86 Biography of a YogiThe primary tenet of Yogananda’s metaphysics thus rests on the claim that “the
essence of all objects is light”^77 and the visible material cosmos therefore operates
as a tangible holographic image. This results in a fairly thorough reinterpretation of
traditional Sāṃkhyan metaphysics brought into agreement with the popular scien-
tific understandings of Yogananda’s time. “Popular” is a crucial term here because,
despite his preoccupation with light, Yogananda appears to be unaware of the exis-
tence of photons, the quanta of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radia-
tion that had been acknowledged by the scientific community some twenty years
prior to the Autobiography’s publication in 1946. Consequently, for Yogananda
there are protons, there are electrons, and then there are “lifetrons.” More spe-
cifically, all sensory stimuli result from the vibrations of protons and electrons,
which are in turn regulated by lifetrons or “subtle life forces or finer- than- atomic
energies intelligently charged with the five distinctive sensory idea substances.”^78
Lifetrons are essentially prāṇa. Indeed, Yogananda explicitly equates the two
terms but almost uniformly chooses to employ his translation in place of the origi-
nal Sanskrit, giving his metaphysical speculations a distinctly scientific tone. To
Yogananda’s credit, unlike Vivekananda, he manages to fully integrate his scientific
vision into the subject- based emanation theory that underlies traditional Indian
Sāṃkyan and Vedāntin cosmologies. We will turn to a closer examination of his
schema of subtle embodiment in chapter 5. In the present context, it is enough to
say that Yogananda’s vision of materiality rests on a kind of quantum monism.
Whereas Vivekananda relied on a prāṇa/ ākāśa duality— electromagnetic
energ y and its medium, the ether— to explain natural phenomena, Yogananda is
able to reduce the entirety of matter into a single substratum of light. Yogananda
posits an astral universe composed of lifetrons underlying all gross matter. Prāṇa
then becomes both matter and energ y— insofar as matter is simply “congealed”
energ y— which are both rendered as light. This is where Yogananda’s explana-
tions require a bit of interpretation. Although Yogananda never explicitly states
that lifetrons are particles of light, this appears to be the only logical conclusion.
Being unaware of the photon as a distinct quantum particle, Yogananda seems
to extrapolate from Einstein’s mass- energ y equivalence that if the speed of light
is the universal constant that makes this equivalence possible, then it must mean
that all mass as well as all energ y is ultimately reducible to light. This effectively
allows him to create a new universal substratum— a new ether of sorts— now
manifesting as an underlying astral universe composed of a “throbbing stream of
lifetrons.”^79
Asserting this quantum monism opens up a whole new vista of possibilities
for explaining the most “magical” of yogic superpowers. Relying on a formulation
of the “magnification” of the yogic body, Yogananda asserts that “only a mate-
rial body whose mass is infinite could equal the velocity of light.”^80 Yogis, having