Awake: The Life of Yogananda Page #5

---

was a very open and

vocal supporter of Gandhi

and lectured at Harvard

about him and his movement.

LOVE:
For this, he was put on

a government watch list

and kept under surveillance.

SONI:
Anyone affiliated

with India, and someone

specifically affiliated

with Mahatma Gandhi

would be a person of interest,

for the American government.

Why are these people drawn

to this heathen teacher?

Oh, what is he doing

behind closed doors?

Are they trying to overthrow

our government too?

LOVE:
There was literally

a war against yoga

being waged in the media.

GOLDBERG:
A huge scandal

erupted when

Swami Dhirananda,

Yogananda's right-hand man,

was discovered giving

private lessons

to a married woman.

And her husband...

...found out about it,

stormed Mount Washington,

and a brawl erupted.

There were crazy

tracts being written,

rumors,

all kinds of allegations,

not just about Yogananda,

but some of the other swamis

and yoga teachers

that this was a love cult

and they were corrupting

the women of America.

SONI:

Yogananda, as a yogi,

would often talk

about mastery

over one's sexuality,

over one's urges.

Self-discipline.

But oftentimes that

was misinterpreted

to mean something scandalous.

LOVE:
You had a kind of

paranoia on the part of

the husbands and

law enforcement officials,

that, you know,

we couldn't trust our women

with these

dark-skinned

foreigners.

SYMAN:
You can read

between the lines here

what the problem really is.

I mean this was a period where

miscegenation laws, you know,

you were forbidden in America,

if you were white,

to marry

a brown-skinned man or woman.

So, I mean, it was

illegal to mix

the races at that point.

(YOGANANDA SPEAKING)

This marriage is symbolical...

of breaking down

the barriers...

of the brown Caucasian

of India...

...and the white Caucasian

of America.

Om.

Amen

Om.

SYMAN:
On the one hand,

open-minded Americans

revered him,

but his unorthodox views

really raised the ire of more

conservative Americans.

By the time he went

into the Deep South,

it really reached

a fever pitch.

LOVE:
"Swami was

ordered to leave Miami

for his own safety.

"The husbands of

more than 200 Miami women

"were preparing to,

'get the Hindu.'"

SYMAN:
His supporters

swarmed City Hall,

and during the hearing,

Police Chief Quigg

claims that Yogananda

tried to hypnotize him.

SONI:
Yogananda's no

longer being invited

to receive the keys

to different cities.

He's no longer being

invited to speak

to different

religious congregations.

NARRATOR:
I am going through

the severest trial of my life.

Judge for yourself

the lying capacity

of the newspapers.

CHIDANANDA:
Back in Los

Angeles, the district attorney

eventually cleared Yogananda,

and Mount Washington

of all wrong-doing.

But the damage had

already been done.

NARRATOR:
The fruits

of a lifetime of service

to mankind

reduced to ashes

by the soulless efforts

of yellow journalism.

CLOONEY:
All these incidents

culminated in a falling out

between Yogananda

and Dhirananda.

Dhirananda left,

and started

another organization not far

from Mount Washington.

LOVE:
Many of the students

went with Dhirananda

because Yogananda

had been busy

touring the country

for the last year.

CHIDANANDA:
The final

heartbreak came

a couple of years later,

when Dhirananda left

the Swami Order altogether.

And married one of his

Los Angeles students.

Then he sued Yogananda

for his share of the work

they had done together.

NARRATOR:
With a heavy heart,

I'm starting for Mexico.

Cutting loose from everything,

that I may consecrate myself

to God entirely.

Divine Mother,

free me,

let me go back to India,

to serve you there, not here.

There, there is bitterness

and heartache and frustration.

And no one to listen

to your message.

VISHWANANDA:
In Yogananda's

darkest hours, there's only

one place that he went.

He always went within.

We call it God,

place of stillness.

NARRATOR:
Many times

I have tried to walk away

from these organizational

responsibilities.

Every time, Divine Mother

comes and takes me by the ear

and says, "Come back."

He said, "When I received

that answer, I wept.

"And I knew I had to go back.

"I knew this is what

God wanted from me."

NARRATOR:
Walking away under

the guise of renunciation,

all non-attachment

is the easy part.

It shows more

spiritual fiber to live

a godly life

in the jungle

of civilization.

I love all.

Even those who avow

themselves my enemies.

For I see thee in every being.

I will rebuild this

organization from scratch.

Just as I did when

I arrived from India in 1920.

MATA:
With that renewed faith,

and the determination

that he would not give up

even though he was sorely

tried and wanted to leave,

he began to draw disciples.

One of them was me.

I came in 1931.

Many other young

people came.

There were older people here,

there was

all ages living here.

LOVE:
Yogananda

had consistently

drawn his devotees

from all walks of life.

Prominent businessmen,

judges, lawyers,

even hardened journalists.

But by the early 1930s,

something very different

was beginning.

A small, core group

of devotees

came to Yogananda

and asked to be accepted into

this monastic path

of complete renunciation.

To completely

devote their whole lives

to following his teachings,

and seeking God

through this path

of Kriya Yoga meditation.

James Lynn,

the wealthy businessman,

was one of them.

And he'd go on to become

a highly advanced yogi,

and take monastic vows

like the others.

And so through Yogananda,

this ancient

monastic swami order

from India

took root

in America.

MATA:
Now began the training.

I knew nothing

about renunciation.

CHIDANANDA:
The new monastics

took strict vows,

like Yogananda himself,

of simplicity, celibacy,

obedience, and loyalty.

Yogananda's lay students

faced other challenges.

HERB JEFFRIES:
I'd been there

about six or seven weeks,

and I said

"Guruji, all my life,

I heard thou canst not,

"thou shalt not,

thou must not.

"These are

the rules of the religious

teachings that I've heard

"around my relatives."

"What I want to know from you

is, what canst thou?"

He said "Well, do you smoke?"

And I said, "Yes."

He said, "You may continue."

"Do you drink?"

"Alcohol?" I said, "Yes."

He said, "You may continue."

"Do you

"enjoy the opposite

sex promiscuously?"

"Yes."

"Well, you may continue."

I said, "Wait a minute.

"You mean that I can

"come up on this hill here,

"in this good place

with all of these

"wonderful people,

your disciples

"and the devotees,

and the brothers up here,

"and study these teachings,

"and I can go back down there

"and do all these things?"

"Absolutely."

"But I will

not promise you that as you

"continue to study

these teachings,

"that the desire

to do these things

"will not fall away from you."

NARRATOR:
Repeated

performance of inaction

creates a mental blueprint.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes