Awake: The Life of Yogananda Page #4

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WOMAN'S VOICE:
Dear Guruji,

I have absorbed so much.

I will try to keep

it all within me,

and profit by it.

Self-realization

has helped my career.

It has helped me

to think very little of me,

and let the great spirit

pass through me.

NARRATOR:

Dear Swami Dhirananda...

(READING)

Mount Washington needed

someone to be at the helm.

While Guruji traveled

throughout the United States,

lecturing, giving classes.

He brought one of his

most beloved friends.

He was a very capable teacher.

He was very well-liked.

NARRATOR:
I am powerless

to tell how greatly

he has helped me

in carrying on

my educational work

in India and Boston.

He successfully

carried on the work

at the Ranchi school

during my absence from India.

CHIDANANDA:
This was

his childhood friend

from Calcutta.

I think as boys,

both of them felt that their

families didn't understand

their spiritual longings.

In fact, Dhirananda

said that it was

impossible for him

to even meditate

at his family home.

So Yogananda allowed him

to hide out in his attic room

and he would sneak food up

to him after the meals.

CHIDANANDA:
The 1920s

was a period of almost

ceaseless travel for him.

He was visiting all

of the largest cities

in the Unites States,

where people were

getting their first

glimpse of this

yoga philosophy.

There is no, um,

precursor for Yogananda.

He has to do something

completely new that no one

has done before.

There is no path.

GOLDBERG:
There were

other gurus who came.

Swami Vivekananda,

whom Yogananda

respected greatly,

had been here and started

the Vedanta Society

in the 1890s.

But he only stayed

a few years.

Yogananda was

the first major guru

to have a nationwide impact

and really make

America his home.

(YOGANANDA SPEAKING)

In America, everybody is busy.

If you keep on running after

too many hobbies,

you won't have any time left

for bliss.

VIDAL:
Everything was

covered in the lessons,

from how to achieve

success in our life.

Magnetizing or

attracting your soul mate.

Creating abundance,

how to create

harmony with others,

how to find happiness.

You people do not

sleep correctly.

You subconsciously worry

about unpaid bills.

And allow your

sleep to be disturbed

by the mental

movies of dreams.

By closing the eyes,

and inner relaxation

I can remain

asleep several nights.

And by opening the eyes

and recharging the body,

I can keep awake several days.

CHIDANANDA:
Willpower is

really one of the

absolute necessities

for spiritual progress.

Yogananda defined

willpower this way,

he said,

"Will is that

which changes thought

into energy."

"He asks the six

men to line up

"with their hand

on each other's back

"making a line

across the platform.

"Swamiji said, 'The first one,

put your hands on my stomach.'

"With just a tiny

straightening of his body

"and a quick

flick of his stomach,

"Swamiji sent the six men

catapulting across the stage."

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

What's the key of success?

Concentration power.

You meditate to achieve

the concentration powers.

VIDAL:
He would control

his heart and stop the pulse.

And the doctors would rush,

check his pulse,

he's dying,

he doesn't have a pulse.

And then he would

bring himself back to life.

CHOUDHURY:
Every human being

in the world has

a supernatural power.

But having doesn't

mean anything

if you don't

know how to use it.

MALE ANNOUNCER:
Yoga combines

the physical, mental

and spiritual forces.

Bikram must be in

complete control,

or he's in danger

of being impaled.

Here he goes.

He did it!

And Yogi Bikram

is all right.

CHOUDHURY:

But before you use it,

you have to realize it.

That's why Yogananda called

it self-realization.

You have to

realize that power.

Supernatural, cosmic,

physical, mental,

spiritual power.

NARRATOR:
Don't take

my word for anything.

Apply these techniques,

and find out for yourselves.

MARTIN:
Here is a small,

brown, mystic,

from a nation that

very few Americans

had ever been to,

much less read about.

And he is here

delivering his message

with such force

through personal transmission

to people who came to see him.

NARRATOR:
Most important

is to create a church

within yourself.

Where you are the minister

in the temple

of your own soul.

When somebody is in

a deep meditation,

there are

changes in the brain.

We've seen changes

in the brain scans

of the different

parts of the brain

that become more active.

What you're seeing during

a meditation practice

is a very substantial

decrease of activity

in the part of

the brain which normally

helps us to create

a sense of ourself

and a sense of our orientation

in space and time.

As you progressively

block the activity

in that area,

then you block your

ability to establish

your sense of self

as distinguished

from the rest

of the world.

And you begin to feel

that sense of deep

connectedness or oneness

with everything in the world.

GOEL:
I'm a physicist

and a physician.

I spent years

between the Harvard

physics department

and Harvard Medical School.

Going back and forth

across the Charles River,

but they don't talk

to each other.

As a child, having been

exposed to things

like Vedic philosophy

growing up in

rural Mississippi,

I became inspired

by this deep belief

that there's

an underlying unity

in nature.

By which these

different fields

could come together.

So that led me

to want to combine

these two worlds of

physics and biomedicine.

Physics, our physics

of the last century

has not come

to terms with life,

living systems and things

like consciousness.

The writings of Yogananda

are very appealing

to a scientific appetite.

He was committed

to bringing together

the technology and

the material efficiency

and the scientific

understanding of the West

with the ancient

spiritual wisdom

of the East.

And creating

a unified framework

and an integrated approach

to living life on this planet.

ROBERT LOVE:
In Washington,

something remarkable happened.

Yogananda drew

the largest audiences

a public speaker

had drawn in the city.

Congressmen, senators, judges,

and he was even

invited to the White House

by President Coolidge.

But Yogananda came in

for a rude awakening

when he was in Washington,

which is really part of

the American South.

NARRATOR:
In the national

capital, I was told

that white people only

would be permitted

to attend the classes.

This surprised me very much.

I defied this.

And founded

a Afro-American Yogoda center

to teach my negro brethren.

Cosmic delusion is

always snaring us

through our ignorance.

LOVE:
The civil rights

movement was still

decades away,

and it was inspired,

in fact, by

a revolution that

was fomenting in India.

CHIDANANDA:
Many people

don't realize that

Gandhi was a yogi,

and he was putting

yoga principles

such as non-violence

into action on a mass scale.

SYMAN:
Yogananda himself

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