Last week twenty-five pilgrims from Oregon and Washington (plus one who snuck in from Texas) embarked on a journey to visit six holy sites of Paramhansa Yogananda in California over three days: Encinitas Hermitage, Mt Washington, Forest Lawn, Biltmore Hotel, Hollywood Temple and Lake Shrine. Yogananda spent a great deal of time in these places and countless spiritual lessons, stories and memories reside there. Rather than present a timeline or historical review of this powerful pilgrimage, the following is a brief flow of inspiration relevant to each location, along with a few stories and extraordinary blessings received.
Encinitas Hermitage: This idyllic spiritual hermitage, with it’s stunning gardens overlooking the edge of sixty million miles of ocean, is a kind of paradise of serene loveliness and peace. Yogananda wrote his unparalleled masterpiece Autobiography of a Yogi here, along with such priceless spiritual jewels as Cosmic Chants and Whispers from Eternity. Thousands upon thousands of visitors come here to meditate, bathe in natural beauty, and gaze upon one of Master’s own favorite phenomenon: the horizon meeting of infinite sea and sky.
Although a spiritual master far beyond ordinary human comprehension, Yogananda also had a happy, wise and playful human nature as well. A local resident in Encinitas recounted his father’s brief tale, who lived in Yogananda’s time as a young boy. The hermitage swimming pool in those days was one of the only pools for miles around, and sometimes intrepid children would sneak onto the property for a swim. This 10-year-old boy stole onto the grounds one night and approached the pool; Yogananda emerged quietly from nearby and said simply, “Jump!” and the boy ran off, never to encounter the master again. Although a trivial story, it reminds us of the bold and childlike spirit which can balance the mighty scales of a great saint’s spiritual magnetism and power.
Mt Washington: this Los Angeles hilltop serves as the all-important international headquarters of Self-Realization Fellowship. Yogananda’s residence, spiritual power and work are powerfully embedded in the main building and beautifully landscaped grounds. Devotees may be permitted to visit Yogananda’s carefully preserved bedroom and sitting room upstairs, where many experience powerful spiritual vibrations beyond adequate description. Although the spirituality and divine work continue as the main focus here, there is also a museum-like quality to the atmosphere, where firm guidelines of quiet, no pictures or loitering, no chanting or singing are maintained. Despite these impositions, which SRF is somewhat notorious for, seeming to oppress Yogananda’s ebullient blissful spirit, there yet remains an otherworldly beauty and peace everlasting. All who visit are blessed.
Forest Lawn: Paramhansa Yogananda’s physical body was interred here in 1952, first in a crypt for twenty years, and then (as now) in a great marble mausoleum. Twenty days after his passing his body had not decayed, nor had it deteriorated notably after those first twenty years! These strange mystical phenomena may take place in the life and death of a saint, and hint at the supernatural state of the soul or the body in which it resided. Regardless of any outer form, the sincere disciple who sings softy with devotion in this place, meditates on Yogananda’s ever-living presence, and places his forehead to the cold stone only inches from the master’s physical form, once again cannot but feel, or depart without, some magnificent spiritual blessing from God.
Biltmore Hotel: Yogananda like many great mystical beings anticipated, and essentially planned out, the exact nature of his death. Instead of making some grandiose spiritual exit from this world, such as entering into silent fasting and supernal meditation in some remote temple or cave, Yogananda died of a heart attack at a banquet in downtown LA. Like a Hollywood movie the elements of drama were all in place, but a much deeper and more conscious screenplay was also perfectly executed by the Heavenly Director-Producer God. Visiting the 100-year old hotel, which retains is elegant grandeur, one now sits innocuously in the place of Yogananda’s passing where a remodeled lobby now greets hotel guests and visitors. This is another strange testament to Yogananda’s mysterious greatness: his humility and divine role is beyond comprehension, and yet perfectly natural and at ease in our everyday midst.
Hollywood Temple: Here again we find a pillar of Yogananda’s great spiritual work and presence in the most unlikely of places: Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California, the entertainment capital of the world. Visiting this humble and beautiful temple, its gardens and grounds, and the adjacent India Hall is a looking glass into another fascinating portal. Yogananda did unthinkable things here, transporting the temple building itself from some twenty miles away and completely retrofitting it during the dark and difficult years of World War II. He had the monks dig—by hand!—an entire basement below the India Hall café building to create Lower India Hall where events and ceremonies are held. And he mixed and mingled with all manner of Los Angelenos here, sending his blissful smiles and blessings into hearts and minds near and far from this unusual locale. The man and spirit called Yogananda defy all logic and form, preferring instead to forever emanate creative spiritual energies of joy and dynamism from center everywhere, circumference nowhere.
Lake Shrine: Like Encinitas Hermitage this place sits like a flawless jewel of Yogananda’s crown for countless visitors and spiritual seekers to enjoy. It’s stunning gardens and pretty features are a source of endless peacefulness and serene beauty to appreciate. But once again there is more than meets the eye: here too Yogananda consciously and powerfully implanted extraordinary spiritual blessings of universal love and God-consciousness. One chilly day in February long ago, he swam out into the middle of the lake and entered Samadhi (a profound spiritual state beyond body and mind) for some forty-five minutes. He said on more than one occasion that the waters and surrounding areas there were forever sanctified for all to come and be blessed by. The curious origins of the Lake Shrine came when the property’s previous owner, a Texas oil magnate had a powerful dream that the place was to be a universal center for all religious faiths. Looking up SRF in the phone book, he somehow encountered Yogananda over the phone who was expecting his call, and graciously received the extraordinary property by donation. Yogananda’s vision is exemplified there: a place of deep spiritual power, beauty and a symbol of universal religious spirit.
One thing that becomes apparent on a pilgrimage of this magnitude is that the veils of time and space become thinner. The physical and spiritual journey creates a sort of timeless process, where the busyness of travel fades into the background of powerful spiritual energies coursing through and around the pilgrim. And although visiting the pilgrimage sites yields potent blessings, the pilgrim becomes aware that these spiritual forces are not limited by any physical location, time or circumstance. These blessings live on and course through our lives like the ebbing and flowing tide, affected by some greater energy and power than our own. Let us then, like Yogananda in California, live for some greater purpose and power, dedicated to Self-realization and the united temple of divine love in all hearts, everywhere.