India and, to some extent, other parts of Asia, have historically produced relatively large numbers of so-called holy men, sages, gurus, or "enlightened masters." These devoted creatures go back further than Buddha, who left his family to find God about 2500 years ago, and succeeded, one could argue. His family is said indeed to have argued against his crazy idea. He had a wife and child.
The Vedanta line of religious gurus and followers that has temples in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara claims to be from a tradition 4,000 years old. Often these holy men (I don't know of any women allowed in the guru club until recently) have dropped all mundane concerns to pursue their calling, sometimes becoming monks, ascetics, beggars who felt it wrong to labor for food and asked others to provide it so they could better focus on finding God.
In our century, beginning in 1920, one of these said he was sent by his teacher on a divine errand to share yoga, or the search for God, with the United States. He started out in Boston, and made limited inroads, but New England was overall too hardheaded and Puritan to be really receptive, so he tried Los Angeles, where the place sort of went wild over his version of holiness and devotion, and he established headquarters, retreats, and temples, all enjoying year-round mild weather. Was this group forerunner of the counter-culture? Apparently. Named Mukunda from near Calcutta, this man from his young days was drawn to the holy life, and sluffed a lot of university to be with his guru, according to his own account in the widely-spread book, Autobiography of a Yogi. In due time he found a holy man to guide his search for God. Having some success in this pursuit, his teacher had him choose a new name, and he picked Yogananda, which is more of a title than a name. It means "bliss (ananda) through union with God (yoga)".) (Autobiography of a Yogi, p. 230) So we learn "yoga" is something more than a gentle exercise class that tends to make you feel quite a bit better if you keep at it at least twice a week. Calling yoga exercise looks like a bastardization of the tradition. Yoga is a way of life.
Yogananda's tradition claims that Jesus Christ is one of its great spiritual masters, perhaps the greatest. There is no doubt that this yogi considers Jesus to be the Son of God, and/or God in the flesh. Nor did Jesus get included in his line of deities as some kind of afterthought to make his Hinduism more tasty to western tongues. The book and the Self-Realization Fellowship that Yogananda started appear very consistent, very integral in espousing a belief system in which no being could do what Jesus did without the very power of God fully active in him.
Yet Jesus has no exclusive position; he is not The One Redeemer of Christianity. Yogananda calls the founder of his own holy line, Babaji, "the yogi-Christ of India." Since Jesus is not the One Savior in SRF's eyes, even if he is the spiritually greatest or one of the greatest humans, SRF is not at all what Christianity has historically been, nor does it claim to be. It is a form of new-age Christianity. For those of us inclined to believe in spiritual powers invisible to the ordinary senses of man and his machines, yet weary of the old-age Christianity, this may have some appeal, or be the most cockamamie scheme imaginable. Take your pick. I have held both opinions in this lifetime, with the first option my current choice--I think Yogananda talks and acts, to my sight, as a man empowered by devotion to and pursuit of the divine.
One Christian writer calls Yogananda's system a form of new-age Hinduism in Christian garb, and it was this crack that got me writing here. Naah. Yogananda's Hindu garb is so obvious and his Christian "dressing" so light as to be a sort of new-age Christianity in Hindu garb. The Self-Realization Fellowship has no real active use for Jesus' apostles as spiritual leaders, though they would honor them as they would any holy people/leaders, nor for the historical church of Rome and Constantinople. At least I find no mention of them, with this exception: both Yogananda and his guru wrote books on how Bible scripture comes from above, and can be given added light by using Hindu wisdom to interpret it. It offers its own set of enlightened leaders guided by God.
It seems that the two mainstays of finding God in this tradition are right and proper living (not exactly a new idea), and diligent, regular meditation. Some meditation lasts, say, 20 minutes, and some could last for hours, as you get more advanced. SRF supplies details. Both the right living and the meditation help still the mind from its many wandering impulses of thought, which tends to open the spirit to divine guidance, and to miracles, all kinds.
I feel like happening upon Yogananda's followers and his book are adding a wonderful new light to my life in 2016.
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