Here Comes the Yogiman 95
devotion and the earnestness of their practice. His own approach, however, was
always more philosophical in nature. Drawing on his interactions with tantric,
Va iṣṇava, and Baul practitioners, Sri Yukteswar emphasized the hidden common-
ality of all paths.^11 This same synthetic project occupied his efforts in the work
that Babaji personally charged Sri Yukteswar with to write upon their encounter
at the Kumbha Mela festival in 1894: Kaivalya Darśanam, or The Holy Science,
under which title it is now published by the SRF.
Sri Yukteswar converted his two- story Serampore home into an ashram and
in 1903 founded a second establishment, the Karar Ashram in Puri. Around this
time, Sri Yukteswar, then still Priyanath Karar, received advice that proper ini-
tiation into an established monastic order might be beneficial for the propaga-
tion of Kriya Yoga and the respectability of his establishments. He consequently
made haste to Bodh Gaya, where he was initiated by Swami Krishnadayal into
the Giri branch of the Daśanāmi Saṃpradāya. It does not appear that he had any
prior relationship with Krishnadayal, and the affiliation thus served primarily
as a legitimating function. Nevertheless, Swamis initiated into the Kriya Yoga
tradition generally belong to the Giri suborder as a matter of lineage.
The importance of lineage should not be understated. Just as Sri Yukteswar
found it advantageous to affiliate himself with a formal tradition in order to
secure the reputation of his ashrams, so belonging to a “genuine” order of Swamis
must have elevated Yogananda’s credibility in the eyes of his American audiences.
Every metaphysical teacher claiming the title of “Yogi” would generally have
had a legitimating narrative about having studied with Himalayan masters, and
even Blavatsky had made use of this device in her day. However, being able to put
names and (photographic) faces to this narrative no doubt significantly raised
Yogananda’s spiritual capital.
The Boy Who Wanted Superpowers
Yogananda, then Mukunda Lal Ghosh, was born on January 5, 1893, in
Gorakhpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The known details of Yogananda’s
early childhood are extensively treated in his Autobiography and need not be
recapitulated here. Yogananda is everywhere described as a highly spiritual
child. His fervor to become a Yogi intensified after the death of his mother in
1904 and appears to have received special confirmation when, a year later, his
brother conveyed to him a special message regarding his destiny that had been
given to his mother by Lahiri Mahasaya when Yogananda was only an infant.^12
His father, Bhagavati Charan Ghosh, a direct disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya, ini-
tiated him into the first kriyā of the Kriya Yoga sādhana in 1906. This was the
same year that young Yogananda attempted for the second time to run away to