YOGACHARYA BERNARD COLE Direct Disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda

 

BERNARD COLE WAS A HIGHLY ADVANCED direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda. He came to the master in 1939 when he was 17 years old and by the mid 1940s he was the head monk, and main minister of Yogananda's Hollywood Self-Realization Temple. In 1951 Bernard was given the title Yogacharya by Sri Yogananda. Yogacharya can be translated as "exemplar of yoga." In 1955 Bernard decided to leave the monastic life behind to marry. For a short time he continued to teach and minister but eventually took up a career in engineering. I (Lorne Dekun) met him in 1970 in Hawaii where I was serving in the United States Marine Corps. At that time Bernard, (or simply "Charya" as he was known to friends) was retired from a successful professional career and had again taken up the formal practice of teaching yoga science. He would meet informally with a small group of students in his home in Honolulu each Wednesday evening, as well as offer classes. At that time my duties at the Marine base permitted me to take part in his Wednesday meetings. I was able to study with him for a little over a year. Yogacharya Bernard eventually moved back to California and spent his last years with his brother disciple Norman Paulson at Norman's Yoga community in Santa Barbara, Sunburst. Charya died in Hawaii in 1981 and was buried there. If you have any additional information about him I'd be very interested to hear from you. Send e-mail

Following is an article about Yogacharya Bernard that was originally published in a small independent
Honolulu newspaper called The Gathering Place in June 1971. I've taken the liberty of expanding and clarifying some of the points in the article, nevertheless, it tells only a small portion of a much larger and much more complicated story:

IT WAS 1938 WHEN BERNARD COLE, a scrawny youth with slightly stooped shoulders and light red hair, left high school in his junior year "in order to get an education."

He had sensed an underlying significance to mysticism and subjects of the supernatural, and devoted his full time to seeking the esoteric truths.

The summer of 1939 young Bernard met Paramhansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-realization Fellowship and became a disciple of the guru. Reasoning that he had to find knowledge from inside his being in order to realize his greatest potential, Bernard studied under his guru for the next twelve and a half years, gaining an inner awareness through many thousands of hours of practice in meditation. In 1951 Bernard became one of half a dozen disciples to be given the title of Yogacharya, "foremost teacher of yoga," by Yogananda. From this he eventually adopted a new name, Charya, to signify his devotion to teaching others.

James Lynn, Bernard Cole, Sri Yogananda, Dr. M. W. Lewis 1950.

Then, following Yogananda's death, Charya became increasingly aware of organizational issues within SRF, and the dogmatic limitations of the framework in which his guru's teachings were being placed. One such tradition was the monastic vow of celibacy. Marriage was simply not allowed for resident teaching members of SRF. Charya had been a fully committed part of the work since his late teens and felt that it was time he expressed his spiritual calling in the more normal social fashion. To do so, however, meant he would no longer be allowed to represent the Self-realization teachings of his guru.

"I would have married in any case," Charya explains, "but I gave them the option of using my marriage as an excuse to terminate my association."

After a brief ministry of his own dealing with the pursuit of a "Christ Realization," Charya grew dissatisfied with his own effectiveness as a teacher of the inner life. He decided that he needed more "field work" in order to find practical answers to the universal human dilemmas.

He left behind his ministry and stepped into the realm of of industry. He entered as a technician in the highly complex field of electronics research and development, without benefit of a diploma. Quickly recognized for his brilliant mind, Charya advanced into production management in electromechanical and aerospace systems, then switched into developmental engineering in the hydrophone and sonar field.

Charya soon found himself faced with the problems of human engineering and set abut applying his perceptive intellect to practical human relationships.

"In this industrial scene I saw that virtually all the problems could be solved with relative ease provided people could be brought to communicate effectively with each other," Charya comments. "Problems of communication are not simply semantic, but involve the whole complex of human motivations and emotions and notions. Such interferences to clear thinking are largely emotion-based and funded from memory, so this again put me back into the position of teaching various techniques of meditation."

Impelled by his new insights, Charya began to phase back into teaching. He finally left industry entirely to lecture full-time with Roy Master's Foundation of Human Understanding, a California-based organization which employs the practical values of meditation on the premise: "If people don't get upset, they won't make mistakes."

When Charya came to Hawaii in 1968 representing the Foundation as it co-director, he decided that rather than to restrict himself with another organization, he would launch on his own.

Charya has spent the last three years designing pilot programs to find what would be helpful, including lectures at his home, yoga classes, workshops and both individual and group counselings.

"There's nothing mysterious about any of the things I'm doing," declares Charya. "Wednesday evenings here at home I conduct an open talk, just whatever problems or questions people have or whatever I feel like talking about. We also have in that meeting a period of meditation where people can get quiet, get next to themselves and find out what is happening inside, see for themselves instead of having to take somebody else's word for what life is all about."

"I teach also on Thursday evenings a yoga class. It's rather loosely structured in that I use some of the yoga exercises and also some integrative type exercises I've developed, gentle exercises for the most part that improve the health, that make people feel better and allow them to integrate their mental functions more effectively with their bodies."

"For the last number of months I've been going into the Oahu Prison on a regular basis to conduct an officially sanctioned meditation program. The program itself was sanctioned simply for the fact that for the brief time I had trained fellows in meditation, it was proving so productive that their whole life was changing. They were turning honest. They were getting along with each other. They weren't bugging the guards and were able to handle the guards that bugged them."

"It's taken this long to find what answers I have, largely because they were so simple that everybody overlooked them," summarizes Charya, who recently turned 51, "For years my wife insisted that the answers had to be simple, and I tried all the complicated answers and found that they did not work, so eventually I was reduced to finding simple answers."

Yogacharya Bernard in 1948

Following is a conversation from Swami Kriyananda's biography The Path, in which he and Yogacharya Bernard discuss the influence of Jesus Christ on Yogananda's teachings. (Note: At that time the monks at Mount Washington referred to each other by their first names, hence, Swami Kriyananda simply calls him Bernard.)

SRF Monks working at a construction site,
Bernard at center, Kriyananda with beard. 1948.

"Why," I asked Bernard, "is the picture of Jesus Christ on our altar, too? Surely he isn't in our line of gurus. Do we include him to appease the Christian denominations?"

Bernard smiled. "Master has told us it was Jesus himself who appeared to Babaji, and asked him to send this teaching of Self-Realization to the West. 'My followers,' Jesus asserted at that meeting, 'have forgotten the art of divine, inner communion. Outwardly they do good works, but they have lost sight of the most important of my teachings, to "seek the kingdom of God first."'

"The work he sent through Master to the West is helping people to commune inwardly with God," continued Bernard. "Jesus, too, through people's practice of meditation, is becoming a living reality for them, a being with whom they can commune, instead of one whom they merely read about in the
Bible. This was what Jesus meant when he said that he would come again. Master often speaks of this work as the Second Coming of Christ, for it teaches people how to fulfill the true promise of Jesus -- not to return again outwardly, but in the souls of those who loved him and communed with him."

"Jesus himself, placed his Second Coming within the present lifetime of his listeners. 'Verily I say unto you,' he told them. 'This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.' In those days, and many times since then, he has fulfilled his promise to appear to true devotees -- not to fanatical adventists who waited for him on hilltops in flowing, white gowns, but to those who sought him humbly within their own souls."

Stories of Yogacharya Bernard

The Following stories about Yogacharya Bernard are from an anonymous website contribution:

In 1978 Swami Kriyananda (J.Donald Walters) went on a national speaking tour with a group of people from Ananda Village. During part of the tour. He 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 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 there.

Kriyananda started things off by reading selections from his book, The Path, that dealt with his associations with Bernard, Norman and Master. Norman then relayed his own recollections (the essence of which might be gleaned from the account he later wrote in his book that was published under the name of Christ Consciousness). Then, Bernard got up to speak.

Yogacharya Bernard, Norman Paulson, Swami Kriyananda 1978.

I, (the anonymous writer of these stories) was not present at this satsang. The story of what Bernard said was later related 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 it stuck in my memory fairly well.

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 pretty much everyone in the crowd.

Bernard started off by informing his audience that he was quite a young man, in his teens, (he was seventeen) when he first met Yogananda. He was living in L.A. at the time, and was old enough to be holding down some sort of job. One of his friends on the job happened to be acting as a secretary for Master, or had some other capacity at SRF. At any rate, this woman began to encourage Bernard to come and see Yogananda who, at that time (and if memory serves), was giving personal interviews to people on Saturdays at Hollywood Church.

Bernard said: "She kept telling me, 'Oh, ya gotta meet the the Master!'" But Bernard kept putting it off. I don't believe he was on the spiritual path yet at that 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 got to the Hollywood Church, he found 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 gotten there 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, the interview hours were over and 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'll 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 the course of events. And 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 idiot, gave in, and found himself one more time standing in a long line and staring at a door that he was sure would never open for him.

And then, whether he had come earlier this time, or his karma had cleared enough to make it happen, or what, the secretary came to him and said, "The Master will see you now."

Feeling 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 before him should sit down in the chair that was pulled up in front of him.

Bernard 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, were smiling and nodding 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 very 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 part of L.A.? And so on.

After they had spoken together for awhile and "the ice was broken," there came a time 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 for a moment. Then, Master's hands reached out 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 kaleidocope 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 in the pageant of time.

Finally, Master let go of Bernard's head and sat back in his chair. He smiled at the young man, cocked his head to one side and said, "Well?" Bernard jumped to his feet. "Well, that was great!" he blurted out, "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, to plumb the depths of that inner bond which his vision had hinted at. And so, it was not long after this that Bernard packed his things and moved up to Mt. Washington.

---

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. Bernard wasn't present at the occasion itself: only Swami Kriyananda, Daya Mata, and Ananda Mata were there (I believe) of the direct disciples. But Bernard attended the funeral ceremony at Mt. Washington.

Afterwards, he was among the group of those keeping watch over Master's body during the night. In fact, he was in on the last shift, although his thinking during those nocturnal hours was probably 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 demonstate 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 really left his body and gone for good. This was a hard thought to get used to.

Bernard said that toward the end of his shift, he walked off 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 he was 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 through the mountains.

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

"The residents 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. And 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 awhile, 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 they were vibrating. And Kriyananda said, "I feel that Master is present here with us. And
that he is pleased."

---

I wish to end these stories by asking your prayers for Bernard's spirit. People who knew Bernard in his later years said that he passed through some spiritual crises. If these stories brought you inspiration, please send some of that inspiration to his spirit in the astral world.

May Master bless us all and keep us in his light. (from anAnonymous author)

Yogacharya Bernard Cole did indeed go through spiritual crisis. His lifetime was one of twists and turns. Perhaps his physical condition, (he was very thin and frail, he suffered from what I believe is called "scoliosis" or double curvature of the spine) was an outward manifestation of his inner state. From the time he left Yogananda's work in 1955, until near his passing, he went through much inner turmoil in his relationship with his guru. During the time I studied with him in 1970/71 I heard him, in my presence, say many things that would indicate an ambivalence even of the need for a guru. Therefore I was deeply gratified to receive two personal confirmations that he had realigned his consciousness with his guru before he died.

One of them came from a conversation (as well as a subsequent letter) I had with Bob Raymer in 1993. For those of you who don't know, Bob Raymer is also a direct disciple of Yogananda. Mr Raymer met his guru around 1949 and led a Self-realization center in his hometown of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Within a few years Master gave him the power to initiate in Kriya Yoga. I met Bob Raymer while his was acting as the spiritual director of the Song of the Morning Meditation Retreat in Northern Michigan. During our conversation in 1993 Bob told me that he had recently had a conversation with Daya Mata, the head of Self-Realization Fellowship. During that conversation Daya Mata talked about Bernard. She said that just before Bernard passed away, in the late 1970s, he was visiting with her and told her that he had had some sort of profound inner experience and had fully regained his faith and devotion to Master.

The other confirmation came to me in a powerful dream I had around 1986. In the dream I was observing an interaction between Master and Bernard. It was as if I was a hidden observer of this interaction. I understood that this episode had to do, not with an incident from their earth lives together, but rather, it had something to do with their relationship in the afterlife, in the astral world.

In the dream they were in a kitchen preparing a large meal that was intended for an upcoming gathering. The gathering was in honor of many great masters and yogis who would soon be arriving. Much work was needed to get the meal ready. Bernard was engaged in chopping vegetables. I observed Master carefully guiding Bernard's hands as he chopped. It was as if Bernard couldn't quite be trusted not to cut himself with the keen-edged knife he was using. But Bernard was willingly accepting the Master's guiding hands.

I awoke from the dream deeply inspired and comforted in my heart that Yogacharya Bernard was safe in the comforting arms of his Sat-Guru. Therefore, when Bob Raymer told me of Daya Mata's testimony of Bernard's renewed faith and devotion to Master, I was not at all surprised.

In fact, if it wasn't for these two above mentioned confirmations, I would probably not be maintaining this website. My own life is dedicated to serving the cause of the Self-realization masters, not to simply sharing stories of people who have inspired me personally. The object is to speak of those who I knew who, not only knew the Master, but are a living part of his tradition. Yogacharya Bernard is one of those. His was perhaps the most keen-edged intellect to act as the Master's representative while Yogananda was still in the body. I, and many others, were blessed to have known him.

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