S3E10 - The Guru (Self Realization Fellowship, pt1) - Cult or Just Weird

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kayla (00:05):
Hey, Chris. Recording a little bit.

Chris (00:11):
What? Why? What is going on?

Kayla (00:14):
What. What do you think we're about to do?

Chris (00:16):
I don't know. I wasn't prepared to record. It's like 09:00. I'm usually not even up this early.

Kayla (00:24):
I know. Well, we're about to do a thing.

Chris (00:28):
Okay, what are we about to do?

Kayla (00:30):
I'm not gonna say yet, but we're about to do a thing, and I'm gonna audio record it and see if we can use it for an episode of our podcast.

Chris (00:41):
All right. I forgot the. Hey, Kayla, look, my voice is even cracking now. It's too early for my voice to not crack. Okay, I am very curious.

Zoom Session Leader (01:03):
Jai guru, welcome to this special online healing prayer session. Let us start with the prayer. Heavenly father, mother, friend, beloved God, Bhagawan Krishna, Jesus Christ, Mahautar Babaji Lahri Mahasaya, Swami Sri Yukteswarji, beloved Gurudev, Parmahamsa Yoganandaji saints of all religions, we bow to you all. Heavenly father, I want prosperity, health and wisdom without measure, not from, but from thine all possessing, all powerful, all bountiful hands. Om Shanti, shanti. Now let us meditate. Let us start practice healing technique. Heavenly father, thou art omnipresent. Thou art in all thy children manifest thy healing presence in their bodies. Heavenly father, thou art omnipresent. Thou art in all thy children. Manifest thy healing presence in their minds. Let us close with the prayer.

(04:15):
Heavenly father, mother, friend, beloved goddess, Bhagawan Krishna, Jesus Christ, Mahavatar Babaji Lahiri Mahasaya Swami Sri beloved Gurudev, Paramahamsa Yoganandaji saints of all religions, we bow to you all. Heavenly Father, thou art our new joy. Thou art the lasting joy of the soul. Thou art the joy that I seek. Odd and pranam.

Kayla (05:27):
So I don't want to do too much of this kind of recording since we'll go in studio and talk about it. But I just want to say that what we just did was a healing prayer circle put on by the self realization fellowship, which is a quote from Wikipedia. A worldwide spiritual organization founded by Pramahansa Yogananda in 1920. Pramahansa Yogananda is basically responsible for bringing the concept of yoga to the United States.

Chris (06:03):
Oh, wow.

Kayla (06:04):
Particularly Los Angeles. And this brand of, this style of yoga is very widely known as, like, Los Angeles or California style yoga.

Chris (06:17):
Perfect.

Kayla (06:17):
There's a lot more to cover, obviously. But first, you and I are going to go to one of their temple locations in Los Angeles right now.

Chris (06:25):
Right now?

Kayla (06:26):
Yes.

Chris (06:27):
Awesome.

Kayla (06:28):
So see you there. Well, Chris, we are back from the self realization fellowship Lake shrine.

Chris (07:13):
Mm.

Kayla (07:14):
Do you have any thoughts you'd like to.

Chris (07:16):
Beautiful.

Kayla (07:18):
That's your immediate thoughts you'd like to share with our listeners?

Chris (07:22):
Yeah.

Kayla (07:23):
I was gonna say anything that happened to us, things that we saw, if you don't have any thoughts, like, no worries. We will get to it, but, yeah. What's your initial takeaway?

Chris (07:33):
Well, okay, so my initial takeaway, I talked to you about this when were there, but my initial takeaway was like, holy shit, this is huge. This is on some of the most expensive property I can possibly think of in the US because it's right on. It's literally on sunset and pch.

Kayla (07:49):
It's basically like 1 minute off the beach.

Chris (07:51):
Yeah, yeah. And the grounds are in Malibu, essentially. Yeah. And the grounds are as well kept as, like, Disney world. I mean, they're immaculate grounds.

Kayla (08:00):
They smelled so good.

Chris (08:01):
Yeah. Beautiful flowers and big lake in the.

Kayla (08:04):
Middle, swans, fountain of walking path. People everywhere. So much. So much koi turtles. Little turtles hanging out.

Chris (08:14):
Yeah. And then there was that table that had all the swag that they were selling.

Kayla (08:19):
A lot of swag.

Chris (08:20):
But, yeah. Like, my biggest impression was, holy shit, this is expensive.

Kayla (08:25):
Yeah.

Chris (08:26):
Because it was not small. It was not like a little, you know, ten by ten room.

Kayla (08:30):
No, it was an enormous piece. I think they said it was ten acres, something like that.

Chris (08:35):
Yeah. That doesn't surprise me.

Kayla (08:37):
I think they said it was ten acres. There's a lake. There was a temple that we could not go to because it's closed for Covid. There was a visitor center. There was a meditation center. There was a house.

Chris (08:49):
The meditation center was like a. It felt like a church inside. You had to be quiet, but it.

Kayla (08:53):
Was inside a windmill.

Chris (08:54):
But it was inside something that looked like an old. Yeah, like a windmill from Holland. I think it was even supposed to be like an authentic something.

Kayla (09:01):
Like.

Chris (09:03):
There were statue. There's a statue of Jesus. There are a few other statues of different, you know, enlightened folks.

Kayla (09:09):
There were quotes from Paramahansa, Yugananda all around the lake shrine. Yeah, there was. There was.

Chris (09:14):
And there was a monument to each of the quote unquote, five, according to them, five major world religions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. So they were like, sometimes some of these groups are like, oh, we accept all religions. They felt very much like that. Right where it was sort of non denominational.

Kayla (09:37):
It's not really. We're not a religion. We're just a thing you can do to support you. We're not a religion. You can still do your religion, but you can also do us.

Chris (09:46):
But it kind of felt like they're a religion, though, right? It had some aspects, actually. I guess that's what the show was. That's why we're doing the show.

Kayla (09:55):
This is why we are doing the show. Cult or just weird. To establish what this group is. My name is Kayla. I am a television writer and Internet obsessed researcher.

Chris (10:06):
My name is Chris, and I am a game designer and data scientist. And I guess I'm also obsessed with the Internet now.

Kayla (10:13):
I know it sucks. It's terrible.

Chris (10:14):
It's a stupid podcast.

Kayla (10:16):
I just. I got on TikTok, and that was maybe, I think maybe the biggest mistake in my life.

Chris (10:21):
Yeah, that's been ruining your life.

Kayla (10:22):
It's very bad.

Chris (10:23):
You should undo that.

Kayla (10:24):
Of all of the forms of social media I participated in, this one is the biggest stealer of time. It's.

Chris (10:31):
So why do you think?

Kayla (10:33):
I think it's because. It's because it just shows you one video at a time, and you just swipe and swipe, and it's like the perfect little rat press in the lever thing. It's just perfect. And it's not like most of the videos, at least depending on what your for you page looks like, depending on your recommendations. It's not like Twitter, where, like, every second, every, you know, every other tweet is about how the world is dying and politics are bad and people are bad and everything is terrible. It's just people, like, doing makeup or doing drag or making a funny joke or showing their cute pet or doing some really cool edits. Like, it's a lot of really cool stuff.

Chris (11:12):
Much more engaging.

Kayla (11:13):
Oh, man, that doesn't sound.

Chris (11:14):
But that doesn't sound bad. Like, Twitter sound. Part of why Twitter is bad is because it makes me upset all the time.

Kayla (11:20):
Yeah. But TikTok is stealing my time.

Chris (11:22):
Oh, I see.

Kayla (11:23):
It's stealing my sleep. It's stealing my time. I mean, it's really cool, but it.

Chris (11:27):
Didn'T steal our time today.

Kayla (11:28):
Also, there's a lot of, like, there's a lot of disinformation propagated on TikTok.

Chris (11:35):
Yeah.

Kayla (11:35):
Both, like, political disinformation and also a lot of, like, woo spiritual, like, cult on ramp stuff.

Chris (11:42):
Right.

Kayla (11:42):
And it's not good.

Chris (11:43):
And medical.

Kayla (11:45):
In medical. Yeah. I had a. I had a video served up to me about, like, how to deworm yourself from all the parasites that are living in your body.

Chris (11:52):
Drink, drink, turpentine.

Kayla (11:53):
It wasn't turpentine. It was a specific. It was a specific thing. But it was like, oh, I haven't dewormed myself for four years. Look at all these worms that came out of me.

Chris (11:59):
Oh, God.

Kayla (11:59):
No, they didn't.

Chris (12:00):
Okay. All right.

Kayla (12:01):
That's not what we're here to talk about.

Chris (12:02):
Yeah. This is about yoga.

Kayla (12:05):
We are going to dig into that topic that brought us all together today, which is the self realization fellowship, or SRF. We will probably refer to it a lot as FrF. This is a group I had never heard of until I started doing research for this topic.

Chris (12:20):
Oh, can I answer one more thing about the place today? That picture of that guy that was. Or the five pictures of those five people.

Kayla (12:28):
So what you're talking about is in the meditation room that felt like a church. There were. At the front of the little building, there were portraits.

Chris (12:36):
And those portraits were also in the Zoom meeting that we did, correct?

Kayla (12:39):
Yes, I noticed that, too. Yeah. So those portraits were in the meditation where were in. They were also in the ashram where we did the. Where the meditation was zoomed in from.

Chris (12:50):
Virtual ashram.

Kayla (12:52):
And so the images were of Paramahansa Yogananda.

Chris (12:56):
That was the guy in the middle with the long hair.

Kayla (12:57):
He's on the right side because the guy in the middle with the long hair is Jesus Christ, who is next to Lord Krishna.

Chris (13:05):
Okay.

Kayla (13:06):
And then we will get to who the others are in Ulatul. So again, we're talking about Srf, a group I had not heard of, but apparently it's a group that is very widespread and well known. Like, it's so ubiquitous to the point where people in my life that I've happened to ask, like, oh, hey, have you heard of this thing? Almost everyone I've asked about it absolutely has heard of it. Like, my mom.

Chris (13:26):
Oh, really?

Kayla (13:26):
Yes. My mom was like, oh, yeah. I hadn't heard of it either. My mom was like, oh, yeah, I've been handed books on that. Like, from people on the street.

Chris (13:32):
Yeah, but your mom's a weirdo.

Kayla (13:34):
Okay, well, our therapist literally was like, oh, yeah, I live right next door.

Chris (13:36):
To our therapist is also a weirdo. I'm just saying, we live in Los Angeles, we're surrounded by weirdos.

Kayla (13:43):
We live in Los Angeles, and we're surrounded by SRF. They're very ubiquitous where we live, by.

Chris (13:48):
The way, we here in culture, just weird. Are pro weirdo.

Kayla (13:51):
So it's not a bad thing in.

Chris (13:53):
Case either of you are listening or.

Kayla (13:54):
Like, I forget who I was talking to, but they're like, oh, yeah, I can picture that man with the long hair and the eyes. I'm like, yeah, that's perfect.

Chris (14:01):
Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's the thing that comes to my mind. Yeah.

Kayla (14:04):
Oh. The people that we hung out with not that long ago also knew. They were also weirdos, but they.

Chris (14:09):
They were weirdos.

Kayla (14:10):
They knew who were talking about. As you can imagine, there is a lot. There is a lot to dig into here. It is overwhelming. I have been overwhelmed trying to write this episode and organize my thoughts.

Chris (14:26):
Are we looking at a one or two parter here?

Kayla (14:29):
We'll get to that. But first, let's, I guess, begin by explaining exactly what the self realization fellowship is. Definition, you still don't quite have, even having done a meditation and gone to.

Chris (14:41):
Their location, been to their giant ten acre lake.

Kayla (14:44):
We mentioned up top that the self realization fellowship was founded by a gentleman named Paramahansa Yogananda in 1920. We will get more into who Yogananda was later, but for now, we're going to focus on trying to explain what SRF is and giving some context. It's hard to know where to start. There's a lot of chicken and egg. So this is a worldwide spiritual organization focused on teaching and practicing yoga. The type of yoga embraced by SRF is called kriya yoga. So for some clarification, we're not really talking about the hatha style yoga. People might take classes for. For flexibility or strength or relaxation, like, we're not talking about.

Chris (15:25):
So that has a name.

Kayla (15:26):
What do you mean?

Chris (15:27):
Hatha.

Kayla (15:28):
Hatha yoga. I could be pronouncing that wrong, but it's a h a t h a in English.

Chris (15:33):
And so that's the type that when I think of. Because when I think of yoga like stretches downward dog and whatever.

Kayla (15:39):
Right?

Chris (15:40):
We didn't do any of that on the zoom.

Kayla (15:41):
No, no. In the west, we've kind of taken the term yoga, which is actually a more expansive and inclusive term in its home country of India, and we have applied it to a very narrow set of practices that focus on physical fitness of the body, pairing it with breath work and mental clarity. The kind of yoga that you or I are immediately going to think of when we hear the word yoga. It's like the yoga. You go take a stretching class for physical fitness.

Chris (16:06):
That's.

Kayla (16:06):
Yoga works. That's kind of what we tend to think of. But the word yoga is actually a much more expansive word.

Chris (16:14):
Okay. And so there's the name. But I just didn't know there's a name for the western style. That's interesting.

Kayla (16:20):
I don't know if it is western. I wouldn't go so far as to call it western style.

Chris (16:24):
The style that has become synonymous with yoga here. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I wouldn't suggest that it was invented here. What's the style of yoga that Dalzim does in street fighter two?

Kayla (16:37):
Isn't that where he, like, makes fire or something?

Chris (16:39):
He does a lot of stuff, Kayla. First of all, he can kick his. He can stretch his foot across the whole screen.

Kayla (16:44):
What?

Chris (16:45):
Yeah, when he kicks or punches, his limbs stretch.

Kayla (16:48):
Okay, well, that's not anything.

Chris (16:49):
And then, yes, he spits fire.

Kayla (16:51):
That's something.

Chris (16:52):
That's. Cause I figure. I always thought that was cause he eats spicy stuff.

Kayla (16:55):
It's because of the spicy stuff, so. Okay, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about Kriya yoga style. So Kriya yoga, and the word yoga as a whole, actually refers to a body of techniques intended to develop spiritual awareness, often through meditation and connecting to consciousness. So as we talk about yoga in this episode, and we'll continue to define our terms as we go, just know we're not really talking about yoga with Adriene on YouTube or, you know, what you do at the local fitness.

Chris (17:23):
I love yoga with Adrian.

Kayla (17:24):
I love yoga with Adriene. She's got 10 million followers on YouTube. Good for her. We are instead talking about the ancient practice of spiritual awareness. I will also say here that the concept of yoga is wide and vast and deep and intrinsically tied with a lot of complex history in the east, specifically india and China. And I will not be able to get all of this context exactly right or even fit it all in this episode, or be able touch on everything important that you need to know to be able to understand exactly what yoga is. So if you are looking to really deeply understand what yoga is, I would recommend looking at some of the quintessential yoga texts, and that would include the hindu Upanishads, the buddhist Bhagavad Gita, or the yoga sutras, and then kind of go from there.

Chris (18:11):
Will we link any stuff in our show notes for resources? Further reading?

Kayla (18:15):
Absolutely, will.

Chris (18:17):
Sweet.

Kayla (18:18):
Just to get a little more background on yoga itself before we get more into Kriya yoga and then return to the SRF, yoga as a practice india has origins beginning. Do you want to guess what year.

Chris (18:29):
Do you think the fact that yoga.

Kayla (18:31):
Can be traced back to.

Chris (18:32):
It means it's got to be like 2000 BC or something.

Kayla (18:35):
Close.

Chris (18:37):
3000 BC.

Kayla (18:38):
That's.

Chris (18:39):
Yeah, I was only off by a thousand years. That was close.

Kayla (18:41):
Yeah, it was pretty close.

Chris (18:43):
Thank you.

Kayla (18:45):
So it has origins beginning in the year 3000 BC and has developed from there.

Chris (18:50):
That is very old.

Kayla (18:51):
That is.

Chris (18:52):
That's like pyramids.

Kayla (18:53):
Very, very old. Yes. The earliest practices were more like meditation and asceticism based, and then eventually would expand to include the hatha asanas. So asana, I think, means posture or pose. In yoga, the more physical yoga practices.

Chris (19:09):
Okay, I'm glad that we're going over this because I was a little. I was wondering, when were doing the zoom things, I was like, there.

Kayla (19:13):
Was no, I'm not doing down dog. I'm not doing warrior two. What does this mean?

Chris (19:18):
Why is meditation.

Kayla (19:20):
Right. Technically, yoga, as yoga has spread throughout the world, it has become a go to activity to help promote. To help promote stress. That's what I said.

Chris (19:31):
Well, we got that covered. Yoga actually.

Kayla (19:33):
No, it helps promote stress and anxiety relief.

Chris (19:36):
Oh, okay.

Kayla (19:37):
Supports meditation.

Chris (19:38):
Demote stress.

Kayla (19:39):
Demote stress. But support, you know, your meditation practices, supports your physical fitness. It's to help you achieve spiritual development. Yoga actually plays a really important part in many world faiths. So that's predominantly going to be in Hindu, in Buddhism, and in jain traditions.

Chris (19:57):
Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that it was, like, intrinsically tied.

Kayla (20:00):
I was actually interested and I don't know, maybe I just missed it. But I was a little bit interested to see that, like, Jainism was not really acknowledged at SrF just because yoga is so important in Jainism. And it shares a lot.

Chris (20:12):
I'm sorry, I know Jainism, but I don't remember what Jainism is.

Kayla (20:15):
I don't know anything about it.

Chris (20:17):
Oh, okay.

Kayla (20:18):
No, let me google it really quick. All I know is that they have dope death rituals. So Jainism is also ancient indian religion, so it's different than hindu, but it's still ancient indian religion.

Chris (20:36):
Gotcha.

Kayla (20:36):
Not going to give you much more than that, because that is not what this episode is about. Many techniques in yoga, particularly the non hatha yoga, the more spiritualism, meditation based techniques are spread via a system of gurus, particularly in the indian and hindu traditions. So this basically means that individuals will often master a specific tradition to a deep and profound level. So think of decades and decades of study paired with a renunciate lifestyle, and then that person, as a guru will then pass what they have learned to disciples on a person to person, face to face, individual. Interesting kind of level of teaching.

Chris (21:14):
Is it always a one to one thing?

Kayla (21:16):
Not necessarily, but it often is.

Chris (21:18):
So sometimes it's more like Sith, and sometimes it's more like Jedi.

Kayla (21:23):
Wait, explain.

Chris (21:26):
So that was a deep nerd cut. Sith, there's always two. Always two sith. There's always a master and apprentice. With Jedi, it's like you can have, like, a bunch of people learning to be Jedi.

Kayla (21:36):
I think it's more. More like. Yeah, I think that's not. I'm sure that the Star wars universe probably drew a little bit from.

Chris (21:45):
From eastern stuff. You think?

Kayla (21:47):
I think maybe it's possible. It could be. So in this way, specific traditions can be passed from guru to disciple, who becomes guru to disciple. Or, like, a guru can then teach a number of disciples throughout their lives.

Chris (22:01):
I'm making a note of this for chain of victims. It sounds like a chain.

Kayla (22:05):
Oh, interesting.

Chris (22:06):
I mean, not really victims necessarily.

Kayla (22:08):
Not victims necessarily, but it is a victim. We haven't gotten into victim area yet, but, yeah, there is a chain here, and I just think it's so. I think it's a really cool system.

Chris (22:19):
It is. It's. Yeah, it's really interesting.

Kayla (22:21):
It feels very profound. It feels very special.

Chris (22:24):
Yeah, yeah. Like, the idea of, like, passing knowledge directly from, like, one human being to the next does feel. Yeah. Profound in a way.

Kayla (22:34):
Does everything we just talked about makes sense? Like, do you have any questions?

Chris (22:39):
No, I'm good. I just. I mean, aside from the Star wars.

Kayla (22:41):
Stuff, I cannot answer your Star wars questions. That's why you are on this show. Okay, so if that all makes sense, let's learn a little bit about Kriya yoga. And this is, again, the tradition of yoga taught by srf. And again, not a comprehensive explanation, because this is like a hundreds year old practice based on a thousands year old tradition. There's a lot of nuance and depth, and yada is the tip of the iceberg. I'm gonna keep saying it just to cover my ass.

Chris (23:07):
I know it'll make you feel better. I do it too. I do the same thing.

Kayla (23:10):
I'm not an expert. I do not have a guru. So Kriya yoga is one of four main paths of the yoga practice. The other paths are karma yoga, bhakti yoga, and jnana yoga.

Chris (23:22):
Oh, wait, what? There's more different types?

Kayla (23:24):
Yes.

Chris (23:25):
Okay, so wait, so there's kriya, which is the type that self realization fellowship does?

Kayla (23:29):
Yes.

Chris (23:30):
Okay. And then where does hatha fit in?

Kayla (23:32):
I don't know. I think that hatha yoga, instead of being one of the four main paths of the practice, is a very specific activity that can fit into a larger yoga path.

Chris (23:46):
It's not like I thought it was, like, its own type.

Kayla (23:49):
I don't think so. I think that hatha yoga in general, when we're talking about these very traditional spiritual paths, hatha yoga is those postures, those movements. That activity is used to support whatever.

Chris (24:06):
You happen to be doing.

Kayla (24:08):
It's like. It's when I was first learning yoga, and this is probably not. I guarantee that this is not 100% truth. When I was first learning yoga, I was told that yoga was developed to help condition the body of yoga practitioners.

Chris (24:23):
To deal with the stresses of long term meditation. I've heard that, too.

Kayla (24:27):
Yeah. Help your body be more, like, be able to sit in these positions for a really long time and also, like. And then as I continue to do yoga, the hatha yoga, it is also a meditative practice in and of itself.

Chris (24:40):
Right, okay. I've heard that, too. But I also don't have, like, a rock solid confirmation. That's just like I've read. It's longer.

Kayla (24:46):
Right, right.

Chris (24:47):
So, okay, so I see it's more of, like, a supplement or like, a way to.

Kayla (24:52):
I think so.

Chris (24:53):
Value add to some of the existing yoga practice. But there's four. You said kriya.

Kayla (24:58):
Yes.

Chris (24:59):
And that's the one. That's the raft does self realization. Okay. And then what were the other three named again? I'm sorry.

Kayla (25:05):
Karma yoga. Bhakti. B h a k t I yoga and jnanana yoga. J n a.

Chris (25:11):
Okay, and those. What's the difference between those four?

Kayla (25:14):
I cannot tell you.

Chris (25:17):
Oh, is it like the fire nation, the. The arab benders, and the.

Kayla (25:22):
I don't really know because.

Chris (25:24):
And the hufflepuffs.

Kayla (25:25):
It just. For me, it would require so much more research that I don't like. I was like, okay, I'm gonna google karma yoga. And then I was like, I don't understand why this is different than kriya yoga. I don't really understand.

Chris (25:39):
Okay.

Kayla (25:39):
In order to, I think, be able to give an accurate or nuanced explanation for what the differences between these paths are, I would have. We would need to have an interview with somebody who is, like, very educated on this, and we don't have that.

Chris (25:52):
Maybe in the future. Maybe in the future to answer that question. But as you know today, there's four types.

Kayla (25:59):
Yes. It's important to be aware that there are other kinds. There are other paths of yoga. We are just focusing on this one and those because SRF focuses on. That's because this is what SRF does. The other three, karma Bhakti, Jnana, are explicitly known to be thousands of years old. Like, those are like, yeah, 3000 bc. We got it. Kriya yoga was kind of technically, actually founded in modern times, specifically by a guru named Lahiri Mahasaya in 1861. But while that seems fairly recent, this guru claims that he had been chosen by. Or he claimed that he had been chosen by another guru, Mahavatar Babaji, to learn the ancient secret yogic techniques of kriya yoga and bring it to the modern people. Does that make sense?

Chris (26:52):
Yeah, it does. So it's like this guru was the first one that popularized it in the world, and maybe he invented it, or maybe he got this secret knowledge from thousands of years ago.

Kayla (27:06):
The way the story goes, Guru Lahiri Mahasaya hooked up with another guru, Mahavatar Babaji, and Babaji was like, hey, here's this really secret, ancient practice that originates from the very beginning that the masters have kept secret. But for now, you guys are ready for this. So take this and send it into the world.

Chris (27:29):
Okay, so two thoughts about that. One, not sure I buy it. Two. Awesome storytelling. Holy shit. That's rad as hell. There is some really great storytelling yoga, like, secret teaching. For thousands of years, you guys have all been doing, like, regular yoga, but here's some, like, top secret shit. That's awesome.

Kayla (27:48):
It's. Some of this storytelling is so incredible. And I also. I don't want to be too, like, I don't know, there's part of me that's like, I don't want to be too, like, well, that doesn't make sense.

Chris (28:00):
That's what my job is.

Kayla (28:02):
It's not even that. It's just because this is the mythology.

Chris (28:06):
Right? Right.

Kayla (28:08):
This is the mythology. And I think that from what I understand, like, kind of being able to live in and be comfortable with that mythology is part of all this. But then also. Yeah, it's like, I. If we're going to sit with my, like, scientist hat on or my, like, logic brain on. Look, I'm just probably isn't. You know, actually, we'll get to that because it gets crazier.

Chris (28:29):
Yeah. This is a podcast about yoga, not us doing yoga. So I think I'm comfortable, you know, saying, I don't know about that because I'm sitting here on the outside and I have that privilege and that vantage point.

Kayla (28:41):
Right.

Chris (28:42):
But, yeah, I don't know. Maybe true. Like, totally. There could be, like, some fucking yoga dead sea scrolls that nobody knew about, and then, I mean, like, why not? Maybe.

Kayla (28:49):
Let's keep going. Okay, so basically, Kriya yoga is claimed to be ancient yoga path handed originally from the gods directly to the Hindu Adam, manu. And I don't know, the other yoga path may also been directly handed, but whatever this yoga path, the gods directly handed it to Manu, who is the Hindu Adam. This style of yoga was closely guarded by its secret masters and was only chosen to be brought to a wider audience in 1861 by Lahiri Mahasaya.

Chris (29:18):
Gotcha. It keeps getting more rad, by the way.

Kayla (29:20):
I know. You're not even ready.

Chris (29:22):
Okay.

Kayla (29:23):
I want to get more into this guru, but again, it'll be its whole own episode. So just know that Guru Lahiri Mahasaya was the guru to another indian holy man. Remember this name? Sri Yukteswargiri. Sri Yukteswargiri.

Chris (29:36):
Not going to remember that name.

Kayla (29:38):
So Sri Yukteswara learned the ancient practice of Kriya yoga and would eventually be the guru for a young man who would be known as Paramahansa Yogananda.

Chris (29:48):
Oh, now we've come to the charismatic leader.

Kayla (29:53):
Kind of not yet. Oh, wait, no, he's the guy. He is the guy's picture and everything. To understand Kriya yoga, we need to understand a little bit about the guru who would reveal its secrets to Guru Lahiri Mahasaya in 1861. So this is Guru Mahavatar Babaji or just Babaji. So this is the guy who was like, hey, Paramahansa Yogananda's guru. I'm gonna teach you about this ancient yoga.

Chris (30:16):
Okay, so it's Babaji teaches. What's his name?

Kayla (30:20):
Lahiri Mahasaya.

Chris (30:22):
Lahiri Mahasaya. Who teaches? The guy who teaches paramount.

Kayla (30:28):
Yes.

Chris (30:28):
Who's the third one?

Kayla (30:29):
Sri Yukteswar.

Chris (30:31):
Sri Yukteswar. Okay, so there's four of them.

Kayla (30:33):
Yes.

Chris (30:34):
And then the fourth one. But, I mean, there's more than four even. Right? Because you said that every master has his own guru from back in the. You know, it's like master to student to master to student. Okay.

Kayla (30:44):
Correct. And so remember how were talking about the. The six portraits that were. That we saw on the zoom, and then at the meditation center, there's five. There's six. Oh, and it. So it goes in the order from left to right. It goes, Lahiri Mahasaya.

Chris (31:02):
Okay, so that's the. Okay.

Kayla (31:05):
Babaji.

Chris (31:06):
Okay.

Kayla (31:07):
Jesus Christ. Krishna. Paramahansa Yogananda. Sri Yukteswara.

Chris (31:13):
Okay, so it's that. So those four people we just talked about are four of those portraits.

Kayla (31:18):
Correct.

Chris (31:19):
So why are those four? Oh, because one of them, the babaji.

Kayla (31:23):
Is the founder of Kriya yoga to Lahiri Mahasaya, who gives Kriyay yoga to Sri Yukteswara, who gives Kriya yoga to Paramahansa Yogananda.

Chris (31:32):
Okay, so that's why it's those four. And then they also just really like Jesus and.

Kayla (31:37):
Krishna.

Chris (31:38):
Krishna, correct. Okay.

Kayla (31:39):
Okay. So let's talk specifically about guru Mahavatar Babaji. Or just Babaji.

Chris (31:46):
Okay. These are great names, by the way.

Kayla (31:48):
They're fantastic. Babaji is the name given to this guru by Lahiri Mahasaya. Not much is known about Babaji because he's kind of a mystical figure. So this person has really only made himself known to a handful of gurus between 1861 and 1935.

Chris (32:07):
You're right. This does get cooler.

Kayla (32:08):
Oh, you have no idea.

Chris (32:10):
Okay.

Kayla (32:11):
He lives somewhere in the himalayas as a hermit, okay. And will only appear in person to describe disciples who are ready to be taught by him and who are enlightened enough to receive his knowledge.

Chris (32:21):
Oh, my God. That's so cool.

Kayla (32:25):
By some accounts, Babaji is an incarnation of Lord Shiva himself.

Chris (32:28):
Holy shit.

Kayla (32:29):
And has been seen by at least one disciple transforming into that God. And Lord Shiva is a supreme being in Hinduism. By some accounts, Babaji lives in the himalayas. After having a childhood in a small village where his father was a priestley, he was a disciple of his own guru or gurus, and then he left the village as a young teenager to join a group of older renunciates and traveled around the land studying and learning, eventually being initiated into the practice of Kriya yoga and becoming enlightened himself.

Chris (32:56):
Wait, who got initiated into Babaji? I thought he was the one that discovered it.

Kayla (33:01):
No, man. So Kriya yoga handed by the gods to Manu, who was hindu Adam and then was propagated in ancient times. And that's where Babaji learned it.

Chris (33:14):
He learned it from the ancients.

Kayla (33:16):
By some accounts, Babaji is 500 years old.

Chris (33:19):
Okay.

Kayla (33:20):
By other accounts, he is 2000 years old and conferred with Jesus Christ himself by some other.

Chris (33:27):
Okay, I was getting confused. That's. Okay. That explains it. If he. Okay.

Kayla (33:31):
By some other accounts, he is ageless.

Chris (33:34):
Naturally.

Kayla (33:35):
It is.

Chris (33:35):
Holy shit, man.

Kayla (33:36):
It's extremely cool.

Chris (33:38):
This is wild. And he lives on a mountaintop in the Himalayas. And you're only allowed to see him if you are ready to receive the divine.

Kayla (33:45):
Yeah. If he chooses you.

Chris (33:46):
Oh, man. I mean, it's like Hollywood. It's like this. Somebody wrote this for a minute.

Kayla (33:50):
It's beautiful storytelling.

Chris (33:51):
Yeah.

Kayla (33:52):
Yeah. It said that he still wanders the himalayas and has been known to come to disciples from time to time. So that's Babaji? Babaji is the guru that's credited with bringing the ancient practice of Kriya yoga to a wider birth of yogic disciples starting in 1861, reviving it from a secret ancient practice into a modern one via his disciple, Lahiri Mahasaya.

Chris (34:13):
Okay.

Kayla (34:13):
Kind of a big deal, right?

Chris (34:14):
That is a big deal.

Kayla (34:16):
You obviously remember seeing the picture of him when we visited the lake shrine. But I want to show you his picture again.

Chris (34:20):
Yeah, I don't remember which one was him.

Kayla (34:22):
You don't or you do?

Chris (34:22):
Do not.

Kayla (34:23):
So this one is Babaji.

Chris (34:26):
Not what I pictured.

Kayla (34:28):
So you don't remember that picture?

Chris (34:29):
I do. I remember the picture, but I thought he was, like. I was assuming he was one of the older looking gentlemen.

Kayla (34:34):
No, this is Babaji. Do you want to describe Babaji to our audience?

Chris (34:38):
He's a very skinny young man with long hair and a large forehead, round, full lips. And he's sitting in. What's that pose? That, like, cross legged?

Kayla (34:49):
His lotus position.

Chris (34:50):
Lotus position. With his hands folded, shirtless. He's got a blanket skirt thing that he's wearing on his lower half of his body.

Kayla (34:57):
What's going on with his eyes?

Chris (34:59):
And his eyes are heavenward gazing.

Kayla (35:03):
That's a good way of putting it. Yeah. His eyes are upturned gazing into the heavens or towards the space where your third eye chakra might be.

Chris (35:09):
Yeah. I mean, just based on the fact that he is 500 years old or 2000 or ageless, I was really expecting him to look older, but that dude you just showed me looks like 25, maybe.

Kayla (35:20):
Yeah, he does. And just so you have the image.

Chris (35:23):
Also, it's a drawn picture. It's not a.

Kayla (35:26):
There's no known photographs of Babaji. This is Lahiri Mahasaya, if you remember that picture. And he's.

Chris (35:32):
I do remember probably more what you're picturing. I think I was probably picturing that.

Kayla (35:35):
An older, happy gentleman. Yeah.

Chris (35:38):
Yeah. He's kind of got the, like, the peaceful smile, squinty eyes kind of thing going.

Kayla (35:43):
Yeah. But what exactly is Kriya? Yoga.

Chris (35:49):
Yeah, you said you were gonna tell me that.

Kayla (35:51):
Well, the sanskrit word for kriya, in this case means action, the yoga of action. And those actions are defined as, by, in this text, yoga of sutras. The Kriya actions are asidicism, recitation and devotion. And so you can carry out these actions by various specific pranayama, which is focus on the breath mantra, which are sacred sounds or chants, and mudra, which are ritualistic gestures.

Chris (36:19):
Okay, so breathe, chants, gestures, correct. Okay. Presence of ritual, high.

Kayla (36:26):
Correct. These specific acts are learned in a system of levels and are intended to bring the practitioner into communication or oneness with God or the creator.

Chris (36:37):
Okay.

Kayla (36:37):
Because of this, kriya yoga can actually be practiced by members of any religion. Like we noted, it is not necessarily religion itself, but rather a technique to help bring one closer to God as the practitioner may understand God.

Chris (36:51):
Okay, sounds cool so far, but like.

Kayla (36:54):
What does that mean?

Chris (36:56):
Well, it's just, it's, you know, it's open. Right.

Kayla (36:58):
It's like, but like, what are the actual techniques? Like, what are you supposed to do? No, I can't tell you. I can't tell you because Kriya yoga, dammit, is pretty much only learned via the guru disciple relationship. And initiation into the practice consists of a period of education and learning followed by a secret serious.

Chris (37:19):
So I have to become a guru myself, a student of, I have to find a guru.

Kayla (37:26):
Correct.

Chris (37:27):
And initiate that like chain of like master teacher student.

Kayla (37:30):
Correct.

Chris (37:32):
In order to even be able to do any of this stuff.

Kayla (37:34):
But you know how you can do that?

Chris (37:36):
For the low price of 1995.

Kayla (37:38):
You can just join a little thing called the self realization fellowship.

Chris (37:41):
Okay. Okay, that makes sense.

Kayla (37:44):
We'll get to that.

Chris (37:45):
Okay, so I have to join the fellowship and then I learn how to do those actual things. And so that's like learning how to do the breath work, learning the hand rituals, the gestures. Okay.

Kayla (37:57):
Lahiri Mahasaya stated that, quote, babaji instructed me in the ancient rigid rules which govern the transmission of the yogic art from guru to disciple. So unless we go wander on the himalayas and find Babaji, can we please do that? We won't be able to give you.

Chris (38:11):
Those specifics, fence it to the podcast.

Kayla (38:13):
Or like you said, get involved with. Actually, like I said, get involved with the SRF. More on that later.

Chris (38:20):
Okay.

Kayla (38:20):
What I can tell you about Kriya yoga practices is that they focus heavily on meditation, generally teaching a technique in which the meditator rolls their eyes slightly upward or heavenward. So you're focusing just above the horizon or you're trying to focus on the space in between your own eyebrows.

Chris (38:37):
Okay. So, yeah, that's what that dude looked like.

Kayla (38:39):
That's the image, babaji. Yeah. Kriya yoga also focuses heavily on the meditative and spiritual importance of the spine and the process of moving life energy up and down it through six specific centers. The. I'm gonna pronounce these wrong. Medullary, the cervical, the dorsal lumbra, sacral, and coccygeal. One might also.

Chris (39:01):
Cox.

Kayla (39:02):
Yes. One might also know that these centers correspond to chakra locations. The connection to the spine is extremely important to kriya yoga, and disciples learn further techniques to harness that life energy. So a lot of meditation is about picturing the energy moving up and down the spine in specific ways, or I think it gets, you know, I think it is the belief of, like, oh, I'm actually moving some sort of energy, you know, from the. From the brain center to the spine, blah, blah.

Chris (39:31):
So.

Kayla (39:31):
Okay, do we feel like we have somewhat of an understanding now when we talk about yoga and specifically kriya yoga? Any questions?

Chris (39:38):
Yeah. Kriya yoga was invented by this crazy real life Yoda guy from the Himalayas.

Kayla (39:44):
It was not invented by him.

Chris (39:46):
Sorry. It was brought to the masses.

Kayla (39:48):
There we go.

Chris (39:48):
By this incredible Yoda like person, and it consists of breath, mantras, and gestures that we don't know what they are. Cause we're not members of self realization.

Kayla (40:03):
Fellowship, not members of the Cool Kids club yet.

Chris (40:05):
Mm. And it's. And you're supposed to look heavenward, and you're supposed to think about your spine, and then what does it do? Oh, it helps you be more in touch with whatever you're doing.

Kayla (40:17):
Communication with God. Yes.

Chris (40:18):
Your divine.

Kayla (40:19):
Like, you're expanding your consciousness so that, like, the self becomes one with God, the creator, the whatever.

Chris (40:25):
Okay, cool. Yeah.

Kayla (40:27):
All right, it's time now to move forward to the guru we will be focusing on today. I say, 40 minutes into the podcast episode, our charismatic leader himself, Paramahansa Yogananda.

Chris (40:38):
Excellent.

Kayla (40:39):
I should probably have done this earlier, but we're going to do it now. All of today's research comes from the self realization fellowship website, yogananda.com, comma, Wikipedia, a website called skeptic meditations, the cult Education institute, a website called Yogananda for the World. Message boards including SrF, Walrus, and Angelfire, ananda.org dot two episodes of the podcast. Oh, no. Ross and Carrie about the self realization.

Chris (41:06):
Oh, Ross and Carrie did okay.

Kayla (41:07):
Oh, they did a book written by Paramahansa Yogananda called autobiography of a yogi and a documentary produced by srf itself called the Life of Yogananda. Let's dive in.

Chris (41:18):
All right. Well, I mean, I'm already. I feel like I'm already kind of in.

Kayla (41:22):
You've dived in?

Chris (41:23):
I've dived already.

Kayla (41:25):
According to himself, Parmahansa Yogananda was conscious in the womb.

Chris (41:30):
No, he wasn't.

Kayla (41:31):
According to. That's what he says. That's basically how the documentary about his life starts out. It's like, I was conscious in the womb. It was weird. I forget if he was like, I hated it and I wanted out, or if it was like, this is dope, and I never want to leave. I think it was like, I hate it, I want out.

Chris (41:45):
That was my next question. I was like, would that be awesome or would that be terrifying?

Kayla (41:51):
Both.

Chris (41:51):
Someone that has, like, claustrophobia. I don't know. I feel like it would be terrifying.

Kayla (41:56):
Would there ever be a time in your life where you would feel more just like, connected to the ether, the aether? Yeah.

Chris (42:03):
Is that my mom's name? Ether?

Kayla (42:04):
Yeah. No, just connected to the, like, the spiritual oneness of the world, the universe.

Chris (42:12):
You would have to ask Parmahansa Yogananda, because I personally was not conscious in the womb. Nor I, which is good, because I swallowed my own poop.

Kayla (42:20):
I wish you hadn't done that.

Chris (42:21):
I also wish that.

Kayla (42:22):
So gross. Disgusting. So Paramahansa Yogananda was born in Gorakhapur, India to the name Mukunda lal Ghosh, and he was one of eight siblings. And his parents were already spiritual Hinduse. And this was in the year 1893. According to the documentary, his parents, the guru his parents were already had a relationship with, predicted that Yogananda would later become a guru who would spread kriya yoga around the world. So almost from infancy, he was told it was his destiny to settle in the west and bring the message of yoga to the people here.

Chris (42:56):
Yeah, that definitely has that destined child thing.

Kayla (43:00):
But he was very spiritual from an early age. Not sure how you couldn't be if you were like, told you're going to be the guru that brought Kriya yoga everywhere. The second reference on the planet. But even his own siblings are on record having stated that young Yogananda's spiritual awareness was something special. And it's claimed that he was able to see and feel future events, such as his inevitable move to the US and his own mother's death when he was eleven years old.

Chris (43:28):
Wow.

Kayla (43:28):
Yogananda's family moved around a lot due to his father's job at the railroad. And this also allowed him to visit many pilgrimage spots around the country, seeking various sages and gurus in a quest to find someone who would, in turn, become his own guru. So he was kind of always searching for, who is the person that I'm going to connect with and be taught by?

Chris (43:46):
Yeah, I'm still looking for that same.

Kayla (43:48):
Aren't we all? After he finished, like, grade school or high school, he joined a hermitage, which is a place where individuals live together in religious seclusion. Didn't really click with the vibe there. It was kind of, like, too focused on, like, physical, organizational work. So, like, the doing of the good deeds, the mutual aid, that kind of thing, instead of focusing on the inner spirituality, like meditation. And he kind of felt that was what he was looking for. That's the message that he was looking to receive and to spread.

Chris (44:17):
That was more his cup of tea.

Kayla (44:18):
Exactly. Dissatisfaction grew. He began to look for a way out, and that's when he met his guru. The name you'll probably hopefully remember, sort of Shuri Swami Sri Yukteswar girih.

Chris (44:31):
How am I supposed to remember that? Kayla?

Kayla (44:33):
It's a good name.

Chris (44:34):
It's a great name, but I can. That's very complicated.

Kayla (44:37):
Good.

Chris (44:37):
I can remember Steve. Like, that's how much my brain.

Kayla (44:40):
But do you remember who he was? So Sriu Teswar was a disciple of a guru who learned Kriya yoga directly from Babaji.

Chris (44:46):
Babaji. Yeah, it was babaji. It was Lissara.

Kayla (44:49):
Lahiri. Lahiri mahasaya.

Chris (44:51):
Lahiri mahasaya. My brain keeps merging those words.

Kayla (44:54):
Two different words.

Chris (44:55):
And that person taught. I. Sri Sri Yukteswar Tesswar. Yukteswar Yuktesquar.

Kayla (45:03):
Who taught Paramahansa Yogananda.

Chris (45:05):
Yes.

Kayla (45:06):
Please let me read to you this passage Yogananda wrote to describe his meeting with his guru.

Chris (45:11):
Ooh, I'm looking forward to this.

Kayla (45:15):
We entered a oneness of silence. Words seemed the rankest superfluities. Eloquence flowed in soundless chant from heart of master to disciple with antenna of irrefragable insight. I sensed that my guru knew God and would lead me to him. The obscuration of this life disappeared in a fragile dawn of prenatal memories. Dramatic time, past, present, and future are its cycling scenes. This was not the first sun to find me at these holy feet. Basically, he's saying, like, we have.

Chris (45:47):
Yeah, I'm picked. Like, no, I can picture that. I can.

Kayla (45:50):
We have a connection. This is like the meeting of souls that have had connections in previous lifetimes like that.

Chris (45:56):
Yeah, I'm picturing these. I'm picturing these two dudes just looking at each other in silence for, like, 30 minutes and, like, having a full conversation.

Kayla (46:03):
Yeah.

Chris (46:04):
Oh, man. Like, what was. Sorry, what was the quote about the words that I like, because it was so amazing.

Kayla (46:09):
Words seemed the rankest superfluities.

Chris (46:12):
God, I love that.

Kayla (46:16):
Eloquence flowed in soundless chan from heart of master to disciple. It's just, he's a beautiful writer.

Chris (46:21):
Yeah.

Kayla (46:22):
So the relationship between the two of them was intense. Yoga Nanda studied under him for ten years, and the way yoga Nanda talked about Sri Yukteswara doesn't really change from that passage. He loved the man, and it seemed like a tremendous. It seemed like he learned a tremendous amount eventually, and then eventually was initiated into the tradition of kriya yoga after his studies. And Sri. Ugh. Tesswar, in turn, also confirmed the messages that Yogananda had received since he was a child. Yes. Guru Babaji intended for Yogananda to spread the word of Kriya yoga across the world.

Chris (46:57):
Wait, so Babaji knew that the fourth guy down from him was gonna spread it across the world? Yes, of course he did.

Kayla (47:04):
He did.

Chris (47:04):
He's all seeing.

Kayla (47:05):
But honestly, Yogananda was pretty reluctant to leave India for the US. He was living in the beautiful countryside. He was meditating and expanding his spirituality all the time. Like, hanging out with a man he literally worshipped. So, like, why would he go to the yoga ignorant us? Like, there wasn't exactly, like, a draw. There was not a non spiritual draw there. The only draw for it was, you know, this prophecy kind of thing.

Chris (47:30):
Right? Yeah. Why would you come over here? This place sucks. We don't have universal healthcare.

Kayla (47:35):
So he didn't for a while, he stayed india.

Chris (47:37):
Okay.

Kayla (47:38):
In 1914, he took formal vows into the monastic Swami order. And Swami is an honorific given to monks who have committed to the monastic path of renunciation. And renunciation is kind of like when you commit to a life of asceticism. You're like, I renounce all the worldly stuff. I'm gonna be.

Chris (47:56):
No cell phones, no french fries.

Kayla (47:58):
Not in 1914. There were no cell phones.

Chris (48:02):
Oh, really? Wow. Thank you.

Kayla (48:04):
And this is actually when he chose the name Yogananda for this new version of his life.

Chris (48:09):
Wait, what was his name before that?

Kayla (48:10):
It was. I said it at the top. I just was like, I shouldn't. I need to call him by Parma. Hasa Yogananda. I'm not gonna call him by his birth name and then that.

Chris (48:19):
Are we dead? Naming him? Is that.

Kayla (48:21):
No, it's just this was. In these kinds of monastic orders, you choose a new name for when you are initiated.

Chris (48:29):
Gotcha.

Kayla (48:30):
But the name that he had before that was Mukunda lal Ghosh.

Chris (48:33):
I see.

Kayla (48:34):
So that was what he was known as. And then once he became Aswami, once he became initiating to Kri Yogananda got it. Just a few years after this, in 1917, Yogananda founded a school for boys india he called a how to live school, where students.

Chris (48:49):
I need to attend that school.

Kayla (48:51):
Well, I thought it would be about, like, doing your taxes and, you know.

Chris (48:54):
Like, how to buy insurance.

Kayla (48:55):
Yeah.

Chris (48:55):
Yeah.

Kayla (48:56):
It's really more about learning the art and science of yoga via teachings on meditation and living spiritually, which is also cool. Just not really, like, how to drive a car school.

Chris (49:04):
I mean, that stuff can be very meditative, too. You guys driving your car, doing your taxes.

Kayla (49:10):
I don't think doing your taxes can be very relaxing. Fun fact, kind of. One of the earliest pupils at the how to live school was Yogananda's younger brother, Bishnu. Bishnu actually learned the yoga asanas there. So, like, the yoga poses in the physical activity form of yoga, hatha yoga. And the story goes, there's a story that Bishnu would go on to teach those asanas to none other than Bikram Chaudhry, the founder of Bikram Yoga, a style of hot yoga. Bikram would later turn out to be his own cult like leader, with a string of serious rape allegations and discrimination claims, who would eventually flee the US back to India to avoid legal repercussions here. Also, maybe his claims of being taught by Bishnu are actually false.

Chris (49:58):
Well, yeah, I mean, we're not sure with Bikram that.

Kayla (50:01):
Yeah, fun.

Chris (50:02):
Not sure I believe anything that comes out of that guy's mouth.

Kayla (50:05):
So he was in the documentary about Yogananda's life, which we can talk more about later. But in the documentary about his life, there's a lot of people interviewed for it. So, like, people who knew him, people that are in the monastic order, other people who are, you know, Deepak Chopra is obviously interviewed for it, people who are religious scholars, people who are, like, neuroscience, all kinds of people. And when you go on the self realization fellowship website's page about this documentary, it lists out everyone who's interviewed for it. So it's like, George Harrison, this guy, this neuroscientist. They do not list the fact that Bikram Chowdhury is interviewed heavily for it because it was a. It was made before all of his, like, very serious legal issues came about.

Chris (50:53):
Right.

Kayla (50:53):
But he's. He's in it. He's in it a lot.

Chris (50:55):
Yeah. Well, you can't cut him out of the documentary if it's been made, but you can take his name off your website.

Kayla (51:00):
His name's not on the website, but he's in it a lot. When I was watching it, then he should have us, like, oh, God. Don't want to see him. He's still, you know, he's still a yoga trainer. He still hosts.

Chris (51:10):
Oh, that. I did not know that. But that completely.

Kayla (51:13):
He doesn't work here, but he, like, does training. I think he. I don't remember where he lives. I know he fled back to India. I think he's, like, in Spain or Italy. I don't know.

Chris (51:19):
It's like the Buddha field guy. Like, you know, he had his falling out where he. Turns out he was, like, sexually abusing everybody, and then he fled and started doing it again.

Kayla (51:26):
Started doing it just again. But we aren't talking about Bhikkum Choudhary here today.

Chris (51:30):
Good.

Kayla (51:30):
We are still talking about Paramahansa Yogananda.

Chris (51:32):
He sounds like a better dude.

Kayla (51:34):
So the how to live school would eventually be known as the Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, or YSS, a religious foundation with multiple locations and centers dedicated to teaching the principles of Kriya yoga. And it's the indian branch of Yogananda's American foundation, the self realization fellowship. So it's kind of like.

Chris (51:52):
But he started that one first.

Kayla (51:53):
He started that one first india, and then he came here and was like, we'll do the same thing, but it's just called something different. But they both basically have the same ends. They're like sister organizations. The meditation zoom that you and I participated in was actually put on by the YSS from an ashram india, which is why it was so early in the morning, because it was like 09:00 at night there.

Chris (52:12):
Gotcha.

Kayla (52:12):
For us, it was really early in the morning.

Chris (52:13):
It's possible that people listening wouldn't consider 09:00 a.m. Early in the morning. But for me, that was it nine.

Kayla (52:20):
Or was it eight?

Chris (52:20):
That was like the crack of dawn. It felt very early for my lazy.

Kayla (52:24):
Ass, it was early. So, okay, what actually finally kicked Yogananda in the butt to get him over to the US? Well, the story goes.

Chris (52:34):
What? I don't know.

Kayla (52:35):
It was not afoot this is the official story from Yogananda's book, and it's the accepted story by the SRF. So one day, Yogananda was meditating at the how to live school, and a vision appeared to him of faces, a crowd of Americans. Yogananda took this as a message that his time india was coming to a close, that he would soon be coming here. A series of events then waterfalled. He received an invite from the American Unitarian association to serve as India's delegate.

Chris (53:03):
Unitarian association?

Kayla (53:05):
I don't know some american religious organization. No, you can ask questions that I don't know the answer to. It's an association of american Unitarians, like Unitarian Universalist. They're non denominational, christian church.

Chris (53:18):
Got it.

Kayla (53:19):
They were like, hey, come here. You be the delegate for this, like, thing we're doing called the International Congress of religious liberals. And that was happening in Boston.

Chris (53:26):
Okay.

Kayla (53:27):
He was like, I don't know what to do. So he went to his guru, Sri Teswar, and said, you know, what do I do?

Chris (53:33):
And when you say, when you went to him to ask, what do you do? Or what do I do? He just probably just went up to him and said nothing and stared at him for ten minutes. And then the.

Kayla (53:44):
I think it would need to be ten minutes.

Chris (53:45):
His guru stared back and, like, just transmitted the information directly?

Kayla (53:48):
I think so. I think that's how it worked. But Sriu Tessar was like, you gotta go. That's what you're supposed to do. And then finally, while Yogananda was meditating in his room one night, and Guru Babaji appeared to him directly and said, yeah, man, you gotta go. I'm sure he said it differently than that, but he was like, yes, this is your destiny. Go do this thing.

Chris (54:08):
Was it a vision of Babaji, or was it, like, the actual. Cause he's timeless, right? Or he may be timeless, right?

Kayla (54:14):
I'm actually not sure. I'm not sure if it was like he physically was in the room or if it was like, a vision.

Chris (54:20):
Yeah.

Kayla (54:21):
Either way, Babaji was transmitting the message to him of like, hey, we, the masters, have chosen you to spread Kriya yoga to the west, so go.

Chris (54:29):
So you kind of have to.

Kayla (54:30):
So Yogananda got on a ship, sailed for Boston. This series of events became a recurring story in the lectures he would do after a successful showing at that International Congress of religious.

Chris (54:41):
I'm surprised that Boston was his first destination, not West coast. Is it because of the invite from the.

Kayla (54:47):
I think so unitarian. Okay, so he. So he shows up there to do the thing. And he. This is 1920. He moves to America. This is the same year that he founds the SRF. So kind of when he. So kind of, like, right when he arrives, it's like, we're founding the SRF now. So that way I can, you know, use this foundation to spread my wisdom. Immediately after he wrote, okay, yes, in Boston. So from. And then he actually was. He set himself up in Boston for four years.

Chris (55:13):
Oh, wow.

Kayla (55:14):
From 1920 to 1924, he stayed in Boston. He was giving this series of free lectures. In the documentary, there was, they showed a picture of him standing next to a sign promoting one of his talks. And so he's slated as Swami Yogananda. And then the sign identifies him as a renowned lecturer, educator, and psychologist from India. And it says, this talk is on concentration and life force. And I'm like, I don't think he was a psychologist. But I guess, yeah, I get.

Chris (55:46):
Maybe you can. Yeah, I think you could just kind.

Kayla (55:48):
Of say whatever you wanted back then.

Chris (55:50):
So you said he was in Boston for four years?

Kayla (55:52):
Yeah.

Chris (55:52):
So by the time he was done doing, like, he was done there, did he call it, like, wicked good yoga? We're gonna go do some. Some yoga at Fenway pack.

Kayla (56:03):
I don't think. Was that there? Was it there?

Chris (56:06):
What's what there?

Kayla (56:07):
Fenway Park.

Chris (56:08):
Fenway park is in Boston.

Kayla (56:09):
But was it there at the time?

Chris (56:10):
Oh, baseball, probably. Baseball. Yeah, they're actually. I mean, the Red Sox were, but I don't know if Fenway was. I don't know when I was built.

Kayla (56:18):
I hope Yoginanda got to go to a baseball game. Be nice.

Chris (56:23):
So do some yoga, do some poses, and then eat some peach cobbler. Sorry. Okay, I'm done. I promise.

Kayla (56:29):
You're murdered is what you are. What do you think happened? What do you think the response was?

Chris (56:35):
I have no idea.

Kayla (56:36):
He was actually pretty popular.

Chris (56:38):
Oh.

Kayla (56:38):
Thousands of people attended lectures over the course of those four years.

Chris (56:42):
Well, actually, I guess I could have got. Now that you say that makes total sense, because yoga is extremely popular here, and it's new at the time.

Kayla (56:50):
Yeah, it's so novel. I think it could have gone either way. And actually, we'll get to that. In 1924, he decided to go on a cross country speaking tour. And, like, the footage in the documentary from this time, it's just so cool because it's. It literally is this man who is wearing very traditional indian, Hindu Swami dressed. He's like, got a turban on, he's got his long hair. He's amongst groups of people who have never even seen an indian person before. Like, and then he gets in, like, you know, 1920s style car is just driven around the country. It's just so awesome. There wasn't even, like, the highway system as we know of it back then. Like, it was very different to drive across the country.

Chris (57:31):
Right. And you were driving like a model t. Yeah, yeah.

Kayla (57:34):
And you're like this indian swami that, like, people haven't seen anyone like you before.

Chris (57:38):
Right. Wow.

Kayla (57:40):
It's just, I love to think about the tenacity of this person. Like, he. He wasn't the first swami to come here, but he was, like, the most popular, the most established. He was the one who stayed here the longest. Like, he was kind of the biggest deal. And so he was really doing something that, like, no one had ever really done before. And, like, it's just really cool. And, like, the teachings were so dissimilar to what people here had grown up with. It just.

Chris (58:05):
Yeah, the juxtaposition, the picture you're painting is pretty cool of just, like, this indian swami, like, driving in a model t car in, like, iowa. Yeah. Down, like, a dirt road in some rural. Yeah, yeah.

Kayla (58:17):
It's very cool to me. So why was he successful?

Chris (58:23):
Oh, wow.

Kayla (58:24):
Tell me why.

Chris (58:26):
Because he followed the teachings of Babaji to really. Well, sure.

Kayla (58:31):
I'm sure it was that the documentary actually kind of speculates on why this really had a foothold at the time. And the stance of the documentary is that the twenties was a time of great change in America, where people were more open minded about new ways of thinking. And it got me thinking about it, like, yeah, if you think about the timing, we're in between the horrors of World War One, which forever changed the way people thought about the world.

Chris (58:57):
And the universe psychologically shook the west really badly. And so they would be. I can see where people would be wanting for some sort of different way.

Kayla (59:07):
Of approaching spirituality, but we're also before the Great Depression. So it's like we're kind of in a time period where there's a lot of people who maybe have the resources and the time to pay a little more attention to their spiritual selves than they would in ten years. The documentary interviews an author named Philip Goldberg, who wrote the book American Veda, which discusses the various ways in which India has influenced western culture. And he's quoted as saying, boundaries of known reality were being shattered and penetrated. You had the einsteinian revolution sort of flowering into quantum physics, and it became clear that the world was not what it appeared to be. So, yeah. The theory of relativity was published, like, five years before this.

Chris (59:49):
Okay. Yeah. And if quantum mechanics was, like, starting to get rolling, too, that was also very, like, epistemologically ground shaking.

Kayla (59:59):
Right. It's like, yeah. I'm assuming the vast majority of people didn't know the nuances and ins and outs of Einstein's theories, but I think they knew enough to be like, oh, so the very foundation of what we understand of reality is totally different.

Chris (01:00:14):
Yeah. I think that even if the average person doesn't know the details of relativity, I think that there's enough of a ripple effect from that kind of thing, like, from learning that simultaneity is not real.

Kayla (01:00:28):
So, yeah, I think the assertion that general american minds are maybe more open and more searching for these kinds of spiritual teachings, I think that argument makes sense. And, like, Yogananda also has all the makings of an extremely charismatic leader. Like, he's got these really piercing, powerful eyes. Just. Even. Just when you see him looking at you from a photo, it's like, oh, yeah.

Chris (01:00:52):
His photo was the most charismatic photo of the six.

Kayla (01:00:55):
He's got a very booming voice and is a very compelling communicator. He's a beautiful writer.

Chris (01:01:00):
Yeah, the writing is top notch.

Kayla (01:01:02):
He's literally teaching things that some people have never heard of before.

Chris (01:01:06):
Right.

Kayla (01:01:06):
And then the practice is meditation, which in its own right, that can be very powerful. So you pair. Oh, this practice is actually really helping me. Oh, these teachings are really cool. Oh, this guy's really compelling. Yeah, that makes sense.

Chris (01:01:16):
It'll tell you the wider societal stuff we talked about. Yeah, I can see where that would catch fire.

Kayla (01:01:22):
Another thing that helped was Yogananda gaining celebrity followers on his speaking tour.

Chris (01:01:28):
Oh, there we go.

Kayla (01:01:29):
So he had some famous singers because, like, at the time, there was nothing people to do besides, like, listen to people be sopranos. It's like, famous soprano so and so. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Famous soprano? Another one was Tony.

Chris (01:01:41):
Tony Soprano.

Kayla (01:01:41):
Yeah, Tony Soprano is one of them. Mark Twain's daughter was one of them.

Chris (01:01:45):
She was. I guess she was a celebrity daughter.

Kayla (01:01:48):
Celebrity daughter. Which. Yeah, like, we just watched the next game documentary. Celebrity daughters are where it's at, apparently.

Chris (01:01:54):
Yeah, that's true.

Kayla (01:01:55):
And this kind of, like, celebrity followship. Followship. Celebrity following was a trend that would be a part of Yogananda and SrF until today.

Chris (01:02:07):
Like, it's still a thing that makes sense considering it's all over LA, it's.

Kayla (01:02:10):
All over Los Angeles. And in 1925, kind of. At the end of this tour, Yogananda decided to establish himself in Los Angeles.

Chris (01:02:18):
Okay.

Kayla (01:02:19):
And I just think that's so I can't help but give credit to how forward thinking that is because it's like, it's 1925. LA is not what it is today. It's not this entertainment hub. Like, yeah, movies are kind of a thing and, like, hollywood's a thing, but not really. Like, it's. There's a lot of orange groves here still. You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of orange.

Chris (01:02:39):
Hollywood's there, but it's like, it's nascent.

Kayla (01:02:41):
Yeah. So to be like, this is where we're gonna do it. I give him credit for being able to see the potential of establishing an international center for the self realization fellowship here.

Chris (01:02:52):
Very insightful.

Kayla (01:02:53):
On his first night in LA, it said that 6000 people came to his first lecture.

Chris (01:02:57):
Holy shit.

Kayla (01:02:57):
And like, 6000 people lived here in 1925. And they had cars to get to you. This is basically where Yoganonda found his home. And it's where he would be until 1952, basically. So it's 1925.

Chris (01:03:11):
Oh, wow. And he would be 27 years.

Kayla (01:03:13):
Yes. He became so well known in spiritual and cultural circles that he was even invited to the White House by then president Calvin Coolidge in 1927 as like a spiritual leader.

Chris (01:03:23):
Well, then I did not know that. I mean, obviously I didn't know most of anything you're saying, but that's interesting.

Kayla (01:03:28):
And I think he was the first, like, eastern religious leader to visit the White House.

Chris (01:03:32):
Oh, really?

Kayla (01:03:32):
Yeah, yeah, because it's 1927.

Chris (01:03:36):
Oh, right. Yeah.

Kayla (01:03:37):
Very long. Not that long ago, but also very long ago. But honestly, it wasn't all sunshine and roses at first. So Los Angeles was pretty welcoming to Yogananda. Other places were not necessarily the same way. So we can't really forget that even at the time. I mean, like, America has some shaky foundations. America has some problems with its foundations. Some of the things that. Some of the things that sours America today was still souring it then, like racism, religious bigotry, really bad media sensationalism, whatever else you can think of.

Chris (01:04:13):
Yeah, we've always had a pretty mixed relationship with immigration.

Kayla (01:04:18):
Yeah. So when Yogananda decided to go on a speaking tour, particularly in the American south, it was a little bit of a bust. So he was run out of locations, he was threatened with physical harm. He was targeted for being a man of color, for being a religious minority. It also didn't help that from about 1926 to 1937, he was under surveillance by both the american and british governments, really, because it was feared that his teachings could influence the unrest india over the growing independence movement, over the growing movement to free India from british rule.

Chris (01:04:51):
Right, right. You can't. Can't do that.

Kayla (01:04:54):
No. And Yogananda was pro Gandhi, so one of the places, the police kicked him out from Miami, Florida, in 1928. During this kind of failed speaking tour, the police had actually conferred with the british consulate on how to handle Yoganonda's arrival and their decision to kind of like, be like, no, you can't do it here. We're influenced by their distrust of him.

Chris (01:05:15):
Jesus.

Kayla (01:05:16):
Really? Interesting.

Chris (01:05:17):
Yeah, yeah. We've also had a bit of a history of government surveillance of people.

Kayla (01:05:21):
That little bit.

Chris (01:05:22):
Look up to Gandhi.

Kayla (01:05:24):
Yeah.

Chris (01:05:24):
Make an MLK reference there.

Kayla (01:05:26):
We're not good at that. We are bad at that. So it got a little dark for him in the States. As unrest india grew, the media here in the States, which, again, was mostly newspapers, and it wasn't tv, it was newspapers.

Chris (01:05:43):
And when no Twitter, there was no 19 Twitter.

Kayla (01:05:45):
No Twitter, there was no cell phones. So when the newspaper. When Yogananda first came here, the newspapers were like, oh, this is a cool novelty. As the unrest grew over india, the media attention turned a little bit. And eventually, I mean, the newspapers were accusing SRf of yoga itself being a cult.

Chris (01:06:04):
Mm. Case closed, everyone.

Kayla (01:06:07):
That's it.

Chris (01:06:08):
Little did they know that eventually yoga would turn into an on ramp for QAnon.

Kayla (01:06:11):
Oh, man. They were right. And this was specifically a cult that they thought was corrupting young women with sex.

Chris (01:06:20):
Oh, my God.

Kayla (01:06:21):
I know.

Chris (01:06:21):
Women should not be having sex to.

Kayla (01:06:23):
Be a Kriya yoga renunciate monk like Yogananda was. You're not having sex. And that's just. I'm not saying that no monk has ever had sex, but, like, bangin was not really a part of the teachings of this movement.

Chris (01:06:37):
Of the teachings. Okay. Right.

Kayla (01:06:39):
I mean, there was.

Chris (01:06:40):
Again, we just saw some things. We're, like, next to him.

Kayla (01:06:43):
No. Yeah, but it's not part of the teaching. So, like, I. Instead of looking so Nxivm and, like, onetouch and, like, some of these other groups, it's like, oh, sex is happening there with this. It's like. It's not part of the teachings. It's like he's like, don't have sex. That's what's taught. And I'm not. And Keith Ranieri obviously said those things, too. I'm just saying, no one was trying to corrupt young women with sex. That was not happening. Right this was like, oh, a scary man of color, like, corrupting our women. No, fuck you. I mean, there are even, like, legal charges brought against Yogananda about these, like, these sex corruption charges. Eventually they were dropped by the DA, but damage was done. And this is when a schism broke out.

(01:07:21):
Oh, schism in the SRF, with some followers now choosing to go with yoga Nanda's friend Deranonda, which honestly kind of sucks, because Yogananda had hand chosen Dhiranonda as, like, a trustworthy steward to stay at the SRF headquarters in Los Angeles while he was traveling, spreading the word. And so he's off traveling, trying to do the work, and Dhir Ananda is here being like, good for him. He's being a steward. But then when this kind of scandals happened, he was like, I'm going to take some followers and leave. And they had all had more of a relationship with dear Ananda at this point.

Chris (01:07:54):
Probably would be hard for him, too, to having to steward this thing while this is going on.

Kayla (01:07:59):
It all sucks. It got so bad for Yogananda here that he actually took a break in 1935 to travel back to India to visit his guru, Sriuk Tesswarae, and just kind of continue the work he had started there. So it's like, let's take a break. This is really shitty. Let's go back to India. And it does sound like it was a breath of fresh air, because he was met with celebration. You know, there were crowds and people being like, oh, my God, it's Yogananda. Journalists, photographers. There was like, when he arrived, he had this emotional reunion with his brothers, and then, of course, with his guru, with Sri Yukteswar. Yogananda even met Gandhi himself. And Gandhi took lessons from. Yogananda was eventually initiated by him into Kriya yoga.

Chris (01:08:40):
Wow.

Kayla (01:08:40):
Yes.

Chris (01:08:41):
Wow.

Kayla (01:08:42):
And that's why, if you'll remember, at the self realization fellowship Lake shrine, I do remember there were some of Gandhi's ashes in a. What would you even call that? A sarcophagus.

Chris (01:08:53):
Yeah, it was like a sarcophagus with, like, a shrine, sort of like an outdoor shrine built around it.

Kayla (01:08:57):
Right. The only from when we learned that pillars or something. Only place in the west where Gandhi's ashes are.

Chris (01:09:03):
Yeah, that's what they said there.

Kayla (01:09:05):
And that's why it's because they had this personal relationship, and that's super cool.

Chris (01:09:08):
And it was cool to see that. It was like, ooh, history.

Kayla (01:09:11):
Yeah. So it was nice, but nothing gold can stay in this world, because in.

Chris (01:09:18):
But it wasn't gold. He was already being forced to go back to India because of mean people.

Kayla (01:09:22):
Well, but this, this period, this nice period would also come to an end, because in 1936, Yogananda's guru, Sri Ugteswar, died, and it fucked Yogananda up. He was very sad about losing his guru. And it's honestly interesting to kind of look at this mourning period and think about how mourning must happen in a guru disciple relationship, because for gurus, death is actually. It's kind of something different than what it is for you or me.

Chris (01:09:54):
Okay.

Kayla (01:09:55):
So in the yogic tradition, one of the intentions of meditation is to reach a state of intense concentration, or consciousness, called samadhi.

Chris (01:10:03):
Okay?

Kayla (01:10:04):
Samadhi can basically be thought of as the state in which you've achieved such meditative awareness. You are in direct communication with the divine. It's like, that's the goal, is where you want to be. Samadhi is like ultimate consciousness. It plays a really big role in Kriya yoga. But there is a tradition that takes this concept of samadhi one step further, and that is Mahasamadhi. And Mahasamadhi is basically the act of intentionally leaving one's body, so the consciousness then uncoupling from the physical and joining directly with divine consciousness itself. So basically, when gurus die, it is believed that they have become so enlightened, so connected to Samadhi, that they have chosen this moment to exit the physical body.

Chris (01:10:44):
Okay. And then their consciousness floats up into the. The pool of other consciousnesses, right? In heavenly.

Kayla (01:10:52):
Joins with God, joins with the creator, joins with expansive conscious awareness.

Chris (01:10:56):
Okay. Okay. So basically, the end of evangelion is spoilers. So it's like 20 year old spoilers.

Kayla (01:11:05):
Someone you love dies and it's sad, but it's also supposed to be this, like, spiritually and ritually significant moment in which they have ascended in this beautiful way. I just can't help but wonder, is there some of a mindfuck with that where it's like, I should be happy that they've chosen this moment and they've become so enlightened. But also, I'm really sad because I don't have a person I love.

Chris (01:11:23):
Earthly. Yeah, yeah. That would be confusing. That would be very mixed emotions, I imagine.

Kayla (01:11:31):
Yeah. So Yogananda lost his guru here in the physical world and proceeded to mourn.

Chris (01:11:37):
But he came back as a blue force ghost and chatted with him that some things are true from a certain point of view.

Kayla (01:11:47):
And then he got cgi'd to look way younger. Yogananda claims that not long after Srikteswar's death, Yogananda received a spiritual visit from his guru.

Chris (01:11:58):
Oh, my God, I was right.

Kayla (01:11:59):
Yes. This event is described as a supernatural encounter in which Yogananda physically interacted with a resurrected physical form of sriuk testimony.

Chris (01:12:07):
Whoa. What? Physical?

Kayla (01:12:09):
He said, like, it's like, oh, I was able to grab his arm and stuff.

Chris (01:12:13):
That's wild.

Kayla (01:12:14):
Yes. It's like, not force ghosts. Like, I'm here.

Chris (01:12:17):
That is wild. And also, like, kind of maybe gross. Like, was he not, like, zombified?

Kayla (01:12:22):
No, because it's like, not. It's not that body. It's like he is. He can now choose to.

Chris (01:12:28):
Oh, like, just, like, manifest the physical body out of, like, the magic ether, just suddenly.

Kayla (01:12:33):
Correct. It's not like he's not a zombie. No. So in this conference, obviously, they had, like, a long conversation. Yogananda learned all about the state of the afterlife. Srikteslar. Sri Yukteslar was now a guide on the astral plane. He had fantastical abilities. He understood a wide array of karmic and metaphysical topics. And this encounter roused yoga Nanda. And after the next day, he was like, let's do it. And he returned to Los Angeles with a renewed spirit. Even though he retained the grief of losing his mentor, he was ready to return here and move on.

Chris (01:13:09):
That sounds like an awesome encounter.

Kayla (01:13:10):
My God, I'd give anything.

Chris (01:13:12):
Yeah.

Kayla (01:13:13):
Okay, so Yogananda is back in the States. It's 1936. He's back at his SRf headquarters in Mount Washington, Los Angeles. He is back to rebuilding his legacy of spreading Kriya yoga throughout the states. He's now experiencing more and more intense periods of samadhi while in meditation. And pretty soon, people start showing up at the headquarters, like people from all over the country, people who had either learned of Yogananda during his tours or had only recently read news about him or had news about him reach their orbits. People who came to him asking to become devotees, asking to become renunciates, asking to be educated in the ways of Kriya yoga and initiated in the. And Yogananda took them in and he taught them what it is to be a monk. And eventually, a literal monastic order was founded within the SRF.

(01:14:02):
And that monastic order exists to this day. There's a very complex, serious monastic path, which within SRF, that includes periods of intense learning, the initiation process, lots and lots of meditation, work for the better of the organization, work for the spreading of Kriya yoga, eventually, name change, the ability to lead meditations and prayer and more.

Chris (01:14:22):
So do you have to. So you have to be a member of SRF to do this? Is that.

Kayla (01:14:28):
Well, I mean, yeah.

Chris (01:14:29):
And how do I become a member? Is this like a. Like a paid thing or is this.

Kayla (01:14:34):
We'll get more to that later, but, yeah, so. So anyone can go and, like, check out an SRF headquarters.

Chris (01:14:40):
Is that. That's what we did.

Kayla (01:14:41):
That's what we did to become more involved. You know, you can read his book, you can read other pieces of literature, but to get more involved is like, start taking the steps on the path to get initiated into Kriya yoga. Yes. You pay money for a course. I think it's like $100, $90, something like that, and you begin a course that I think lasts a year. And then after that, you move on to higher levels of education, getting initiated in, I don't know much more about it beyond that because it is kind of like, take the course and then see. So that's how you kind of get started on that path, if you so choose. Okay, so fairly quickly after Paramahansa Yogananda returned to America, he was able to build backup support for his organization.

(01:15:26):
And along with this new monastic order came new SRF locations or brotherhood colonies.

Chris (01:15:32):
So you only had the one location before that?

Kayla (01:15:34):
I think so.

Chris (01:15:34):
Okay. And then when he was in. When he did his, like, return trip to India.

Kayla (01:15:39):
Yes.

Chris (01:15:40):
Sroff was still just existing, but it didn't have that steward guy. So it was just another steward.

Kayla (01:15:45):
It was another steward, yeah.

Chris (01:15:45):
Okay. Okay.

Kayla (01:15:47):
So basically, again, because Los Angeles was pretty open land at this time, SRF was able to begin buying more land to open new centers where monks could live and teach and people could come to learn about Korea yoga and self realization fellowship. I mean, there's multiple SRF locations around Los Angeles and all the way down to, you know, San Diego. And I think there's some up in San Francisco. Like, there's a lot of locations. They have a lot of land in LA.

Chris (01:16:14):
They bought that oceanfront property when the buy in was good.

Kayla (01:16:17):
They bought. Yes, they bought. I mean, they bought that somewhere in between 1935 and 1952.

Chris (01:16:23):
Okay.

Kayla (01:16:24):
So, yeah, home prices were a little different. Maybe you're wondering, where the hell did they get this money for this kind of land?

Chris (01:16:34):
Well, we just said it was cheaper than. But I guess you're right.

Kayla (01:16:39):
We're talking about chunks of land, right, right. So remember how earlier we talked about Yogananda's ability to attract celebrities?

Chris (01:16:46):
Oh, yes.

Kayla (01:16:48):
Yeah, that paid a huge part in keeping Srf afloat, particularly when a man named James Lynn joined. James Lynn was an extremely wealthy oil tycoon at the time.

Chris (01:16:58):
Oh, good old oil. It's always oil.

Kayla (01:17:00):
It's always oil. He became deeply interested in Kriya yoga, and he studied under Yogananda as his direct disciple. It's really, again, seeing these photos of this old timey oil tycoon kind of dressed up.

Chris (01:17:12):
Do you have, like, a top hat and a monocle and everything?

Kayla (01:17:14):
Like, there's one picture of him with the top hat and the monocle hanging out with yoga Nanda, and then there's a picture of him with the monk robes hanging out with Yogananda. It's really interesting. Yeah. He's a disciple, and he became a financial benefactor, basically financing the overhead for SRF in all its endeavors. And he was just one of these benefactors. Like, over the years, SRF has continued to expand, largely in part to hefty donations from very wealthy people.

Chris (01:17:40):
Okay. That helps explain what we saw today. Where there was a large chunk of land that was immaculately kept.

Kayla (01:17:47):
Yes. By 1952, there would be 100 SRF centers in the US and India.

Chris (01:17:53):
Wow.

Kayla (01:17:54):
And now there are centers or groups in every major us city. So really? Yeah, it's a big deal.

Chris (01:18:00):
Holy shit.

Kayla (01:18:01):
There's a lot of money here.

Chris (01:18:03):
Wow. That's huge.

Kayla (01:18:04):
Another thing that helped keep the money coming in and helped continue to grow the gospel of Kriya yoga is that in 1946, Paramahansa Yogananda decided to finally sit down and put all his teachings on paper. This would eventually become his book. Autobiography of a. The seminal text for SRF and modernization, Kriya Yoga.

Chris (01:18:22):
Huh. Okay. Was that one of the books we saw at the little table?

Kayla (01:18:25):
Yes. It's like, this is his. He had written. He has written other books since then, but autobiography of a yogi was his first. And it's like, the most well known. It's like, it's kind of considered like a. Like, obviously it's not the Bible, but it is a very seminal, like, spiritual text.

Chris (01:18:42):
Gotcha.

Kayla (01:18:43):
Currently in the book, Paramahansa Yogananda details his life story as well as teachings that allow the reader to better understand meditation, spirituality, the concept of the self as divine, the concept of consciousness, and God itself. Supposedly, he wrote it, like, very quickly, like when he just sat down and he would just write and write and write for hours. Like almost as if you were in a trance.

Chris (01:19:04):
Right. Divine inspiration kind of thing.

Kayla (01:19:08):
When it was published, the book became extremely popular. It was acclaimed both critically and commercially. Since its 1946 publication, 4 million copies have sold. It is regularly reprinted. It has been translated into a dozen languages. It also helped to bring in more celebrities into the fold, eventually finding its way into the hands of people like George Harrison.

Chris (01:19:30):
That's right. You mentioned him on Presley. Whoa.

Kayla (01:19:33):
Tom Petty.

Chris (01:19:33):
Whoa.

Kayla (01:19:34):
And Steve Jobs even ordered 500 copies of the book to be given out to each guest that attended his funeral.

Chris (01:19:42):
His funeral. He wanted them. Wow.

Kayla (01:19:45):
And that happened.

Chris (01:19:46):
Steve Jobs.

Kayla (01:19:47):
So Steve Jobs funeral was kind of like a hotbed for like getting people into Srf, apparently.

Chris (01:19:55):
Yeah. I mean, first of all, if you're Steve Jobs and that's your goal, that's kind of genius. Second of all, just, yeah, wow. I'm sure that's a lot. That was responsible for a lot of inflow of cash.

Kayla (01:20:05):
He was really into this book. He was really into this book. So, yeah.

Chris (01:20:10):
Should I read it? Like, will I make a ton of money?

Kayla (01:20:13):
I checked it out from the library.

Chris (01:20:14):
Well, I make like really elegantly, but somewhat non intuitive designed hardware. If I read this book, you'll make.

Kayla (01:20:23):
Really good tv commercials in the mid aughts. That's what you'll do, man. Remember those ipod commercials?

Chris (01:20:30):
Oh, yeah. With the talk about seminal work.

Kayla (01:20:33):
Oh, geez, mandy. So, yeah, the self realization fellowship continued to grow. The reach it had, it reached across the country, reached across the globe. They have this monastic order, they have this series of brotherhood colonies. And then one day in 1952, Paramahansa Yogananda turned to one of his disciples, named Dayamata, and said, do you realize that it is just a matter of hours and I will be gone from this earth? The next day, Paramahansa Yogananda attended a dinner in honor of the visiting indian ambassador to the US. As dinner concluded, Yogananda got up to speak, and in his signature powerful voice, he began a speech praising the best qualities of America, the best qualities of India, and hoping that the two countries could work together towards the goals of world peace and human progress.

(01:21:25):
To end his speech, he read a poem he had written titled my India. As he said the final words, where ganges woods, himalayan caves and men dream, God, I am hallowed. My body touched that sod. Eyewitnesses claim his eyes then rolled upwards towards his third eye point their placement during the meditation sessions, and his body then fell to the floor. What Paramahansa Yogananda had entered Mahasamadhi. Paramahansa Yogananda had died of heart failure just right there.

Chris (01:21:56):
After a predicting to his disciple the day before. And then, B, he went out giving a dope speech to world leaders.

Kayla (01:22:04):
So this is in the documentary. This is on Wikipedia. This is from. I think there's witnesses.

Chris (01:22:11):
Yeah.

Kayla (01:22:11):
This is from. Oh, Noah Ross and Carrie. This is the story of how that happened.

Chris (01:22:16):
That is the best death I have ever heard.

Kayla (01:22:20):
There's recording of, like, there's. There's audio recording of this speech. So I. When you. When you watch the documentary, you get to hear him read this poem, and then he died.

Chris (01:22:31):
He read a poem to world leaders?

Kayla (01:22:33):
Yes.

Chris (01:22:33):
And then just dropped dead. Cannot get over that.

Kayla (01:22:37):
Where ganges woods, himalayan caves and men dream, God, I am hallowed. My body touched that sod. And then he fucking died.

Chris (01:22:45):
Fuck.

Kayla (01:22:46):
Yeah.

Chris (01:22:46):
I. There's no way my death is gonna be that cool. I'm gonna die in the shitter or something. That's amazing.

Kayla (01:22:52):
I know. Yeah, I know. So he died in 1952. His message, his teachings, his legacy, live on with his foundations, with the Yogata Satsanga Society of India and the Self Realization Fellowship of America. Both groups and the monastic order continue his work of disseminating the teachings of Kriya yoga far and wide, and help people every day deepen their meditation practices and further their communion with consciousness and with God, either at home through their teaching courses that we discussed and their various centers. End of story. Right.

Chris (01:23:23):
That sounds like we're pretty much wrapping it up.

Kayla (01:23:25):
No. Wrong. Wrong.

Chris (01:23:28):
What? No, there cannot be more than this. We just talked, Kayla. The man died after reciting a poem. Yeah.

Kayla (01:23:36):
No. Wrong.

Chris (01:23:37):
What?

Kayla (01:23:37):
Wrong again, we're only able touch the tip of the iceberg here, but there are a number of details we have just kind of skipped over when it comes to this story.

Chris (01:23:49):
Is this gonna be a thing again, where you're like. As it turns out, they're trying to build a phone to talk to ghosts, which.

Kayla (01:23:55):
No. Nothing will ever be as good as soul phone.

Chris (01:23:57):
That was. That was a hell of a.

Kayla (01:23:59):
Nothing will ever be as good as soul phone. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm saying this right now.

Chris (01:24:04):
These guys don't need a phone, okay? Like, they just talk to their group into existence. Yeah.

Kayla (01:24:09):
To really, truly, fully understand what the self realization fellowship is about. It's not enough to just, like, get this overview of Yogananda's life. I mean, don't get me wrong. What we have discussed is extremely important context, and it really lays the foundation for talking about this group. But, like, there's a lot of very weird things to dive into here. We have not even scratched the surface about Yogananda's most bizarre claims about the miracles he was able to perform.

Chris (01:24:34):
Okay.

Kayla (01:24:35):
Or the supernatural feats Kriya yoga can allow practitioners to achieve.

Chris (01:24:39):
Whoa. Snap. I can do supernatural powers and stuff.

Kayla (01:24:43):
There are some claims of very interesting things.

Chris (01:24:46):
Okay.

Kayla (01:24:47):
We haven't gotten into the even further schisms that have broken out from Kriya yoga and Srf.

Chris (01:24:52):
I feel like I'm about to. I just can smell that. I'll get to that. Coming.

Kayla (01:24:57):
We haven't even gotten into the criticisms from former members or the analyses from the cult education institute or the inherent weirdness that happens when you create a monastic hierarchy out of nothing, especially in places like Los Angeles.

Chris (01:25:10):
That's never.

Kayla (01:25:11):
No, we haven't even gotten to the message boards populated by disgruntled ex srfers. So, like what? We have a ways to go before we truly even understand what it is we're talking about here. Even for us, who have literally just visited an actual location and interacted with actual followers.

Chris (01:25:30):
Say the catchphrase.

Kayla (01:25:31):
But guess what?

Chris (01:25:32):
Go ahead.

Kayla (01:25:34):
We'll get to that. All of that has to be saved for next time.

Chris (01:25:38):
I knew it. I knew it when you said that at the beginning.

Kayla (01:25:40):
I knew it on part two of.

Chris (01:25:42):
Son of a bitch culture.

Kayla (01:25:43):
Just weird's deep dive into the world of the self realization fellowship.

Chris (01:25:47):
I can't believe I have to wait.

Kayla (01:25:49):
So that was the Yogananda overview. And then next time, we're going to get into. Yeah, but what about all the weird shit?

Chris (01:25:57):
That's what I'm here for.

Kayla (01:25:58):
About all the weirdest.

Chris (01:26:00):
I do believe that's what most of our audience is here for.

Kayla (01:26:03):
Well, sorry to disappoint you all with a terrible episode. You're gonna have to wait two more weeks to get the real meat.

Chris (01:26:09):
This was a good episode. I'm just. I can't believe you buried the lead again. Son of a bitch.

Kayla (01:26:14):
And then they made a soul phone.

Chris (01:26:17):
I know. I'm just waiting for that.

Kayla (01:26:19):
Yoga, yoga. Call your dad guru. He's really cool.

Chris (01:26:23):
Dad doesn't rhyme.

Kayla (01:26:25):
Guru and cool.

Chris (01:26:26):
Call your dad guru. He's really. I don't know, it's like orange. Can't rhyme it.

Kayla (01:26:33):
Yeah, maybe nothing does rhyme with guru hulu nuru. Oh, yeah. Calling dead guru. He's into Inuru. Google it. Guys. In the meantime, do you have anything else you wanna say to our listeners before we. Before we get off of here so that I can go and do continue my research for our next episode?

Chris (01:26:52):
I'll just say that. First of all, we didn't have any business. Right? Banter. We didn't even do banter this time.

Kayla (01:26:58):
We got right into it.

Chris (01:26:59):
New format. Wow. Crazy. I always say this. Don't like, don't subscribe, don't leave a rating, just enjoy the show. That being said, we're gonna have some cool patreon content again.

Kayla (01:27:11):
Oh, yeah.

Chris (01:27:12):
Because we took some videos of the place went today.

Kayla (01:27:15):
Oh, we took video of the self realization fellowship Lake shrine. Again. A beautiful spot in the Pacific Palisades of Los Angeles, California, where Gandhi's ashes reside. So you wanna check it out?

Chris (01:27:26):
Yeah. So if you're a patron, be on the lookout for that. If you're not a patron, go be a patron. What are you waiting for? There's more awesome culture. Just weird content that you can fill your life with.

Kayla (01:27:38):
Sounds good. I'm heading there right now.

Chris (01:27:41):
Thank you for that journey, Kayla. That was. I really liked the real life Star wars there. That. I really want to go meet the Babaji guy. I really want to, like, go on the, you know, thousand steps to the top of the mountain.

Kayla (01:27:54):
Same.

Chris (01:27:55):
Yeah.

Kayla (01:27:56):
So that's what we're gonna go do. So we'll see you later, listeners. I'm Kayla.

Chris (01:28:00):
I'm Chris.

Kayla (01:28:00):
And this has been cult or just weird?

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S3E10 - The Guru (Self Realization Fellowship, pt1)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S3E10 - The Guru (Self Realization Fellowship, pt1)