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Richard Wright – The older brother of former retary during his return trip to India in 1935-36.Sri Mrinalini Mata – A direct disciple of ParamahansaYogananda, she serves as president of SRF/YSS as well aseditor-in-chief of SRF publications. A member of the SRFmonastic community for nearly 70 years, she waspersonally trained by Yogananda to prepare hismanuscripts and talks for publication after his passing.www.awaketheyoganandamovie.com 10

About Paramahansa Yogananda(1893-1952)Paramahansa Yogananda was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh on January 5, 1893, inGorakhpur, India, into a prosperous and devout Bengali family. From his earliestyears it was evident to those around him that his awareness and experience of thespiritual was far beyond the ordinary.As a youth he sought out many of India's saints and philosophers, hoping to find anillumined teacher to guide him in his spiritual quest. In 1910, at the age of 17, in theholy Indian city of Banaras, he met the illuminated sage destined to be his teacher:Swami Sri Yukteswar, in whose Serampore hermitage he spent the better part of ng.AftergraduatingfromCalcuttaUniversity in 1915, he became a monk of India's venerable monastic Swami Order,and received his monastic name Yogananda (signifying bliss, ananda, through divineunion, yoga). Sri Yukteswar further bestowed on him the highest of all spiritual Sri Yukteswar had intimated more than once that Paramahansaji would travel to theWest to teach the ancient science of Kriya Yoga. (Kriya consists of definite, scientificmethods of meditation that deal directly with energy and consciousness, enablingone to perceive glimpses of the ultimate goal—conscious union with Spirit.)In his Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda recounts a visit he received from therenowned uYukteswarataKumbhaMela;ItoldhimthenIwouldsend you to him for training. Kriya Yoga, the scientific technique of awaketheyoganandamovie.com 11

Yogananda first set foot in America in 1920, as the Indian delegate to anInternational Congress of Religious Liberals convening in Boston, Massachusetts,and delivered a speech on thescience of religion. His arrivalmarked the beginnings of aprofound impact on thereligious landscape of the Westand the introduction of yogameditation to the westernworld. He established hissociety, Self-RealizationFellowship, that same year.Five years after his arrival inAmerica, Yogananda took upresidence in Los Angeles,At the Congress of Religious Liberals, Boston, MA 1920.California where, in 1925, heestablished an international headquarters for his society. Over the next decade hetraveled and lectured extensively, speaking to capacity audiences in major citiesthroughout North America and in England. To the tens of thousands of Westernerswho aughtbyBhagavanKrishna”werearevelation.Hundreds of thousands received from him personal instruction in his Kriya Yogateachings.Many prominent figures in science,business, and the arts became hisstudents, including horticulturistLuther Burbank, operatic sopranoAmelita Galli-Curci, George Eastman(inventor of the Kodak camera), poetEdwin Markham, and symphonyconductor Leopold Stokowski. In1927, Yogananda was officiallyreceived at the White House byWith British Diplomat John Balfour in front of The WhitePresident Calvin Coolidge, who hadHouse in 1927, (after meeting with President Calvinbecome interested in the newspaperCoolidge, who is looking out of the window).accounts of his activities. And, nearlya decade later, during a return tripto India in 1935-36, Yogananda met d Gandhi and several of his followers in Kriya Yoga.In June of 1935, Yogananda departed for his trip to India, which included stops inthe U.K. and Europe, including to Germany where he met with the great Christianmystic and stigmatist, Therese Neumann.www.awaketheyoganandamovie.com 12

Returning to the U.S. in late 1936, Yogananda decided that the time had come forhim to withdraw somewhat from public lecturing and he began to devote himself tohis writings, through which he would be better able to reach those who hadexpressed interest in deeper study ofhis teachings. In his seaside hermitagein Encinitas, California, which today isa retreat and ashram center, hebrought forth such spiritual classics asAUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI, and workedon his profound commentaries on thescriptures of East and West.During this time he also focused onestablishing Self-RealizationFellowship temples and meditationcenters, and building a firm foundation for the future of his spiritual an work. Under his direction,the personal guidance and instruction that he had given to students of his classeswas arranged into a comprehensive series of lessons for home ingonenessofall life, that we areintegral parts of a universal whole, and that each one of us can transform that visionof harmony from an intellectual possibility into direct personal experience of theone Reality that unites and sustains us all. His teachings embody a completephilosophy and way of life, of which meditation is the foundation.Autobiography of a Yogi,Yogananda's life story, waspublished in 1946 and expandedby him in subsequent editions.Recognized from the beginning asa landmark work in its field, thebook has been in printcontinuously since its initialpublication more than sixty-fiveyears ago and has been translatedinto more than 30 languages.His highly acclaimed commentaries on the scriptures of East and West – The SecondComing of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You and God Talks WithArjuna: The Bhagavad Gita – provide readers with the deeper meaning of theteachings of Jesus Christ and Bhagavan Krishna, and the underlying unity of theiruniversal truths.www.awaketheyoganandamovie.com 13

Paramahansa Yogananda passed away on March 7, 1952, in Los Angeles, followinghis delivery of a speech at a banquet honoring Dr. Binay R. Sen, India's Ambassadorto the United States. His passing received widespread coverage in the press.In 1977, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of ParamahansaYogananda's passing, the Government of India formally recognized his outstandingcontributions to the spiritual upliftment of humanity, by issuing a commemorativestamp in his honor.Throughout his life ministry, Yogananda worked tirelessly to awaken people to therealization of their own divinity. Today, his society, Self-Realization Fellowship(www.yogananda-srf.org), has grown to more than 600 centers around the world,and his many writings and teachings continue to inspire millions of truth-seekers allover the globe.***www.awaketheyoganandamovie.com 14

A Brief History of Yoga in the WestParamahansa Yogananda was born during the height of the "British Raj," or colonialperiod in India. Though certain thinkers like the Transcendentalists in New Englandwere beginning to explore Eastern philosophy and thought, the interest had beenlargely limited to scholars and academics. In 1893, the year of Yogananda's birth, afellow Bengali, Swami Vivekananda, became the first Hindu Swami to address anAmerican audience at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, a’sphilosophyandscienceofthe soul.As the century turned, breakthroughs in science would also pave the way for greateracceptance of the Hindu ontological paradigm. Albert Einstein published his GeneralTheory of Relativity in 1916, setting the stage for the birth of Quantum Mechanics,which radically altered our understanding of subatomic matter, suggesting theworld was not as solid as it is seemed to be, a cornerstone of Hindu philosophy.In the years leading up to Yogananda's voyage to America at age 27, the West hadbeen mired in World War I. With some 16 million casualties,it had been dubbed the "War to End All Wars," leavingpeople disillusioned and in search of new answers. In 1919,the year prior to Yogananda's arrival in Boston, Einstein'sRelativity Theory had been corroborated by an astronomicalobservation of a solar eclipse, in which the light rays fromdistant stars were recorded as "bending" under the influenceof gravitational forces. The year of his arrival in 1920 alsomarked the beginning of Prohibition in the UnitedStates. Despite the ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages, theperiod was marked by a gaiety and exuberance embodied bythe"Flappers." The decade ended on an entirely differentRobert Oppenheimer,U.S. Dept. of Energy, 1944.note, however, with the stock market crash of 1929 andwww.awaketheyoganandamovie.com 15

subsequent Great Depression. Meanwhile, in 1933 Adolph Hitler seized power inGermany and began mobilizing support for his Third Reich. By 1939, Europe wascaught up in another war, which the United States entered several years later. As thestakes increased in World War II, American scientists focused on developing theatomic bomb in a secret program dubbed "TheManhattan Project," under the supervision of physicistRobert Oppenheimer. U.S. forces deployed two nuclearbombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, during the finaldays of the war in August, 1945, while ParamahansaYogananda was writing Autobiography of a Yogi, whichhe published the following year.After the war, Great Britain helped in establishing thestate of Israel and also granting India its independencein 1947, under the stewardship of Mahatma Gandhi,who was assassinated the following year by anextremist gunman. Some years later, Yoganandaenshrined a portion of Gandhi's ashes at the SelfRealization Fellowship Lake Shrine inYogananda with California’sLt.GovernorandMrs.Pacific Palisades, California. YoganandaGoodwin J. Knight at the dedication of Self-Realizationdied in 1952, after reading his poem, "MyFellowship Lake Shrine and Mahatma Gandhi WorldIndia," to a banquet hall full of dignitaries,Peace Memorial, 1950.including India's ambassador to theUnited States.Among the earliest evidence ofWesterners’interestinYogacomesfrom the transcendentalists in themid-1800s, primarily Ralph WaldoEmerson and Henry David Thoreau.Among their essays and poetry areideas and perspectives which clearlymirror those found in the Vedic textsand the Yoga Sutras.In November of 1857, Emersoncontributed a poem entitledYogananda at theBiltmoreHoteltohonorIndia’s“Brahma”– a meditation on theAmbassador to the United States, s beings,andworlds”– to the inaugural issue of The Atlantic Monthly.Henry David Thoreau, also an early student of Eastern philosophy and commonlycited as America's first yogi, said of the text: "In the morning I bathe my intellect inthe stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita. in comparisonwith which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial."www.awaketheyoganandamovie.com 16

Other groups of Americans that began to show interest in Hinduism by the midnineteenth century included the American Oriental Society in 1842, and theTheosophists in the 1870s.It might be interesting to note that around this same time, as the early BostonianTranscendentalists (most of whom were Unitarians) and others began theirexploration of Hinduism and Yoga, a spiritual renaissance was taking place in India,marked by the historic meeting between the great saint Mahavatar Babaji and hisdisciple Lahiri Mahasaya, which would result in the revival of the sacred science ofKriya Yoga to the wing interest in Yoga philosophy. SwamiVivekananda, one of the foremost disciples United States to participate in the Parliament of theWorld’s Religions convening in Chicago. His talk libleimpressionontheparliament’sattendees.It was in this same year that in northern Indiaanother influential messenger of Vedic philosophywas born – Paramahansa Yogananda, who wouldlater be instructed by his line of spiritual teachers tobring the ancient philosophy and science of KriyaYoga to the West.Swami VivekanandaIn his book American Veda (Harmony Books, 2010) authorPhilip Goldberg traces the growth of interest in Vedicphilosophy and practice in modern-day America. He nda’sascendancy, other proponents of Indian spirituality addedcontributions of their own, like the builders of minorstructures surrounding the work of illustrious architects.Swami Rama Tirtha, a math-professor-turned-monk 902-4,but attracted a number of followers, mainly in the Bay Area;his writings would inspire later gurus, notably SwamiSevananda mBengalito English. Another 1902arrival, a former journalist named Paramananda Bahrain, was the first guru to offerAmericans a devotional form of Hinduism. Linked to the same lineage that wouldgive us the Hare Krishna movement in the 1960s, Bahrain stayed for nine years,teaching in New York and Los Angeles, and left behind a book, Sri Krishna: The Lordof Love, which was recently reissued. Perhaps the first teacher from India towww.awaketheyoganandamovie.com 17

promulgate Hatha Yoga for physical health, Shri Yogendra worked with New Yorkmedical researchers to establish the scientific credibility of the system; he stayed inthe United States from 1919 to 1924, then carried on his Yoga research in Bombay.But the best-known voice of India at the time was Rabindranath Tagore, the firstAsian to win theNobelPrizeforliterature .With his erudite passion and his abilityto blend Vedantic messages and poetic images, he did much to legitimize IndianphilosophyinthemindsofeducatedAmericans pagators addedtothewestward flow of Vedanta-Yoga, but they were minor tributaries compared to thetorrent that was Yogananda. He arrived three years after the First World War andtaught through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, the New Deal, WorldWar II, the dawn of the Cold War, McCarthyism, and the Korean conflict. When hisboat docked in Boston, America was a nation of trains, farmers, and newspapers; 1952presidentialcampaign, it had become a nation of cars, consumers, and TV viewers. It had ictidalwave.”www.awaketheyoganandamovie.com 18

What is Yoga?Yogameans“union”– of the individual consciousness or soul with the UniversalConsciousness or Spirit – and consists of a philosophy and system of techniquesthrough which one can attain union with Spirit. Yoga is a simple process of reversingthe ordinary outward flow of energy and consciousness so that the mind becomes adynamic center of direct perception—no longer dependent upon the fallible sensesbut capable of actually experiencing ownasSanatana Dharma (literally,Eternal Truth), which encompasses the entire body of Vedic teachings. The religioncame to be called Hinduism when the Greeks, who invaded northwestern Indiaunder Alexander the Great, designated the people on the banks of the river Indus as“Indoos,”orHindus.The ancient rishis of India, literally seers, were the authors ofthe Vedas, in which (in the Upanishads) the doctrinal basis of the Hindu religion issummarized. Today, Hindus still refer to Hinduism as Sanatana Dharma. Yoga,because it is a science of religion, is universal and applicable within any rcesaboutYogaisIndia’sbelovedscripture, the Bhagavad Gita, which takes the form of a sacred dialogue betweenBhagavan Krishna (both an earthly king and divine incarnation) and his chiefdisciple, the Pandava prince Arjuna, and focuses on the universal battle between thesoul and the ego, and the Yoga path to liberation.The science of Yoga offers a direct means of stilling the natural turbulence ofthoughts and restlessness of the body that prevent us from knowing what we reallyare. By practicing the step-by-step methods of Yoga—taking nothing for granted onemotional grounds or through blind faith— the yogi comes to know his or heroneness with the Infinite Intelligence, Power, and Joy which gives life to all oganandamovie.com 19

In past centuries many of the higher techniques of Yoga were little understood orpracticed,owingtomankind’slimited knowledge of the forces that run the universe.But today scientific investigation is rapidly changing the way we view ourselve

AWAKE: The Life of Yogananda is an unconventional biography about an Indian Swami who brought yoga and meditation to the West in the 1920s. This feature documentary explores the life and teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, who authored the spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi, which ha