Here Comes the Yogiman 121
Incorporating his organization as the Self- Realization Fellowship in 1935
seems to have further fanned the flames of Yogananda’s institutionalizing fer-
vor. Upon returning to India later that year and seeing that Sri Yukteswar had
been using the name “Yogad Satsanga” to advertise an aspect of his establish-
ment, Yogananda excitedly announced his own desire to start an international
organization called Yogoda Satsanga. This appeared to be a point of disagreement
between him and Sri Yukteswar, who allegedly told his student: “You have your
organization in the West, and I am going to nominate you as the next president
of Sadhu Sova. So what more organizations do you need?”^62 It was also argued
that the name— aside from being bad Sanskrit— would imply that Yogananda
alone had started the organization, despite the presence of Satyananda and oth-
ers. After some more debate, Sri Yukteswar finally agreed on the condition that
Yogananda would list him as founder and himself as the first president, but, much
to Sri Yukteswar’s displeasure, Yogananda turned down this offer. Nevertheless,
it appears that an agreement was ultimately reached and Sri Yukteswar’s Yogad
Sat Sanga Sova became the Yogoda Satsanga Society of India in 1936, which per-
sists as the Indian branch of the SRF to this day. This latter point evidently cre-
ated some bad blood between the Indian members of the Kriya lineage and the
Western SRF management, and accounts of the institution’s history abound with
detailed cataloguing of changes in leadership and legal wrangles.
Yogananda made only one return visit to India during the three decades
between his initial departure in 1920 and his death in 1952. While his 1935
homecoming was accompanied by grand fanfare, tensions simmered below the
surface. Satyeswarananda recounts that “Yogananda’s return to India somehow
got bad press. Some people said: ‘Swami is in big business in America.’ Some of
these people had connection with a group of people from Miami, in the U.S.A.”^63
Presumably the reference concerns Yogananda’s sensational encounter with
the 200 angry husbands of Miami, which had occurred some seven years prior,
though it seems odd that this incident alone would have created such a long-
lasting impression. The “bad press” was ultimately silenced by a close friend of
Yogananda who had connections in journalism.
The unflattering publicity and organization- related disagreements were not
the only unsavory aspects of Yogananda’s return. His younger brother, Bishnu
Charan Ghosh, had apparently inherited Yogananda’s ambitious nature. During
the fifteen years of Yogananda’s American sojourn, Ghosh had made a name
for himself as a prominent physical culturalist. Yogananda was quite impressed
with this brother’s establishment and even more impressed with the funding he
had been able to secure to support his center. There was talk of collaboration.
Ultimately, however, when Ghosh had arranged for Yogananda to demonstrate
one of his most impressive yogic talents— stopping the heart— before a number