Scott McMahan

REVIEW: Revelations of Christ by Swami Kriyanada 1 of 4

[This review has been chopped up to fit on sermonaudio's blog. To get
the entire review, please follow the external link.]

"Revelations of Christ" by Swami Kriyanada (I'll call him by his
title, "Swami," for short) is a book I find difficult to review, but I
have been motivated to attempt a review because the book is important
as a modern spiritual landmark. The author is an heir of the Kriya
Yoga tradition, and an influential founder of colonies and prolific
author, and this major work is almost certainly going to become a
spiritual classic in its own right. Christians need to be able to
interact with it, since the subject matter is no less than a
reformation of the Christian message along the lines of Yogic
philosophy.

Several facts make the book difficult to review. The book itself is
lengthy, and requires chapter summaries instead of a complete
page-by-page review. The book is part of an ongoing dialogue in the
Kriya Yoga community, and presupposes the reader is familiar with the
traditions and doctrines in those circles. To fully explain this
spiritual tradition, itself a branch of larger Yoga philosophy, would
require a lengthy book. The author has a style that is prone to
wandering, and he does not often present a linear argument that can
easily be discussed. Often, he presents no argument at all, which
frustrates my attempt at a review.

Swami Kriyanada is one of the few direct disciples of Paramahansa
Yoganada (I will call him P.Y. for short; this abbreviation is
commonplace in Kriya Yoga circles) still alive, and is somewhere
around eighty years of age. In the last decade or so, Swami has been
remarkably productive, creating two massive books ("Revelations" and a
commentary on the Bhagavad Gita) and numerous articles, music albums,
and other books. His works are published by Crystal Clarity, his own
publishing imprint, which is best known as the publisher of the
original, unaltered "Autobiography of a Yogi". (The story of the
textual changes to this spiritual classic by its original publisher,
and the unusual lapse of copyright in this perennial bestseller, is a
big enough subject for an article of its own.) If Crystal Clarity gets
credit for nothing else, all the books I have seen from them have been
exceptionally well typeset and easy to read. They are a joy on the
eyes. Always, in his writing, Swami presents his own work as being
based on the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, and takes no credit
himself for contributing original material. Much of Yogananga's
material has either remained unpublished by his own organization
(Self-Realization Fellowship) or so heavily edited as to be
unrecognizable. "Revelations" is Swami's attempt to bring to the
general reading public the essence of Yogananda's teaching about
Christianity.

What this or any book doesn't quite capture is Swami's warm,
conversational, anecdotal style that captivates audiences. He is an
engaging speaker who weaves anecdotes about his time with Yogananda,
spiritual observations, and Yoga teachings into monologues that can
sometimes stretch out over an hour (with no loss of attention from his
audience). Even if I don't agree with what he says, he's enjoyable to
listen to. This style does make its way somewhat into his writing,
where the style is easy and approachable. Sometimes, the ease of
reading actually can allow the reader to breeze through deep spiritual
points, so any chapter is worth reading several times to unlock the
content. Chapter by chapter, the discussion can often drift from the
main point as Swami meanders: This is a carry-over from his speaking
style, and the way he organizes material.

Swami deserves credit for not promoting this book as an attack on
Christianity. When the book was released, the publishing world had
discovered a cash cow in books explicitly attacking true Christianity
from the liberal, social-gospel Christian left and the atheist
left. Both non-fiction attacks on belief in God, and fictional attacks
disguised as children's books, turned into gold for publishers as
Christians read them in order to understand and refute them. Swami
could have easily raised his profile and increased sales simply by
promoting this book along those lines. I applaud the fact that he did
not. He released this book on its own merits.

Note that King James Bible fanatics will be relieved to note that
Swami uses that translation, putting him on sound orthodox
footing. (This may not be as encouraging as it sounds, however, as
will be shown later, since Swami asserts even the King James Bible's
underlying texts could be corrupt.)

The beginning of the book starts off with the assertion that something
has been lost of the true essence of Christianity by organized
religion. Organizations are said to perpetuate their own existence, at
the expense of Christian doctrines. I think any fundamentalist would
go along with this, as the separatists have to continually separate
from the large, organized churches which loose their foundations in
true, Biblical Christianity. The departure will come, of course, in
what either considers to be the true basis for Christianity. Swami
asserts that this is an understanding of Yoga (or, the "perennial
philosophy" of Huxley). He is following in the footsteps of P.Y.'s
guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri (whom I will call S.Y., again in accord
with the practice in Kriya Yoga circles). A 1894 book by S.Y. called
"The Holy Science" (a review of which I have been working on for years
but have not finished) promotes the same basic concept.

Chapter one: The key to the first chapter, and indeed the entire book,
is Swami's assertion on p. 28 that he is a post-modernist. "Religious
truths can indeed be tested and proved. The proof consists in the
yardstick of experience." This is one of the most succinct and best
definitions of postmodernism I've ever read: "The proof consists in
the yardstick of experience." If you miss this point, you won't
understand the book.

Swami suggests "it would surely show meanness of spirit to deprecate
other' efforts to rise spiritually, each according to his own
capacity and beliefs" (p. 34) which underscores the post-modern views
of the author. Nothing is true or authoritative, but everyone has
opinions, and there is no way to make any value judgements among them.

The book has a blizzard of weasel words on pp. 18-22. Swami says "the
evidence of history shows" but doesn't cite any examples. (In this
case, he is talking about enlightenment coming to individuals through
personal merit, and William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience"
is an extended study of man-made religious beliefs of this sort.)
"Translations have appeared with theological dilutions" is certainly a
point many fundamentalists would agree with, but Swami cites not a
single concrete example as proof. "Administrative types are attracted
to others of the same mentality: efficiency, executive, interested
more in how to get things done than in why they need to be done in the
first place. ... In religion, the administrative mentality tends
toward efficiency...." He could easily have backed this up by looking
at Rick Warren's "driven" church methods as an example par
excellence. He tosses off the vacuous statement "everyone knows it is
true" on p. 22 to cap this section, and this sort of assertion seems
to be the limit of Swami's ability to persuade. His style of argument
is little more than a tautology: I think I am right, so I must be
right. Those who already agree that Swami is right will not have a
problem with this tautological argument, but those of us who want to
be persuaded will find his junior-high writing style to be
frustrating.

Weasel words explode again on p. 37, as Swami asserts "a quite
unanticipated [by missionaries] corroboration of Christ's teachings in
the teaching of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita" and "the only essential
difference between Christianity and, let us say, Buddhism lies in the
names of their founders" but neither of these points is backed up with
any proof at all. Either of these points could have been supported by
evidence (Swami even wrote a book about parallel passages in the Bible
and Gita!), but they are not. What missionaries? How can Christianity
and Buddhism (which rely on radically different underlying assumptions
about mankind) be the same? We don't know, because Swami never
develops any of his points. This consistently frustrates me with the
book. Maybe he's right, or maybe not; but we don't know because Swami
never makes any sort of case to support what he says.

What Swami needs is an editor who will challenge his weasel words and
make him either back them up or get rid of them. The book drives me
absolutely nuts as I keep bogging down in these weasel words. Swami
never says anything specific or concrete. Nothing asserted is backed
up. (Often, this is to the detriment of the book, since compelling
evidence could easily be included most of the time.) There are no
footnotes or attributions, even for quotes from his own line of
masters.

Fortunately for Christian readers, Swami asserts (also p. 37) that:
"This book will be completely orthodox in its adherence to
Christianity, but its orthodoxy will not always correspond to what is
taught by Christian sects." I'm reassured, but the key weakness (as I
hopefully will bring out in the rest of this review) is that Swami
really doesn't know anything about any flavor of Christianity. I can
find no definitions of what Christian orthodoxy is in this book. The
attitude that what the author says is orthodox because the author
believes it is a hallmark of a post-modern view.

On p. 38 there is an insight: "one can never create a new truth" which
reminds me of C.S. Lewis' assertion (in "Abolition of Man") that there
are no new values.