FLASHBACK FRIDAYS: REVEALED: The UNTOLD TRUTH About Paramahansa Yogananda's LIFE & MISSION! with Philip Goldberg

In the heart of our spiritual exploration, we often encounter figures whose lives illuminate the path for us all. On today's episode, we welcome Philip Goldberg, a scholar, teacher, and author whose work delves deeply into the life and teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda. With a gentle touch, Philip paints a vivid portrait of Yogananda's journey from the banks of the Ganges to the bustling streets of Boston, bringing ancient wisdom to a new world.Philip Goldberg shared that Yogananda's mission was not just a personal endeavor but a destiny foretold in his youth. His guru recognized the potential in the young Yogananda, preparing him for a monumental task: bringing Kriya Yoga to the West.

Philip eloquently explains that Yogananda was destined to transform the spiritual landscape of America, a mission that required immense courage and unwavering dedication.Yogananda's arrival in America in 1920 marked the beginning of a remarkable odyssey. As Philip recounts, the young swami arrived with little more than his spiritual fervor and the blessings of his lineage. Despite initial struggles, including cultural shock and racial prejudice, Yogananda's teachings began to resonate with a growing number of Americans. He moved from small gatherings in living rooms to filling symphony halls, his message of inner peace and universal love finding fertile ground in the West.One of the most intriguing aspects of Yogananda's work, as highlighted by Philip, was his ability to bridge Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. Yogananda spoke extensively about Jesus Christ, presenting him as a figure akin to the great sages of India. This inclusive approach allowed many to reconnect with their spiritual roots, seeing Jesus through a new, esoteric lens. Goldberg notes that this was not merely a strategic move but a sincere reverence for all enlightened beings, fostering a deeper spiritual unity.

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This episode includes AI-generated content.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
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(01:20):
your awakening. Now let's begin today's episode. Disclaimer. The views
and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the
guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions
of this show, its host, or any of the companies
they represent. Now today on the show, we have Philip Goldberg,
the author of the life of Paramahansa Yogananda. And I

(01:44):
know many of you are thinking, well, then Paramhasa Yogananda
write a very very famous book called Autobiography of Yogi.
But Philip wanted to go deeper than that because apparently
in that book, the original Autobiography of Yogi, Yogananda does
not speak very much about his own life, talks about
other stories and things. So if you want to learn

(02:06):
more about the man's journey, this avatar, this ascended master,
and how he walked this earth and the trials and
tribulations he went through, this is the episode for you.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Let's dive in.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
I like to welcome to the show Philip goldbrig Hey doing, Philip.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
I'm well, thank you, Alex, how are you.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
I'm very good, Thank you so much. For coming on
the show. You and I have a love for a certain.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Guru who walked the earth a few years ago and
really threw the earth upside down a little bit, especially
the West, kind of tossed.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
And turned and was a very strong spiritual teacher. And
everyone who's ever listened to any of my episodes knows
that that person is Barah Mahnsa Yogananda. And you know,
he very famously wrote a little book called the Autobiography
of a Yogi, which is that not so? No, it's
about how an eight hundred page it's a lot, but

(03:03):
it's a lot of pages. But that book really transformed
a lot of people's lives. It's still transforming people's lives
to this day. But you decided to write a book
called the Life of Yogananda, which seems counter productive. Says,
he already wrote an autobiography, So why.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Is the first question I was asked.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
But he already wrote an autobiography. Why do you want
to do it? So can you explain to everybody, first
of all, who Yogananda was and what drew you to
his life and his teachings, and then why you wrote
this book?

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Okay, we'll go in that order. Then Yoga Hondu was
possibly the most important of the spiritual teachers who came
to the West from India. But I don't but most important,
I mean the most influential, certainly in the top three.

(03:55):
I My prior book was called American Veda, and that
covered the whole history of how India's ancient spiritual teachings
found its way into America and transformed the cultural and

(04:22):
spiritual landscape of the country in a way that's rarely
appreciated sufficiently. Yoganando was a key player. He came here
in nineteen twenty. There hadn't been that many Indian gurus

(04:48):
prior to that. His illustrious predecessor, Swami Vivekananda came to
the US actually the same year. Yogananda was born eighteen
ninety three, and Swamis in his lineage were in America
at the time Yogananda came, but they were pretty low key.

(05:10):
Yogananda was the first to gain prominence and stay here.
He's spent the last thirty two years of his life
in America, and so he had time and the energy

(05:31):
and the skill and the charisma to reach a great
number of people and left behind when he passed in
nineteen fifty two, his famous autobiography of Eogi, which has
been called one of the most or one of the
most important spiritual books of the twentieth century. And as

(05:56):
you said, to this day, people's lives are changed by it.
And so when I wrote America in Veda, I had
a chapter on Yoga Onda and his impact, and afterward,
in thinking what do I want to do next, it

(06:16):
kept coming to me what an interesting human life Yogananda led.
And I couldn't do it justice in the twenty some
odd pages I could, you know, devote to it in
the previous book. So I said, that's a story that

(06:37):
should be told. But I had the same thought you did.
But you know, why write a biography of somebody who's
famous for an autobiography. So I reread Autobiography of a
Yogi for you know, fourth or fifth time or whatever,
and did a page count and realized that less than

(07:03):
ten percent of that book is about his life after
the age of twenty seven when he came to America
and that and there were passages that read leg and
then four years passed in Boston, and I thought, well, no,

(07:26):
you can't get away with that. He came. His first
stop was Boston in nineteen twenty. He was there for
the first four years he was in America. How did
he survive? How did he what did he do? How
did he you know, fulfill his mission? How did he

(07:49):
deal with winter in New England? You know? Give me details?
So I said, Okay, there are gaps in his personal
story and someone should fill them, and that so I
took it on. And that's essentially what happened.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
So yog Nanda was doing the YadA YadA YadA, I
moved to.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
La well in a sense. And also what's interesting is
it's called autobiography of Yogi, but a big portion of
it is about other people. People he met, interesting people's saints, scientists,
all kinds of holy people, miracle workers, his gurus, and

(08:38):
so the actual autobiography portion of it left a lot out.
And so you know that fascinated me. I had already
gotten hints in my prior research that there were stories
to tell that he didn't tell, and details that are

(08:58):
worth knowing, and a human story that holds up as
a narrative that we can all learn from.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Where does one go for information like this, because I'm
assuming it's a Self Realization Fellowship, which is his organization,
because they're the ones that house pretty much everything that's
available on yog Nanda, but most of that stuff is
not public. So how did you get how did you
get access to these stories?

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Good question, But one thing, there's more available in public
domain than people realize obscure. You know, articles and journals
or you know, memoirs written by people who knew him.

(09:48):
But yeah, including one by his brother who wrote about
their childhood. But you're right, the principal archive is held
in La by the Self Realization Fellowship, so I could
not have undertaken the project without their cooperation. It's not

(10:14):
like there's a room and they said, here's the key. Go.
I had a liaison who was essentially, you know, the
most knowledgeable historian in the organization, and I would ask questions.

(10:35):
That person would bring me documents from the archive or
an explanation an answer, and that was invaluable.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
And then in the process, people outside of Self Realization
Fellowship there were, you know, like any other spiritual organization,
there's always breakaway groups, small small ones, but some of
them were people were started by people who were direct

(11:17):
disciples of Yoga Onda and they had stories, they had documents,
they had letters, and people heard I was doing this
and they said, oh, you know, I've got this file
cabinet full of stuff. And you know, you find things
and people hear about you. So you just do your homework.

(11:39):
And some of it was things like going into the
Los Angeles Times archive and seeing articles from the nineteen
twenties and thirties, travel documents from you know, like you
his passport and the you know, when he left the
country and you know they're there are things that you

(12:02):
come across and it adds. You know, also went to
India and talked to people there, you know, his certain
family members, you know, who didn't necessarily know him because
you know, he died in nineteen fifty two, but who
had letters and who had stories, and you know, so

(12:25):
you just do your you do your research.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
So let me ask you this, then, what happened to him?
I always wondered that too, about those those four years
in Boston, because he shows up, he's horrified that they're
that they're selling hot dogs. He thinks, oh my god,
what kind of country have you brought me to that
they eat dogs, those kinds of stories. But what what

(12:49):
did he do those years? Because he came essentially on
a boat, showed up. No one knows who he is.
He is dressed in a way that people from the
nineteen twenties and Austin he looked essentially like an alien
because people even they've heard of India maybe, but they
had never seen an Indian, you know.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
They did, you know, maybe a few rarefied people did
as I said. They were. You know, the occasional yoga
person Swami viv Cananda had spent time near twenty or
so years earlier. But you're right, nineteen twenty it was
the he arrived two months before women voted for the
first time. You know, that's a long time ago, and

(13:34):
racism was ascendant. The Ku Kux Klan was being you know,
had a huge revival at that time. So if you
look at his passport photo, you see him bearded. He
shaved it. He shaved his beard on the boat because

(13:55):
people warned him that he didn't want to stand out
that much in the streets. But he didn't cut his hair.
He had you know, that would have been a violation
of the order of Swamis that he was in and
he learned over time to do things like tuck his

(14:15):
long hair into his collar, you know, in the back,
and wear a hat and wear Western clothing when he
was in public. But you know, at first he didn't.
But he wasn't entirely a stranger because he came to
speak at a conference that was being held in Boston

(14:37):
and he had acquired the he was substituting for the
originally scheduled representative of Hinduism in this interfaith setting, and
you know, he was very young, was very uncertain about

(14:57):
his command of English. But he came year and stayed
at the y m c A for a few days
before the sponsors of the conference, you know, housed him
in a proper way and ended up staying. And there's
a lot of funny stories of his adjusting to American

(15:19):
like writing a subway for the first time, not knowing
how a drinking fountain operated, you know, and being a
vegetarian and all that. You know, it was there's a
lot of funny stories. But on the other hand, there
was harassment too. And you know, he was a dark
skinned foreigner at a time when even the Irish and

(15:43):
Jews were being discriminated against, you know, so you can imagine.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
So he did. I would imagine he had some struggles
and he I mean, did he have a job to
pay the bills? How did so? Who was who was
paying his bills these four years while he was here?

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Asking the kind of questions a biographer has to ask.
He had some money from his father. He was raised
in an affluent household by a hardworking father who worked
for the British railway system. And also it should be noted,
you know, this is twenty seven years before India gained

(16:22):
its independence, So he was a subject of the British
Empire and could have been deported at any time. And
they were spying on him because you know, they didn't
They were on the lookout for people raising money and
guns in the West to support the freedom movement, and

(16:46):
more prominently became the more they looked out, you know,
kept an eye on him. But so he came to
speak at this conference. His father had given him some
money and paid for the ship's passage. And then he said,
if I'll be back unless the Americans need me. And

(17:11):
after his first talk at that conference, which was his
talk was titled the science of religion. He hung around
and waited to see what would happen, and then somebody
invited him to speak at a church outside of Cambridge

(17:34):
in Somerville, Massachusetts, and people heard him speak, and so
somebody said, oh, I have a study group, come speak
in my living room. And it was the same kind
of story that every visiting grew or Buddhist monk or
whatever followed. Started out small, with a small group of

(17:57):
people who liked what he had to say say and
supported him and paid, you know, had some money, helped
out arranging for him to speak here and there, and
so it went from ten to fifteen people and someone
was a living room to a few years later filling

(18:18):
the Symphony Hall in Boston. It just grew in that way.
And there were always money issues and always organizational issues
that he had to deal with in those kind of
concerns only grew as his fame and success grew.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Now you mentioned that he had a mission in this
life to do something. What exactly were the parameters of
that mission?

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, it wasn't, you know, like a mission statement that
we're used to, you know, careful, carefully crafted by you know.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
But since we've already seen what he did, we could
kind of guess what his mission was.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Well, his mission it was essentially to bring the teachings
that you know of the Indian tradition what we think
of now as Hinduism, but really a certain core philosophical
and principles and methods practices that we think of as yoga,

(19:27):
the yoga philosophy, yoga practices, the Danta philosophy, so not
all of Hinduism, which is very vast and diverse, but
certain core principles that were acceptable to Western culture, Western thinkers,
western values, and in particular the teachings of his particular lineage,

(19:58):
which he called create Yoga. So he was bringing pre
a yoga which you know embedded in the larger overall
principles of the of the Upanishads and the bug of
Udgita to the West. That was his you know destiny,

(20:22):
which you know, according to what I've read, you know,
was told to his parents when he was an infant
that he would have some that kind of mission, and
his gurucery Testwar had been told by his Guru that
he would one day have a disciple who would go

(20:44):
to America and sre Testwar recognized in the young Yoga
Nanda before he was called Yoga Nanda, that he would
be that one, and he was essentially trained for that mission.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Will be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. And he also when
he brought over crea yoga and aspects of the yoga
philosophies and things like that, he also introduced meditation. Is
he the first to do Is he the first to

(21:22):
do meditation or was the other I mean in a
big way, in a big way, in a big way.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Well, yeah, first to make it accessible to that number
of people. Yes, Swami vive Canon is known mostly for
articulating they Doanta philosophy in a way that he sort
of set the template for the how to use, which

(21:50):
language to use, what to emphasize to the Westerners, and
his swami's carried that on. But they had meditation practices.
They just you know, it was more low key. Yogananda
reached for more people and perhaps taught more systematic methods

(22:13):
of meditation practices, we should say, because that wasn't just
And then you know, that set the stage for the
nineteen sixties and seventies when there were a whole lot
of gurus and when the Beatles picked up on transcendental meditation.
That of course that exploded, and so what Vivikananda started

(22:39):
and Yogananda brought forth to large numbers of people eventually
became mainstream in America through this succession of teachers and
the available access to you know, through technology and so forth.
Now the Beatle.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
You brought up the Beatles because it's probably one of
my favorite bands of all time, is I'm not the
loan in that, uh? And I was fascinated to know
that I was a Beatles fan all my life, but
I had no idea the impact that yog Nanda and
autobiography of a yogi had on them, so much so
that his lineage is in Sergeant Pepper's the album the

(23:21):
very the famous cover you see Yoga Nanda Babajwa. I
think here Mahashai is in there as well.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yeah, all four, all four.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Of them are in there. And I'm I was like,
oh my, how did they what is happening? I mind,
tell me how that happened.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
It's George. George was the driving spiritual force of the Beatles.
And if you know, after the Beatles broke up, George,
you know, was such a sincere Yogi and practitioner, and

(23:57):
that carried through to the rest of the life. And
you know, I've given presentations just about George and you
could see it in the lyrics of his some of
the songs he wrote with the Beatles and then later
in his solo career. He was a strong advocate of

(24:19):
Indian philosophy and Indian spirituality and his real sincere seeker
and it started with him musically when he discovered the
sitar and went to India to study with Robbie Shankar
and Rabbi Shankar gave him two books, one of which
was Autobiography of Yogi and the other was one of

(24:39):
the Kananda's books called raj Yoga, and those transformed George's life.
There's actually four or five different guru lineages that have
a claim on George. So you know, when they were
conceiving the album cover for Sergeant Pepper, which came out

(25:00):
in nineteen sixty seven, each of the Beatles could choose
four cultural icons to put on the cover. So you
see Muhammad Ali and Bob Dylan and May West and W. C.
Fields and all these people. George is four were the

(25:20):
four gurus.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Wow I didn't know that one. That's a new little
bit of information.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
Because they should be said that over the course of
his life he would keep stacks of autobiography around to
give to people. But you know, the Transcendental meditation people,
they don't, the society people, the Hari Christians, because George
was a big devotee and of Chanting and Harry, they

(25:49):
all have a claim on George.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
But yet, but yet, But George put the four the
four Gurus on the cover. So that says something. I'm
just throwing that up.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Oh yeah, that says a lot. It does a lot
of Go and visit SRF when he was in La
and he would he would give out copies of autobiography
of Yogi. But you know, he didn't limit himself to anyone.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Yes, as he shouldn't. As he shouldn't. And you're the
first to say as yoga, to be the first to
say that, it's like quite right to go to all teachings.
One thing that I found really fascinating when I first
was introduced to yoga, nanda I was used. I was
introduced to Autobiography of a Yogi when I was in
my mid twenties. I started reading it. Could not it

(26:36):
was I was so not ready. I'm just so not
ready for it. I was reading like guys levitating biolocation.
This this guru walking around who's still alive after twenty
five hundred years in the MLA is like it was
so far out of my comfort zone that I put
the book away. It was only until my mid thirties
where I picked it up again, and then I started

(26:58):
to understand, and then I started to really dig deep
into it. But what I found fascinating about Yoga Nanda,
that kind of I think set them apart from his contemporaries,
is that he brought Jesus Christ into the mix.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Oh man, big time, yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
And he was talking about Jesus and he put them
up there. He put Jesus up there with his other lineage,
and that Jesus was part of his lineage. And that
was such a I'm not saying it was a smart
marketing play, but I don't think. I don't think he
was looking at it that way. But in hindsight, it
opened the door to so many people in the West

(27:36):
because everyone here knows Jesus that you know, the the
West was basically, you know, built upon Christian values and
you know, so on and so forth. But it was
really fascinating. What do you know about that?

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Why are you not like you've touched on a lot
of things. First of all, I want to say for
your listeners, I teach courses from time to time through
Hindu University of America h U A dot E d U.
They have a wonderful curriculum of classes and online courses.

(28:11):
And one of the courses I do is going through
autobiography of a Yogi chapter by chapter, and so I
would invite people to look at that because I can
I bring in all the stuff that's not in the
book that I learned in my own research. But about

(28:32):
the presence of Jesus. One thing that is common across
the Eastern traditions essentially, you know, if you go to
India and you mention Jesus, people just think of him
as a great spiritual teacher, and they they're happy to,

(28:58):
you know, tole him and quote him and all that,
and all the gurus who came here had nothing but
respect and reverence for Jesus. It's very common. It's one
of the beautiful things about the Hindu and Buddhist cultures
is the openness to you know, any great saint or teacher.

(29:21):
Yogananda took that to another level. He didn't just hold
Jesus up and quote him and hold him up as
an example. He claimed that Jesus was essentially part of
his own lineage, and that he and the aforementioned Baba
Jee the Deathless Yogi or in some kind of communication.

(29:47):
And you know, Yogananda's whole mission is essentially endorsed and
set up by them. He spoke about Jesus so much
that there's a two volume set totally about twelve hundred

(30:11):
pages that's on your shelf. I'm sure right, yeah, I
see it next to the Geeka, and you know it's
called the Second Coming of Christ and it was assembled
by his devotees after he died of everything he said
and wrote about Jesus. So that's all. It's a lot.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
And he mastered, you know, how to talk about it
and how to bring Jesus. It's not the interpretation of
Jesus you'll find in the in the you know, next Sunday,
he's sermon wherever you are. It's a more esoteric one,
of course, but it's fascinating and you're absolutely right. I

(31:03):
know you were joking when you called it a marketing ploy.
He but that he was accused of that. He was
accused of that. You know, he's selling out to the Christians,
he's pandering to them, you know, putting up Jesus and
all that. But it was sincere, you know, when he
when they acquired the property that to this day is

(31:26):
the headquarters of SRF internationally on a hilltop in La
he scheduled the opening of that in nineteen twenty five
for Easter Sunday morning. And you know, every Christmas he celebrated,
you know, in ways that you know many Christians don't,

(31:49):
you know, all day meditation practice on the day before,
and then of course gift giving and food and you know,
celebratory thing. He he was very sincere in his reverence
for Jesus as a as an avatar, as a great
saint right up there with his you know, his own

(32:09):
tradition of Krishna and you know, that sort of thing.
So it was sincere. Did it also work as a
marketing device, sure, because many you know it it assuaged
the conscience of many people who were curious about him
and attracted to him, but also felt very strongly about

(32:33):
their roots and Christianity. But let's not also overlook the
fact that it was a turn off for many people.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, it searching I interview, Yeah, for searching, they're searching
for something other than Jesus, like, man, Jesus is here again?

Speaker 2 (32:52):
It was. I've interviewed so many people, and for one thing,
Jews and atheists, they had all trouble with this Jesus presence.
And many Christians who had given up, who had rejected
the church and their own Christian roots, had to suddenly say,
wait a minute, what's this about? And wrestle with that

(33:16):
and then but more common were Christians who had been
alienated from their faith, from their tradition, usually when they're
high school or college age and all that, and found
their way back to it through Yogananda because the interpretation

(33:43):
they through Yogananda, they found that Jesus they could love again.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
You know what when they were kids. Yeah, And I'll
tell you what I mean. I think that's essentially what
happened to me. Because I'm a recovering Catholic, as I
always OK, And I was introduced to that, but I
rejected the church years ago because I plot holes in
the story and the YadA YadA Jesus is from thirteen

(34:11):
to thirty, you know that, you know, which they talk
about is possible time in India and all this kind
of stuff, which I'll ask you about in a second.
But I I always loved the teachings of Jesus. Just
just take religion out of it, just as a human
being to another human being. His teachings are beautiful, but
it was all mixed up in this dog mine and

(34:33):
fear and anger that I just couldn't grab a. But
through Yoga Nanda, you open up that door again to
his teachings and you look, oh, that's that's the Jesus.
I can, I can. I can hang with that guy,
you know, because he's not going to judge me. You know,
he's not going to do this or that. And now
it's been Now it's my mission in life to constantly
ask questions about everything that had to do with that.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Story mirrors a lot. In fact, it's a variation of
my own story. And I've written about this, you know.
I usually every Christmas I try to republish this essay
I wrote about my own path. I was raised by
atheist Jews to you know, think religion was for fools.

(35:23):
And I had no religious training or whatever, and I
knew very little about you know, I just like everybody
else raised in America. You know about Christmas in Eastern
and you hear this stuff. But after getting into Indian
philosophy and starting my own meditation practice and everything, I

(35:48):
read Autobiography of a Yogi and I said, oh, he
writes about Jesus a lot. What's going on here? What
have I missed? I may have maybe I missed something.
So I got a New Testament and read it. And
I had already read the Bug of a Gita, I
had already read the you know, some of the US

(36:11):
and all this literature. So I'm reading the New Testament
for the first time. And my thought was, oh, I
get it. He was a girl, he was a yoga master,
he had disciples, and it's just like the US. And
so suddenly I found myself being open to stuff, and

(36:36):
I'd go to and I started realizing how much I
like Christmas, Carol. So I check out a different church
every Christmas Eve to have a birthday party for a
great yogi. It is, that's what happens.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
So let me ask you this. In your research following
Yogananda's life, when you went down the rabbit hole of
Jesus's connection with Yogananda, did you find out any stories
about the time between the years thirteen and thirty where
there's a lot of Jesus and India ideas or Tibetan.

(37:11):
My understanding is India, Tibet, and Egypt. Those those are
the three places that he kind of hung out for
a minute.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Also, I've heard Persia, yeah an hour on. Yeah, I don't.
I heard all the stories. And it wasn't just in
researching yoga in his life, you know, and all the
I've taken tour groups to India, I've you know, investigated
all the different guruves, teachings and everything, and you hear

(37:42):
these stories. You know, there's even films made about Jesus
in India. You know, people have been speculating about those
missing years forever and it's plausible. I mean, people did
travel from what we think of as the Holy Land
and from Greece, you know, overland to Alexander the Great

(38:08):
went to India, well what's now Pakistan, he met Yogi's
It said that the Thagoras and other Greek philosophers had
contacts with Indian sages because there were trade routes between
the Middle East and Greece and India. But what actually happened,

(38:34):
you know, I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
They didn't have the film cameras.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
And I always joke that if you're in India, especially
if you're in Kashmir, which is one of the legends,
for a few roupees, somebody will show you where Jesus
is actually buried. He wasn't really crucified that he found

(39:01):
his way to India and spent his life in the Malayas.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
And I've heard all those stories as well. I heard
the mother, mother Mary died along the route and that
she's buried somewhere in Pakistan. Uh, you know that he was.
It was the Vinci coach. He was married, he had kids,
He was Mary Magdalene was not a whore. He was
his wife and apparently the and apparently the proprietor of

(39:27):
his entire mission Jesus because he had to someone had
to pay the bills for Jesus. And she came from
my purse. So these are that, These are stories we
all hear. Have you heard these stories?

Speaker 2 (39:37):
I've heard stories many stories like that. This is the
first time I heard of Mary Magdalene being the the
financeer of the organization. I knew, you know, they presumed
presumably she they were husband and wife. I mean, people
are guarding I I've heard so many stories about so

(40:02):
many legendary people. You know, you live in la you
have stories about celebrities, So why not Jesus exactly?

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Now, we touched upon a very pivotal figure in the
autobiography of Yogi and in Yoga Nanda's life, which is
Mahavatar Babaji and Baba G is one of the most
fascinating characters in the autobiography of Yogi. We'll be right
back after a word from our sponsor, and now back

(40:38):
to the show. Can you talk a little bit about
Baba G, what he's doing, what impact he had on Yogananda,
because apparently Yogananda I think met him twice or three times.
I'm not mistaken in the book at least I think
at least twice, but it might be three times in
his life where he actually had a conversation with the

(40:58):
real Baba G and other than stories that he heard
from his Guru. But can you talk a little bit
about Baba Jee and his impact on this work, Yoganana's
life and his impact on the world.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Well, again, we're in the realm of what's true, what's mythology,
what's good storytelling? I'm not qualified to know. But babaj
is a legendary Yogi in the Himalayas who you know,

(41:36):
had such mastery of mind over a matter of consciousness
as that he did in age and has lived for
hundreds of years. And there are people today who claim
to have met him and been ordained by him to

(41:57):
have some teaching mission. Are they lying? Are they deluded?
Is it real? I have no idea. I once met
somebody who claimed to be Bobba Gee. That guy was deluted,
but you know that was just too obvious. But who knows.

(42:18):
But in Yoganando's world, you could say Bobba Ge is
the custodian of the creat Yoga lineage and appeared to
Yogananda's gurus Guru and Lahiri Mahasia when he was a

(42:44):
young man and said, you will bring out these teachings
from the obscurity that they've fallen into and make them
more widely available, and you will do it without giving
up your your job and your role as a husband,

(43:05):
father and father. And because so you will set an
example that these teachings are not just for renunciates, but
for you know, people living in the world. And that's
was Lehiri Mahasia. Then he had a disciple named Shriu
Teswar who was also a householder until you know, he

(43:31):
was a widower and took renuncia advise and he became gurus.
So the lineage is passed down from Babaje to Lehiri
Mahasia to shrew Testwar to Yogananda. And of course you
know lesser known people, lesser known gurus who had their

(43:54):
own branches of that lineage, you know, not the old
we want. Other disciples of Lahiri and you tess War
had their own smaller institutions. So that's who he presumably
is and is presumably still alive. And as I said,

(44:16):
people claim all kinds of things. Who knows what's true,
But that's the legend of Bubba Gee. And I've taken
tour groups to places in India where there's one place
where the lineage maintains that. It's a cave where Bubbajee

(44:43):
lived and where you know, and you know and these
are powerful places and they're powerful stories, and some people
believe them and some people don't. But I always like
to say it doesn't matter. You know, the teachings are
the teachings, the methods of Crea Yoga, just like the

(45:07):
methods of other yoga lineages. They work, they have an
effect on people. That's what really matters. And you know,
whether you believe Yoga Nanda's stories or not, whether you
talked earlier about reading autobiography and your reaction to all

(45:28):
the miracles and the healings and the feats of Yogi
powers and all that. My experience with people is there
are two kinds of people who really love the Autobiography
of Yogi. People who love the miracles and can't get

(45:50):
enough for them, and people who don't believe a word
of it. But they they get a lot out of
the book for other reasons, because it's the book is
a lot of things to you know, there's a lot
in there. And every time I reread it to teach
one of those courses I mentioned, I find something new,

(46:11):
and there's there's a lot there. So some people just
oop oo the miracles or say, well, some of them
may be true, But I don't believe this one in
that one, and I think Yoga Nando was fooled or whatever.
Here's a but here's a point about it. This is

(46:32):
interesting he made. They're so prominent in the book. And
at the same time, if you read the commentaries about
his own commentaries about it, he'll tell you, but that
are not what what's important. What's important is the experience

(46:58):
inside you when you practice these methods of yoga. These stories,
you can believe them. They're meant to make a point. So,
and that's consistent with all the great spiritual teachers, all
the gurus, all the yogis bore to himself. They tell you, Yeah,

(47:20):
these feats of consciousness and everything, they're absolutely true. I
you know, these are things that an advanced yogi can do,
but they're not important. Don't get caught up in them.
Don't waste your time trying to attain these things or
think about them. What matters is the inner peace and

(47:43):
the expanded awareness and the love that these methods bring
about in practice. But yet there's all these stories. So
one day, when I was researching my biography him, I
was meeting with Aswami cha Nananda, who became the head

(48:07):
of the organization after, you know, not long after, I
was meeting with him about my research, and I said,
why do you think jog Nanda included so much? Why
there's so many of these stories in the book. And
he said, he tells you in the book. And I said,

(48:29):
what do you mean? And he opens the front of
the book. And if you if you have a copy
of artobiography of you, if you have a copy of
any book, you'll see what's called the copyright page. Where well,
not the copyright page, the title page. There's always a

(48:50):
page with just the title, the author, the publisher. On
that page, there's a quote from from the Bible, from
the New Testament, and it says, except you see signs
and wonders, you will not believe. That's from the Book

(49:11):
of John. He put it in there. It was like
he's he's telling you at the beginning. That's why I
did this, because some people need to see miracles and
everything in order to now pay attention.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
Yeah, pay attention. You know, from my from my studies
in yoga philosophies, I've understood that these ideas, these powers,
the yogaic powers, and there's a handful of them. Levitation
by a location, manifestation, basically all the stuff that Jesus did,
which again goes back to your theory of zach. But

(49:49):
they can be traps for yes, for the yogi going
through it, because because you know what, when you levitate
pretty pretty darn off cool, uh, to leve it day
and to show all that off, the ego will come
in like, you know what, I think I can show this,
or if you're able to manifest something, or if you're
able to biolocate, these are things that the ego would

(50:12):
just love it because you're so much superior to everyone
else that it is a trap for many yogis and yogi,
and some yogis get caught up in that and they
just try they focus on just learning how to levitate
for thirty years and that's what they do.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
But that's not good to read minds to all kinds
of stuff.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
That will be right back after a word from our sponsor.
And now back to the show.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
And the question is are these real? You know? And
I have no doubt that these are attainments you know,
that have been witnessed and observed and attained, and some
of them, like the mind powers, you know, they're just
it's like you could pick up a basketball and shoot

(51:07):
and maybe square because we all can do that, but
not everybody's little Lebron James. So we all have intuition
and hunches and feelings and you know, all that stuff,
and we've experienced certain psychic things happening in our lives.
Take that to an extreme and you have you know,

(51:28):
the Lebron James is of Yogi's doing what we think
of as extraordinary things. So I have no doubt. The
question is, so what when Buddha was asked if he
could perform miracles, he said, yes, when I'm hungry, I eat,
When I'm thirsty, I drink. That's a mirac Those are miracles.

(51:49):
And you know, so are they happy? Are they in
bliss consciousness? Have they transcend? Did the you know, sufferings
of the world. That's why people follow Yogic paths, not
so they can manipulate other people with their mind or

(52:13):
you know, float.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Exactly exactly, you know, And you mentioned Lahi in Mahashai,
who's one of my favorite of the gurus because he
had a family, and that's unlike most gurus are usually
you know, they are monastic in many ways and they
stay away from having that because and I have family.
I have a family, And I always like to say,

(52:38):
I always like to joke. I'm like, I wonder how
yogur Nanda would have done if you had five kids
running around and a wife and a mortgage and all
this kind of stuff. It's easy to find enlightenment. You
don't have to deal with that. I'm joking, but it's easier.
And then Lahar Mahasha is that one guru that I
look to like. He had a family, he had a job,
he was an accountant. I mean he he and he

(53:00):
still slowly but surely became the spiritual teacher. So it
is doable in Babaji if he does exist. Baba Ji
was so smart in allowing someone like Lehira Mahashai to
be the catalyst of prey A Yoga as an example
to others to go, No, you don't have to be

(53:23):
in the Himalayan mountains for one hundred years meditating.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
You know from what I understand. What I understand now
that the age and not for everybody, but the age
of this enlightenment in the Himalayans. Uh, you know, in
a cave somewhere away from the world or even in
a in a in a in a church, or in
you know, a monk, you know, retreat a castle somewhere.
That world is great. But from my understanding is now

(53:50):
it's the time for them to come down from the
mountains and to start doing these kind of teachings within
the mass media, getting jobs within companies, doing these things
to be actually to do change in the world and
elevate everyone's awaken consciousness.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
Would you agree, yeah, I Well, there's a role for monastics.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
Most of the teachers who came here, whether Buddhist or
Hindu or whatever, were monks, but they taught householders. They
made it very plain, you don't have to this is
many are called, but few are chosen. You know, most
the great majority of human beings are meant to be

(54:39):
in families and have careers and jobs, and that's the
curriculum for our you know, most of our incarnations. But
there's a role to be played for monks and nuns,
and essentially they're specialists. You know, they don't have the

(55:03):
distractions of family life and careers, so they can devote
themselves fully to this. This is why Yogananda, who himself
was a monk, he made he empowered the people around
him to run the organization and carry on his legacy.

(55:25):
He put that in the hands of the monastics. He
created a monastic order for Westerners. So did other gurus.
All of them had them some equivalent of that. And
you know, it's a very attractive proposition for people who
get involved in a deep, serious spiritual path, but it's

(55:47):
not for everybody. It has its own challenges. You know, Uh,
you give up, you're giving up a lot, and you
are It's a lot is expected of you. You're not
just sitting in a cave. You're running an organization and

(56:08):
you have people to deal with and managerial responsibilities, teaching
responsibilities and all that, and you have to, you know,
remain unattached from certain things. And you know, even I
it's very tempting once you get onto a yoga path
to say, oh, all this stuff is a distraction. I'm

(56:28):
just going to go live in an ashram or you know,
a monastery. You know, maybe it'll last a short period
of time. Before I used to joke that I got
I did that for a while. I would go on
long meditation retreats and say, oh, I'm not going back.
I want to just do this, I'm going to take
vows and then you know, a week later, I'm thinking,

(56:53):
how are the Mets doing, you know, and probably where
are the women? And you know, I wonder if the
Beatles have a new album. You know, just some of
us are not meant to be that way. You know,
we all have a role for each.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Correct your role was to do the work that you're doing.
And you couldn't do that in an ashram. I mean,
you have to be out mingling with the world. And
look Yoga Nanda.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
You know he was.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
He was, you know, a person who was not in
a cave somewhere. He built an organization, He traveled, he spoke,
He interacted with people on a constant basis for thirty
two years in the United States. That is as far
beyond being a monks.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
That's right. And you know, and this is in my
biography of him because it shows up a lot in
his letters and other things. There were times when he said,
I don't want to do this anymore. This is too
much hassle. I ha to think about money and these
foolish people who get into squabbles with one another, and

(58:08):
aren't you know, and people attacking me and people suing
me and people making accusations and people opposing me. I
just wanted to live the peaceful life of of a yogi.
I want to go live by the Ganges River and
in Malayas and but it didn't. You know, he had

(58:32):
a mission and it wasn't to be. But there were
times when he, you know, the people around him thought
he's not coming back. You know, he's he's he wants
to give this up. But he couldn't. It was his mission.
But he had a lot of responsibility and worked very hard.

(58:55):
And you know, anybody you know just think of it.
You start a business or something thing, it's a lot
of work. And essentially, you know, he had a mission.
And the more successful he was, the more administrative headaches,
the more you know, public relations headaches. So you know,
he worked. He worked very hard. And that's a great example.

(59:18):
I've had people read my book and say, oh, I'm
so happy that I read it because part of me wanted,
you know, thinking why is my life so difficult? And
then I realized even yoga and on the had challenges,
this is you know, this is life in the world.
So I feel better about things now.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
Yeah. And he I mean he did have. He had
a lot of struggles, a lot a lot of struggles
in his day and during the end of his life.
And please correct me if I'm wrong, But he started
to write like so much. He was trying to get
it all because he knew, because he knew when he
was going to go. He knew that the clock was
running out for himself. And he was writing, apparently just

(01:00:03):
just insanely, books after books after books, translating translated, I
mean or dictating, dictating, dictating books on top of books, right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
And not only that, you know, making sure his organization
was in place for his departure, making sure it would
it would be financially secure, making sure the people who
were going to carry on his legacy were properly trained
and properly oriented. He continued to give public talks, all

(01:00:35):
of which were transcribed and you know, ended up in books.
So he was working very hard. He stopped traveling first
fifteen years or so. Here he traveled all the time.
Stopped traveling after a while and just stayed in southern California.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
You know, if if he were around now, he'd be
making YouTube videos. In those days he was writing books.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
That was that was that was the medium of his time.
That was the way to get out to the masses.
Now he would be absolutely a YouTube star, no question,
no question about it, whatsoever. One last thing, Philip, I
wanted to ask you about. I heard this from from
somewhere that when he died, when Yoguna in the past,

(01:01:37):
he basically was he was speaking and he told us
his disciples that night, tonight, I'm leaving you, and they're like, no, no, no,
that's impossible.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
He didn't he didn't tell them that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Oh he didn't. He didn't say that, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
But they inferred it later from some of the things
he said, got.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
It, okay, So he was he was dropping some hints.
But then he in the middle of talk just fell
and he apparently was from cardiac arrest.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
True, but it was at the end of his talk,
and it was I have to say, researching and writing
that chapter about his final years and days and final night,
it was really moving for me to to do that.

(01:02:27):
It was a beautiful thing he had. He had. He
loved his homeland, he loved India and what it stands for.
And one of the things was he always wanted to
go back again and visiting it, and he only did
once in this whole time after he came here and

(01:02:50):
he wanted to go back, but he never did. But
he once said that he would die with India on
his lips, and he did. It was the final His
final night was a banquet celebration. This is what five
years after, almost five years after India became independent and

(01:03:15):
its first the first post independence ambassador to the US
was visiting Los Angeles and they had banquets for him
and every yoga and Nanda hosted them. And he gave
a talk at this banquet and he concluded his talk

(01:03:36):
by reading a section of a poem of his about
his love for India. And as soon as he finished,
he collapsed.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
He died with Indiana's lips. Now, one last thing when
he passed. The legend goes that he didn't decay, that
he was as vibrant as the day he was alive.
And there was there's video of it. There's actual of
him at his as they were burying him, I think,
or wherever. That's ser Yeah, but what do you don't

(01:04:08):
you hear?

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
I have to be you know, that's all the issues
I've ever seen of autobiography of Yogi have this thing
about how his body didn't corrupt, and people have disputed that.
For one thing, he was embalmed and and the body
was open casket only for a short period of time.

(01:04:35):
No one knows. No one's opened the casket since, and
you know, according to one what is called corner, they
started to see some signs of decay. Others say, oh no,
this he held up. The body held up much longer

(01:04:57):
than is the norm, and other people would dispute that,
And personally, I don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Rights. It's fascinating because that's basically every great spiritual teacher.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
There's always there's always legends, there's always stories. You know,
Jesus isn't the only one who was supposed to have
a virgin birth or was resurrected or any of that.
You know, so you know know what to believe. And
I always thought, if they were open yoga on this
casket and find him looking like he did in nineteen

(01:05:33):
fifty two, it would be miraculous. But would it change anything.
Would it make his methods any more valuable, any more practical?
Would it make the philosophies he espoused any less true
or more true. No, that's what really matters.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Where is do you know where he's buried? I don't
know where He's buried.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
In Forest Lawn cemetery outside of Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
He's a force Lawns. I didn't know he was a
force Lawns.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
My next trip to l A, I'm making.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
There was there was an effort to move to disinenter
it and move it to srf's headquarters. But the people,
the people who live in the neighborhood stopped it. They
didn't want they didn't want pilgrims coming, you know, passing,
going to visit his tomb all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
Fair enough, fair enough, No, Philip, I'm gonna ask a
few questions to ask all of my guests. What is
your definition of living a fulfilled life?

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
Knowing who we truly are?

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
If you had a chance to go back in time
and speak to little Philip, what advice would you give him?

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
You could have been a major league pitcher. Now I'm kidding.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
The Mets needed you. The Mets, No I would.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
I would say, be grateful for every moment, live with
no regret.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
How do you define God or source?

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
I really stay away from the g word. It means
so many different things to so many pe people.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
That's why I said.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Yes, that which is always, was, always will be, was
never born, will never die. And to circle back to
your first question, that is who we truly are? What
is love that which binds everything?

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
And what is the ultimate purpose of life?

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
To know who we truly are, live our full potential
and serve.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
And Philip, where can people find out more about you
and the amazing work you're doing in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
My website Philipgoldberg dot com when it's working properly as everything,
and my podcast which is called Spirit Matters, which find
out mind Bodyspirit dot fm. My books of course, which

(01:08:23):
you'll find out about on my website. But the website
is the first stop.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Do you have any party messages for the audience if
you were channeling Yoga Nanda Today.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
We live in very difficult times. Protect yourself, find the
sanctuary of peace within yourself, anchor yourself there and then
come out and do something to help.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
Philip, it has been a pleasure and honor speaking to
you about your work and Yogananda. Anytime I can talk
about Yogananda, I'm happy, so thank you so much. For
spreading his pleasure and spreading his story in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
My friend, Thank you, thanks for your great questions and
for the invitation. It was a pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
I want to thank Phillips so much for coming on
the show and sharing his knowledge with all of us.
If you want to get links to anything we spoke
about in this episode, head over to the show notes
at next levelsoul dot com forward slash four five four. Now.
If this conversation stirred something in you, there's more waiting.
You can listen to this episode completely commercial free on

(01:09:37):
next level Soul TV's app where soul meets streaming. Watch
and listen on Appleios, Android, Apple TV, Ruku, Android TV Buyer,
tv LG and Samsung apps anytime anywhere. Begin your awakening
at next levelsoul dot tv. Thank you so much for listening.
As I always say, trust the journey. It's there to

(01:10:01):
teach you. I'll see you next time.