Awake: The Life of Yogananda

Film (2014)

Apple Cinemas, Fresh Pond, Cambridge

Apparently, Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer and business visionary, had one book on his iPad and read it at least once a year: Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. George Harrison, the late great Beatle, also was strongly influenced by the work, and, in this interesting and quite comprehensive documentary about Yogananda’s life and career, Harrison weighs in on the central significance of the book on his life, indicating how he couldn’t have imagined what it would have been without it.

The film, largely composed of documentary footage of Yogananda, is indeed interesting on that score alone. It is fascinating to hear and watch him on screen; it certainly gives an impression of the man that simple reportage could not do.

Ordered in a more or less chronological scheme, early on one gets a history of the yogi as a young man, and as a young disciple of his teacher, Sir Yukteswar, in India.

The narrative follows his career as he travels to the United States in 1920 as India’s delegate to the International Congress of Religious Liberals in Boston, eventually establishing a center in Los Angeles, California, and traces a series of difficult challenges that lead him to seriously question his decision to have ventured to this country.

A fellow yogi with whom Yogananda had partnered pedagogically and organizationally, Swami Dhirananda, eventually broke with Yogananda and took him to court to seek financial remuneration from their joint operation. As well, a journalistic spree unfolded regarding private sessions the yogi was having with married women leading to the accusation that he was running a “love” cult; eventually, Yogananda and the organization were exonerated of those accusations.

In addition to that with George Harrison, interviews with Bikram Choudhury, the Indian founder of the now popular Bikram yoga, with Krishna Das, the well-known American practitioner of Hindu chant, with Ravi Shankar, the great late Indian sitar player, and with Deepak Chopra, Indian health expert, among others, weigh in on the importance of Yogananda as an inspiration.

Various of his now elderly Western disciples from the early California days, quite an interestingly motley crew – Sister Parvati, Richard Wright, Sri Mrinalini Mata, Leo Cocks, Herb Jeffries and Brother Anandamoy – help to fill out the picture and give an historic vividness to the biographical account.

One of the most touching sequences is about Yogananda going, in 1926, to give a teaching in Washington, DC, only to find that African-Americans were not allowed to attend. In response, he initiated a study group specifically for African-Americans.

The film and sound editing that embellish the protagonist and his story somewhat dreamily, giving the film a feeling of being a paean rather than an incisive investigation. Accounts of Yogananda and his influence are largely given by disciples or admirers, so one does not come away with a sense that necessarily all sides of a story have been told. This is perhaps more of a tribute than a treatment, but, despite that, it is enormously interesting to anyone interested in the early history of yoga in America. The original footage alone is worth the price of admission.

– BADMan