Hagiography of a Yogi 173
traditions.^45 However, he lends to it inflections that are both traditionally Indian
and modern scientific in nature.
This entire exposition concerning the astral universe is delivered through the
mouth of Sri Yukteswar, who informs Yogananda that he has been resurrected—
not reincarnated but resurrected— on Hiranyaloka, which Yogananda translates
as “Illumined Astral Planet.”^46 This “subtler heaven” of Hiranyaloka is differenti-
ated from the astral world at large in that it is a higher astral planet inhabited by
highly spiritually developed beings who have mastered the meditative ability to
consciously leave their physical bodies at death during their last incarnation. In
other words, they have passed into the state of nirvikalpa samādhi, or uninter-
rupted meditative absorption without physical awareness, while on earth. They
have also passed through the ordinary astral spheres to which all earthly beings
must go after death, where they have destroyed all of their binding karma—
something that ordinary people cannot do because they are too entranced by the
astral worlds to see any reason to engage in spiritual advancement.^47
Yogananda’s narrative gives us two examples of such advanced beings: Lahiri
Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar. It is important to note that both, when they reap-
pear after their respective physical deaths, are described as “resurrected.” When
Lahiri Mahasaya appears to his disciple Keshabananda he states:
From the disintegrated atoms of my cremated body, I have resurrected a
remodeled form. My householder work in the world is done, but I do not
leave the earth entirely. Henceforth I shall spend some time with Babaji in
the Himalayas, and with Babaji in the cosmos.^48Likewise, when Yogananda asks the astral Sri Yukteswar whether his body, which
seems tangible enough when Yogananda embraces him and even smells the same,
is exactly like the body that had been buried only a short time ago, Sri Yukteswar
replies:
Yes, my child, I am the same. This is a flesh and blood body. Though I see
it as ethereal, to your sight it is physical. From cosmic atoms I created an
entirely new body, exactly like that cosmic dream physical body which you
laid beneath the dream sands at Puri in your dream world. I am in truth
resurrected— not on earth but on an astral planet.^49The astral body, although it is etheric or— as it is more commonly described
by Yogananda, lifetronic— looks and feels as though it were physical when it
appears in the physical world. Both Lahiri Mahasaya’s and Sri Yukteswar’s resur-
rected bodies are described as “flesh and blood.” However, the astral body is also