Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paramahamsa Hariharananda


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   nominator withdrawal. (non-administrative closure) -- RyRy  ( talk ) 01:29, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Paramahamsa Hariharananda

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Bio of a non notable religious leader. Sources are questionable as far as asserting notability. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 23:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions.   —Ism schism (talk) 23:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Hinduism-related deletion discussions.   —Ism schism (talk) 23:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.   —Ism schism (talk) 23:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. The Miami Herald ran an obituary when he died, and there appears to be a French-language book about him. The Miami Herald called him the "Spiritual leader of Kriya Yoga movement". -- Eastmain (talk) 04:52, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Reaction The Miami Herald obituary called the subject "Spiritual leader of Kriya Yoga movement" and not the Spiritual leader of Kriya Yoga movement. The subject was a Spiritual leader not the Spiritual leader. As far as I am aware, Kriya Yoga never had any central Spiritual leader akin to the Pope in Roman Catholicism or the Dalai Lama in Tibetan Buddhism. When the reporter wrote "Spiritual leader of Kriya Yoga movement dies" I am assuming that he meant just that (i.e. leader of a particular Kriya Yoga movement). But, even if the obituary did say that the subject is the leader of the entire Kriya Yoga movement (which of course is not what it says), I don't think that Charles Rabin, the author of the article, is that much of an authority in Kriya Yoga for us to use his published opinion as the basis of the subject's notability. - Shannon Rose (talk) 19:07, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete No notable references about him or his work, except for the obituary mentioned above. There is a german version in the german language wikipedia, but at first glance it seems to be a copy of this. I don't speak or read german, I'm saying this seeing the overall structure of the page ChiragPatnaik (talk) 13:51, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete Non-notable lightweight in the guru biz. No major achievement, no bestselling book, no big humanitarian project, no fame whatsoever except websites set-up by disciples within the subject's org. No reliable third-party sources, all sources are either written by the subject himself or by one of his disciples published and/or produced by their own printing press. French language book mentioned above is by Paramahamsa Prajñanananda, the subect's successor who now runs his org. Miami Herald article is an obituary and the link to it provided does not allow readers to view the full article, one needs to become a member of the website in order to read the full article, there is no way of verifying if it is just a paid obituary but, even if not, still insufficient to establish notability. – Shannon Rose (talk) 14:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Move -I suggest moving to Hariharananda Giri Aranya, Wrong naming article due to naming convention. Can the sources be actually added to the article? If yes then article can be retained, if not deleted. I can see quite a few hits on google. Andrea Joy Cohen also wrote a book on him. But it should be clarified as not to confuse him with someone else. Its a question of judgement on what is notable here and if the sources actually talking about him. Article is full of peacock etc. if kept needs to be stubbed to fit the sources. Wikidās ॐ 23:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply I believe the answer is no because Swami Hariharananda Aranya and Paramahamsa Hariharananda Giri are two different persons. The former (who died in 1947) was a monk of the Forest (Aranya) branch of the Swami Order while the latter (who died in 2002) was a monk of the Mountain (Giri) branch. - Shannon Rose (talk) 00:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * In that case, IF article is kept, the name should have not honorifics (Paramahamsa) and a disambiguation section or link should be added for Aranya fellow. Wikidās ॐ 09:28, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep As Eastmain noted, there were enough clearly reliable sources in the article already for it to pass by the GNG: the Miami Herald obituary and the French book. Paid death notices are different from bylined obituaries, which this is.  The obituary also clearly states that he was "the guru of Kriya Yoga"; definite articles are frequently omitted in headlines, but one is present in the article text. Even if disputable, cf the criticism in the article, it goes towards notability. The book by Paramahamsa Prajñanananda is published by a commercial publisher Editions du Dauphin ; their site also has another book by the same author which is probably relevant En compagnie des maîtres du KRIYA YOGA.  That these are by his successor is essentially immaterial - and would be even if it were an autobiography - cf the relevant section of WP:BLP on selfpublished sources for a BLP: "These provisions do not apply to subjects' autobiographies that have been published by reliable third-party publishing houses; these are treated as reliable sources, because they are not self-published." In addition, concerning recent edits to the article, reasonable usage of self-published material, if correctly attributed and written neutrally, is permitted even in BLPs if it is by the person himself by this section of policy, and that he is dead may give a little more leeway to use of humdrum material, even if self-published, written by his followers or himself. The recently introduced criticism section adds yet other sources, which should be used to balance any disputed claims.  Finally, as I think Wikidas is pointing out, Paramahamsa Prajnananda's chapter in the book A Blessing in Disguise edited  by Andrea Joy Cohen and Thich Nhat Hanh is another source on  Paramahamsa Hariharananda.John Z (talk) 08:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Reaction John Z is lying on his teeth. That part where it says "the guru of Kriya Yoga" is not a categorical statement declaring or presenting the subject as the guru of the Kriya Yoga movement, it is taken out of context from a continuous sentence that would be grammatically unpalatable if the author used "a guru" instead of "the guru." The sentence reads "...to stand vigil for the guru of Kriya Yoga, who died —only in the physical sense, they say— at age 95 Tuesday of pneumonia at Baptist Hospital. " Basically he just said "...vigil for the guru of Kriya Yoga who died at age 95 of pneumonia at Baptist hospital." it is just like saying "...vigil for the doctor of medicine who died at age 95 at Baptist Hospital." It does not make that person the only doctor of medicine in the world because the sentence is about the person's death not about who he is. This is not difficult to understand. Now, with regards to Andrea Joy Cohen, who is apparantly not notable enough to have her own WP article, editing a book which mentioned Hariharananda in the section about his disciple (take note, his disciple and not Hariharananda himself) is different from her authoring the book. The editor is not the author. This glaring difficulty of everyone in favor of keeping the article to cite reliable third party sources is proof that the subject is not notable enough to have his own article in an encyclopedia.
 * You have a point that I went too far, and that "the" is not so weighty in this context, although "a" or "this" would be acceptable and not seem as positive. But as with the "the doctor of medicine" sentence, it sounds a little stilted, and my belief is that this sort of stiltedness does tend to connote approbation or some kind of specialness.  As Phil notes below, the short chapter entitled "My Guru" is the disciple writing about his Guru Hariharananda.John Z (talk) 22:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The chapter referred to in the book edited by Cohen is about Hariharananda. It is written by Prajnananda, not about him. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Quoting "These provisions do not apply to subjects' autobiographies that have been published by reliable third-party publishing houses; these are treated as reliable sources, because they are not self-published." is completely irrelevant because Paramahamsa Prajñanananda's book about the subject is not an autobiography but a biography. Only autobiographies published by reliable third-party publishing houses are exempted from those WP:BLP provisions (the subject is dead by the way so you should not use WP:BLP, you seem to be confused about this matter) and are treated as reliable sources. Nevertheless, commonsense should tell us that biographies published by fanatical cult successors even if not self-published are not credible (only reliable third party sources are). Actually, highly questionable claims like the subject was "instrumental in reviving the bhakti movement in India," was "God-realized," "had already memorized all the puja mantras of Hinduism at age four-and-a-half," etc. came from such unreliable sources. What objectivity would you expect from somebody who inherited the rulership of the subject's cult? He worships the guy. - Shannon Rose (talk) 12:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not confused - I certainly know that Hariharananda is dead, and not the same as Prajnananda. The point is that these differences only make the French biography book more acceptable. The consensus expressed in the quoted observation (not really an exemption) is that we can use 3rd party published autobiographies of living people as reliable sources - and that is a harder case than biographies of a deceased person by someone else, even a follower. To answer your last question, the point there is that one can expect more objectivity in this case  than the autobio of BLP.John Z (talk) 23:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep. There's no need for a guru (or anyone else for that matter) to be a superstar in order to be notable. The sources in the article, along with the others referred to above, the ones which have been removed from the article, and further ones found by Google searches, establish notability. Why should we discount sources written by followers if they are published by reputable publishers? Of course for any religious figure, politician, pop group etc. sources are going to be written by those who have an interest in the subject, i.e. their fans. An obituary in a major national or regional newspaper is one of the best indicators of notability, as its existence means that an editorial decision has been made that a person's life (as opposed to a single event) is worth noting. I'm getting rather fed up with people at AfD not understanding the simple difference between an obituary and a death notice. I must also say that I find it rather surprising that Shannon Rose is arguing for deletion when he/she has clearly been able to find enough published information on the subject to engage in a content dispute - the very existence of this information is evidence of notability. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Reaction But the problem here, Phil Bridger, is we do not know where in that local newspaper did the article appear. It is not a question of not being able to distinguish between an obituary and a death notice, you are the only one saying that. One can pay for a full page obituary written by a professional writer and it would still be a far cry from a real article written in, say for example, the front page or the religion section because the religious leader who died was really notable. When Paramhansa Yogananda died the article appeared in the religion section of Time Magazine complete with his photograph, that is notable. Also, the two published information I found is not about the subject, the subject was only mentioned once in both references and only in passing. You should also note that the context of those short mentions contributes to the non-notability of the subject as a Kriya Yoga guru, because those published information I quoted are saying that he was a con man. If we change the reason for the subject's notability and put there Kriya Yoga con man then the published information I provided, which you are talking about, will help establish it. Lastly, it depends on how you define Superstar, if by it you mean "one that is very prominent or is a prime attraction" (Merriam Webster Online, definition of superstar) then that is notability. - Shannon Rose (talk) 12:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply. We do know that the article was an obituary (an editorial article about a recently dead person), not a death notice (a paid announcement of a relative or loved one's death), because the part of the article that you can see clearly says "obituary", not "death notice". The phrases have different meanings. To say that a reputable regional newspaper such as the Miami Herald would publish an article as an obituary when it has been paid for is a serious slur on the integrity of that newspaper, which needs substantiation if it is to be used as evidence. We are here to debate whether the subject is notable or not, not the reason for his notability. As far as I'm concerned all gurus/priests/imams/rabbis are con men peddling mumbo-jumbo, but that doesn't stop many of them from being notable. And btw, I'm not a badger. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply I do not know where you are getting your definitions, Phil Bridger. An obituary is not necessarily an editorial article but simply a notice of a person's death usually with a short biographical account (Merriam Webster Online, definition of obituary). Your made-up argument of others being unable to distinguish this from that is irrelevant in proving or disproving my claim that we do not know for sure if the obituary was a paid ad or not. But I also said that even if it wasn't it is not enough to establish notability. You are also dead wrong in implying that the reason for the subject's supposed notability is unimportant in this debate. His successor Paramahamsa Prajñanananda's article was deleted because it failed to state why he was notable to merit an article on an encyclopedia. The reason for notability is very important and that is precisely why John Z is trying very hard to pull off the lie that the subject is the leader of the entire Kriya Yoga movement. Now, if you and John Z will agree, I will alter the article and put the reason of notability as internationally-known con man in the Kriya Yoga movement, then I will support it with the references I have already provided. If you agree to this then I will withdraw my vote to delete, if the cause of notability doesn't matter at all. It makes me wonder why can't you accept the glaring fact that the subject, as a guru of Kriya Yoga, is simply not notable? It is all very obvious. You do not have to write your own Dictionary or make endless failed attempts to justify your position, you only have to open your eyes. Are you a disciple of the subject? - Shannon Rose (talk) 13:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The reason for notability would be important if we were discussing article content, but here we are discussing the article's existence, for which it is the fact of notability that is important. If reliable sources say that he is notable as an internationally-known con man in the Kriya Yoga movement then lets have that in the article, but it can't be there to the exclusion of other sourced opinions. I am far from being a disciple of the subject - in fact I find the whole concept of abandoning reason and following any such guru/priest/imam/rabbi incomprehensible - but I acknowledge that many such people are notable by Wikipedia standards. Now please declare your interest: are you a disciple of any competing such guru? Phil Bridger (talk) 18:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I just noticed the edit summary on Shannon Rose's last edit. How is pointing out the undisputed fact that the subject was a real person rather than a mythological character "passionately defending the subject"? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:12, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

(Outdent)I of course agree with everything Phil has said. The more one puts reliably sourced material that this was "an internationally-known con man in the Kriya Yoga movement" the more one shows that he was wikipedia- notable - there is no "wikipedia-notable as a ...", there is just "notable" or "not notable". As Shannon Rose aptly puts it "the cause of notability doesn't matter at all." In my first post above where as mentioned above, I probably went to far on the "the", I noted that any claim to be "the" leader of Kriya Yoga is disputed. The argument that this obituary is not an obituary is very strange. Phil and I are defending the ordinary meaning and usage, and the burden of proof is on Shannon or others to show that the Miami Herald obit is not a reliable source lending proof of notability in the standard way used in countless AfDs. Of course it is possible that the writer and the Miami Herald accepted a bag of cash from this yogi's demented acolytes. It is also possible that Hariharananda is still alive, faked his death and payed for the obit, so he could kidnap Jimbo and take over Wikipedia. But we would need reliable (or any) sources for either belief to have any weight.John Z (talk) 23:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment I got bold and cleaned up the article by removing: all the unreferenced material (the 'needs references' tag had been there since 11/07!); all of the unverifiable claims, in-universe writing, and unencyclopedic bio fluff; the criticism section, which was responding to the likely forever unverifiable claim that hh was a disciple of Sri Yukteswar; the quotefarm. Now, people can look at the article without all of the smoke and dust to decide whether he is notable. These news articles in the Google news archive might indicate notability, though many are just adverts. ~ priyanath talk 21:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: reverted my overly bold removal of material, per John Z's suggestion.... ~ priyanath talk 01:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

"Lastly, Hariharananda's claim of being a disciple of Sri Yukteswar is rejected by just about everyone else except his own followers. It is generally regarded as a lie in the entire Kriya Yoga community (in which followers of Hariharananda are viewed as outcasts due to Hariharananda's bad reputation), in fact books and websites like this one abound. Self-Realization Fellowship and Ananda Sangha, the two biggest Kriya Yoga organizations in the world maintain that Hariharananda only came to the scene in the 1940s (when Sri Yukteswar was already dead) and that he was a brahmachari of Yogoda Satsanga Society, who also never met Yogananda in person (have you seen any photograph of them together?), that later broke away. I suggest that you read Swami Satyeswarananda Giri's Kriya: Finding the True Path and Sriyukteswar: A Biography, the latter has notes of Swami Satyananda Giri's testimonial regarding the claims of Hariharananda." I couldn't have made a better argument in favour of notability myself. Let's have references to these abundant books and websites in the article, rather than argue about deleting an article on a subject who is notable enough to receive all of this attention. Phil Bridger (talk) 06:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment regarding the existence of reliable sources. Shannon Rose made an interesting edit to another editor's talk page which includes this paragraph:
 * Keep per John Z and Phil Bridger—cleanup article and merge criticism section into body of article. ~ priyanath talk 16:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep Shannon Rose has shown how this article has clear notability. Also, per Phil Bridger's contributions and comments. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 00:43, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Note to closing Admin Nominator changed vote to Strong Keep. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 00:43, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.