Endeavoring West

A devout young yogi is immersed in a sea of Western faces. The
diversity is dizzying; the scenery, vastly different from his rural
village of Ranchi, India. America. Surely, these people are Americans,
he observes.

Suddenly a stream of light pierces the darkness and Paramahansa
Yogananda, 27, is startled out of deep meditation. He is not in America
at all. He is in the familiar Ranchi School storeroom sitting among
discarded boxes and several inches of dust, face-to-face with one of
his young students. "I have news for you," he says to the boy,
betraying his premonition, "The Lord is calling me to America!" The
year is 1920.

The next day, out of the blue, he is invited to address a religious
conference in the U.S. His head spinning, Yogananda seeks the advice of
his teacher, Sri Yukteswar.

"All doors are open for you," advises his Guru. "It is now or
never!"

"What do I know about public speaking? Seldom have I given a lecture,
and never in English," Yogananda protests.

"English or no English, your words on yoga shall be heard in the
West."

That was an understatement.

Paramahansa Yogananda is one of the most well-known historical figures
in American Yoga. Los Angeles was his base of operations, and it was
here that he built Self Realization Fellowship (SRF) into the largest
yoga organization in the world.

Three years after arriving in America, Yogananda came to Los Angeles
and enjoyed his most successful lecture to date. The Los Angeles Times
reported on "the extraordinary spectacle of thousands..being turned
away an hour before the advertised opening of [his] lecture with the
3,000-seat [LA Philharmonic Hall] filled to its utmost capacity."
Nine months later, in October, 1925, he established the SRF
International Headquarters at a vacant Mt. Washington hotel.

Why were thousands interested in Yogananda during the Roaring '20s?
People were drawn to his subtle approach. Lauren Landress of SRF says,
"[Yogananda] was interested in unifying all religions." He often
used Christianity as a launching pad to begin his lectures. Jesus
Christ, according to Yogananda, was a realized master. At SRF centers,
depictions of Jesus and other luminaries are as common a sight as
images honoring Indian saints. However, Yogananda offered something
that the religious establishment did not; a physical experience of God.
He writes, "The universal appeal of yoga is its approach to God
through a daily usable scientific method, rather than a devotional
fervor that, for the average man, is beyond his emotional scope."

"During the decade of 1920 to 1930 my yoga classes were attended by
tens of thousands of Americans," writes Yogananda. His influence
pervaded all available avenues. He visited with American Indian,
Jewish, Islamic and Christian leaders at his Mt. Washington hermitage.
He established a LA-based publishing house; opened a restaurant in
Hollywood; and even hosted a talk show on KNX.

Strong leadership development through monastic channels built SRF into
an organization boasting 500 retreat centers and temples around the
world. Southern California is home to centers in San Diego, Encinitas,
Long Beach, Hollywood, the Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades and the Mt.
Washington Headquarters. The Encinitas hermitage was built for
Yogananda as a gift from his students. It was here that he wrote
Autobiography of a Yogi, a widely read work now translated into 18
languages.

He died after speaking at a banquet in honor of the Indian Ambassador
held at the Biltmore Hotel on March 7, 1952. His final words were,
"India, the United States and God." It is generally held among SRF
followers that he achieved Mahasamadhi, a conscious exit from the body.
The mortuary director responsible for handling him writes in a letter
dated March 27, "this state of perfect preservation of a body is..an
unparalleled one."

http://www.adamskolnick.com/journal..shollywood.html

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