Religion: Guru's Exit

Paramhansa Yogananda, by his own claim, was the last in a line of four Indian gurus who were "directly commanded" by God to teach the world "the secret yogic science of self-liberation." He moved to the U.S. in 1920 to fulfill his charge. In Southern California he established the headquarters of a Self-Realization Fellowship, with a membership of some 150,000. For more than 30 years he taught his disciples the yoga doctrine that human beings can achieve "god-realization" through their own efforts at disciplining mind and body. Even skeptics testified to his own discipline, e.g., he could slow or speed the...

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