West Meets East

History is sprinkled with the relics of religious sects that flamed and flickered out -- brief candles of faith that were lighted by a charismatic leader and died within a short time after he died. Where are the Novatianists, the Rappites, the Robinsonian Psychiana devotees of yesteryear?

The Self-Realization Fellowship, too, seemed likely to sputter out after the death of Founder Paramhansa Yogananda in 1952, but instead it has thrived. Membership has doubled over the past ten years, to about 125,000 (one-third of them in California). The Fellowship is now in the midst of a building program, and the number of worship centers is expected to double, to 180, within six months. One source of the Fellowship's financial prosperity is the success of its best-known commercial enterprise, the Mushroomburger restaurant on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard; it features, along with more or less authentic Indian dishes, some specialties that are exotic in name only, such as Himalayan snowballs (choco late sundaes topped with coconut).

"Rose, Rose, Roses." To the uninitiated, the Self-Realization Fellowship looks like the religious counterpart of mild curry -- a bit of India adapted to Western tastes. Members adopt Indian names upon joining the sect, profess belief in such Hindu concepts as reincarnation. But like Bahai, Subud, Unity, the highbrowish Vedanta Society, and a number of other religious groups, the Self-Realization Fellowship is a syncretic faith, combining ingredients of both Eastern and Western religions. The Fellowship teaches that there is a common truth behind all religious experience, and the members revere both the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita. Fellowship doctrine even includes an interpretation of the Christian Trinity: the Father is the supreme creating spirit, the Son is his visible manifestation through Christ, Krishna and Buddha, and the Holy Spirit is the energy by which God influences the world. According to Fellowship teachings, every man can achieve salvation, or the highest form of "cosmic consciousness," through disciplining of mind and body. Members follow a vegetarian diet (meat "falsely stimulates" the mind), perform modified yoga exercises. At Sunday worship, the faithful chanteerily hypnotic verses that are meant to induce meditation. One chant goes

Roses to the left;

Roses to the right;

Roses front and behind;

Rose, rose, roses.

"The Essence of Life." Founder Yogananda (born Mukunda Lai Ghosh) was the son of an Indian banker and railroad executive, began preaching his Westernized version of Indian doctrines in the U.S. in 1920. A California follower recalls that when he met Yogananda, "I knew I had found the essence of life. He had the essence that showed a great peace, a great joy." Since 1955, the sect has been governed by Miss Faye Wright, 49, known in the Fellowship as Daya Mata. Daya Mata joined the sect in Salt Lake City at the age of 17, after Yogananda cured her of a blood disease that had forced her to leave high school. This week she is going to set out on a journey to India for a half-year visit with members of Yogoda Sat-Sanga, an Indian organization founded by Yogananda.

As head of the sect, Daya Mata is custodian and chief interpreter of Yogananda's teachings. Many of them are set down in a book of epigrammatic conversations with disciples, somewhat in the manner of the Confucian sayings. Sample: "Seek God for his own sake. The highest perception is to feel him as bliss, welling up from your infinite depths. Don't yearn for visions, spiritual phenomena, or thrilling experiences. The path to the divine is not a circus."

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