing or approbation. Most were written decades

2
Andrea R. Jain, “Muktunanda: Entrepreneurial Godman, Tantric Hero,” in Gurus in America, edited by Thomas A.
Forsthoeffel and Cynthia Ann Humes (Albany: State University of New York, 2005), 198, offers a similar insight
when she discusses Muktananda’s embrace of more mainstream tenets because the “global market for spiritual
goods required marketers to calculate the costs for products associated with unpopular ideas or practices.”
3
Lewis R. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 35, points out
that while most conversion studies ignore resistance, “most people say no to conversion.”
251
after the events they record; some are hagiographic and others self-serving. Despite these
accounts’ limitations, their abundance—produced both by followers who remained with SRF and
those who went their own ways—provides corroboration of the most important points. Despite
variations in origin, length of time with him, gender, or previous station of life, they share key
similarities that together constitute a group profile. Together they attest to the magnetic power of
Yogananda’s presence, and the authority that prompted disciples to swear total devotion to him
and unquestionably obey him in all matters.
4

Religious sociologists Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Faradhian’s model of conversion
provides a useful heuristic for interpreting the stories of those drawn to Yogananda, Kriya Yoga,
and SRF.
5
This portion of the chapter will be divided into three stages, tracing Yogananda’s
disciples from their childhood experiences to the point of complete immersion in relationship
with him. The first section sketches the backgrounds of disciples and the crisis that led to their
spiritual quest. The next section analyses the disciples’ first encounter with Yogananda, often a
transcendent experience that became the moment of conversion, ending their quest and launching
them on the path of discipleship. The final section explores the relationship disciples had with
their guru, a relationship marked by deep intimacy, profound spiritual experiences, and even
some playfulness. But most notably, discipleship demanded “attunement,” total subjection to

4
Typically, those who made the effort to provide detailed accounts of their experiences with Yogananda were also
the most fervent disciples, so the potential for distortion should be kept in mind. But while the intensity of their
experience with Yogananda might have been heightened, the impression from letters sent to Self Realization
Magazine by lay people suggest a similar outlook toward Yogananda’s identity and authority.
5
The analysis that follows adapts Rambo and Faradian’s stages:
crisis: a rupture in the taken-for-granted world that triggers a quest; quest: a person actively seeks new
ways to confront their predicament; encounter: contact between a questing individual and an “advocate” for
an alternative religion—and what’s important here is that the guru-advocate IS the religion; you’re
converting to honoring him; interaction: intensification of the process in which the advocates and potential
converts “negotiate” changes in thoughts, feelings, and actions.; commitment: a phase in which persons
decide to devote their life to a new spiritual orientation.
Their first and last stages, context and consequence, will be excluded in this analysis as they are largely irrelevant to
the actual process of individual conversion presented in this chapter. See Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Faradian,
“Converting: Stages of Religious Change,” in Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies,
edited by Christopher Lamb and M. Darroll Bryant (London: Cassell, 1999), 23-24.
252
Yogananda as a father figure and to his sometimes ruthless “scolding.” These disciples’
willingness to submit to such treatment—recognizing both then and now that it was difficult and
ran counter to their own perceptions about appropriate behavior—testifies powerfully to the trust
they accorded their guru and his ability to transform their character if only they would let him do
so.
Most scholars of conversion agree that a crisis—religious, political, psychological, or
cultural—often catalyzes a spiritual quest. In fact, while Rambo and Faradian present crisis and
quest as two separate stages, they cannot be easily separated, since the two typically happen
simultaneously, and seekers’ perception of crisis is often retrospective—people do not recognize
themselves to have been in crisis until they begin (or even complete) their quest. Common crises
include mystical experiences, illness, a “growing sense of dissatisfaction with life as it is,” and a
desire for transcendence.
6
The seekers who found Yogananda shared many of these
characteristics, including a high incidence of hardship—childhood illness or the loss of a
parent—as an early chapter in their spiritual narratives. Edith Anne Ruth D’Evelyn, born in
Canada in 1869, lost her father when she was young, and her family remained poor after her
mother remarried and moved to Minnesota. She suffered a number of serious physical ailments
throughout her childhood.
7
Mildred Hamilton left school eighth grade to help her family survive
financially.
8
Faye Wright was a shy, earnest sixteen-year old the year she met Yogananda. She
suffered from a disease that caused “blood poisoning,” leaving her face bandaged and making

6
Rambo and Faradian, 26.
7
D’Evelyn became Edith Bissett after marrying Clark Prescott Bissett. At SRF, she was known as Sri Gyanamata.
See Sri Gyanamata, God Alone: The Life and Letters of a Saint (Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1984), 3-
5.
8
Mother Hamilton: A Divine Life, DVD, directed by Mark Hickenbottom (Seattle: The Cross and the Lotus
Publishing, 2004).
253
her very self-conscious.
9
Florina Darling was born sickly, after an outbreak of diphtheria among
her whole family claimed her sixteen-year-old sister’s life. Her father left to find a job in Detroit
so she grew up functionally fatherless.
10
Mary Buchanan’s scarlet fever outbreak prompted her
first celestial vision. In an era before divorce was widespread, her parents separated when she
was twelve, and she grew up primarily with her mother.
11
John Laurence grew up on a Wyoming
Indian reservation, the son of an Army Medical Corps father and a devoutly Catholic mother.
Following his mother’s influence, Laurence went to seminary, heading for the priesthood until
his father suddenly died in the midst of the Great Depression, creating family havoc and forcing
a career change.
12
Roy Eugene Davis grew up on an Ohio farm in the 1930s, where he was
diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis as a teen; he was bed-bound for five long and lonely months.
When he recovered physically, his mother died and Davis became the meal preparer for his
father and younger sister.
13
Mary Peck’s father, a navy man often absent, was a raging, violent
alcoholic at home who routinely threatened to kill his family.
14

Physical suffering prompted many disciples’ spiritual quest, creating a sense of
restlessness, a search for meaning, and often a hope of healing. Yogananda’s teaching, in which
health and wholeness was central to the spiritual path, naturally appealed to individuals like this,
who often found wholeness in his presence. Disciples often testified to his ability to heal
physically, as the Lewises had experienced, or emotionally, like Lynn. Faye Wright was healed

9
Faye Wright, whom Yogananda named Sister Daya, became Sister Dayamata. As Sri Daya Mata she served as
president of SRF for several decades. See Him Shall I Follow: An Informal Talk by Sri Daya Mata, VHS (Los
Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1997).
10
At SRF, Darling was known as Durga Mata. See Joan Wight, A Trilogy of Divine Love (Beverly Hills: Joan
Wight, 1992), 2-3.
11
Buchanan’s SRF name was Kamala. See Kamala, The Flawless Mirror (Nevada City: Crystal Clarity Publishing,
1964), 105-107; 36-37.
12
Elana Joan Cara, The Light of Christ Within: Reverend John Laurence, A Direct Disciple of Paramhansa
Yogananda (Nevada City: Crystal Clarity Publishing, 2013), 1-5.
13
Roy Eugene Davis, Paramahansa Yogananda As I Knew Him: Experiences, Observations, and Reflections of a
Disciple (Lakemont, GA: CSA Press, 2005), 27-28.
14
Mary Peck Stockton, A Testimony of Love and Devotion: My Life Journey with Paramahansa Yogananda
(Portland, OR: Tamaltree Books, 2001), 51-54.
254
of illness within a week of being touched by Yogananda during a class on divine healing and her
illness never returned. Her younger brother was healed of his fainting spells.
15
Even when he did
not relieve the physical symptoms, Yogananda’s explanation of karma provided a coherent
meaning to suffering, which was often a source of relief in its own right.
16

Many converts fit the pattern of later counterculture seekers.
17
Whether prompted by a
difficult childhood or for some other reason, most converts had already begun a spiritual quest by
the time they met Yogananda. Most of his closest disciples were from Catholic or liberal
Protestant families, representing the nation’s majority religious tradition. Many of Yogananda’s
teachings held appeal for early twentieth century American religious liberals. But a
disproportionate number of adherents—given their extremely small populations at the time—
came from non-mainstream religious traditions like Mormonism, Christian Science, and
Theosophy. Some were members of the small informal group of Americans who had dabbled in
Indian philosophy before discovering Yogananda. D’Evelyn married Clark Prescott Bissett, an
Episcopal divinity student, who left the clergy for law and, eventually, university teaching. A
woman with deep spiritual interest, she read Indian texts as a young woman and had the
opportunity to meet the poet Rabindranath Tagore when he visited the West Coast. Encountering

15
Him Shall I Follow.
16
In some cases, however, continued physical suffering was a source of distress. Bissett continued to suffer physical
anguish long after she met Yogananda, which he interpreted as vicarious karmic suffering. At times, this explanation
seemed inadequate. Bissett’s agony was so unrelenting and often so severe that on at least one occasion she
expressed to Yogananda her wish to die, though Yogananda encouraged her to view her suffering as a test from
God. “You are an example to all; so do not be overpowered by suffering or have self-pity, but smile away all your
troubles.” She lived for another eight years after this letter, finally dying in 1951. See P. Yogananda to Sister,
January 28, 1943, in God Alone, 261-262. At her memorial service, Yogananda addressed his issue directly,
explaining that she assumed the karmic burden of others, and suffered “because of the sins of many others who
became saintly through her life. There was not a sin of her own I could find. Such is the mystery of God.” See
Paramahansa Yogananda, “The Dewdrop Has Slipped Into the Shining Sea,” Encinitas Ashram Center, November
19, 1951, reprinted in God Alone, 40-53.
17
As Andrea R. Jain, “Muktananda: Entrepreneurial Godman, Tantric Hero” in Gurus in America, edited by
Thomas A. Forsthoeffel and Cynthia Ann Humes (Albany: State University of New York, 2005), 196, describes,
these seekers were often, though not always, middle-class individuals who found in their guru “solutions to the
perceived problems of excess and chaos associated with modern life.”
255
her “first definite teaching of Hindu truth in 1909, she reflected, “I will never be the same
again.”
18
Faye Wright and her sister Virginia were descended from Mormon families that settled
in Utah in the 1840s. Restless with Mormonism, Faye spent her teen years as a deep seeker after
spiritual truth. She had been reading the Bhagavad Gita for at least two years when she heard
Yogananda speak.
19
Donald Walters eagerly consumed books about India—the Upanishads, the
Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, yoga books—before he encountered Yogananda through the
Autobiography.
20
Leo Cocks grew up in San Jose in the 1930s, part of a family that practiced
Vedanta.
21
During his convalescence, Davis read extensively about psychology and religion,
feeling drawn especially to the transcendentalists and to writings about India.
22
The experience
of a non-mainstream religious tradition often functioned as a steppingstone toward Yogananda’s
more exotic brand of faith.
What transpired when converts first encountered their future guru? As with most
Americans who first saw Yogananda, their recollections center on Yogananda’s appearance. But
for disciples this encounter was an epiphany, a moment of transcendence. When Darling saw
Yogananda in Detroit in December 1927, she was “riveted to the beautiful face,” her soul
“sensing the God-like soul within the outward form.” He was the “most beautiful man I had ever
seen, in his orange robe and long black flowing hair on his shoulders, and his large lotus, dark,
expressive eyes.”
23
At her first encounter with Yogananda, “those brown eyes” mesmerized

18
She records this thought in her first letter to Yogananda, after the two met in Seattle in 1925. See Edith D. Bissett
to Swamiji [Yogananda], July 19, 1925, in God Alone, 58.
19
Sri Daya Mata, Finding the Joy Within You: Personal Counsel for God-Centered Living (Los Angeles: Self-
Realization Fellowship, 1990), xix-xxiii; Him Shall I Follow.
20
Swami Kriyananda, The Path: Autobiography of a Western Yogi (Nevada City: Crystal Clarity Publishing, 1977).
21
Paul Gorsuch, ed., I Became My Heart: Stories of a Disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda: Leo Cocks (San Diego:
Contact Approach Publishing, 2013), 11.
22
Davis, Paramahansa Yogananda, 28-29.
23
Wight, A Trilogy, 165, 5.
256
Corinne Forshee. Photos, she thought, never caught his face, the most perfect face ever.
24
Faye
Wright thought he glowed in a golden light dressed in his ochre robe.
25
In 1931, when Mary
Peck was seven years old, she and her mother met Yogananda in San Diego, the elder Peck was
“transformed” by Yogananda’s message. Young Mary was more intrigued by his appearance:
apart from his robe, his long, dark, wavy hair that he brushed but “with a graceful sweep of his
hand,” his light brown skin.
26
His robes, his hair, and his eyes conspired to enrapture converts.
Together, they functioned as markers of his exoticism, and thus as guarantors of his authenticity,
an otherworldly reality transcending their mundane American lives. Though this transcendent
moment often seemed spontaneous, most converts were already primed for such an experience,
having long been seekers when they encountered the very charismatic Yogananda.
When they met Yogananda or first heard him speak, disciples also commonly
experienced an immediate emotional connection with intense physical symptoms that confirmed
their encounter with the transcendent. The moment Faye Wright heard him speak, she knew she
had come to the end of her spiritual seeking, as Yogananda’s authoritative teaching showed up
the petty speakers she had heard heretofore. “He knows God,” she thought, the first person she
had met of whom she could say this. She instantly recognized him, transported into a higher state
of consciousness. When she approached him a few days later asking to join his ashram and he
replied, “and you shall,” a “bolt of lightening” went through her.
27
In recounting moments like
this, disciples often evoked the language of power or electricity common in Yogananda’s
teachings. An “electric wave” went into Darling’s arm and through body when she took

24
Mukti Mata, “Like the Light from Heaven:” Remembering Life with Paramahansa Yogananda, CD (Los Angeles:
Self-Realization Fellowship, 2007).
25
Him Shall I Follow.
26
Stockton, A Testimony, 27.
27
Him Shall I Follow.
257
Yogananda’s hand.
28
Hamilton recalled the “electric shock” she felt when she first looked into
his eyes, which followed her from “stem to stern.” After that, she belonged to him completely.
29

The first time Cocks met Yogananda he knew nothing about him. As Yogananda started a talk
before a time of meditation, Cocks had a profound experience. “[I]t was just like everything
opened up! I became my heart, my chest opened up, my heart had wings and I flew up out of my
body about eight or ten feet. I could see him, and I instantly just felt, ‘Oh, He is my guru! He is
my guru!’”
30

Understanding the draw Yogananda exerted requires shifting attention from the “demand
side” of the equation—the thinking and actions of the potential convert—to the “supply side”—
the evangelist who plays a crucial role in conversion as he “assesses the potential target audience
and formulates persuasive tactics to bring converts into the religious community.”
31
The
evangelist emphasizes one of several possible types of benefit: cognitive, affective, volitional
(techniques for living), charismatic leadership, or power.
32
Yogananda effectively deployed all of
these simultaneously. Those who knew Yogananda personally uniformly attested to his
charisma. Indeed, Weber’s classic definition provides an apt description of Yogananda: “The
charismatic leader may be seen as having special access to the divine realm or special abilities of
healing, prophecy.... The leader…embodies the virtues and powers that are articulated by the
religious ideology, or has accomplished particular feats, or has extraordinary powers of
discernment and persuasion.”
33
But rather than seeing his charisma as some sort of accidental
attribute, it is better understood as a sense of presence he cultivated, a capacity to “elicit from a

28
Wight, A Trilogy, 12.
29
The two kept up a correspondence, even though they always lived in two different cities. Mother Hamilton: A
Divine Life, DVD, directed by Mark Hickenbottom (Seattle: The Cross and the Lotus Publishing, 2004).
30
Gorsuch, I Became, 12.
31
Rambo, 66-67
32
Rambo, 81.
33
Rambo, 84-85.
258
following deference, devotion and awe toward himself as the source of authority.”
34

A new religion is often most successful when it achieves a particular balance between
foreign and familiar. Newness and exoticism help to create a sense of transcendence, which
attracts seekers who are, by definition, looking for some kind of otherworldly experience. At the
same time, if the new religion lacks all “congruence” with familiar religious traditions, the
cognitive distance converts have to travel may be too great for most to undertake the journey.
Yogananda strove to strike that balance, providing a sense of familiarity through Christian
trappings and routine recourse to the Bible, while still accentuating the uniquely deep experience
of God that Kriya Yoga provided.
35
A Hindu movement intrigued many who had already decided
that Christian traditions were unsatisfying, as it offered a source of ancient and exotic wisdom.
For some, the deeply unfamiliar elements of his teaching remained a hurdle, and careful
packaging could not easily disguise just how foreign his teachings really were.
Consequently, a number of disciples had been reluctant converts, eventually choosing to
follow Yogananda despite themselves. San Diego resident Merna Brown described herself as
“very orthodox in the church she was raised in,” so when her mother, sister, and sister’s friend
became interested in Yogananda and began attending the local temple, she remained suspicious
and refused to attend. Her mother eventually persuaded Merna to come, assuring her that
Yogananda taught from the Bible and encouraging her to bring her Bible with her. When Merna
attended the first time, she carried her Bible as a talisman against Yogananda’s power; in the
event, her talisman proved ineffective and she yielded to her Yogananda.
36

34
Ann Willner and Dorothy Willner, “The Rise and Role of Charismatic Leaders,” The Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science 358 1965, 77-88, cited in Douglas F. Barnes, “Charisma and Religious
Leadership: An Historical Analysis,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 17, no. 1 (1978): 1-18; the quote is
on 2.
35
see Rambo and Faradian, 37-38.
36
Merna Brown’s monastic name was Mrinalini Mata. See In His Presence: A Talk by Sri Mrinalini Mata, VHS,
(Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 2001).
259
While the paradigm for conversion privileges an intensely individual experience, the
influence of Merna’s mother (and sisters) highlight the importance of social networks of family
and friends in the decision to convert, particularly in the case of reluctant converts. For example,
when Bissett first heard about Yogananda in 1925, she was reluctant to attend a talk, fearing that
any interest in “the teachings of a long-haired Hindu” would jeopardize her husband’s university
position. So she first encountered Yogananda through his teachings, mediated to her by her adult
son before she finally met him at her home in July 1925, and discovered that the “Hindu swami
in the ochre robe of renunciation” incarnated “the answer to all my prayers and longing.”
37
In
Faye Wright’s case, her parents were initially resistant to her interest in a “foreign faith,” but
after she won them over, her mother and three siblings converted—her sister Virginia and
brother Richard both became important leaders in the organization.
38
The conversion of reluctant
disciples makes the surrender all the more dramatic and total.
Some first encountered their guru not in the flesh but through his written incarnation, a
testament to the Autobiography’s rhetorical and evangelical force, and an indication that
encounter need not be face-to-face. “Autobiography of a Yogi is the greatest book I have ever
read,” Walters proclaimed in his own spiritual autobiography. “One perusal of it was enough to
change my entire life. From that time on my break with the past was complete. I resolved in the
smallest detail of my life to follow Paramahansa Yogananda’s teaching.”
39
Davis encountered an
advertisement for Autobiography of a Yogi in a health magazine and ordered the book by mail.

37
God Alone, 12.
38
Without downplaying either emotion or individual choice, Susan Jacoby, Strange Gods: A Secular History of
Conversion (New York: Pantheon Books, 2016), especially xiv-xxxiii, underscores the social dimensions of
conversion. She also offers examples of pragmatic conversion, for example, to become “more American,” but this
form of conversion does not provide much help when the convert is moving out of a mainstream tradition into a
more socially marginal one.
39
Swami Kriyananda, The Path: Autobiography of a Western Yogi (Nevada City, CA: Ananda, 1977), 163. Note
that even the sub-title of his book pays homage to Yogananda’s Autobiography.
260
Reading it multiple times, “I knew that Paramahansa Yogananda was my guru.”
40
Peggy Dietz, a
Pasadena native who had metaphysical experiences from childhood, was seeking a revelation
from God. While praying one day, she crumpled up a piece of paper. Something prompted her to
unroll the wad, which turned out to be an advertisement for the Autobiography. She promptly got
a copy and began reading it. Providentially, her reading was interrupted by a call from a friend
inviting him to hear a talk; “the speaker’s name is something like Param…Paramhansa
Yogananda.”
41
When Santa Barbara native Norman Paulsen saw the cover of Autobiography of a
Yogi he recognized the man with long hair and large, dark eyes that had haunted him for years.
He asked the owner of the house where he was working who the person was. Informed that
Yogananda lived a few miles away, Paulsen immediately departed for Mt. Washington.
42

The spiritual journey that led seekers to Yogananda was, in the case of these individuals
who encountered Yogananda through his Autobiography, a literal journey as well. Many of them
physically traveled to SRF headquarters, to Encinitas, or to one of the churches in what
functioned as a pilgrimage experience, the geographical journey deepening the spiritual internal
one. Given that SRF sites were imbued with a sense of sacredness—especially Mt. Washington
and Encinitas—approaching the guru’s abode could be a powerful part of the experience. And
like traditional pilgrimage, the greater the distance or the difficulty of the ordeal the more
heightened the sense of arrival.
Walters’ pilgrimage illustrates this pattern. When Walters finished the book, he
immediately decided to journey to Los Angeles to become a follower in person of the one who
had already become his guru on the page. He left a note for his godfather, “I’m going to

40
Roy Eugene Davis, Paramahansa Yogananda as I Knew Him (Lakemont, GA: CSA Press, 2005), 29.
41
Peggy Dietz, Ananda Church of Self-Realization, 1995.
42
Norman Paulsen, Sunburst: Return of the Ancients (Santa Barbara: Sunburst Farms Publishing Company, 1980),
139.
261
California to join a group of people who, I believe, can teach me what I want to know about God
and about religion.” He boarded a bus for California. When Walters arrived in Encinitas, he
discovered that Yogananda was not there, but would be preaching at the Hollywood Temple on
Sunday—but that there was a two and a half month waiting period before Yogananda would be
available to meet with him. Fighting despair, he determined to remain hopeful. Yogananda
agreed to meet with him after service. Walters’ first encounter with Yogananda mirrored that of
those individuals who described above. “What large, lustrous eyes now greeted me! What a
compassionate smile! Never before had I seen such divine beauty in a human face.” Yogananda
seemed reluctant to take Walters in, as he was accepting fewer disciples at that point. At last he
relented, “All right. You have good karma. You may join us.” Davis and Paulsen had remarkably
similar experiences, which culminated in Yogananda’s call to total devotion. “Will you do as I
ask?” Walters was bold enough to ask, “What if I disagree with you?” “I will never ask anything
of you, that God does not tell me to ask,” Yogananda told him.
43
And that settled the matter for
Walters. The abruptness and complete abandon to the task testify to their conviction that
Yogananda possessed a unique ability to speak to their spiritual needs.
After their quest had led them to an encounter with Yogananda, what was the nature of
the relationship they shared with their guru? A tight and essentially closed community
“encapsulates” converts in relationships that consolidate emotional bonds, rituals that integrate
them into their new way of life, rhetoric that provides guidance and meaning, and roles that
provide converts a meaningful mission (however humble).
44
Those who chose to follow
Yogananda as monastics entered into a relationship with the few dozen other members of the Mt.
Washington community. Daily meditation practices created a rhythm, while, as shared activities,

43
Kriyananda, The Path, 165-174.
44
Rambo, 107-108.
262
they reinforced the sense of community. Personal instruction from Yogananda—both formal and
ad hoc—provided the organization’s core rhetoric. And as a ministry as well as a functioning
community, every individual had an identifiable role that contributed to the larger sense of
mission they shared with their guru—from shopping and preparing food, to producing
publications, to waiting on their master. Yogananda was the community’s center of gravity, the
reason the community existed. Disciples drew inspiration from observing Yogananda, or simply
from the spiritual blessing being in his presence.
As members of the community, monastics had the opportunity to see Yogananda’s
playful, almost childlike side. Hinduism has a tradition of līlā, God’s “sport” or “play” often a
reference to the ways his behavior makes him inexplicable to humans. But it also suggests that
even the deity does not take himself too seriously—an example his most advanced followers
should adopt. Devotees understood Yogananda’s childlike playfulness through the lens of līlā.
45

The leader who often used motion pictures as a metaphor for the spiritual life enjoyed going to
the movies for recreation—he was particularly fond of westerns, horror films, or war films. He
often fell asleep watching them, though he claimed he was only meditating. Though he never
learned how to drive, he loved to be taken out for an evening drive, on picnics, and especially
visits to the beach. He loved to “treat his large family” by buying a box of Eskimo pies and
passing them around to each member. He also had a lively sense of humor; he loved to tell jokes
and play pranks on the devotees. In the darkened movie theater, he would poke people with his

45
Yogananda was apparently not alone in such childish behavior. Vesey, The Communal Experience, 227, reports
occasionally “childlike, spontaneous” behavior by the normally “aloof and dignified” Vedanta leader Swami
Paramananda. The spiritual leader, for example, took the time to write this poem:
Ice is nice
And cream is a dream.
ice cream
Is a nice dream
Of human life.
Apart from the theological concept of līla, perhaps such behavior makes sense as a temporary pressure valve for the
challenges of an ascetic lifestyle.
263
cane and then feign innocence, or place pieces of bunched up tissue on the heads of those sitting
in front of him. He would call to disciples from his window, and as they stood below, he would
pour a pan of water on them. Once he used a water gun to shoot water onto the ceiling above
Lynn when he was not paying attention; the water dripped on Lynn’s bald head to his great
puzzlement. In retelling the story to Dietz, he “started laughing so hard that I could scarcely
understand his words.”
46

But these lighthearted moments were heavily outweighed by much more emotionally
intense times. Disciples had a deep desire, even a need, for Yogananda’s approval and
acceptance. In committing to him, they had forsaken family and marriage, and he (and the
community as a whole) functioned as a surrogate family. Some disciples explicitly related to him
in a familial way, like Richard Wright who referred to him as “Holy Dad.”
47
Bissett, who was a
generation older than Yogananda, played a more maternal role. But the majority of the devotees
were single women, who related to Yogananda more as a replacement spouse. Despite a number
of accusations over the years, there is no concrete evidence of sexual impropriety in
Yogananda’s relationships with these women. But they undoubtedly shared a level of physical
intimacy that would have been unacceptable in the outside world. For example, Darling
recounted, more with pride than a sense of embarrassment, how she sat patiently for nearly two
hours while Yogananda pulled her grey hair out.
48
Such physical interactions were routine, as
devotees regularly touched their guru’s feet as a sign of deference, while he touched their head or
body to impart a blessing. Disciples eagerly sought opportunities for one-on-one encounters with
Yogananda, where they would lay their souls bare, sharing their most personal thoughts and

46
Wight, A Trilogy, 22-25; 176-178. For the water gun incident, see Dietz, Thank You, Master.
47
“In Memoriam: C. Richard Wright,” Self-Realization, Spring 2002, 46.
48
She had resided at Mt. Washington for over a decade by the time this event happened in 1941. See Wight, A
Trilogy, 31.
264
submitting to his guidance.
Because Yogananda demanded complete surrender to his authority as a prerequisite for
discipleship, the unequal relationship he and his devotees shared most often reflected a parent-
child relationship.
49
Disciples allowed him to determine their life choices, from the most
consequential to the most mundane. Yogananda refused to allow Cocks to grow a beard, taking
“this opportunity to deflate my ego” with the terse reply, “Not you, Leo. You’d look like a
baboon!”
50
With seeming caprice, he actively encouraged Walters to grow one, which greatly
surprised Walters since Yogananda often warned, “I don’t want my boys looking like wild
men!”
51
Yogananda’s attention to such mundane matters reinforced his complete authority over
the daily lives of devotees.
Yogananda shaped their spiritual choices, even seemingly innocuous ones of honoring
other Hindu masters, to reinforce the centrality of Yogananda’s personal lineage from Lahiri
Mahasaya through Yukteswar. Yogananda made Cocks, who had grown up in the Vedanta
movement, take down a shrine to Ramakrishna and Vivekananda he had placed alongside a
shrine to the SRF masters. Similarly, Davis had been instructed not to read anything other than
SRF materials, but on a whim in a Scottsdale bookstore he bought a spiritual book, probably
Gospel of Ramakrishna. A fellow disciple reported Davis’s misconduct, and the following day
when Davis walked into the room where Yogananda was already gathered before a group of
disciples, Davis was greeted by his guru’s announcement, “Roy is a spiritual prostitute.”

49
The observation by Laurence Veysey, a student of twentieth-century communes, regarding the Vedanta
movement, is apt: “Probably few other American religious (or political) movements of the past century have been
based so largely upon the notion of willing, steadfast obedience to another person.” See Laurence Veysey, The
Communal Experience: Anarchist and Mystical Counter-Cultures in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1973),
214. In his introduction to I Became my Heart, Paul Gorsuch comments on Leo Cocks’ need for discipline, “Leo
was utterly devoted to his guru and like a parent who must guide a willful child so it will grow and fulfill its destiny,
Yogananda guided Leo with love and discipline” (Paul Gorsuch, “Preface,” I Became my Heart, 1).
50
Gorsuch, I Became, 46.
51
Walters, The Path, 372.
265
Yogananda went on to explain that in a couple of years he might be ready for other reading,
“when your discrimination is more developed.”
52

Disciples were frequently scolded or punished for failing to display utter subjection to
him. Faye Wright experienced several rebukes that left a deep impression on her. As she bluntly,
but affectionately, put it, “He freely picked me apart in front of others.” He once fashioned a
dunce cap and commanded her to put it on in front of the other disciples. She refused, and a
battle of wills ensued. Eventually, when everyone had left the room, he called her back to talk.
The shy young woman asked him, “Is it really right to make fun, to tease me in front of
everyone?” Ignoring her query, he commanded her to stand in a corner with his back to her,
where she promptly burst into tears. She turned to him, confessed her gratitude for his discipline,
and begged him to put the cap on her. Her submission ended the test of wills and he relented
from placing the cap on her.
Disciples viewed this routine humiliation as an indispensible element of the painful
process of purging the ego for personal growth. In conversion theory, insulting disciples reflects
a common “degradation ceremony,” “designed to break a person down so that the spirit is more
malleable by the new group, and/or to break old patterns of behavior considered destructive or
counterproductive to the person. But while such training may have been a blessing, it was also a
heavy burden. Cocks experienced unbearable distress at being subjected to “harsh words like a
scalpel, cutting sharply through the layers of my consciousness…Master went on and on. It was
so painful that I couldn’t take it any more.”
53
Brown reflected, “You have no idea how difficult
sometimes it was to be in that exacting personality, in the presence of that exacting personally.
Could you be taken apart, literally, in front of your peers, and still feel not sensitive, but take it

52
Davis, Paramahansa Yogananda, 50.
53
Gorsuch, I Became, 81.
266
with the right attitude, not be critical of the Guru?” Apart from the severity of punishment, the
seeming arbitrariness puzzled her. He yelled at her once because she forgot to deliver a phone
message; but she only experienced his full wrath when she tried to justify her lapse in memory.
“Very often, what we might be scolded or disciplined for was totally insignificant and that’s why
it was difficult to understand at the moment. But there was an aspect of his training…he never
explained. He never explained, we never asked.” Typically he would curtly dismiss them, “Go!
Leave my room!”
54
Disciples learned to treat Yogananda’s seemingly capricious outbursts as
spiritual tests, and went off to meditate until they could discover the secret lesson they needed to
learn. Walters was subjected to the “undeserved humiliation” of a Yogananda “tirade,” he
eventually concluded that he needed more criticism, not less. “Sir, please scold me more often,”
he begged.
55

Despite sometimes feeling blameless in these altercations, disciples understood that
Yogananda’s self-realized perfection placed him above blame by definition. “Sometimes it was
difficult to understand why we were being scolded or disciplined in a certain way, but I never
questioned why or the reason behind it, or that it was right. That, that would never have
occurred. The only question was, What did I do? [She laughs] What did I do wrong? Or how do I
need to correct myself?” She would go back, kneel at his feet, and put her head on his feet. He
would respond graciously, “more sweet than nearest dearest family or friends.” He frequently
apologized for his scolding afterwards, but Brown understood these apologies the same way
Yogananda probably intended them: as marks of tenderness and humility, rather than genuine
admissions of error. Darling found proof of Yogananda’s benevolent intentions not in his words
or any overt behavior, but in subtle body language indicators. “Even though he scolded us and

54
In His Presence.
55
Walters, The Path, 335.
267
showed great anger or anxiety, if we looked straight into his eyes we could see a little glimmer of
a smile in the corner of his eyes…he couldn’t help but smile, because he never had anger inside.
It was just a play to be able to correct us, or to teach us a lesson.”
56

The few scholars of Yogananda who directly address the issue of his authority downplay
any suggestion of excess. When Trout addresses the topic of Yogananda’s infallibility as a guru
and the assertion that “the guru could never hurt or fail the disciple and that apparent failures
were misunderstandings on the part of the disciple,” she offers the remarkable conclusion that
“no great harm was done by suspending critical reasoning in this manner, for he was generally a
kindhearted man.”
57
Likewise, Goldberg asserts that while the attraction of a “genuine holy man”
can be “fatal when the magnet is unscrupulous or exploitative,” “Yogananda seems to have had
little of that dark side.”
58
Theologically and sociologically, Yogananda’s harsh discipline aimed
to inculcate spiritual development through surrender. According to conversion theory,
“surrender is the inner process of commitment” and is difficult to achieve, usually encounters
resistance, and is challenging to sustain.
59
Many disciples found the demands of monastic life—
and particularly Yogananda’s leadership—difficult and decided to leave. Cocks ultimately
departed because he felt that Yogananda was trying to destroy his soul.
60
Yogananda rarely made
that decision easy for them. When a disciple named Daniel Boone decided to leave because he
found monastic life too difficult, Yogananda summoned Boone to his bedroom and tried all night
to persuade him to stay; Boone agreed to try for two more weeks, but at the end of the period he

56
Wight, A Trilogy, 191.
57
Trout, Eastern Seeds, 187-188.
58
Philip Goldberg, American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation—How Indian
Spirituality Changed the West (New York: Three Rivers, 2010), 120.
59
Rambo, 132-133.
60
In a reply to Cocks, Yogananda refers Cocks’ previous letter and says that “I have through God saved lives not
destroyed them. I did not come on earth to do destructive work—you have misunderstood my words and me. Every
saint is made of thunder and flower But in regard to principles, one must be stern;” See Swami Yogananda to Leo
Cocks, February 20, 1952, in Gorsuch, I Became, 91.
268
still left.
61
When Cocks wrote that he was tempted to leave, Yogananda told him Satan was
tempting him. Eventually, he did leave, regretted his decision, and begged to come back.
62

Paulsen became restless, in part because of Yogananda’s authority. “I seemed to feel strange
within whenever I called him Master. To me he was a God-realized elder brother of the highest
caliber…The word ‘master’ seemed to create a barrier for some, making him seem almost
unapproachable.” He made the difficult decision to leave in November 1951, along with a few
other male disciples.
63
Interpreting these departures as a personal affront, Yogananda viewed this
period as a time of divine testing.
64
Yogananda valued loyalty and unswerving commitment
personally. He frequently lamented the “Judases” who had betrayed him—primarily Dhirananda
and Nerode—and read any coolness toward him through that experience.
65
Consequently, a
disciple’s decision to leave the ashram was anathema—a personal betrayal, not just a sign of
spiritual weakness.
Between the subjection to a human being and the almost erotic dimensions of the guru-
disciple intimacy, it is perhaps not surprising that most of his closest disciples were women, for
whom submission to a male authority figure would likely have been much less challenging than
for men, especially in a period before second wave feminists’ assertion of gender equality
became part of the cultural mainstream. Male arrivals in the late 1940s were struck by the
preponderance of women devotees. In any case, those who stayed, male or female, were disciples
who had learned how to successfully surrender. In SRF parlance, they had developed
“attunement” with the Master.
66

61
Paulsen, Sunburst, 199.
62
P. Yogananda to Leo Cocks, July 21, 1950, in Paul Gorsuch, I Became My Heart, 56.
63
Paulsen, Sunburst, 220.
64
Kriyananda, The Path, 464.
65
Wight, A Trilogy, 189. On his loyalty, she comments, “Master was the most loyal person I have ever, and have yet
to meet…Master was the very personification of loyalty” (Wight, 185).
66
For one disciple’s lengthy exposition of this principle, see Kriyananda, Path, 327-339.
269
Paradoxically, in abandoning their autonomy, their sense of self and the right to direct
their own lives, and surrender to their earthly Master, they ultimately found themselves—and
true freedom—in a deeper way than they could have imagined. Walters had a skeptical friend
who was disturbed by the authority the disciples granted Yogananda. “This is a free country!”
the friend pronounced. “Americans aren’t slaves. Any anyway, no on has a right to be the master
of another human being.” Walters replied that Yogananda’s followers had not given him their
freedom, but their bondage. “He is a true master of the practices in which we ourselves are
struggling to excel. You might say that he is our teacher in the art of achieving true freedom.”
67

Social psychologists who have studied the phenomenon of high-demand religious groups
find those who pay a higher price for membership value that belonging more.
68
Similarly, market
theories of religion emphasize rational choices involving the reward for participation. Choosing a
non-mainstream religion involved high social costs in terms of criticism from outsiders—from
casual observers who thought Yogoda un-American, to passersby who thought it was strange to
watch Yogananda meditate by the side of the road, to family members who worried about the
well-being of converts, to those who thought Yogananda was controlling. SRF converts certainly
traveled a greater distance from the cultural mainstream than most converts, not just to join a
Hindu movement but particularly one which required such extraordinary devotion to their guru.
The small group of SRF monastics, largely a product of Yogananda’s own selections, functioned
as an inner circle reinforced a sense of exclusivism, which itself was a kind of religious product.
The experience of enlightenment through meditation was another. But most important was
access to the man himself, by definition a limited religious good and one that provided

67
Kriyananda, The Path, 328.
68
Referring specifically to harsh initiation rites, they conclude that “the severity of the initiation into a group
actually increased people’s liking of and loyalty to the group” (Rambo, 116).
270
immediate, tangible, powerful rewards.
69
Disciples’ willingness to commit to him freely and
rationally stemmed from their conviction that he knew them perfectly—even better than they
knew themselves—and that what he did was always for their personal growth, whether they
recognized it or not. In taking responsibility for their lives, Yogananda established a perpetual
parent-child relationship with his disciples, a pattern rooted in ancient Hindu tradition.
70
Once,
when resisting one of Yogananda’s many “scoldings,” Darling protested, “After all, Sir, I am a
grown woman.” “His face became crestfallen and he answered, ‘I wish you hadn’t said that,
because I never see you all as grown women but as children of God.’”
71
Whether that response
seemed like paternal care or paternalistic control had much to do with whether one viewed
Yogananda from inside the organization or from outside it.
It is difficult to know how far beyond the inner circle of monastics the intense pattern of
discipleship to Yogananda extended.
72
Such mentorship was obviously deeply rooted in personal
contact with Yogananda, and he was unable to personally interact with thousands of students.
But he and SRF worked hard to create and maintain a sense of guru-disciple intimacy—through
teachings, poetry, and anecdotes shared by radio, magazine, and personal address. Dietz argued
that, in some ways, Yogananda’s physical presence was actually detrimental to experiencing him
fully. “Does one miss out by not having a guru in the physical form on this plane? No, one need
not miss out at all. Through right action, meditation, prayer and the power of spiritual love, the
devotee will draw the guru’s response, from whatever he is. In this manner will the devotee

69
This argument is shaped largely by the model of religious participation by Rodney Starke and Roger Finke, Acts
of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Relatively “high
tension” with the larger society can itself highlight the value of a niche religious choice for some consumers.
70
Joel D. Mlecko, “The Guru in Hindu Tradition,” Numen 29, no. 1 (1982): 33-61, see especially 39.
71
Wight, A Trilogy, 32.
72
As Eileen Barker argues, “Converts, having decided to accept a new faith…rather than continuing in the one into
which the were born and/or which is the norm in their society or subculture, tend to be considerably more
enthusiastic about their new beliefs and practices than those brought up in their religion.” Nova Religio: The Journal
of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 8, no. 1 (July 2004): 88-102; the quote is from 94.
271
experience the guru’s presence, realize peace of mind, and merge with Christ
consciousness…and the glory of God.”
73
In other words, Yogananda’s spiritual power might be
more powerful after his death. The question of Yogananda’s earthly influence became very
pressing for all Yogananda devotees in the late 1940s, as his worsening health hinted that his
death might be near.

Death of an Immortal Yogi
While Yogananda had presented himself as a major leader within the burgeoning
international interfaith movement, he had never stopped thinking of himself as an advocate of
Indian nationalism and an unofficial representative of India to the United States. The national
and global intertwined as India achieved independence in 1947, “one of the most remarkable acts
of decolonization in the twentieth century,” says John Springhall, stirring a “‘wind of change,’
which dislodged various other European colonial rulers in subsequent years.”
74
The end of
European overseas empires was one of the most momentous changes of the twentieth century,
turning the possessions of a handful of European powers into more than one hundred nation
states in the course of little more than a decade. Though decolonization was a complex
phenomenon with many roots, observers both then and since have recognized the symbolic role
India played as a catalyst, inspiration, or model for movements throughout Asia and Africa.
India’s rising global stature after independence also boosted American interest in the
subcontinent. Yogananda participated in the celebration welcoming the American visit of
Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, to San Francisco in November 1949, confirming
his own self-designated status as unofficial Indian ambassador to the American populace.

73
Dietz, Thank You Master.
74
John Springhall, Decolonization Since 1945: The Collapse of Overseas Empires (London: Palgrave, 2001), 104.
272
Yogananda attended Nehru’s public speech, and later the two met in the prime minister’s hotel
room. Yogananda was introduced to some of Nehru’s family and the two had a brief private
conversation.
75
The two had communicated previously, when Yogananda boldly cabled Nehru,
“Deeply request you save half of Gandhi’s ashes, some for India, some for America, to be buried
beneath statues erected in two countries.”
76

When Gandhi was assassinated January 30, 1948, less than six months after
independence, Yogananda rode the great wave of American sympathy. He offered himself as
curator of the great leader’s memory; it was only appropriate, he thought, that America’s most
notable modern Indian saint commemorate the life of India’s greatest modern saint for American
audience. During his regular radio broadcast, he paid tribute to Gandhi’s legacy, placing him in
global context. “Mahatma Gandhi's passing is a loss not only to India but to the whole world.
World leaders and all India mourn for him. We mourn for our loss, but he is freer to work
through the Infinite. Jesus Christ and Abraham Lincoln died for the same cause as Mahatma
Gandhi has died.” Yogananda, who wrote and spoke publicly about the ongoing danger of war,
particularly in the atomic age, saw Gandhi as a leader in the movement for world peace.
By following Gandhiji's nonviolent doctrine, India won her independence without
firing a single shot. If the world followed his doctrine, it too could receive its
independence from the slavery of destructive and misery-making wars. Gandhiji,
limited by his frail body, accomplished much, but his liberated spirit will work
more mightily in the hearts of nations and individuals for all time. Let us pay
homage to the ever-living great Mahatma Gandhi. He is not dead, for his
exemplary life and spirit of goodness are going to work unhampered through the
temple of our hearts ever and forever.

This address was reprinted in a Gandhi biography written by prominent occult author Marc

75
Paulsen, Sunburst, 162-163.
76
Paramhansa Yogananda: History, Life, Mission (Yogananda Harmony Association, n.d.), 40.
273
Edmund Jones the same year.
77

Self-Realization Fellowship also conducted memorial services for Gandhi, including a
fire ceremony that symbolically consigned his body to the flames while his liberated soul
“commingles with the soul of God.” In his memorial address, Yogananda called the audience to
honor Gandhi’s legacy properly. While it was appropriate to erect statues to commemorate
Gandhi, it was more vital to “erect in one corner of our heart a statue to nonviolence if Gandhi is
to be rightly remembered. We must establish a monument to Gandhi within us if we are to have a
world peace. Enemies and friends are all our brothers under the fatherhood of God.”
78

A portion of Gandhi’s ashes found their permanent resting place with Self-Realization
Fellowship. Yogananda acquired the ashes in February 1949, which he originally planned to
inter at Encinitas.
79
But they ended up at a beautiful new SRF property instead. Through Lynn’s
generosity, SRF had acquired a small artificial lake in Pacific Palisades a few blocks from the
ocean. Resting in a bowl bordered by a long curve made by Sunset Blvd., the idyllic property had
a Hollywood pedigree. A film site in the silent film era, it was later purchased by H. Everett
McElroy, assistant superintendent of construction for 20th Century Fox studios. The Lake
Shrine’s official dedication ceremony in August 1950, which brought Lt. Governor Goodwin
Knight and his wife, commemorated the thirtieth anniversary of Yogananda’s ministry in the
US.
80
The lake’s World Peace Memorial honoring Gandhi became the repository for a portion of

77
Marc Edmund Jones, Gandhi Lives (Philadelphia: David McKay Company, 1948). Jones, a native of Missouri,
was exposed to both Christian Science and Theosophy as a child. He authored a number of books on esoteric
subjects, especially astrology. Despite his interest in esoterica, he provided a straightforward narrative account of
Gandhi’s life, teachings, and death.
78
“Memorial Rites for Gandhi Held in Church Here,” Los Angeles Times, Feb 2, 1948, 2.
79
“Mahatma Gandhi’s Ashes,” Self-Realization, January 1949, 4. Based on this description of receiving “some” of
Gandhi’s ashes from Dr J.V. Nawle, editor of Deenbandhu and Secretary of The Great Mother Bharat Institute and
Society for World Peace, it would seem that Nehru did not honor Yogananda’s earlier request and that he acquired
the ashes through other means.
80
“Dedication Ceremony,” Lake Shrine Self Realization Fellowship,
http://www.lakeshrine.org/index.php/history/dedication (accessed April 3, 2016).
274
his ashes. Thus, Yogananda managed to link India, global peace, Hollywood, and himself
together on one beautiful site. His own death would shortly transpire, appropriately enough, in
the midst of a Los Angeles dinner honoring another official Indian representative, the nation’s
first ambassador, Binay R. Sen.
Yogananda had suffered poor health for years, though he kept this from the public and
even many of his disciples. The stresses of the ministry—travel, organization, speaking, and,
above all, the trial instigated by his former friend and partner Nerode—had exacted a
physiological toll. Also, despite advocating exercise and a healthy whole food, vegetarian diet,
Yogananda had been overweight nearly his entire ministry. In August 1936, on the eve of his
departure for the return voyage to the West, he had a distressing experience. He wrote to Lynn
describing a remarkable demonic attack.
Yesterday afternoon as I sat in a half-meditation state, Satan dropped onto my
body and pulled my astral body out of my physical body; my heart stopped. Then
Guru as an angel of God appeared and warned me, saying, “Look, look what
Satan is doing unto thee!” I made an effort; and like a stretched rubberband my
astral body slipped back into my lifeless frame, and I cried out. This happened
under the eyes of one of the school boys who was alarmed to see me suddenly
grow cold and lifeless and then cry out. I would not understand why this
happened on the eve of my departure.

Beneath the spiritual language, the description of his physical symptoms—a stopped heart, a
loud cry, and the physical appearance of death—suggests that the forty-three year old had
experienced a severe heart attack. Later, Yukteswar appeared in a vision to Yogananda during
meditation to explain the meaning of this event, which Yogananda continued to view spiritually.
“Satan on this last day wanted to destroy your body that you might not be able to go to America
and redeem other souls.”
81
Even with the spiritual gloss, Yogananda’s interpretation suggests
that he understood the near-fatal severity of the incident.

81
Paramhansa Yogananda to James Lynn, August 20, 1936, in Rajarsi, 126.
275
Given Yogananda’s efforts to conceal his physical problems, it is difficult to know
whether he experienced other heart attacks in the decade after his return. But an event in 1948,
which he presented as a particularly intense Samadhi experience, may have been another heart
attack. Though the disciples present thought they were simply witnessing deep meditation, some
noted that the episode marked a dramatic change in his behavior serious enough that at least one
disciple interpreted it as a harbinger of his death. He began to withdraw, even from his closest
disciples. He spoke less frequently and spent more time alone in the desert.
82
Notices in Self-
Realization asked correspondents to be patient if he was slower to respond to mail since “he is
now observing a stricter seclusion than he has done in the past…Because of his constant
immersion in God, it is not always possible for his secretaries to intrude on his attention.”
83

When he was present at Mt. Washington, he confined himself to his room.
When he did speak, he was more reflective and less forceful. At a birthday gathering in
January 1949, shortly after the samādhi experience, he waxed emotional and nostalgic, talking
about how he had been “born in your hearts.” He compared himself to Jesus, who viewed his
own disciples as his mother and brothers and sisters. Death seemed to be on his mind as he
continually reflected on the relationship between the individual drop (or wave) and the ocean.
And, cryptically, he said he never deceived them and could never deceive them. His informal
addresses to disciples in the last three years of his life were often rambling repetitions of familiar
themes. Most frequently, he rehearsed the metaphor about life as a motion picture—his