We now lose all track of Kripananda until Sunday, March 27, 1898. On that day there appeared in the, New York Herald a full page illustrated article. The illustrations (here reproduced) consisted of a central drawing of an apparently bona fide yogi and, grouped around it, several cartoons of men and women in nightdress, engaged in practicing various yoga postures. A large banner headline and prominent subheadings read:
IF YOU WANT TO BE A YOGI AND HAVE _x000d_
HEAVENLY DREAMS, STUDY THESE POSTURES_x000d_
_x000d_
There are 84,000,000 of Them Altogether in the Hindoo Philosophy, but the Ones Here Shown Are Those Chiefly Practiced in the Privacy of Their Rooms by American Disciples of the Occult Religion. These Sketches Were Drawn from Postures Assumed by the Swami Kripananda for the Benefit of Herald Readers, and Illustrate an Occult Fad That Has Many Secret Disciples in New York City.
BALM OF THE ORIENT _x000d_
-IS¬-_x000d_
BLISS-INSPIRING YOGA._x000d_
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_x000d_
-What a Swami Says of It.-_x000d_
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New York’s Fashionables Now Attain _x000d_
Perfect Happiness by Becoming_x000d_
Amateur Contortionists.
BUT THAT IS ONLY A PART OF IT._x000d_
_x000d_
Yes, that was only a part of it. The Swami Kripananda not only assumed various postures for the benefit of Herald readers, but wrote at great length on the subject of yoga. A reporter’s fairly long introduction to his article read in part:_x000d_
_x000d_
I know it to be a fact that there are scores of men and women, perhaps hundreds, well known in New York’s fashionable circles who have taken up Yoga in their ceaseless efforts to do something different. You would be astonished could you get a glimpse into some of the Fifth avenue boudoirs where the Swami Vivekananda’s teachings have taken root. . . ._x000d_
Surprising as this condition of affairs is, you would be still more surprised could I disclose to you the identities of some of the prominent New York men and women who are practicing Yoga. But that is not to be considered. Vivekananda has also many converts in Boston and not a few in practical Chicago._x000d_
In Cambridge, Mrs. Ole Bull has donated a large sum of money to Harvard for the purpose of establishing the study of occult philosophy, and so deeply imbued is she with the spirit of Yoga that she has gone to India, there to delve into its mysteries amid more harmonious surroundings.
[After this came the following:]_x000d_
_x000d_
JUST WHAT YOGA IS._x000d_
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PRACTICE, RATIONALE AND RESULTS OF _x000d_
THE ORIENTAL PHILOSOPHY._x000d_
_x000d_
By the Swami Kripananda._x000d_
_x000d_
. . . At the Convention of the Religious Congress at Chicago [the Swami Kripananda wrote in part] was an orange gowned, erudite, wise man of the East, a Sanyasin of great learning, refinement and culture, who visited these shores for the purpose of spreading the Hindoo philosophies and incidentally to introduce the practice of Yoga, which translated means to the ordinary mind the art of developing supernatural psychic powers. He was a success from the start. Handsome, eloquent, charming in manner and convincing in his sophistries, this tawny beggar Prince soon had scores of our intelligent, practical, nineteenth century men and women sitting cross-legged in the privacy of their bedrooms, gazing for hours at the tips of their noses, or, if not too plump, staring at their navels, and breathing by set rule with patient gravity and a decorous sense of their growing spirituality._x000d_
What was the object of this uncomfortable self inspection, this undignified contortion act, this strabismus producing, paresis encouraging foolery? Well, it was Yoga, and Yoga is a good thing. It is an ancient art from India, and that is enough to give it prestige and standing in our sensation seeking social centres, especially when intro¬duced by so delightful a colored brother as that choc¬olate tinted sage, the Swami Vivekananda._x000d_
A man who can talk in Sanskrit, English and seven kinds of Hindustanee, or charm a bird off a tree, would have no trouble in introducing any sort of bosh ("bosh" is Oriental, you know) into this country. He has only to declare it occult, and hundreds are eager to stand on their heads and let their ears lop down at his word of command. But Yoga has an inherited charm in being really an art and having been practiced since the days of Krishna and Rama. . . .
Kripananda went on and on to give a five column, derisive resume of the "Practice, Rationale and Results" of Yoga. I shall not burden the reader with the remainder of this long article, which one finds today excruciatingly tiresome. In its own day, however, it would have bored few of its readers; on the contrary, it would have convulsed with laughter many an enemy of Swamiji’s and outraged many a friend. Indeed with this ill advised bit of malice Kripananda effectively cut himself off for good from Swamiji’s supporters and disciples. He also brought down upon his head the immediate wrath of Swami Abhedananda, who (as the latter’s diary records) chanced to meet him at the Leggetts’ house the day the article appeared. "I scolded him," the Swami noted with what was, one imagines, quite an understatement._x000d_
In India, Swamiji of course duly heard of Kripananda’s performance, and he did so as well in London, where Sister Christine and Mrs. Funke filled him in with details, which could not have been welcome. Although he would have cared not at all about the Herald article as such, there can be no question that this deliberate betrayal by one whom he loved and over whose unhappiness and mistakes he suffered as a father, cut deep indeed. But, if anything, he only loved him more. Of his unexpected, pulse-stopping meeting with his disciple at Dr. Guernsey’s in November of 1899, he wrote at the end of his letter to Miss MacLeod, "I said a few kind words to Landsberg and went upstairs to Mother Guernsey to save poor Landsberg from embarrassment _x000d_
As far as is known, that was the last meeting between Swamiji and Kripananda. We lose all track of the latter after that, and at the date of this writing, it is not known what became of him.