Self-Realization Fellowship Blog

Excerpts from “Paramahansa Yogananda: A Bridge Maker of Historic Proportions,” a talk given by the SRF/YSS president at the SRF Mother Center on September 19, 2020, and published in the 2020 Fall & Winter special double issue of Self-Realization magazine. Brother Chidananda was speaking at the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of Paramahansa Yogananda’s arrival in America. As America marks its 250th anniversary, we hope this blog post inspires you to apply the yoga science of meditation to make the soul freedom Paramahansaji extolled from his first talk in the West an enduring reality in your life.

Outwardly, Paramahansa Yogananda was a Hindu, an adopted American, a citizen of the world. But his real being was what he was inside. In one of his poems he revealed what his own inner experience was:

I have no country, no homeland dear;  
Nor am I Hindu or Christian seer; Nor Occidental, nor Oriental,  
Race-bound behind the bars of inheritance....  
My spirit revels in freedom —  
Its only religion freedom....

Unknown to others, but known to Myself,  
I wake and walk and dream,  
Eat and drink and glide in Joy.  
I Myself am the Joy I sought —  
The Joy that all do seek.¹

Think of it: “My spirit revels in freedom — its only religion, freedom.” This is so interesting because it takes us back to the story of Paramahansaji’s arrival in Boston, where he had come to speak at the Congress of Religious Liberals in 1920. That Congress — which drew religious leaders from different parts of the United States and the world — was timed to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims in America, those who had come from England seeking freedom; and the theme the organizers had given was, “What is the real significance of freedom?” They knew, and were celebrating, that from that landing of the Pilgrims in 1620 eventually evolved the new United States of America, built on the foundational principle of freedom.²

As we know, America’s Founding Fathers wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” These are stirring words — immortal words. But most people may not realize that this is a very yogic concept. In fact, I think we can say that yoga goes even deeper than the politicians and statesmen and those revolutionary leaders. Yoga says that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not just inalienable rights, but inalienable forces or processes embedded in the very fabric of human nature.

Think of what you have learned in the SRF Lessons and in your practice of meditation about the science of Raja Yoga that Paramahansaji brought; and think of that in terms of this concept of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yoga tells us that life energy (prana), liberty (or free will), and the pursuit of happiness (or, we might say, the soul’s desire for perfect bliss) — these are forces that act through the soul’s ten instruments (the five senses and the five instruments of bodily action) with or without our permission. That is why I say these are not just inalienable rights, but inalienable forces or processes.

I want to go a little deeper into this, because it will inform how we see the lecture that Paramahansaji came to give at that 1920 conference: “The Science of Religion.” In his teachings he explains that we come into the body at the time of conception as a divine soul cloaked in our astral and causal bodies of life energy and consciousness. And the soul pours that life and consciousness into the body-mind instruments. This is the human condition; we have no choice in the matter. Life flows down and outward — into the nervous system, into the senses — creating and enlivening the body; and, most importantly, causing the soul to identify with that body, whether or not we choose.

But what we do have control over is how we live in that body — whether or not we remain identified with the body and its mirage of sensory desires and habits that bind and enslave us. That is the real slavery: for the soul to be bound to that false concept of what we truly are. Kriya Yoga — the SRF/YSS teachings that our Guru brought 100 years ago to the West and thus to the world — gives us the science of controlling the soul’s power of identification: the process by which we as the soul take on the outer roles and characteristics with which we identify, for good or for evil. It is all about how we manage those forces of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness — our life energy, our free-will endowment, and where we search for the fulfillment of our soul’s desire for infinite bliss. That is the science of religion, and that is the essence of the discourse Paramahansaji gave at that Congress of Religions dedicated to the real meaning of freedom.
 

Mastering the Science of Religion to Attain Freedom

As you know, his presentation there was titled, “The Science of Religion,” and a small — but very potent — book by that same name was also published, which we have just rereleased in an SRF Centennial edition. In terms of its significance for true freedom, we can boil down what our Guru gave at that Congress to three essential points.

First of all, as Guruji says in the book, “The sense of identification with the transitory body and restless mind is the source or root-cause of our spiritual Self’s misery.”

The second point is that religion, rightly conceived, consists of the permanent avoidance of such pain and the attainment of pure Bliss or God. That was his universal definition of religion.

The third point is that we can use what he calls “the easiest, most rational, and most fundamental methods — practical for all — that will free the ever-blissful spiritual Self from its baneful connection and identification with the transitory body and mind, thus causing it to permanently avoid pain and attain Bliss, which constitutes religion.”

Now this is perhaps a little philosophical or abstruse, but I want us to see how Guruji took that whole concept of freedom and showed that it is entirely dependent upon mastery of the science of religion. As he said: “To free the ever-blissful spiritual Self from its baneful connection and identification with the transitory body and mind.” In other words, he was pointing out to Americans, and to all citizens of every country in the world, that unless and until our social ideals of freedom and equality are supported and informed by spiritual ideals of freedom — freedom from the degenerating impulses of our lower self — those social ideals, whether in America or any other country, will remain only partially realized.

How fortunate we are that in the SRF/YSS Lessons, the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, he gave us the right attitudes, the right affirmations, and most of all the right scientific techniques to gain control of that process of identification. That is the science of yoga, the science of religion: to realize that our true identity is oneness with Spirit, oneness with God; and to realize that all other temporary identifications bring limitations, attachments, karma, the kleshas — the five troubles spoken of by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras.³ “The Science of Religion” — what could be more appropriate, comprehensive, and profound a presentation on the real meaning of freedom!

Footnotes:

1. Excerpts from “In the Land of Dreams” in Songs of the Soul, published by Self-Realization Fellowship.
2. Another permanent settlement had been established by immigrants from England in 1607 in Virginia, more than a decade earlier; but the purpose of this group was primarily commercial in nature rather than being a quest for religious freedom.
3. In God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita, Paramahansa Yogananda explains: “In the Yoga Sutras, II:3, klesha, or troubles, is defined as fivefold: avidya (ignorance), asmita (ego), raga (attachment), dvesha (aversion), abhinivesha (body attachment).” 

We invite you to learn more about the Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons — the core of Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings on the science of yoga meditation and the art of balanced living. 

You can also watch this excerpt from Brother Chidananda’s 2020 SRF centennial talk as a video on the SRF YouTube channel.