Re: Self-Realization Fellowship

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Each one of the SRF line of leaders/gurus—their “popes”—from Daya Mata back to Krishna, are regarded by obedient SRF devotees as being infallible, and simply “working in mysterious ways” when it comes to any seemingly questionable actions on their parts. I, too, once foolishly viewed them thusly. For, such regard is simply what I had been taught was correct, by persons who I assumed would never deliberately mislead me, as I would never have lied to them.

As Margery Wakefield (1993) noted of her own and others’ involvement in Scientology:

I had made the fatal unconscious assumption that since I was honest and had good motives, then others must be too
James J. Lynn, personally chosen by Yogananda to be SRF’s second president, was a married man. That is, married before, during and after Yogananda gave him the title of Rajasi Janakananda. (His wife, however, was “both mentally and physically unwell,” and was not supportive of his connection with Self-Realization Fellowship [Mata, 1992].) That fact, however, is conspicuously absent from the relevant literature, e.g., from the SRF-published biography of Lynn’s life.

That anomaly was brought up by one of the HV residents in a satsanga period. The justification which the ashram administrator provided for the lack of publication of that information was simply, and predictably, that “that’s the way the Board of Directors and Daya Mata want it done”

The degree to which one is expected to “respect one’s elders” as a good and obedient devotee of SRF was underscored by the following (real) exchange, quoted during a sermon at Hidden Valley:

Elder: “How are you?”
Youthful Inferior: “I’m fine. How are you?”
Elder (disgusted at the impudence): “Are you a doctor?”
Or, consider the changes made to the proffered definitions of pronam/pranam over the years, in Chapter 40 of the Autobiography:

[pronam:] Literally, “holy name,” a word of greeting among Hindus, accompanied by palm-folded hands lifted from the heart to the forehead in salutation. A pronam in India takes the place of the Western greeting by handshaking (Yogananda, 1946).
More recently, however, the meaning of the (substituted) word has shifted to something more indicative of the respect due the ochre robe:

[pranam:] Lit., “complete salutation,” from Sanskrit root nam, to salute or bow down; and the prefix pra, completely. A pranam salutation is made chiefly before monks and other respected persons (Yogananda, 1998)
Further, the extent to which questioning is discouraged in the ashrams is demonstrated by the following example: Early in my own stay at Hidden Valley, our Thanksgiving meal centered on a soy-based turkey substitute. Following that feast, one resident pointed out in a written satsanga question that that food was loaded with MSG, which many people are allergic to, or develop headaches from. He also informed us that non-MSG turkey substitutes are readily available, and requested that the ashram use those instead in the future.

The ashram administrator’s response to that request was to relate the story of how, in the early days of SRF, the nuns used to work “all night” (in shifts), manually preparing gluten-based meat substitutes for their festive occasions. He concluded by saying that he didn’t want the kitchen at HV to have to work all night in similar preparations (not that they would have had to, but anyway). Thus, the ashram would continue serving the MSG-laced products.

And all assembled smiled knowingly, that anyone would so foolishly try to improve the ashram, and “resist what God and Guru had given us” there

At other times, the HV administrator related his own experience of having entered the ashrams in the 1950s as a “health nut,” and of being concerned with the poor food being served there. Upon bringing that up with a senior monk, the latter’s response was simply, “What Master gives, you take.” That advice sounds relatively fine, until one considers that over Easter (in 1996, when I first spent a month at Hidden Valley), “Master/God gave us”—a group of steadfast vegetarians—a box of donuts containing lard.

Amazingly, although Yogananda very explicitly taught that the consumption of white flour and white sugar is unhealthy, both of those are staples in the ashram diet. Indeed, sugar was sometimes even added to freshly squeezed orange juice, and whole wheat flour was all but entirely absent. The explanation which the ashram administrator gave regarding that discrepancy was that Yogananda’s advice on diet was allegedly meant to apply only to the specific group of people to which he had been speaking at the time. Personally, I think that’s nonsense: Yogananda regularly encouraged his followers to eat only “unsulphured” fruit, for example. Today, that would equate to it being certified organic. Yet one will find (to my knowledge) no examples of that in the HV cafeteria (other than the produce which they grow themselves, which is close to being organic).

The Hidden Valley menu, inconsistent with Yogananda’s teachings, is just the product of a cultural lowest common denominator among their kitchen staff. It is not “what Master gives them,” nor did Yogananda’s dietary advice apply only to “meat and potatoes” people fifty years ago

One of SRF’s respected monastic brothers will typically put up to eighty hours of rehearsal into a Convocation speech—even to the point of practicing facial expressions and hand gestures, according to the head monk at Hidden Valley. There is nothing wrong with such preparedness, of course. The majority of the audience at those events, however, undoubtedly assumes that those lectures are given “from intuition,” with little or no preparation—on the basis of the monk’s fifty-plus years of meditation—as Yogananda explicitly taught and practiced. SRF’s questionable billing (in their Convocation literature and tapes) of those as “informal talks,” when in reality they are highly scripted, does nothing to discourage that perception