eventually in 1946. Yet the signature feature of his work was the technique
he marketed known as “kriya yoga.” “Kriya yoga” selectively appropriated
aspects of the traditional yoga system, but he simplified it for adaptation for
any modern person. He claimed the technique had been used by ancient
sages, including St. Paul and Christ and that it could be used irrespective of
one’s religious orientation. At the same time, he used a quasi-scientific
vocabulary to give the technique a modern rationale.^28
Yogananda developed a significant following partially because of his ability
to appropriate a Western and liberal Protestant vocabulary, partially because
of his charismatic personality and partially because his promise of a “ritual
that worked” appealed to an audience that sought just that.
If Yogananda’s appeal lay largely in the offering of a ritual technique,
that of Jiddu Krishnamurticlaimed to be of a different sort. Krishnamurti
was born into an orthodox brahman family in South India in 1895.^29 By 1909
he had begun to work at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society,
by then located in Adyar near Madras city. Members of the society saw
spiritual leanings in the young man; indeed, before long he was understood
to be an incarnation of the “Maitreya,” the future “world teacher” and as
such was worshiped by devotees. Nonetheless, by the time he was twenty-six,
Krishnamurti became increasingly disenchanted with the Theosophical
Society – its ideas, its constraints, and the way it was using him. Before long
he was undergoing his own spiritual experiences and developing his own
ideological system. While he continued to work within the system until 1928,
he eventually set out to lecture on his own, giving his first public lecture (one
not intended exclusively for Theosophical Society members) in May 1928.
For several decades, he lectured in the US, India, and Europe. His message
insisted that the truth was not to be found in any particular religion. Rather,
while he claimed a special status as a universal teacher who had a sense
of the truth, he sought not for men to follow him but to be “free.” While he
tended to eschew all rituals, he nonetheless, claimed that “mindless
awareness” was a form of meditation – much like zen practice – which could
make persons free.
As ideas such as these made their way into North America several indige-
nous movements were spawned that at least purported to have an Indian
flavor. The I Am movement, for example, was founded in the 1930s by one
Guy Ballard(1878–1939). Ballard’s movement Americanized aspects of
Theosophy and certain occult practices. Mt. Shasta, California, for example,
became the group’s mythological center and they believed themselves able
to see auras around people’s heads. Scientology, founded by Ron Hubbard
in 1911, adapted Buddhist terms to describe the religious experience and
declared its leader to be a shaman and “magus” (wise spiritual leader).
Science fiction terms were adopted to describe the relationship between
234 India’s Global Reach