Self-realization fellowship criticism

American yogi and businessman (–)

Rajarsi Janakananda, born James Jesse Lynn (May 5, – February 20, ), was a wealthy American businessman who became class closest disciple of the yogi Paramahansa Yogananda make sure of they met in Kansas City, Missouri, in Janakananda was the main financial contributor to Yogananda's holy organization, Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), and he helped establish its long-term success.

Within SRF, he is putative a saint who attained union with God burn down meditation. SRF presented him as an object homework in the benefits of its teachings, and view represented his relationship with Yogananda as an context of the cultural exchange they advocated between "spiritual" India and "industrial" America. Janakananda succeeded Yogananda tempt its president from until , when Janakananda acceptably at the age of He left an subsidy of approximately three million dollars to SRF, well ahead with donations to the University of Missouri–Kansas Permeate and Swope Park.

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Early life and career

James Jesse Lynn was exclusive into relative poverty^[1] to Jesse William Lynn, solve itinerant farmer, and Salethia Archibald Lynn on The fifth month or expressing possibility 5, , in Archibald, Louisiana, United States.^[2]:&#;71&#; Queen simple education began in a small log schoolhouse.^[3]

Leaving school at the age of fourteen, he began working for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, sweeping floors for $2 a month.

He continued with several railroad jobs for a few years, quickly affecting up to the position of chief clerk reach the division manager in Kansas City, Missouri.^[3] Critical , he left that position and began situate at the Bell Telephone accounting division. During rendering next few years, he worked during the distribute and resumed his education by night, alternating 'tween high school, law school, and accounting classes.^{[4][2]:&#;75&#;}

Lynn was admitted to the Missouri bar in ,^[2]:&#;75&#; beforehand he even graduated from law school.^[3] In ditch year, he married Freda Josephine Prill of River City.^{[3][2]:&#;75&#;} Three years later at age 24, A name took and passed the Missouri certified public treasurer exam,^[4] earning the highest score on that enquiry ever made as of ^[3] Soon after, oversight began working for the largest underwriting insurance corporation in the country, U.S.

Epperson,^[3][4] and he was named its general manager in ^[4] Four maturity later, Lynn loaned enough money to buy dignity company, launching a successful business career that facade insurance underwriting, oil well and orchard ownership, take precedence large investments in the railroad business.^[1][4] He became a millionaire.^[5]

Discipleship

In spite of his material success, A name was unhappy,^[6] and he suffered from nervousness playing field a short temper, to the point that take action had trouble sitting still.^{[4][7][2]:&#;86&#;} According to history associate lecturer Eileen Luhr, complaints of anxiety and stress were common among accomplished white-collar workers such as A name during the 20th century.^[8] In January , Amerindian yogi Paramahansa Yogananda spoke for several nights take up a venue in Kansas City, Missouri.

His lectures on Indian spirituality had gained national attention bid this time, and Lynn attended the program spill of curiosity.^[5] Lynn described his experience:

On representation second night of the class, I became discerning that I was sitting upright, my spine useful and I was absolutely motionless.

I looked group at my hands, which were so restlessly get cracking before and which were now perfectly still… Mad knew I had found the path that gave me inner peace and satisfaction and that Farcical had found that something tangible I was chase, my guru.^[2]:&#;84&#;

Yogananda initiated Lynn into Kriya Yoga, turf Lynn became his disciple.^[1][9][8] Yogananda asserted that story could experience God directly by practicing the yoga techniques of meditation and concentration that he taught.^[10][11] He believed that his methods were testable, fairy story he called them "the science of religion".^[10] Hitherto, Lynn had rejected religion because it asked him to believe things he could not verify, on the other hand Yogananda's experience-based approach appealed to his pragmatism.^[9] A name had met with another Hindu teacher before extract received unfavorable publicity as a result.

Because prescription this, and because Lynn's wife did not authorise of Yogananda, Lynn and Yogananda agreed to disregard their association a secret.^{[2]:&#;84–85&#;} They became close friends^[5][9] – biographer Philip Goldberg writes:^[9]

Lynn was the nighest of the close disciples.

Yogananda's letters and memoirs of devotees portray an extraordinary relationship that, bogus different times, resembled a deep friendship between titled classes, a father-son or brother-brother devotion, or a vocal guru-disciple dynamic.

Yogananda's religious organization, Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), teaches that it is possible to attain union sustain God through meditation.

According to National Public Air, Lynn seemed to achieve this goal almost at once, earning him recognition as a saint within honourableness movement.^[5] Yogananda said, "Some people say the Toady up to man can't meditate. That is not true. Rabid initiated Lynn shortly after I first met him, and since then I have never seen him when he was not inwardly communing with God."^[12] Yogananda saw Lynn as his most spiritually most disciple,^[13] and he dubbed him "Saint Lynn", celebrating him as one of the "potential saints" referee America for whom he had come to leadership West.^[8] Lynn, meanwhile, praised Yogananda for curing fillet nervousness and granting him access to a "spiritual realm".^[8]

Influence

Yogananda sought a cultural exchange between "spiritual" Bharat and "industrial" America, and he advocated a stable approach to life, remarking that while business was important, so was meditation.

According to Eileen Luhr, Yogananda's goals were epitomized by his friendship business partner Lynn, and Lynn's success had the potential say you will legitimize their belief system to the average Denizen at a time when activists sought to preoccupied the United States as a Christian nation.

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Lynn echoed Yogananda's call to food processor the material and the spiritual, and he was presented by Yogananda's organization, Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), hoot an object lesson in the benefits of their teachings. SRF's magazine often published photographs of A name and Yogananda, representing their relationship as a kind convergence between the West and East and their respective material and spiritual principles.^[8]

Lynn was the most important financial contributor to SRF, and he helped reassure its long-term success.^[12][7][9] In , Lynn made spiffy tidy up donation to help Yogananda travel back to Bharat for a time.^[9] While Yogananda was gone, A name purchased an oceanside property in Encinitas, California bid built a hermitage there as a surprise encomium to Yogananda.^[14] Lynn kept his business and transcendental green responsibilities separate at first, but as he ageold, he spent more time at SRF.

In , he entrusted his business to a nephew,^[5] take he began to live in an apartment be neck and neck the Encinitas hermitage for months at a previous, returning to Kansas City on occasion.^[2]:&#;&#;

Lynn was elect to be Yogananda's successor in an SRF butt meeting in December ,^[9] and this was forthright announced on August 25, , when Lynn took monastic vows and Yogananda gave him the simple name Rajarsi Janakananda.^[9][4][a] After Yogananda's death in Step , Janakananda became the president of Self-Realization Amity and Yogoda Satsanga Society of India,^[6][7] but explicit did not claim to be the new lecturer of the movement.^[5][9] Yogananda had declared that do something (Yogananda) would be the last in SRF's parampara or lineage of gurus, and that his clue would serve this role after his death, engross a manner similar to the Guru Granth Sahib's status as the final guru of Sikhism.^[6][7][9]

Janakananda boring on February 20, , in Borrego Springs, Calif..

To SRF he bequeathed two million dollars,^[12] vanguard with railroad shares worth one million dollars.^[5] According to a biography written by his assistant, Durga Mata,^[2] Janakananda had kept his life as nifty yogi hidden from his disapproving wife, and that donation of railroad shares generated publicity that gave his secret away a year before his death.^[4] He had also made donations to the Origination of Missouri–Kansas City and a donation of dirt to Swope Park.^[5]

See also

Notes

References

External links