Here Comes the Yogiman 91
times more surreal in its swirl of chance meetings, students who came to think
they were lions, and Polish Yogis from Cleveland. It is Oliver Twist redone by
David Lynch. Yet this version of the story is no less constructed in its nature
or less mythic in its proportions. It is a play— at times antagonistic— between
Yogananda’s own narrative as it was lived and enacted by him and the catego-
ries and storylines imposed onto it by society, by his followers and his detrac-
tors, by the media, and by his blood kin and the family of his monastic order.
It consists of legend and history and gossip.
This chapter intentionally avoids any direct reference to the Autobiography
itself. That is the project of chapter 5. Instead, it draws on biographies and per-
sonal memoirs published by Yogananda’s disciples, who tend to be rather sym-
pathetic, as well as childhood friends, associates, and members of his Indian
lineage, who tend to be less so. It also refers to archival sources including news-
paper accounts, printed advertisements, and editorials. Finally, it includes per-
sonal accounts by SRF members, current and former, found in the many Internet
communities that have sprung up to both exalt and criticize Yogananda.
Perhaps most interesting and occasionally frustrating is the fact that
Yogananda was in many ways the first to tell his story, exempting the fragmented
documentation provided by contemporary media. His Autobiography of a Yogi
truly is the Ur- narrative in the sense that nearly all other biographical accounts,
published and anecdotal, all criticisms, accusations, praises, and elaborations
reference Yogananda’s work on at least one occasion. It is as though a reference
in the Autobiography becomes the stamp of legitimacy required to prove that
an event— especially a controversial event— actually transpired.^3 In many ways,
then, as much as one may try, it is rarely possible to escape entirely the realm of
Yogananda’s subjectivity.
It is also for this reason that Yogananda’s life provides such an apt case study
for examining the life of a Yogi, in whatever conflicting ways the category might
be understood. The ensuing pages will demonstrate the ways in which Yogananda
followed, sometimes intentionally and other times not, the scripted tropes that
defined Yogis— modern and premodern, Indian and Westernized— which we
have reviewed in the preceding chapters. After all, as the title of his work suggests,
a Yogi is precisely and above all else what Yogananda perceived himself to be.
Himalayan Yogis and Swami Orders, or
The Making of a LineageIt is a truth universally acknowledged that an aspiring Yogi in want of a good
fortune must be in possession of a lineage. The story of Yogananda thus inevi-
tably begins with the story of Babaji. Although sources vary on Babaji’s precise