Here is the excerpt from Yogananda's death- it questions the health, diet, and Kriya Yoga that Yogananda spread through the SRF. It is not that Kriya Yoga is proven to be something bad, or other practicioners are liars and I am not claiming Yogananda to be a fraud. But I am showing how we don't need the guru. We have ourselves! We are already free souls in God! Follow your inner self and you will find God/Christ/Holy Spirit/Buddha or whatever you call it-
Yogananda's Incorruptibility After Death SRF Myth
In an article which appeared in the Rational Enquirer, The Skeptics'
Newsletter for Western Canada, Leonard Angel, a professor of
philosophy at the University of Columbia, recounts how he
investigated the miracle which is reported in almost every Yogananda
publication put out by the Self Realization Fellowship (SRF), the
society founded and organised by Yogananda to propagate his
teachings:
" After Death the Body of Paramahansa Yogananda Manifested a
Phenomenal State of Immutability. " The story in Self-Realization
Magazine (Los Angeles) May 1952 issue; and in the national news
weekly Time, August 4, 1952 reported that:
" The great world teacher demonstrated the value of yoga (scientific
techniques for God-realization) not only in life but in death. Weeks
after his departure his unchanged face shone with the divine light
luster of incorruptibility. Mr. Harry Rowe, Los Angeles Mortuary
Director, Forest Lawn Memorial-Park (in which the great master is
temporarily placed) sent Self-Realization Fellowship a notarized
letter from which the following extracts are taken:
The absence of any visual signs of decay in the dead body of
Paramahansa Yogananda offers the most extraordinary case in our
experience...No physical disintegration was visible even twenty days
after death...No indication of mould was visible on his skin, and no
visible desiccation (drying up) took place in the bodily tissues.
This state of perfect preservation of a body is, so far as we know
from mortuary annals, an unparalleled one...At the time of receiving
Yogananda`s body, the mortuary personnel expected to observe,
through the glass lid of the casket, the usual progressive signs of
bodily decay. Our astonishment increased day after day without
bringing any visible change in the body under observation.
Yogananda's body was apparently in a phenomenal state of
immutability...No odour of decay emanated from his body at any
time...The physical appearance of Yogananda on March 27th, just
before the bronze cover of the casket was put into position, was the
same as it had been on March 7th. "
Professor Angel was impressed, but not convinced. He obtained a copy
of Yogananda's death certificate from the Los Angeles Department of
Vital Statistics which confirmed that Yogananda had died on March
7th, the certificate of death being received by the registrar on
March 11 1952. However, the certificate also bore the
signature " Kenneth I. Johnson " , and the number 2641. It was
contained in box #21, above which were the words " Signature of
embalmer. "
Confirmation that Yogananda had in fact been embalmed was found in
the full text of Harry Rowe's letter in a little booklet entitled
Paramahansa Yogananda, In Memoriam, put out by the Self-Realization
Fellowship. It reads,
" Paramahansa Yogananda's body was embalmed an the night of March
8th, with that quantity of fluid which is customarily used in any
body of similar size. "
So what was the miracle?
According to the full text of Harry Rowe's letter the astonishment
was only due to the fact that the funeral home staff had not used
any creams in addition to the embalming fluid - a creamy pore-
sealing emulsion that temporarily prevents the outward appearance of
mould.
A check with two independent licensed embalmers elicited the
following comments,
" I'm sure we've had bodies for two or three months with good
preservation. This is not unusual. Creams are not necessary " ,
and " ...that preservation for 20 days through embalming is not
unusual. We can keep a body a month or two without interral…an
embalming fluid with a lanolin base will have humecant which
prevents dehydration, which is the major concern...a heavy glass lid
as is described by Mr Rowe as being present on the casket, would
prevent a great amount of air circulation, and that in itself would
prevent most desiccation, so that would account for it. "
Far from being " a demonstration of yogic powers " , " a phenomenal
state of immutability " or " a miracle through the grace of the
Heavenly Father " , it seems that any perception that a miracle had
occurred was simply the result of misleading selections taken from a
misleading letter.
-- excerpt from " Incorruptibility: Miracle or Myth? " , Harry Edwards,
November 1995
www.adam.com.au/bstett/Pa...bility.htm
The statement of the director of Forest Lawn, Harry T. Rowe, is
accurate, but incomplete. Mr. Rowe also mentioned that he observed a
brown spot on Yogananda's nose after 20 days, as sign that the body
was not " perfectly " preserved. In any case, the SRF's claim that
lack of physical disintegration is " an extraordinary phenomenon " is
misleading. (One wonders how much digging into the mortuary annals
they did. Very little, I imagine.) The state of the yogi's body is
not unparalleled, but common. A typical embalmed body will show no
notable desiccation for one to five months after burial without the
use of refrigeration or creams to mask odors. According to Jesus
Preciado, who has been in the mortuary business for thirty
years, " in general, the less pronounced the pathology [at the time
of death], the less notable are the symptoms of necrosis. " Some
bodies are well-preserved for years after burial (personal
correspondence, Mike Drake). Some, under extraordinary conditions,
are well-preserved for hundreds, even thousands, of years.
-- excerpt from " Incorruptible Bodies " , Robert Todd Carroll
skepdic.com/incorrupt.html
Yogananda (1893-1952) died at age 59 of a heart attack (which was
the official cause of death) after giving a speech at the Biltmore
Hotel to welcome India's visiting ambassador. Yogananda's health was
deteriorating rapidly at the time, and he was in a particularly
weakened state, so it's not much of a surprise that he would
collapse after straining himself in such a way. Nevertheless, the
faithful view his " collapsing on the ground as his heart gave out
from more strain than it could handle " as Mahasamadhi -- a magical,
conscious floating away to some sort of heaven.
An interesting note here is that the average male life expectancy
for someone living in the United States circa 1950 was 66 years.
Evidently Yogananda's ideas on diet and health weren't exactly
sound, since he couldn't even manage to live as long as the average
beer drinking, cigar smoking, red meat eating American male during
the 50's. A little more solid protein in his diet probably would
have helped.
More importantly, his meditations claimed to rejuvenate the cells of
the body with magical pranic energy channeled in from the medulla
oblongata. His 'Hong Sau' meditation in particular, ironically
claimed to have the ability to rest the heart. Well, I think it's
clear that his heart didn't actually benefit in such ways.
Nevertheless, people continue to do the robot dance (aka
Energization Exercises), Hong Sau, Aum, and the hissing throat
ritual called Kriya. No one ever benefits, no one ever gains health
benefits, no one finds Enlightenment (which is the Eastern version
of Heaven or Disneyland). And no one connects the dots and actually
stops and thinks.
The show must go on I suppose.
" Mundus vult decipi. " (The world wants to be deceived.)
" Homo vult decipi; decipiatur. " (Man wishes to be deceived; deceive
him.)
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