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Rajarsi Janakananda

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Rajarsi Janakananda
Rajarsi Janakananda (James J. Lynn)
President of Self-Realization Fellowship and Yogoda Satsanga Society of India
In office
1952–1955
Preceded byParamahansa Yogananda
Succeeded byDaya Mata
Personal
Born
James Jesse Lynn

(1892-05-05)May 5, 1892
near Archibald, Louisiana
DiedFebruary 20, 1955(1955-02-20) (aged 62)
Borrego Springs, California
ReligionSelf-Realization Fellowship
OccupationBusiness executive
Signature
Organization
OrderSelf-Realization Fellowship
PhilosophyKriya Yoga
Senior posting
GuruParamahansa Yogananda

Rajarsi Janakananda, born James Jesse Lynn (May 5, 1892 – February 20, 1955) was the leading disciple of the yogi Paramahansa Yogananda and a prominent businessman in the Kansas City, Missouri area. A self-made millionaire when he met Yogananda in 1932, he was the main financial contributor to Yogananda's religious organization, Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), and he helped ensure its long-term success. SRF advocated for a balanced approach to life resulting from a cultural exchange between "spiritual" India and "industrial" America, and it presented Janakananda as the epitome of its ideals, a man who was both a businessman and a yogi. Janakananda succeeded Yogananda as its president from 1952 until 1955, when he died at the age of 62. He left an endowment of approximately three million dollars to the religious movement, which reveres him as a saint.

Early life and career

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James Jesse Lynn was born into relative poverty[1] to Jesse William Lynn, an itinerant farmer, and Salethia Archibald Lynn near Archibald, Louisiana, in the southern part of the United States.[2] His 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 various railroad jobs for a few years, quickly moving up to the position of chief clerk to the division manager in Kansas City, Missouri. In Kansas City, he took night classes to finish his high school education, at the same time that he took law and accounting classes.[3]

At 21, he began working at the Bell Telephone accounting division and, before even graduating from law school, he was admitted to the Missouri bar. In 1913, he was married to Freda Josephine Prill of Kansas City. At age 24, Lynn took and passed the Missouri certified public accountant exam, earning the highest score on that exam ever made. Soon after, he began working for the largest underwriting insurance company in the country, U.S. Epperson,[3] and he was named its general manager in 1917. Four years later, Lynn took out a significant and risky loan to buy the company, launching a successful business career that included insurance underwriting, oil well and orchard ownership, and large investments in the railroad business.[2][1][4] He became a millionaire[5] and a prominent businessman in the Kansas City area.[6][7][4]

Discipleship

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In spite of his material success, Lynn was unhappy,[8] and he acknowledged that he had a short temper and nervous problems.[2][4][9] In January 1932, Indian-American yogi Paramahansa Yogananda spoke for several nights at a venue in Kansas City, Missouri. His lectures on Indian spirituality had gained national attention by this time, and Lynn attended the program out of curiosity.[5] Lynn described his experience:

On the second night of the class, I became aware that I was sitting upright, my spine straight and I was absolutely motionless. I looked down at my hands, which were so restlessly moving before and which were now perfectly still… I knew I had found the path that gave me inner peace and satisfaction and that I had found that something tangible I was seeking, a guru.[2]

Following one of the lectures, Yogananda met Lynn privately. In that month, Yogananda initiated Lynn into Kriya Yoga, and Lynn became his disciple.[10][1] Because of bad publicity in the Kansas City area from Yogananda's friendship with a previous Hindu teacher, Lynn and Yogananda agreed to avoid publicity regarding their association.[2] They became close friends[5][10][11] – Biographer Philip Goldberg writes:[11]

Lynn was the closest of the close disciples. Yogananda's letters and recollections of devotees portray an extraordinary relationship that, at different times, resembled a deep friendship between peers, a father-son or brother-brother devotion, or a traditional guru-disciple dynamic.

Yogananda saw Lynn as his most spiritually advanced disciple,[12] and he dubbed him "Saint Lynn", celebrating him as one of the "potential saints" in America for whom he had come to the West.[13] Followers of Yogananda believe that it is possible to attain union with God through meditation, and that Lynn achieved this goal almost immediately.[5] Yogananda said, "Some people say the Western man can't meditate. That is not true. I initiated Lynn shortly after I first met him, and since then I have never seen him when he was not inwardly communing with God."[14] Lynn, meanwhile, praised Yogananda for curing his nervousness and granting him access to a "spiritual realm".[13]

Influence

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Yogananda and his organization, Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), advocated for a cultural exchange between "spiritual" India and "industrial" America, and argued for a balanced approach to life that emphasized self-mastery and the practice of yoga. In its publications, SRF presented Lynn as the epitome of this ideal, a successful businessman with vast responsibilities who had still found time to meditate.[13][10]: 459–460  Lynn's example had the potential to legitimize SRF's teachings to the average American and prove the value of Kriya Yoga at a time when activists sought to define the United States as a Christian nation. SRF's magazine often published photographs of Lynn and Yogananda, representing their relationship as a harmonious convergence between the West and East and their respective material and spiritual principles.[13]

Lynn was the main financial contributor to SRF, and he helped ensure its long-term success.[14][9][7] In 1935, Lynn made a donation to help Yogananda travel back to India for a time.[10] While Yogananda was gone, Lynn purchased an oceanside property in Encinitas, California and built a hermitage there as a surprise gift to Yogananda and SRF.[15][10] Lynn kept his business and spiritual responsibilities separate at first, but as he aged, he spent more time at SRF. In 1946, he entrusted his business to a nephew,[5] and he eventually moved to an apartment at the Encinitas property.[2]

Lynn was chosen to be Yogananda's successor in an SRF board meeting in December 1942,[11] and this was publicly announced on August 25, 1951, when Lynn took monastic vows and Yogananda gave him the monastic name Rajarsi Janakananda.[11][4] SRF published a biography of Lynn called Rajarsi Janakananda, A Great Western Yogi,[4][16] which states: "Rajarsi is a spiritual title meaning royal rishi; Janakananda means the bliss of Janaka. Janaka was a great king as well as a fully Self-realized master of ancient India." According to the book, Yogananda said: "For you, St. Lynn, I interpret this title as king of the saints."[16]

After Yogananda's death in March 1952, Janakananda became the president of Self-Realization Fellowship and Yogoda Satsanga Society of India,[8][9] but he did not claim to be the new guru of the movement.[5][11] Yogananda had declared that he (Yogananda) would be the last in SRF's parampara or lineage of gurus, and that his teachings would serve this role after his death, in a manner similar to the Guru Granth Sahib's status as the final guru of Sikhism.[8][9][11]

Janakananda died on February 20, 1955, in Borrego Springs, California. To SRF he bequeathed two million dollars,[14] along with railroad shares worth one million dollars.[5] According to a biography[2] written by his assistant, Durga Mata, Janakananda had kept his life as a yogi hidden from his disapproving wife, and this donation of railroad shares generated publicity that gave his secret away a year before his death.[4] He had also made donations to the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a donation of land to Swope Park.[5]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Seshadri, D.V.R.; Sasidhar, K.; Nayak, Mandar (December 1, 2014). "Integrative Framework for Spirituality in Leadership". Indian Institute of Management Udaipur Research Paper Series (2012–2171274): 24. SSRN 2532321 – via SSRN.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Durga Mata, Sri (1992). A Paramhansa Yogananda Trilogy of Divine Love. Copyright Joan Wight. ISBN 0-9635838-0-8.
  3. ^ a b c Fowler, Richard B. (1952). Leaders in Our Town. Burd & Fletcher.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Roberts, Rob (April 4, 2014). "Personal Pilgrimage: Encounter with Indian yogi led to businessman's quiet double life". Kansas City Business Journal. 32 (30): 4–5.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Smith, Alex (February 11, 2013). "James Lynn: The Insurance Tycoon Who Became a Saint". KCUR – NPR in Kansas City. Retrieved May 10, 2024.
  6. ^ Durga Mata, Sri (1992). A Paramhansa Yogananda Trilogy of Divine Love. Copyright Joan Wight. ISBN 0-9635838-0-8. Citing Kansas City Star article of May 13, 1951: Fowler, Richard B. "The remarkable life and business career of James Jesse Lynn".
  7. ^ a b Kansas City Meditation Group of SRF. "One of Kansas City`s Finest". Retrieved 8-24-2009.
  8. ^ a b c Williamson, Lola (2010). Transcendent in America: Hindu-inspired Meditation Movements as New Religion. New York and London: New York University Press. pp. 63, 75. ISBN 978-0-8147-9449-4.
  9. ^ a b c d Miller, Timothy (1995). America's alternative religions. Internet Archive. Albany : State University of New York Press. pp. 179, 184. ISBN 978-0-7914-2397-4.
  10. ^ a b c d e Yogananda, Paramahansa (1997). Autobiography of a Yogi. Los Angeles, CA: Self-Realization Fellowship. ISBN 0-87612-086-9.
  11. ^ a b c d e f Goldberg, Philip (2018). The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru. Hay House Inc. p. 256.
  12. ^ Virk, Rizwan (2023). Wisdom of a Yogi. Bayview Books. p. 261. ISBN 978-1-954872-10-3.
  13. ^ a b c d Luhr, Eileen (September 3, 2024). ""Efficient America," "Spiritual India," and America's Transnational Religious Imagination". Golden States. University of California Press. pp. 93–95.
  14. ^ a b c Mathison, Richard (May 3, 1959). "His Millions Still Sell Yoga". The Kansas City Star. p. 16. Retrieved May 20, 2024.
  15. ^ Meriwether, Dorothea S. (March 8, 1966). "Haven for Meditation in Hollywood Hills: A Kansas Citian's Benefaction Grows". Kansas City Times. p. 32. Retrieved May 25, 2024.
  16. ^ a b Self-Realization Fellowship (1996). Rajarsi Janakananda: A Great Western Yogi. Self-Realization Fellowship Publishers. ISBN 0-87612-019-2.
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