Awake: The Life of Yogananda (2014) - full transcript

I was conscious in my mother's womb,

feeling the movements in her body,

aware of my own helpless state.

This body, bundle of bones,
is not I. Occasionally,

the darkness of the womb
would be dispelled,

and light would visit me.

On one side, I wanted to
express myself as a human being.

Yet, on the other side, I didn't,

because I felt I was spirit.

I see behind the scenes.

The visible man is a shadow.



As soon as I change my consciousness,

I see everything just as if
it were a motion picture.

I distinctly remember the excitement
of meeting Swami Yogananda.

He was straight from the heart.

He looked strange, like
a woman with long hair.

But I remember his powerful eyes.

He created such a stir.

I remember the first time
I heard Yogananda's voice.

I got a record, I think,
from SRF, and I put it on.

I didn't know what to expect, you know?

And then this booming, powerful
"I, Paramahansa Yogananda, am singing."

"Sing with me."

I went, aaaagh.

He wasn't trying to sing prettily.



He wasn't trying to entertain people.

He was singing, you know, to God.

It was so powerful.

While I was in India,
I was with Ravi Shankar.

He gave me "Autobiography of a Yogi."

I just looked at the cover, and he just

zapped me with his eyes.

I mean, I can't imagine-- if
I hadn't read that, I probably

wouldn't have a life, really.

I probably would have
kicked the bucket,

or I'd just be, you know,
some horrible person,

have a pointless life.

It just gave meaning to life.

Steve Jobs apparently had
only one book on his iPad.

Lo and behold, that book turns out

to be "The Autobiography of a Yogi."

Yoga, for many, has become
something that you do with

your body.

But the yogis never taught that.

The way that Yogananda
taught yoga was use the body.

You have a body.

But it's really about the mind,
expanding your consciousness.

Who am I?

Who you are?

Why we came to this Earth as a human?

It's really very easy to get
lost in the complexity of life.

We are conflicted beings as humans.

One of the deepest things about us

is that our lives don't make
sense except in the mystery.

Yogananda provided us
a vocabulary to talk about

the human spirit that got away from
dogma, and doctrine, and ritual.

And whether it be a Hindu,
Muslim, Christian, Jewish--

whatever tradition you're part of--

Yogananda charted a path
inward that connected you

with your own divinity.

Buried during the Dark
Ages, Kriya Yoga was revived

for modern man by the deathless
yogi Mahavatar Babaji.

Babaji instructed Lahiri Mahasaya

to teach Kriya Yoga to
others, the transmission

of the ancient science
from guru to disciple.

Unknown to society in general,
a great spiritual Renaissance

started in a remote corner of Banaras.

As the fragrance of flowers
cannot be suppressed,

so devotees from every part of
India began to seek the divine

nectar of this liberated master.

Day after day, the guru
initiated one or two devotees

into Kriya Yoga, the
science of meditation.

Early in their married life,
my parents became disciples.

Lahiri Mahasaya predicted
my birth and that

through this body many shall receive

the spiritual
enlightenment of India.

The message of yoga will
encircle the globe, he said.

It will aid in establishing
the brotherhood of man.

But when I heard the word
guru, it frightened me.

For I knew what that
responsibility meant.

His great burden is to be
the representative of this

5,000-year-old tradition.

This is a man with
intuitive knowledge,

extraordinary yogic powers, and
he could perceive events that

were decades in front of him.

But his teachings caused controversy.

He would be called into question,

and everything he worked
for would unravel.

Every soul is on a journey.

People are at different
levels in that journey.

I think we all believe that
there's more to life than what

we experience every day.

Yogananda happens to be
what I would call a spiritual

prodigy, a spiritual genius,
which means he had access

to a domain of awareness that
most people don't have access

to.

Like mathematical
geniuses, he explored

a much larger territory
in the spiritual domain.

Sometimes, I used to
lapse into the consciousness

of my true spirit.

Clear recollections came
to me of a distant life

in which I had been a yogi
amid the Himalayan snows.

He also had visions
of seeing his guru.

Throughout the ages,
there have been

mystics who come with
special knowledge, that

helps us understand our
place in the Universe.

Yogananda was born at the
dawn of the Atomic Age, when

modern physics would
shatter our most

basic beliefs about
the nature of reality,

and paved the way for an
ancient and hidden teaching

to be received by many.

Yogananda had been told since
infancy by saints and seers

that he'd be taking these
teachings to the West.

But he thought, how is this possible?

You know, it was absurd, because
he barely spoke any English.

One day, my mind
went away from Ranchi.

I went to the
storeroom to meditate,

and I fell into an ecstasy.

America.

Surely, these people are Americans.

It's scary to the mind.

I think the first thing was, oh my god.

Imagine in your own life
having a message so strong that

it totally changes
your life in a moment.

And at that time, he'd been
here about three years.

He probably thought
this was his life work.

I had founded a school,
following the educational

ideals of the rishis, whose
forest ashrams had been

the ancient seat of learning.

Overcoming restlessness
of the body and mind

by concentration techniques,
achieved astonishing results.

He established a "How to Live" school.

I wish we had "How to Live" schools.

You have to learn your grammar.

You have to learn your
math and your science.

But you also have to
learn how to live.

--and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Ma'am, love conquers all.

Love conquers all.

Very good.

He's in love with his country.

He is being respected
by his community.

He's seeing his vision manifest
where children are learning

the art and science of yoga.

And then he's sitting
there, and all of a sudden

he becomes aware that he
has to leave all of it.

God is taking me away to America.

He never wanted to come to America.

That was not part
of his dream at all.

Let me just go to the Himalayas
and just live in a cave there.

I can do good there.

I can pray for people.

But his teacher said no,
you must go to the West.

Go to America.

Tears stood in my eyes as I
cast a last look at the little

boys and the sunny
acres of Ranchi.

I knew henceforth I would
dwell in foreign lands.

# Charleston, Charleston,
made in Carolina #

# Some dance, some prance #

# I'll say there's nothing finer than #

How alone I was here.

Not a soul I knew.

I had heard many stories
about the materialistic West,

a land very different from India.

It was somewhat of a
daunting experience

to go out on the streets.

My strange dress prompted
boyish mockery and--

and catcalls.

Who's that?

There were kids that
were throwing stones at him,

calling him names.

I think he was called
a magician at one point,

a snake charmer.

In 1920, many Americans were still
not used to having Jews here.

And now comes a
darker-skinned swami

in orange robes and a turban.

I noticed some hot dog signs.

In imagination, I saw all kinds
of dogs going through the meat chopper,

and I thought, my Lord, why

did you bring me to the
land where people eat dogs?

When Yogananda came to United States,

it was after World War I. The
world was a very different place.

It was a very powerful time.

There was this upsurge of freedom--

freedom of sexuality,
freedom of expression.

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.

Western philosophers are
talking about the death of God

and Yogananda says, it's
not about the death of God.

It's about the reconceptualization

of the Divine.

It's significant that
Yogananda's first lecture

in America was called
the Science of Religion--

not Hinduism, because using
religious terminology,

in Western people's minds, would
place his offerings in a box.

But Self-Realization?

Oh.

Yoga?

Oh.

Those are universal.

Imagine hearing that
God is in your spine.

In 1920, it was radical.

It was a bold explanation of
where to go to experience God.

For me, God is still
a bit unfathomable.

She-- she's in everything.

She's in everyone.

If you call him energy, that's fine.

Yogananda thought of
Self-Realization as a science.

He thought of Kriya
Yoga as a science.

Religion has a lot of
baggage, but a science

means that it's part of
a scientific process.

It's empirical.

You can test certain things.

And your own spiritual
practice and Self-Realization

is that scientific process.

An individual is sort
of an organized packet

of consciousness that is
part of a bigger ocean

of consciousness, in that when
you are meditating and going

deep within, such as in yoga,
your inner consciousness is

combining with that
higher consciousness.

You couldn't have described
to a Westerner what Yogananda

was teaching prior
to the 20th century.

There simply wasn't
a vocabulary for it.

The apparently solid body
is made up of these whirling

atoms, and protons, and electrons,

and those are composed of energy--

the basic substance of creation.

The body is potentially
vast and omnipresent.

But the doors of perception
don't often open with the intellect.

Something very powerful has
to happen to shake us out

of our comfort zone.

It was in Bareilly on a midnight.

As I slept beside father, I was
awakened by a peculiar flutter.

When he was about 11 years old,

he and his father were
in northern India.

The family was
temporarily separated,

and his mother had gone to Calcutta

to prepare for the wedding
of the eldest brother.

And unknown to them, she had
contracted Asiatic cholera.

He had a dream that night
that his mother came to him.

The flimsy curtains parted,
and I saw the beloved form

of my mother.

Rush to Calcutta if you would see me.

The wraith-like figure vanished.

Mother is dying.

I collapsed into an
almost lifeless state.

A telegram arrived.

She had died in a matter of hours.

What was the purpose of this?

Her solacing black eyes had
been my refuge in the trifling

tragedies of childhood.

Farewell, my child.

The cosmic mother
will protect you.

It is I who have watched over thee,

life after life, in the
tenderness of many mothers.

See in my gaze the two black eyes,
the lost, beautiful eyes thou seekest.

I used to dream in my childhood,

a tiger used to break
my leg at night.

Mother used to come running
with a candle and say,

you are dreaming!

Where is it broken?

And then I used to laugh.

From that time on, I was
watchful, even in dreams,

to separate the unreal from the real.

Once he had cracked open the door,

his world would never be the same.

But it would take time and many tests

before he would fully awaken
into this new reality.

Merciful mother of the universe,

teach me thyself through visions,

or through a guru sent by thee.

I hoped to find him at
the Himalayan snows,

the Master whose face often
appeared to me in visions.

I gazed searchingly about me
on any excursion from home

for the face of my destined guru.

One day, I wiped my tear-swollen face

and set out for the distant
marketplace in Banaras.

Something told me to look behind.

I had seen him in dreams.

The face was the one I'd
seen in 1,000 visions,

holding a promise that I
had not fully understood.

I came to know him long
before I met him in this life.

It was him.

It was my Master.

He said, "I have been waiting."

A true guru is there
to lead you to yourself,

not to himself, to what we
are truly capable of, not just

the limited aspect of us.

The spiritual path
is farthest from easy.

It requires undoing
aspects of ourselves.

My guru could not be
bribed, even by love.

The hard core of egotism is difficult
to dislodge, except rudely.

This flattening to the ego
treatment was hard to endure.

I sometimes felt that
metaphorically he

was discovering and uprooting
every diseased tooth in my jaw.

Many teachers will tell you
to believe and then put out

your eyes of reason.

My guru said, I want you to
keep your eyes of reason open.

In addition, I will open
in you the eye of wisdom.

Yoga for me is freedom.

The state of needing nothing is yoga.

We become one with peace.

We become one with joy.

We become one with love.

And we realize that
that is our true nature.

How tirelessly my Master labored,

that the boy Mukunda be transformed
into the monk Yogananda.

Three happy years were spent in
humble circumstances in Boston.

I gave public lectures,
taught classes, and addressed

clubs, colleges, churches, and
groups of every denomination.

But it took Yogananda a
few years to realize that he

wasn't in the right place for
this message to really take off.

In 1925, Yogananda
arrives in Los Angeles.

And on the first night,
according to the "L.A. Times,"

over 6,000 people
attend his talk.

That's double the capacity
of the auditorium.

Los Angeles is this new frontier.

It's a place of possibility
of a new beginning.

Ideas of Asian
spirituality have permeated

the West Coast in a way that
they haven't on the East Coast.

People come to Los Angeles
often looking for something.

So there's this already
mind of a seeker.

Yogananda does a seven-night
speaker series at the L.A.

Philharmonic Auditorium.

People go just to see the
show and because he's exotic

and entertaining and a great speaker.

And then others really
stick around and end up

finding that he has
really powerful teachings,

and he's a very good
vehicle for the message.

He knew the power of initiative.

He didn't wait for anybody
to get this wisdom out.

He sent out lessons via mail.

Mail order at the time
was completely brand new.

It was like sending
out an e-blast today.

What Yogananda did that was
profound for Americans was talk

about how you can have a
personal relationship with

the Divine.

I was a totally frustrated man.

I had thought money
could give me happiness,

but nothing seemed to satisfy me.

I was skeptical, like everyone was.

James Lynn was a wealthy industrialist,

and he went on to become a very
close devotee and an important

benefactor of Yogananda's
work around the country.

Many who joined his classes
stepped forward and wrote

checks, trying to
keep Yogananda in L.A.

And he saw such enthusiasm.

He thought, this is the
place to establish a center.

When I saw the large
building on the crest of Mount

Washington, I recognized it at once.

As he saw, this is the place.

This became the headquarters of his work.

Yogananda called it the
"spiritual White House,"

and it was a place
where he gave classes.

He even had rooms available to
rent with the idea of starting

a spiritual community.

And the first event he held there,

before the property
was even purchased,

was an Easter Sunrise service.

One of the keys to Yogananda's popularity

in America was his love
and affection for Jesus.

He placed Jesus on the
altar with his lineage

and with Krishna.

He said that Jesus really was
representing to us this is who you are.

This is your ability to open yourself

to the Divine Mystery
in ways that you never

thought were possible.

Jesus is revered in India.

People don't realize that.

But he is held to be either
an incarnation of God

or, at the very
least, a supreme yogi.

The value of Yogananda's
teaching was that he picked up

on this angle, that there is
this universal opportunity

to understand who we are.

What is true of Jesus is
also true of all of us.

It's not about religion at all.

It's about what's
behind religion--

meditation.

Meditate.

That's what he said.

Meditation is the catchword.

Yoga really is a philosophical system.

A lot of people go
to yoga to look hot.

It's not set up to
give you flat abs,

even though that's
a nice byproduct.

It's really set up
to understand God.

Kriya Yoga is the science
of God-Realization through

meditation.

Yogananda did teach Hatha
Yoga as one way to prepare

for meditation.

He also developed this system
of energization exercises.

Everything you do affects your brain.

By tensing the muscles, you're
activating your frontal lobes.

If you lower the stress
hormones in the brain,

it lowers your blood
pressure and your heart rate,

and it gets your mind
prepared for doing whatever

it is that you're about to do.

Kriya Yoga teaches in the
spine are these instruments

of higher perception that are
normally dormant in most people.

Through withdrawing that
energy and directing it

by concentration into
the spine and brain,

Yogananda said those instruments
of divine perceptions awaken.

The physical world is
not the highest reality.

When we have a dream at night,

it feels incredibly real
while we're in the dream.

And then we wake up, and
we look at the reality

that we're now in, and we say,
oh OK, that was just a dream.

Well, when people have
mystical experiences they say,

well, this is the ultimate reality.

This feels more real.

And all this other stuff, that's
not really the real reality.

Feel the life currents ascending
and descending in the spine.

By mastery of the
intelligent life currents

in the central nervous system,
the body and brain can be purified.

Go up and down the spine,
feeling the centers,

and mentally chanting "ohm."

Dear Guruji, I have absorbed so much.

I will try to keep it all
within me and profit by it.

Self-Realization has
helped my career.

It has helped me to
think very little of me

and let the Great
Spirit pass through me.

Dear Swami Dhirananda,
our existence here depends

on the success of Los Angeles.

You are needed.

Mount Washington needed
someone to be at the helm while

Guruji travelled throughout
the United States, lecturing,

giving classes.

He brought one of his
most beloved friends

who was a very capable teacher.

He was very well liked.

I'm powerless to tell
how greatly he has helped me

in carrying on my educational
work in India and Boston.

He successfully carried on
the work at the Ranchi school

during my absence from India.

This was his childhood
friend from Calcutta.

And I think as boys both of them felt

that their families didn't understand

their spiritual longings.

In fact, Dhirananda said that
it was impossible for him

to even meditate
at his family home.

So Yogananda allowed him to
hide out in his attic room,

and he would sneak food
up to him after the meals.

The 1920s was a period of
almost ceaseless travel for him.

He was visiting all
of the largest cities

in the United States, where people

were getting their first
glimpse of this yoga philosophy.

There is no precursor for Yogananda.

He has to do something completely new

that no one has done before.

There is no path.

There were other gurus who came.

Swami Vivekananda, whom
Yogananda respected greatly,

had been here and started the
Vedanta Society in the 1890s.

But he only stayed a few years.

Yogananda was the first major guru

to have a nationwide impact and
really make America his home.

Everything was covered in the lessons,

from how to achieve
success in our life,

magnetizing or attracting your
soul mate, creating abundance,

how to create harmony with
others, how to find happiness.

You people do not sleep correctly.

You subconsciously
worry about unpaid bills

and allow your sleep to be disturbed

by the mental movies of dreams.

By closing the eyes
and enough relaxation,

I can remain asleep
several nights.

And by opening the eyes
and recharging the body,

I can keep awake several days.

Willpower is really one
of the absolute necessities

for spiritual progress.

Yogananda defined
willpower in this way.

He said, will is that which
changes thought into energy.

He asked the six men to line
up with their hands on each

other's back, making a
line across the platform.

Swamiji said to the first one,
put your hands on my stomach.

With just a tiny
straightening of his body

and a quick flick of his stomach,

Swamiji sent the six men
catapulting across the stage.

What's the key of success?

Concentration power.

You meditate to achieve
the concentration powers.

He would control his
heart and stop the pulse,

and the doctors would rush,
check his pulse-- he's dying,

he doesn't have a pulse.

And then he would bring
himself back to life.

Every human being in the
world has a supernatural power.

But having doesn't mean
anything if you don't know

how to use it.

Yoga combines the physical,
mental, and spiritual forces.

Bikram must be in
complete control,

or he's in danger of being impaled.

Here he goes!

He did it!

And Yogi Bikram is all right.

But before you use it,
you have to realize it.

That's why Yogananda
called Self-Realization.

You have to realize that power--

supernatural, cosmic, physical,
mental, spiritual power.

Don't take my word for anything.

Apply these techniques and
find out for yourselves.

Here is a small, brown mystic
from a nation that very few

Americans had ever been
to, much less read about.

And he is here delivering
his message with such force

through personal transmission
to people who came to see him.

Most important is to create
a church within yourself where

you are the minister in the
temple of your own soul.

When somebody is
in a deep meditation,

there are changes in the brain.

We've seen changes
in the brain scans

of the different parts of the
brain that become more active.

What you're seeing during
a meditation practice

is a very substantial
decrease of activity

in the part of the brain
which normally helps

to create a sense of our self
and a sense of our orientation

in space and time.

As you progressively block
the activity in that area,

then you block your ability to
establish your sense of self

as distinguished from
the rest of the world.

And you begin to feel that
sense of deep connectedness,

or oneness, with
everything in the world.

I'm a physicist and a physician.

I spent years between the
Harvard physics department

and the Harvard Medical
School, going back and forth

across the Charles River, but
they don't talk to each other.

As a child, having
been exposed to things

like Vedic philosophy, growing
up in rural Mississippi,

I became inspired by this deep belief

that there is an
underlying unity in nature.

I wish these different
fields could come together.

And so that led me to want
to combine these two worlds

of physics and biomedicine.

Physics-- our physics
of the last century--

has not come to terms with
life, living systems, and things

like consciousness.

The writings of Yogananda are very

appealing to a scientific appetite.

He was committed to bringing together

the technology and the
material efficiency

of the scientific
understanding of the West

with the ancient spiritual
wisdom of the East

and creating a unified framework
and an integrated approach

to living life on this planet.

In Washington, something
remarkable happened.

Yogananda drew the largest
audience as a public speaker

had drawn in the city--

congressmen, senators, judges-- and he

was even invited to the White
House by President Coolidge.

But Yogananda came in
for a rude awakening

when he was in Washington,
which is really

part of the American South.

In the national capital, I
was told that white people only

would be permitted to
attend the classes.

This surprised me very much.

I defied this and founded
an Afro-American yoga center

to teach my Negro brethren.

Cosmic delusion is always snaring us

through our ignorance.

The Civil Rights Movement
was still decades away,

and it was inspired, in fact, by a
revolution that was fomenting in India.

Many people don't realize
that Gandhi was a yogi,

and he was putting yoga
principles such as nonviolence

into action on a mass scale.

Yogananda himself was a
very open and vocal supporter

of Gandhi and lectured at Harvard
about him and his movement.

And for this, he was put on
a government watch list and kept

under surveillance.

Anyone affiliated with
India and someone specifically

affiliated with Mahatma Gandhi
would be a person of interest

for the American government.

Why are these people drawn
to this heathen teacher?

What is he doing behind closed doors?

Are they trying to overthrow
our government, too?

There was literally a war against
yoga being waged in the media.

A huge scandal erupted
when Swami Dhirananda,

Yogananda's right-hand man,
was discovered giving private

lessons to a married woman, and
her husband found out about it,

stormed Mount Washington,
and a brawl erupted.

There were crazy
tracts being written--

rumors, all kinds of allegations,

not just about Yogananda,
but some of the other swamis

and yoga teachers, that
this was a love cult

and they were corrupting
the women of America.

Yogananda, as a yogi, would
often talk about mastery over

one's sexuality, over one's
own urges, self-discipline.

But oftentimes that
was misinterpreted

to mean something scandalous.

You had a kind of paranoia
on the part of the husbands

and law enforcement
officials that, you know,

we couldn't trust our women with
these dark-skinned foreigners.

You can read between the lines here
what the problem really is.

I mean, this was a period
where miscegenation laws--

you know, you were
forbidden in America

if you were white to marry a
brown-skinned man or woman.

So I mean, it was illegal to
mix the races at that point.

On the one hand, open-minded
Americans revered him,

but his unorthodox views
really raised the ire of more

conservative Americans.

By the time he went
into the Deep South,

it really reached a fevered pitch.

Swami was ordered to leave
Miami for his own safety.

The husbands of more
than 200 Miami women

were preparing to quote, "get the Hindu."

His supporters swarmed City Hall.

And during the hearing,
Police Chief Quigg

claims that Yogananda
tried to hypnotize him.

Yogananda is no longer being
invited to receive the keys

to different cities.

He's no longer being invited to speak

to different religious congregations.

I am going through the
severest trial of my life.

Judge for yourself the lying
capacity of the newspapers.

Back in Los Angeles, the
District Attorney eventually

cleared Yogananda and Mount
Washington of all wrongdoing,

but the damage had already been done.

The fruits of a lifetime
of service to mankind reduced

to ashes by the soulless
efforts of yellow journalism.

All these incidents
culminated in a falling out

between Yogananda and Dhirananda.

Dhirananda left and he
started another organization

not far from Mount Washington.

And many of the students
went with Dhirananda

because Yogananda had been
busy touring the country

for the last year.

The final heartbreak came
a couple of years later,

when Dhirananda left the swami
order altogether and married

one of his Los Angeles students.

Then he sued Yogananda
for his share of the work

they had done together.

With a heavy heart,
I'm starting for Mexico,

cutting loose from everything that I
may consecrate myself of God entirely.

Divine Mother, free me.

Let me go back to India to
serve you there-- not here,

where there is bitterness
and heartache and frustration

and no one to listen to your message.

In Yogananda's darkest hours,
there's only one place that he went.

He always went within.

We call it God, place of stillness.

Many times I have tried
to walk away from these

organizational responsibilities,
but every time Divine Mother

comes and takes me by the
ear and says, "Come back."

And he said, "When I
received that answer, I wept."

"And I knew I had to go back."

"I knew this is what
God wanted from me."

Walking only under
the guise of denunciation

or non-attachment is the easy part.

It shows more spiritual
fiber to live a godly life

in the jungle of civilization.

I love all, even those who
avow themselves my enemies.

For I see thee in every being.

I will rebuild this
organization from scratch,

just as I did when I
arrived from India in 1920.

With that renewed faith and
the determination that he would

not give up, even though he
was sorely tried and wanted

to leave, he began to draw disciples.

One of them was me.

I came in 1931, and many
other young people came.

There were older people here.

That was all ages living here.

Yogananda had consistently drawn
his devotees from all walks of life--

prominent businessmen, judges, lawyers,

even hardened journalists.

But by the early 1930s, something
very different was beginning.

A small core group of
devotees came to Yogananda

and asked to be accepted
into this monastic path

of complete renunciation,
to completely devote

their whole lives to
following his teachings,

and seeking God through this
path of Kriya Yoga meditation.

James Lynn, the wealthy
businessman, was one of them.

And he'd go on to become
a highly advanced yogi

and take monastic vows like the others.

And so, through Yogananda, this
ancient monastic swami order

from India took root in America.

Now began the training.

I knew nothing about renunciation.

The new monastics took strict
vows, like Yogananda himself,

of simplicity, celibacy,
obedience, and loyalty.

Yogananda's lay students
faced other challenges.

I'd been there about
six or seven weeks.

And I said, Guruji, all my
life I heard thou canst not,

thou shalt not, thou must not.

These are the rules of the
religious teachings that I've

heard around my relatives.

What I want to know from
you is, what canst thou?

He said, "Well, do you smoke?"

I said, yes.

He said, you may continue.

Do you drink alcohol?

I said, yes.

He said you may continue.

Do you enjoy the opposite
sex promiscuously?

Yes.

Well, you may continue.

I said, wait a minute.

You mean that I can
come up on this hill here,

in this good place with all

of these wonderful people,
your disciples and the devotees

and the brothers up here,
and study these teachings,

and I go back down there
and do all these things?

Absolutely.

But I will not promise
you that as you continue

to study these teachings that
the desire to do these things

will not fall away from you.

Repeated performance of
inaction creates a mental

blueprint, causing the formation
of subtle electrical pathways

in the brain, somewhat like the
grooves in a phonograph record.

Your life follows the
grooves that you yourself

have created in the brain.

It appears that Yogananda was
talking about neuroplasticity

almost 50 years before Western
doctors took an interest in it.

He said that regular Kriya practice

could rewire your brain and
help eliminate unwanted habits.

So "The Autobiography of a Yogi"

is the book that I keep stacks
of them around the house,

and I give it out constantly,
you know, to people.

You know like when people need
re-grooving, I say, read this.

We are not talking about suppression.

We are talking about transmutation.

Re-channeling-- that's the
whole science of yoga--

re-channeling your energy, creating

new patterns of thinking, new
patterns of the emotional life.

When he looked at you penetratingly,
he was changing you.

He said when he looked at you, he

was changing your brain cells.

And - he did.

He started going in to my
inner thoughts and feelings,

maybe things where
you've slipped a little.

He dissected me on the
deepest level I'd ever been.

I felt like I was being carved down

until a little tiny person,
down to almost like an ant.

And I remember I just literally
couldn't take any more.

I humanly, emotionally
couldn't take it.

You know, I was hurting.

I mean, I was crying.

He reached over, and
he gave me a big hug.

I've given you my
unconditional love, he says.

Do not fail to take advantage of it.

It's a friendship and a love
that he took you as you were,

and he gave it all to you,
as much as you could take.

There is just a thin screen
of ether between the world

and my guru.

He's haunting me day and night.

Return to India.

You must come, make the supreme effort.

Traversing 10,000 miles in
the twinkling of an eye,

his message penetrated my being
like a flash of lightning.

I have spent 15 years in spreading
my guru's teachings in America.

Now he recalls me.

Our arrival found such an
immense crowd assembled

to greet us, I was unprepared
for the magnitude of our welcome.

We broke our journey
halfway across the continent

to see Mahatma Gandhi.

After great discussions, he took lessons,
Kriya, and recharging exercises.

I was touched by his spirit of inquiry.

When we prayed together,
the whole place

seemed filled with God.

Master could hardly wait
till he got to meet his master.

It was indescribable, the
meeting between the two.

Master dropped to his knees, touched

his feet of Sri Yukteswar Giri.

Sri Yukteswar Giri was welcoming
back his triumphant son.

A healing calm descended
at the mere sight of my guru.

Quietly sitting beside him,
I would feel his bounty

pouring peacefully over my being.

Such spiritual atmosphere,
I so long missed.

Day and night passes with
God mad, God hungry clouds.

It's wonderful to work amongst
people who don't need coaxing

to be spiritual.

The Himalayan kids are calling me,

and the people's heart
kids are welcoming me.

But for a few beloved
disciples at Mount Washington,

I have no attraction
to go back to America.

I would roam by the Yumana,
where Krishna played

his flute of eternity and never visit

the shores of material life.

The lion of Bengal is gone.

The body which had
reflected omnipresent wisdom

lay lifeless before me mocking.

Master mine, why did you leave me?

The Lord is showing me
wherever I am, that's my home.

My home is on the train.

Then it shall be in the hotel
and then on the ship.

How can I leave my home?

It's everywhere.

When Sri Yukteswar first
sent Yogananda on his mission

to America, it was
right after World War I,

which was supposed to be
the war to end all wars.

Now, tensions were heating
up in Europe and Asia,

and Yogananda saw that we could be
entering a period of even greater horror.

The need for the teachings
was more urgent than ever.

After his guru died,
something shifted in him.

He was just experiencing these
profound states of consciousness.

His eyes just turned glassy.

He just withdrew,
and he was gone, you know?

And oft times, it gave
concern to us younger ones.

His heart seemed to cease beating.

He had instructed us that whenever

he went into samadhi that
we could bring him out

of it by chanting
"ohm" in his right ear.

And I thought, wow, this
is something different.

This was a little scary.

Is my guru always now
going to be in this state?

I would be in awe to ever
approach him in the same way.

And it was out of that
consciousness that he was

pulling these writings,
these profound truths and experiences.

He constantly stressed
to me, get my thoughts,

understand what I mean--

I can do much more now to
reach others with my pen.

"The Autobiography of a
Yogi" was the first memoir

of a genuine Indian holy man.

It was his personal feeling
about his devotion to his gurus

and what he's really
received from them.

But it's not all that Yogananda wrote.

Yogananda produced an
incredible literary corpus.

Every morning he would
have us bring a typewriter

and a table and bring
it into his study.

He will be up at 1:00 or
2:00 in the morning writing.

Night and day he
wrote, or he dictated,

and we would type all day long.

And he would be
totally, totally absorbed.

Hours would go by.

His whole consciousness
became absorbed

in finishing his writings.

And it was that sense of urgency--

it was like an acceleration--

an acceleration of our
discipline, of our training.

And not only was he writing,
he was building temples,

founding brotherhood colonies,
and encouraging people to live

together in spiritual communities.

And then in 1945, while he was
writing "The Autobiography,"

we set off the first atomic bomb.

A few people cried.

Most people were silent.

I remembered the line
from the Hindu scripture,

the Bhagavad Gita,
"Now I am become death,

the destroyer of worlds."

About 100 years ago, Einstein
gave us a framework that

radically changed modern physics.

It put energy and matter on
some sort of equivalent footing.

We're going to have to expand
the language of physics

to come to terms, not only
with matter and energy,

but matter, energy, and
maybe even consciousness.

The human mind can and must
liberate within itself energies

greater than those
within stones and metals,

lest the atomic giant,
newly unleashed,

done on the world in
mindless destruction.

Modern times as it is now
is based on what is called

the subject-object split.

I am the subject, and
there is the universe.

Whereas spirituality says that there

is a consciousness that includes
the subject and the object.

Consciousness gives rise
to everything, including the brain.

We have been brought up to
think that the mind is this

thing that sits up here
somewhere in the brain.

But really the mind is everywhere.

Some people have argued that
consciousness resides in every

cell of our body.

The only way for us
to really understand

the nature of consciousness
and what it is,

is to explore it both
from sort of the outside

in and from the inside out.

Delusion is the belief that there is
something outside of you.

But your happiness is not based
on anything outside of you--

in the inside, wherein the watcher

is watching all of the craziness,
kind of just laughing.

So look inside for
the watcher and be

connected to the watcher,
and then be awake.

The Indian teachings that Yogananda
represented were not escapes.

They were methods of
adapting to these upheavals

and these changes,
because they remind people

that we are more than the
personality and the roles

that we play and the body we inhabit.

If we're going to change
those kind of circumstances

so there's hope for our survival,

the change has to
come from inside out.

A man who has reformed
himself will reform thousands.

Yogananda saw that if
there wasn't some way to reach

the masses with this message of yoga--

this message of experiencing
the spirit within every human being--

the world would not survive the
transition into the Atomic Age.

They were leading this
foundation at that time

to bring the teachings current,
so they can really create

a transformation on a
collective level in the world,

not just in the forest.

The forest is here now.

This is bigger and
is ever increasing.

If you don't practice
the teachings here,

there will be no forest left at all.

"The Autobiography"
was a doorway in.

It was a table-setter
for millions of people.

Whether they ended up
being practitioners

of Kriya Yoga or not, Yogananda
was a doorway into whatever

pathway they found.

On the way out of the
memorial service for Steve,

they handed us a copy
of Yogananda's book.

Steve's last message to
us was, "Actualize yourself."

That was Yogananda's message.

He was constantly encouraging
you to simultaneously be able

to think of yourself as this
little blip on the planet.

But on the other hand, you also
had infinite potentialities.

You had the eternal soul in you.

So can you simultaneously operate

with that awareness of recognizing,

in a humble way, the limited
bounds of your human life

and at the same time the infinite
potentialities of you as a soul?

We have a far too limited
sense of our capacity as human

beings to overcome disease,
to overcome poverty,

and therefore, to allow that power
to begin to transform the world.

When the ambassador of
India visited Los Angeles

for the first time, how
happy Yogananda was that this

representative of free India,
liberated from the colonial

rule, had come to Los Angeles,
and he was able to honor him.

A banquet was organized
to welcome the ambassador,

and Yogananda, being one of
the most well known Indians

in the community, was invited
to give one of the key speeches

that night.

The night before, when
walking down the hall,

he turned to me and said, do
you know it is just a matter

of hours, and I will be gone?

When Master got up
to speak, I was there.

He had always said, when I die,

I want to die speaking of
my America and my India.

Free me then, oh Lord, from
the bondage of the body that I

may show others how they
can free themselves.

He finished saying,
"I am hallowed.

My body touched that sod," and
then collapsed to the floor.

As I knelt over his body, a
tremendous force entered this

body with the message to my soul,

this time you cannot call him back.

In the yoga tradition, there
is a sacred practice of knowing

when you will leave your body,
and soul consciousness moves

to a grander space.

The doctor said that
he had a heart attack.

Watch the show of the universe,

but do not become absorbed in it.

I behold life and death like the rise
and fall of waves on the sea.

I am the ocean of consciousness.

The guru can't be a little old man
in a blanket or a guy in robes.

It could look like
that, because guru-ness

might be living in
that body for a while,

and it interacts with
you because you have

a karmic tie with that being.

But that being, if he's really a guru,

he's not at all identified
with being in that body.

Once I ask the saint in India,
after Maharani died, and I

said, how can I get
closer to my guru?

He looked at me like I was crazy.

He said, your guru is what's looking
out of your eyes right now.

So get with that for a while.

I am the harm that you inflict.

I am your brilliance and frustration.

I'm the nuclear bombs if they're to hit.

I am your immaturity
and your indignance.

I am your misfits and your praised.

I am your doubt and your conviction.

I am your charity and your rape.

I am your grasping and expectation.

I see you averting your glances.

I see you cheering on the war.

I see you ignoring your children.

And I love you still.

And I love you still.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Give me love.

Give me love.

Give me peace on earth.

Give me light.

Give me life.

Keep me free from birth.

Give me hope.

Help me cope with this heavy
load, trying to touch and reach

you with heart and soul.

Oh my Lord, please
take hold of my hand,

that I might understand you.

Won't you please, oh, won't you?

Give me love.

Give me love.

Give me peace on earth.

Give me light.

Give me life.

Keep me free from birth.

Give me hope.

Help me cope with this heavy
load, trying to touch and reach

you with heart and soul.

Oh my Lord.

Won't you please, oh, won't you?

Give me love.

Give me love.

Give me peace on earth.

Give me light.

Give me life.

Keep me free from birth.

Give me hope.

Help me cope with this heavy
load, trying to touch and reach

you with heart and soul.

Oh, give me love.

Give me love.

Give me peace on earth.

Give me light.

Give me life.

Keep me-- keep me free from birth.

Now, give me hope.

But help me cope with this heavy
load, trying to touch and reach

you with heart and soul.

Oh my Lord.