Why are Paramahansa Yogananda and his teachings obscure to most Indians of this generation?
One would expect that both Christians and Hindus alike would do a double take upon seeing this book. While Christians of all hues will raise their eyebrows once they note the name of the author, the doctrinal types – up to their ears in eschatology – will do a refresher course in Pauline epistles and the book of Revelations to burnish their knowledge on the subject before taking PY head on!
After overcoming their initial reluctance to read something – anything – about Christ, the Hindus will find it difficult to overcome their curiosity to find out what one of their own revered yogis has to say about a foreign god.
All that can happen in some significant measure only if this book were widely available. And that is not the case; and as we have noted before in article 3 of this series the Self-Realization Fellowship, publishers of this book has failed miserably in according appropriate publicity to it, at least in India. There is a reason for that. The SRF itself was rent in the middle by the departure of Swami Kriyananda who started his own Ananda movement. This split became quite ugly as it went to the courts over the rightful legacy of PY.
Without going into all of those murky details, suffice it to say that the Ananda movement somehow became more prominent than the SRF in India, and attracted some prominent followers including our own Super Star Rajni Kanth of the Tamil film world.
So Babaji,who we mentioned in the same article 3 happens (present tense used as he is believed to be deathless) to be Rajni Kanth’s guru.
Quoting from India Today (Santosh Chaubey, March 16, 2018) “Yogananda’s book “autobiography of yogi” has a chapter on Babaji, Yogi-Christ of Modern India. On Mahavatar Babaji. Yogananda calls him a deathless avatara–a secluded master, who has retained his physical form for centuries, perhaps for millenniums, appearing like a youth not older than 25.”
Still quoting:
“Yogananda calls him a Mahavatar, as he assists prophets in carrying out their special dispensations and gave Yoga initiation to prophets like Shankara, reorganizer of the Swami Order, to Kabir and his guru Lahiri Mahasya, who revived Kriya Yoga for the whole world. He says that no history is needed about Mahavatar Babaji, who is ever in communion with Christ (hear, hear!!!), as he never openly appeared in any century and the misinterpreting glare of publicity has no place in his millennial plans. Yogananda compares him with the Creator, the sole but silent power.
Yogananda says that “Babaji appears in different forms and can only be visible to them whom he desires for, and there is no relativity of past, present and future for him.”
Ah..ah.. there is a Creator! And what does the Bible say? “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). It is not the Christian God or Hindu God…….simply God. And as we have argued before – by reason of his attributes of omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence – there cannot be more than one God.
So who is this God? What is his name?
As per Hebrew scriptures, it is Elohim or Yahweh, translated as the Lord; also known as Jehovah or YHWH as revealed to Moses as four Hebrew consonants called the tetragrammaton. The Hindus might prefer the term Brahma though his importance has declined in recent centuries, according to Wikipedia. The same page also says that ” Brahma was born in a lotus, emerging from the navel of Vishnu”; this definitely does not make him an eternal being. Since eternity is the very essence of Godhead, I am afraid Brahma falls short.
In the Bible on the other hand, there are many references to the Triune God – the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit – as being extant before the Foundation of the World. To cite one example, 1 Peter 1:19-20 says “but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” This of course connotes that Father God would send his son Jesus into the world to die on the cross as a lamb without blemish for the sins of the world at a point of time in history. ( For more on Trinity and the creation of the world, please see Article 5 of this series)
We saw quite a few Caucasians on the dais in the previous video. I think I mentioned in an earlier article that to me as an indifferent reader, while PY was taking pains to disseminate the true teachings of Jesus to his western audience as part of his “harmony” exercise, the western audience was only drawn to him as an yogi with eastern mystique.
I don’t believe Mildred & Minott, W. Lewis, Alice Hasey, Oliver Black, Bob Raymer or a sundry other white ladies taking on the mantle of ‘matas‘ cared much for Christ. This goes for Swami Kriyananda too. Leaving aside PY’s message, they venerated the messenger as a man of simple habits and high ideals who professed a form of self abnegation and a reasonable marriage of eastern and western religious ideas that was so appealing to them, that they left their “boats“(Matthew 4:22) and followed him.
So while on the one hand, the West worshiped him, Paramahansa Yogananda became too much of a foreign figure himself ( over 30 years abroad) for ready acceptance by Hindus of yester generation in India, caught up as the nation was in the elimination of colonialism with the concomitant packing off of Christian missionaries frequently stained by the charge of forcible conversion.
Whatever be the case, Jesus has somehow become far removed to Hindus today and they only look at him suspiciously as someone come to destroy their Sanatana Dharma. ( I am repeating here some of what I wrote in Misc. 49 but I think in terms of contextual contiguity, I think it bears repetition; so bear with me please). And so Christians in this age are also regarded as products of Western civilization with little in common with the national ethos. In fact many voices have asked them to leave the country and go to where they belong – notwithstanding the truth that they are as much sons of the soil as anyone else.
(let me make it clear that our intention is not to sow any seeds of discord)
Switching tracks, I realize there might be questions springing up in several minds about the rather extraordinary deathless nature of Babaji. In this context I recall a rather inscrutable statement once made by Jesus to Simon Peter: “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” The pronoun “him” here is understood to refer to John, but is there more to it than meets the eye?
I find it rather strange that in spite of the overwhelming evidence, all of these Bakths – including Rajni Kanth – are somehow going off on a tangent, on the wings of Kriya Yoga or other such performance intensive stratagem, rather than directing their gaze with simple faith on the Guru of their gurus, the acknowledged Lord and Master
Jesus Christ!