I Become a Monk of the Swami Order — Autobiography of a Yogi — SRF Teachings Portal
24.I Become a Monk of the Swami Order
Paramahansa Yogananda·~13 min
IInvariable rules may not be formulated about God-illumined saints: some perform miracles, others do not; some are inactive, while others (like King Janaka of ancient India and St. Teresa of Avila) are concerned with large affairs; some teach, travel, and accept disciples, while others pass their lives as silently and unobtrusively as a shadow. No worldly critic can read the secret scroll of karma (past actions) that unrolls for each saint a different script.
I Become a Monk of the Swami Order
"Master, my father has been anxious for me to accept an executive position with the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. But I have definitely refused it." I added hopefully, "Sir, will you not make me a monk of the Swami Order?" I looked pleadingly at my guru. During preceding years, in order to test the depth of my determination, he had refused this same request. Today, however, he smiled graciously.
"Very well, tomorrow I will initiate you into swamihood." He went on quietly, "I am happy that you have persisted in your desire to be a monk. Lahiri Mahasaya often said: 'If you don't invite God to be your summer Guest, He won't come in the winter of your life.'"
"Dear Master, I could never relinquish my wish to belong to the Swami Order like your revered self." I smiled at him with measureless affection.
"He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife.¹ I had analyzed the lives of many of my friends who, after undergoing certain spiritual discipline, had then married. Launched on the sea of worldly responsibilities, they had forgotten their resolutions to meditate deeply.
To allot the Lord a secondary place² in life was, to me, inconceivable. He is the sole Owner of the cosmos, silently showering man with gifts from life to life. There is but one gift man may offer in return — his love, which he is empowered to withhold or bestow.
In taking infinite pains to shroud with mystery His presence in the atoms of creation, the Creator could have had but one motive, one sensitive desire: that man seek Him only through free will. With what velvet glove of every humility has He not covered the iron hand of omnipotence!
The following day was one of the most memorable in my life. It was a sunny Thursday, I remember, in July 1915, a few weeks after my graduation from college. On the inner balcony of his Serampore hermitage, Master dipped a new piece of white silk into a dye of ocher, the traditional color of the Swami Order. After the cloth had dried, my guru draped it around me as a renunciant's robe.
"Someday you will go to the West, where silk is preferred," he said. "As a symbol, I have chosen for you this silk material instead of the customary cotton."
In India, where monks embrace the ideal of poverty, a silk-clad swami is an unusual sight. Many yogis, however, wear garments of silk, which retains certain subtle bodily currents better than cotton.
"I am averse to ceremonies," Sri Yukteswar remarked. "I will make you a swami in the bidwat (non-ceremonious) manner."
The bibidisa or elaborate initiation into swamihood includes a fire ceremony, during which symbolical funeral rites are performed. The physical body of the disciple is represented as dead, cremated in the flame of wisdom. The newly made swami is then given a chant, such as: "This atma is Brahma"² or "Thou art That" or "I am He." Sri Yukteswar, however, with his love of simplicity, dispensed with all formal rites and merely asked me to select a new name.
"I will give you the privilege of choosing it yourself," he said, smiling.
"Yogananda,"⁴ I replied after a moment's thought. The name means "bliss (ananda) through divine union (yoga)."
"Be it so. Forsaking your family name of Mukunda Lal Ghosh, henceforth you shall be called Yogananda of the Giri branch of the Swami Order."
As I knelt before Sri Yukteswar, and for the first time heard him pronounce my new name, my heart overflowed with gratitude. How lovingly and tirelessly had he labored, that the boy Mukunda be someday transformed into the monk Yogananda! I joyfully sang a few verses from the long Sanskrit chant of Lord Shankara:²
Mind, nor intellect, nor ego, feeling;
Sky nor earth nor metals am I.
I am He, I am He, Blessed Spirit, I am He!
No birth, no death, no caste have I;
Father, mother, have I none.
I am He, I am He, Blessed Spirit, I am He!
Beyond the flights of fancy, formless am I,
Permeating the limbs of all life;
Bondage I do not fear; I am free, ever free,
I am He, I am He, Blessed Spirit, I am He!
Every swami belongs to the monastic order that has been honored in India from time immemorial. Reorganized in its present form centuries ago by Shankaracharya, it has since been headed by an unbroken line of venerable teachers (each of whom successively bears the title of Jagadguru Sri Shankaracharya). Many monks, perhaps a million, make up the Swami Order; to enter it they fulfill a requirement to receive initiation from men who themselves are swamis. All monks of the Swami Order thus trace their spiritual lineage to a common guru, Adi ("the first") Shankaracharya. They take vows of poverty (nonattachment to possessions), chastity, and obedience to the head or spiritual authority. In many ways the Catholic Christian monastic orders resemble the more ancient Order of Swamis.
To his new name a swami adds a word that indicates his formal connection with one of the ten subdivisions of the Swami Order. These dasanamis or ten agnomens include the Giri (mountain), to which Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri and hence I myself belong. Among the other branches are Sagara (sea), Bharati (land), Puri (tract), Saraswati (wisdom of Nature), Tirtha (place of pilgrimage), and Aranya (forest).
A swami's monastic name, which usually ends in ananda (supreme bliss), signifies his aspiration to attain emancipation through a particular path, state, or divine quality — love, wisdom, discrimination, devotion, service, yoga. His agnomen indicates harmony with Nature.
The ideal of selfless service to all mankind and of renunciation of personal ties and ambitions leads most swamis to engage actively in humanitarian and educational work in India or occasionally in foreign lands. Discarding prejudices of caste, creed, class, color, sex, and race, a swami follows the precepts of human brotherhood. His goal is absolute unity with Spirit. Imbuing his waking and sleeping consciousness with the thought, "I am He," he roams contentedly, in the world but not of it. Thus only may he justify his title of swami: one who seeks to achieve union with the Swa or Self.
Paramahansa Yogananda's home in Calcutta prior to his taking the vow of renunciation, in July 1915, as a sannyasi (monk) of the ancient Swami Order
Sri Yukteswar was both a swami and a yogi. A swami, formally a monk by virtue of his connection with the venerable Order, is not always a yogi. Anyone who practices a scientific technique for divine realization is a yogi. He may be either married or unmarried, either a man of worldly responsibilities or one of formal religious ties.
A swami may conceivably follow only the path of dry reasoning, of cold renunciation; but a yogi engages himself in a definite, step-by-step procedure by which the body and mind are disciplined and the soul gradually liberated. Taking nothing for granted on emotional grounds or by faith, a yogi practices a thoroughly tested series of exercises that were first mapped out by the ancient rishis. In every age of India, yoga has produced men who became truly free, true Yogi-Christs.
Like any other science, yoga is applicable by people of every clime and time. The theory advanced by certain ignorant writers that yoga is "dangerous" or "unsuitable" for Westerners is wholly false, and has lamentably deterred many sincere students from seeking its manifold blessings.
Yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts, which otherwise impartially prevents all men, of all lands, from glimpsing their true nature of Spirit. Like the healing light of the sun, yoga is beneficial equally to men of the East and to men of the West. The thoughts of most persons are restless and capricious; a manifest need exists for yoga: the science of mind control.
The ancient rishi Patanjali⁶ defines yoga as "neutralization of the alternating waves in consciousness."⁷ His short and masterly work, Yoga Sutras, forms one of the six systems of Hindu philosophy. In contradistinction to Western philosophies, all six Hindu systems⁸ embody not only theoretical teachings but practical ones also. After pursuing every conceivable ontological inquiry, the Hindu systems formulate six definite disciplines aimed at the permanent removal of suffering and the attainment of timeless bliss.
The later Upanishads uphold the Yoga Sutras, among the six systems, as containing the most efficacious methods for achieving direct perception of truth. Through the practical techniques of yoga, man leaves behind forever the barren realms of speculation and cognizes in experience the veritable Essence.
The Yoga system of Patanjali is known as the Eightfold Path.² The first steps are (1) yama (moral conduct), and (2) niyama (religious observances). Yama is fulfilled by noninjury to others, truthfulness, nonstealing, continence, and noncovetousness. The niyama prescripts are purity of body and mind, contentment in all circumstances, self-discipline, self-study (contemplation), and devotion to God and guru.
The next steps are (3) asana (right posture); the spinal column must be held straight, and the body firm in a comfortable position for meditation; (4) pranayama (control of prana, subtle life currents); and (5) pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from external objects).
The last steps are forms of yoga proper: (6) dharana (concentration), holding the mind to one thought; (7) dhyana (meditation); and (8) samadhi (superconscious experience). This Eightfold Path of Yoga leads to the final goal of Kaivalya (Absoluteness), in which the yogi realizes the Truth beyond all intellectual apprehension.
"Which is greater," one may ask, "a swami or a yogi?" If and when oneness with God is achieved, the distinctions of the various paths disappear. The Bhagavad Gita, however, has pointed out that the methods of yoga are all-embracing.
Its techniques are not meant only for certain types and temperaments, such as those few persons who incline toward the monastic life; yoga requires no formal allegiance. Because the yogic science satisfies a universal need, it has a natural universal appeal.
A true yogi may remain dutifully in the world; there he is like butter on water, and not like the unchurned, easily diluted milk of undisciplined humanity. Fulfilling one's earthly responsibilities need not separate man from God, provided he maintains mental uninvolvement with egotistical desires and plays his part in life as a willing instrument of the Divine.
There are a number of great men, living today in American or European or other non-Hindu bodies, who, though they may never have heard the words yogi and swami, are yet true exemplars of those terms. Through their disinterested service to mankind, or through their mastery over passions and thoughts, or through their singlehearted love of God, or through their great powers of concentration, they are, in a sense, yogis; they have set themselves the goal of yoga — self-control. These men could rise to even greater heights if they were taught the definite science of yoga, which makes possible a more conscious direction of one's mind and life.
Yoga has been superficially misunderstood by certain Western writers, but its critics have never been its practitioners. Among many thoughtful tributes to yoga may be mentioned one by Dr. C. G. Jung, the famous Swiss psychologist.
"When a religious method recommends itself as 'scientific,' it can be certain of its public in the West. Yoga fulfills this expectation," Dr. Jung writes.¹⁰ "Quite apart from the charm of the new and the fascination of the half-understood, there is good cause for Yoga to have many adherents. It offers the possibility of controllable experience and thus satisfies the scientific need for 'facts'; and, besides this, by reason of its breadth and depth, its venerable age, its doctrine and method, which include every phase of life, it promises undreamed-of possibilities.
"Every religious or philosophical practice means a psychological discipline, that is, a method of mental hygiene. The manifold, purely bodily procedures of Yoga¹¹ also mean a physiological hygiene which is superior to ordinary gymnastics and breathing exercises, inasmuch as it is not merely mechanistic and scientific, but also philosophical; in its training of the parts of the body, it unites them with the whole of the spirit, as is quite clear, for instance, in the Pranayama exercises where Prana is both the breath and the universal dynamics of the cosmos....
"Yoga practice...would be ineffectual without the concepts on which Yoga is based. It combines the bodily and the spiritual in an extraordinarily complete way.
"In the East, where these ideas and practices have developed, and where for several thousand years an unbroken tradition has created the necessary spiritual foundations, Yoga is, as I can readily believe, the perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and mind together so that they form a unity which is scarcely to be questioned. This unity creates a psychological disposition which makes possible intuitions that transcend consciousness."
The Western day is nearing when the inner science of self-control will be found as necessary as the outer conquest of Nature. The Atomic Age will see men's minds sobered and broadened by the now scientifically indisputable truth that matter is in reality a concentrate of energy. The human mind can and must liberate within itself energies greater than those within stones and metals, lest the material atomic giant, newly unleashed, turn on the world in mindless destruction. An indirect benefit of mankind's concern over atomic bombs may be an increased practical interest in the science of yoga,¹² a "bombproof shelter" truly.
SRI SHANKARACHARYA AT SRF/YSS HEADQUARTERS
Sri Jagadguru Shankaracharya Bharati Krishna Tirtha of Puri, India, at Self-Realization Fellowship International Headquarters, Los Angeles (founded in 1925 by Paramahansa Yogananda). In 1958, the Jagadguru, senior head of the Swami Order, paid a three-month visit to America, sponsored by Self-Realization Fellowship. It was the first time in the history of the ancient Swami Order that a Shankaracharya had traveled to the West.
The late Jagadguru Sri Shankaracharya of the ancient Gowardhan Math in Puri, His Holiness Bharati Krishna Tirtha, visited America for three months in 1958. It was the first time any Shankaracharya had traveled to the West. His historic tour was sponsored by Self-Realization Fellowship. The Jagadguru spoke before the leading universities of America and participated in a discussion on world peace with the eminent historian Dr. Arnold Toynbee.
In 1959 Sri Shankaracharya of Puri accepted the invitation of the then president Sri Daya Mata to act as representative of the Gurus of Self-Realization Fellowship. Yogoda Satsanga Society of India by initiating into swamihood two Yogoda Satsanga monks. He performed the ceremony in the Sri Yukteswar temple at Yogoda Satsanga Ashram in Puri. (Publisher's Note) great infinite Life; and that truth is timeless, impossible to trademark, and no private possession of their own. commentaries by some of India's greatest thinkers, including the illumined master Sadasivendra.
Like the other five orthodox (Vedas-based) philosophical systems, Yoga Sutras considers the "magic" of moral purity (the "ten commandments" of yama and niyama) to be the indispensable preliminary for sound philosophical investigation. This personal demand, not insisted on in the West, has bestowed lasting vitality on the six Indian disciplines. The cosmic order (rita) that upholds the universe is not different from the moral order that rules man's destiny. He who is unwilling to observe the universal moral precepts is not seriously determined to pursue truth.
Section III of Yoga Sutras mentions various yogic miraculous powers (vibhutis and siddhis). True knowledge is always power. The path of yoga is divided into four stages, each with its vibhuti expression. Achieving a certain power, the yogi knows that he has successfully passed the tests of one of the four stages. Emergence of the characteristic powers is evidence of the scientific structure of the yoga system, wherein delusive imaginations about one's "spiritual progress" are banished; proof is required!
Patanjali warns the devotee that unity with Spirit should be the sole goal, not the possession of vibhutis — the merely incidental flowers along the sacred path. May the Eternal Giver be sought, not His phenomenal gifts! God does not reveal Himself to a seeker who is satisfied with any lesser attainment. The striving yogi is therefore careful not to exercise his phenomenal powers, lest they arouse false pride and distract him from entering the ultimate state of Kaivalya.
When the yogi has reached his Infinite Goal, he exercises the vibhutis, or refrains from exercising them, just as he pleases. All his actions, miraculous or otherwise, are then performed without karmic involvement. The iron filings of karma are attracted only where a magnet of the personal ego still exists.
Brother Ananta and Sister Nalini
"Ananta cannot live; the sands of his karma for this life have run out."
These inexorable words reached my inner consciousness as I sat one morning in deep meditation. Shortly after I had entered the Swami Order, I paid a visit to my birthplace, Gorakhpur, as the guest of my elder brother Ananta. A sudden illness confined him to his bed; I nursed him lovingly.
The solemn inward pronouncement filled me with grief. I felt that I could not bear to remain longer in Gorakhpur, only to see my brother removed before my helpless gaze. Amidst uncomprehending criticism from my relatives, I left India on the first available boat. It cruised along Burma and the China Sea to Japan. I disembarked at Kobe, where I spent only a few days. My heart was too heavy for sight-seeing.
On the return trip to India, the boat touched at Shanghai. There Dr. Misra, the ship's physician, guided me to several curio shops, where I selected various presents for Sri Yukteswar and my family and friends. For Ananta I purchased a large carved bamboo piece. No sooner had the Chinese salesman handed me the bamboo souvenir than I