148 Biography of a Yogidesire, are oppositional forces. However, the imagination is exponentially more
powerful than the will, and when the two are in conflict the “force of the imagina-
tion is in direct ratio to the square of the will.”^51
Yogananda disagrees, interpreting Coué’s use of imagination perhaps a bit too
literally and instead declaring will to be paramount.^52 This is primarily because
he defines will not as “physical or mental strain or strenuousness” but as a “cool,
calm, determined, increasingly steady and smooth flowing effort of the attention
and the whole being toward oneness with a definite goal.”^53 In other words, for
Yogananda will begins to look a lot like meditative focus, thus betraying close kin-
ship with Haddock’s work. Even more than this, will writ large is “the essence of
life” and “the determining factor of evolution.”^54 It is “the initiator ... the execu-
tor ... the genius- maker” because “man cannot think without willing to think;
far less can he act without willing to act. Will may be blind without intellect, but
intellect is powerless and worthless without will.”^55 This may all seem like a naïve
oversimplification of conscious subjective agency until one considers Yogananda’s
claims in light of the metaphysical schema discussed in chapter 2. Will, for
Yogananda, is directly instantiated in the electricity of nerve force. Consequently,
it is energetically continuous with the very fabric of reality.
Nevertheless, it is significant that Yogananda lauds the Yogoda method as
not only one that “enables you to see the VITAL FORCE, to hear the COSMIC
VIBRATION, and thru a definite simple technique, to reach the Omnipresent
Source of Infinite Power” but also one that “PUTS ON or TAKES OFF FAT,
as desired, without trouble or delay.”^56 In the spirit of what Singleton has aptly
described as “an efficient merger of the cosmic and the cosmetic,”^57 Yogananda is
ever attentive to note that that Yogoda has a range of distinctly physical benefits
such as reviving the muscles, working to “strengthen injured or undeveloped
osseous or bony structures,” and teaching one how to “accelerate involuntary
functions, such as those of the heart, the lungs, the stomach and intestines, the
capillaries, the lymphatic glands, the veins, the cerebro- spinal axis (brain and
spine), etc.”^58 However, it accomplishes all of this by “spiritualizing the body by
teaching one how to recharge the cells from inner cosmic energ y.” In the final
analysis, the goal remains rather lofty in that through its “scientific technique
of meditation (specific concentration applied to God) it leads to the bridging
of the imaginary gulf existing between human and cosmic consciousness due to
ignorance.”^59
By integrating physiological benefits and addressing the most mundane of
concerns, Yogananda successfully insinuates his method into an increasingly
secular and practically minded spiritual market. Bernard and his wife, Blanche
De Vries, had already achieved popular acclaim for their coupling of yogic meta-
physical principles with cosmetic goals, thereby establishing the corollary that a