AWAKE: The Life of Yogananda is the documentary film on the life and work of the great guru, Paramahansa Yogananda. To order the AWAKE DVD in English through Amazon.com click here. The AWAKE DVD in English with subtitles in other languages may be purchased through Self-Realization Fellowship by clicking here.
AWAKE: The Life of Yogananda was shown in Lexington, Kentucky on January 31, 2015 to an enthusiastic sell-out crowd of well over 300 people.
Filmed over three years with the participation of 30 countries around the world, the documentary examines the world of yoga, modern and ancient, east and west and explores why millions today have turned their attention inwards, bucking the limitations of the material world in pursuit of self-realization.
Archival material from the life of Yogananda (who died in 1952) creates a spine for the narrative, but the film stretches the dimensions of a standard biography. The footage includes stylized interviews, metaphoric imagery and recreations, taking us from holy pilgrimages in India to Harvard’s Divinity School and its cutting-edge physics labs, from the Center for Science and Spirituality at the University of Pennsylvania to the Chopra Center in Carlsbad, California. By evoking the journey of the soul as it pushes its way through the oppression of the human ego and delusion of the material world, the film creates an experiential immersion into the unseen realms. AWAKE is ultimately the story of humanity itself: the universal struggle of all beings to free themselves from suffering and to seek lasting happiness.
From the filmmakers: “It’s been a long, humbling blessing and honor to tell the story of Yogananda’s life and teachings.”
Here are several links regarding the movie AWAKE that may be of interest to you:
Paramahansa Yogananda: “The guru is the awakened God, awakening the sleeping God in the disciple. Through sympathy and deep vision, a true guru sees the Lord suffering in the physically, mentally, and spiritually poor, and that is why he feels it his joyous duty to assist them. He tries to feed the hungry God in the destitute, to stir the sleeping God in the ignorant, to love the unconscious God in the enemy, and to waken the half asleep God in the yearning devotee. And by a gentle touch of love, he instantaneously arouses the almost fully awakened God in the advanced seeker. The guru is, among all men, the best of givers. Like the Lord Himself, his generosity knows no boundaries.”
“EVERYTHING ELSE CAN WAIT, BUT OUR SEARCH FOR GOD CANNOT WAIT.”