Bernard's Stories About Paramhansa Yogananda

The following stories about Bernard Cole’s experiences with Paramhansa Yogananda were written by me in the early 2000s and published online on one website, and then published again years later by my friend Lorne Dekun on his Ananda Michigan website. I freshly edited them in 2016 and am now offering them here with that new editing. —Richard Salva

In 1978, Swami Kriyananda went on a national speaking tour with a group of people from Ananda Village—the community he had founded in the spirit of Yogananda’s ideal of world brotherhood colonies. At one point during the tour, Kriyananda stopped in Santa Barbara, California, where another direct disciple of Master, Norman Paulsen, had founded a community called Sunburst Farm: Brotherhood of the Sun. Bernard Cole happened to be staying at Norman’s community at the time, and the three of them came together one evening to share their stories of Yogananda with everyone who was on hand.

Bernard Cole, Norman Paulson, and Swami Kriyananda

at Sunburst Farm in 1978

I was not present at this satsang. The story of what Bernard said was relayed to me soon after by someone who had been there. What I’m writing here is what I recall of what I was told more than twenty years ago, but it was such a striking story that I believe my memory of the event to be faithful. (Later, I was told by someone who had also been in attendance at the gathering that what I wrote was exactly as she had remembered it.)

When Bernard stood up to speak, someone tried to hand him a microphone. “I don’t need that thing!” he declared. And, indeed, it seemed that his own voice, old as he was, had enough carrying power to reach everyone in the crowd.

Bernard started off by informing his audience that he had been a young man of seventeen when he first met Yogananda. He was living in Los Angeles at the time, and old enough to hold down a job. One of his friends at his place of work happened to be acting as a secretary for Master, or served in some other capacity at Self-Realization Fellowship. At any rate, this woman began to encourage Bernard to come and meet Yogananda, who at that time was giving personal interviews to people on Saturdays at Hollywood Church.

Bernard said: “She kept telling me, ‘Oh, ya gotta meet the Master!’” But Bernard kept putting it off. I believe that he wasn’t on the spiritual path at the time, and his reaction was that it all sounded kooky. Yet, as he put it, “she kept bugging” him about it, and finally, Bernard relented and decided to give it a try, “just to shut her up!”

Well, when Bernard arrived at the Hollywood Church, he learned that he wasn’t alone in his decision. In fact, he found himself at the end of a long line of people who had all come early in order to have an interview with Yogananda.

Bernard ending up waiting there the whole day and, to add insult to injury, when his turn finally came, he was informed that the interview hours were over and that Master had decided not to see anyone else!

Bernard was really ticked off. The next time he saw his friend, he told her what had happened, along with his intention never to waste his time again so foolishly.

Yet, she (bless her heart), continued to “bug” him. “She kept sayin’, ‘Ya gotta meet the Master! Ya gotta meet the Master!’ ‘All right!’ I said, ‘I’ll go once more. But he better see me this time!’”

Well, if you can believe it, the same thing happened! Once again, Bernard stood at the end of a long line for many hours, and once again, when he finally made it to the front of the line, the door was shut in his face!

Bernard was, understandably, deeply unhappy about this course of events. He renewed his determination never to set foot in Hollywood Church again.

Still, his friend wouldn’t relent, but insisted that he “give it one more shot.” And Bernard, feeling like an imbecile, gave in, and found himself once again standing in a long line and staring at a door he was sure would never open for him.

And then—whether he had come earlier this time, or his karma had cleared enough to allow it to happen—the secretary approached and said, “The master will see you now.”

With a sense of trepidation, Bernard walked through the door and into Yogananda’s interview room, where he found the master—with his orange robe, long, dark hair, lustrous eyes, and gentle smile—awaiting him.

From Bernard’s description, Master was seated and indicated that the young man should seat himself in the chair that had been pulled up opposite him.

Bernard’s rough voice became a little softer as he talked about the furnishings of the room, giving his audience a fuller picture of the occasion. He recalled that the draperies were hung in blue and gold. “Master’s colors,” he called them; and Kriyananda and Norman, who were seated behind Bernard on the platform with their eyes closed, smiled and nodded their heads as they recalled their own interviews and experiences with Master in that same room.

Master, perhaps sensing Bernard’s nervousness and wishing to put him at ease, asked him some basic questions. Was Bernard still going to school? Did he have a job, and if so, what did he do? Was he living with his family, and in what area of Los Angeles? And so on.

After they had spoken together for a few minutes and the ice was broken, there came a point when Master stopped asking questions and just sat there, either looking at Bernard, or with his eyes closed (I forget which).

And then, to Bernard’s surprise, Yogananda scooted his chair up so that their knees were touching, and leaned toward Bernard. “What’s he gonna do?” he wondered. Then, Master reached out with his hands and pulled Bernard’s head forward so that their foreheads were touching. And all Bernard’s thoughts fled.

Bernard’s forehead was filled with a kaleidoscope of brilliant, swirling light. At the same time, his heart was bursting with bliss. In that light Bernard saw, like a newsreel, images of himself with Yogananda in one past life after another. Forward through the centuries they traveled, the two of them. And always, Master had been the guru, and Bernard, Master’s disciple. In one form or another, in one country or another, wearing various garments and names, they had played the same roles throughout the pageant of time.

Finally, Master let go of Bernard’s head and sat back in his chair. He smiled at the young man, leaned his head to one side and said, “Well?” Bernard jumped to his feet. “That was great!” he blurted. “Gotta go!” And, quick as a flash, he was out the door!

Bernard was young and inexperienced, and the vision that Master had given him, though powerful and deeply meaningful, had left him in a state of shock. It took Bernard a little time to recover, but when he did, he realized that he had no other desire but to see Master, to be with Master, and to plumb the depths of that inner bond at which his vision had hinted. And so it was not long after this that Bernard packed his things and moved to the Mt. Washington estate where Yogananda had his headquarters.

The following account has to do with Yogananda’s passing:

Bernard’s tone turned serious as he spoke of the days following Master’s mahasamadhi (a spiritual master’s conscious exit from his body). Bernard wasn’t present at the occasion itself—of the direct disciples, only Swami Kriyananda, Daya Mata, and Ananda Mata were on hand. But Bernard attended the funeral ceremony at Mt. Washington.

Afterward, he was among the group of those keeping watch over Master’s body during the night. In fact, he was present during the last shift, although his thinking during those nocturnal hours was no doubt very different from that of the other disciples.

He said that, whenever he looked at Master lying in the casket, his mind kept going back to the amazing things that Yogananda had done in the early years to demonstrate his yogic powers. It occurred to him that Master might be doing something similar now—stopping his breath, and so on. “I asked myself, ‘What’s the old boy up to?’ I half expected him to sit up in that casket and laugh at the joke he’d played on us.”

Yet, as the hours went by and Master remained motionless, Bernard started to realize that his guru had truly left his body and was gone for good. This was a difficult reality to accept.

Bernard said that, toward the end of his shift, he walked away from the casket and stood looking out of a window. He was feeling very sad. As he stood there, he was treated to a spectacular view. The sun was just peeking up over the horizon, and the shift and play of bright colors and shadow through the San Gabriel Mountains was something to see. It was then, in those moments of a new day dawning, that Bernard was blessed with a vision.

He said that, while looking out over that beautiful scene, his spiritual eye opened and he found that he was seeing the physical reality and its astral counterpart at the same time. Furthermore, as the sun rose, Bernard saw another light moving.

It was, he said, a golden astral highway of light winding its way through the mountains, coming ever closer to Mt. Washington. And on that highway of light, Bernard saw figures moving.

“The denizens of heaven were coming,” Bernard told his audience. “All the saints and masters were coming to greet Yogananda. And they were singing and dancing as they came. And the music they made . . . the joy of their faces. It was a celebration. And it was inexpressibly beautiful.”

Bernard began to weep, and he had to stop speaking.

After a time, he began again.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I have never shared this experience with anyone before. And now, while I’m telling you, I am seeing it all happen again as it did then, so many years ago.”

With these words, Bernard ended his portion of the satsang with Swami Kriyananda and Norman Paulsen at the Brotherhood of the Sun community in Santa Barbara.

But, before the satsang ended, the three disciples sat together for a time in silence in their chairs on the speaking platform. And they held hands together, with Bernard and Norman on either side, and Kriyananda in the middle.

My friend who was present at this occasion said that, while they sat there thus, a visible tremor passed through their arms and hands, as if their limbs were vibrating. And Kriyananda said, “I feel that Master is here with us. And that he is pleased.”

—Richard Salva, author of The Reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln and

Walking with William of Normandy: A Paramhansa Yogananda Pilgrimage Guide

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