204 Notes
hand in Yogananda’s initial Yogoda publications (his name appears on most editions
of the pamphlet), half a decade on American soil appear to have altered Yogananda’s
message in a direction that left little room for philosophical abstractions.
- Jackson 1994: 25.
- Thomas 1930: 145.
- Alter 2014: 66.
- Jackson’s unpublished memoir, quoted in Love 2010: 140.
- Love 2010: 140.
- Laycock 2013: 102.
- From a historical point of view, Kriya Yoga, as espoused by Yogananda’s lineage,
displays all of the metaphysical and ritual characteristics of a medieval Indian
haṭha yogic practice. With regards to the body of practices that came to be known
as haṭha yoga in the modern West, this would be even more true of Yogananda’s
Yogoda program.
- The first issue is concerned largely with introducing Yogananda and his work, both
in India and America.
- A corruption of the Sanskrit yoga- da, that is, effecting, or producing yoga.
- See Singleton 2010 and Alter 2004b.
- Alter 2005: 126.
- Braude 2001: 151.
- Hall 1994.
- See Treitel 2004: 154– 61.
- Ramacharaka 1904: 11– 12.
- Ramacharaka 1904: 12.
- Chicago Daily Tribune 1920.
- X 1920.
- Jain 2014a: 25.
- For a full treatment of this practice, see Mallinson 2006.
- Like most Sanskrit words, yoni has many meanings, the most problematic of which
in this case would be that of the female sexual organ (hence, the more general mean-
ing of “source” or “origin”). While the more anatomical sense may be implied here,
even pointing to a literal practice that has been internalized over time, I believe at
this stage the metaphorical meaning is a more accurate translation.
- If one were looking to make parallels to a classical tantric sādhana, it seems that this
stage would be akin to nyāsa, where a deity or deities are ritually imposed onto the
practitioner’s body, generally by way of mantra. The practice culminates in the prac-
titioner’s physical body, which had been ritually destroyed in the previous purifica-
tory step of bhūta- śuddhi, being reconstituted as a perfected body made up entirely
of mantra powers. It seems that, in this case, the singular mantra employed is “oṃ.”
- The exact distinctions regarding what exactly falls under the category of the oṃkāra
kriyās are unclear. Dasgupta 2009: 123 actually refers to the second stage exclusively
